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

Discussion in 'Creative Writing' started by Malcolm Tent, Mar 19, 2022.

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  1. Threadmarks: chapter 230
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    The first thing I did after Abel's crazy rampage was call Callie and the others. My girlfriend was frantic when she picked up the line, her face appearing on the floating screen over my scan ring. I saw her almost melt with relief. "Sh-" She started to say my name but cut herself off when she realized we were in costume. "Solomon, thank the gods. Are you alright? Is it safe to talk? What happened? Our....emergency exit, took us miles away. We started making our way back over but we weren't sure we had any chance of arriving in time. Are you hurt?"

    I checked myself over mentally, even feeling around to make sure I was alright by hand. I shook my head when I felt nothing. "No. I'm fine." That last heal burst had patched me up, hell I wasn't even tired. "How about all of you? Were you injured? I know your exit was supposed to prevent serious injury, but I was worried those last hits might have messed you all up?" Seeing Callie already gone had terrified me. I hadn't had time to focus on it in the heat of battle, but just seeing her face and hearing her voice was helping me calm down a lot.

    Granted, seeing Abel murder several people who couldn't fight back was pretty jarring still, and even without the worry I was shaken, but knowing Callie and the others were safe was definitely a big weight off my shoulders. As for Abel...well, this was the WCP. I had to remember that the Wish Curse Palace wasn't the Unity. The people here might use the conventions of the locals, but they weren't heroes. Nothing drove home Zeke's warnings about the realities of cultivation like seeing people brutally killed in front of me.

    I briefly wondered if I should have tried to help them, but then I considered how easily Abel had demolished that F rank who had been beating Alden, and I shuddered a bit. The image of a big trying to throw itself in front of a speeding car came to mind. Plus they WERE going to kill us first. Down here, self defense wasn't just legal, it was downright encouraged. Not that there wouldn't be trouble, but Abel would deal with that, not me. I was alive and so were my friends. Trying to reach for anything else would be overboard.

    "Solomon?" Callie's voice jerked me back to reality and I saw her give me a worried frown. "Are you ok? You went quiet there for a bit." Her frown turned disapproving. Or are you spacing out again? That isn't safe, especially in the middle of hostile territory. You need to be careful ok? We're on the way." I could hear the fear and relief in her voice and smiled behind my mask. It was nice seeing how much she cared, even if the circumstances could be better. I knew she loved me, but still, it felt good for someone to actually SHOW that emotion. Of all my loved ones Callie was the one who was most honest with me about her feelings. It was something I cherished about her.

    I cleared my throat, mostly just to show that I was focused again. "Yeah, sorry, big night. Just meet us back at the Pavilion, we're headed there now. We have a mutual friend with us, though he sadly didn't bring any sausages." I figured that would be as overt as I could be without just saying his name, and I wasn't sure where they ended up. They might be being watched and not know it. It was unlikely given Callie's Perception, but still completely possible. While they were high, there WERE people in G-rank with higher stats than her. Plus we'd already seen tonight that F-rankers were a possibility, even if I didn't expect many of them.

    "Alright." She said after a brief pause. Then she said in a quiet voice. "Please be careful ok? I know what we do is dangerous, but we still usually face it together. I never want to be whisked away to safety and leave you behind to deal with potentially dying again. It was awful. Stay safe and I love you." She hung up before I could respond, probably a bit embarrassed at being quite THAT emotionally honest. I watched the screen fade with a soft smile, even if no one there could see it.

    It was Abel who cleared his throat this time. "That was certainly very sweet, and I'm happy for you. But can we perhaps leave? I don't like sitting around here with all these bodies. Someone might send backup." He grinned at me. "Also, to answer your last comment about me, you are incorrect. I ALWAYS have sausages." He looked around shiftily, as if making sure no one would see, and opened the coat he was wearing, showing tubes of meat strapped to the inside of the fabric, thankfully sealed in plastic individually so they weren't touching any cloth. "Get a load of these. Premium stock you know."

    I stared at him blankly. I thought back to Alden and his insistence on giving people drinks, and suddenly Abel's weirdness seemed to make more sense. I shook my head, not hungry right now anyway. Besides, despite the wackiness, I was pretty sure I recognized a stalling tactic when I saw one. Making sure my smirk was in my voice I asked. "Are you sure you aren't just nervous about going back to the Pavilion, or hell, the Cavalcade in general?"

    He gave a violent shudder. "What? No, I'm not even remotely sure of that. I'm terrified of going back. Mel is going to strangle me with my own guts for being gone so long. But if forces like this are moving I'm needed. Not sure what my idiot brother did this time though. I thought not having me around to inflate his ego would keep him cautious. I guess I underestimated how ambitious he could be." I noted that despite asking what Mel had done jokingly earlier, he immediately assumed Cicero was responsible for this mess.

    Which...was actually fair in a roundabout way. If he wasn't such a dick then Mel wouldn't have made a deal with Sanctuary Hall. I grimaced internally as I considered having to deal with the Peace Lord. Not directly, thankfully, given the protection from Zeke, but that would be gone soon. I'd have to move up my plans to talk to Melinda about my abilities. It was still a bit early, but I was protected from her too, and if I waited I might have to have that meeting when I hit F rank, which would leave me vulnerable.

    We started our walk back. We'd ridden the wolves out here to meet Alden, and I was annoyed at the massive difference in trip quality. The wolves were faster than me. They were also four footed and used energy that wasn't mine. It was a smooth ride, even when they'd been holding back, and walking on my own two feet couldn't compare with the convenience, even if my Might stat could have allowed me to sprint there faster than most cars. We were also escorting Alden, who while healed was still very weak, and Abel and I each slipped under a shoulder to help him along as Marc trailed sulkily behind, half ashamed and half in awe of Abel.

    As we walked, I glanced over to the rabbit masked man. "So, how much of what's going on do you know? I'm sure it's not all of it, but I'm equally sure someone like you wasn't stupid enough to just barrel into a fight without scouting out the enemy. You have to be aware of some of the undercurrents here right?" Even I wasn't reckless enough to just jump into a battle with a higher ranked enemy just because I was pissed off. Well...maybe I was. But Abel was supposed to be some combat genius, I doubted he was as dumb as I was.

    Abel cleared his throat and looked away as Alden burst out laughing. The older, bearded man guffawed so hard we had to hold him up as he sagged under the effort of the cackling. He took a few deep breaths to steady himself. "Sorry lad, that wasn't aimed at you. I've been telling this brute for years he needs to think things through, and he never bothers. He just smashed himself against any powerful enemy he finds until he wins or they kick his ass and he needs rescuing. I had to save his scrawny ass more than a few times as a boy when he picked fights with G-rankers while still at H-rank himself." He paused, his expression growing serious. "Though I suppose that's more or less what happened here isn't it?"

    Abel clicked his tongue. "Don't be stupid. You got pulled into that. I showed up last minute and even I saw it. That absolute moron with the expansion power following behind us was at fault if I don't miss my guess. You really should train your kids better Alden, if they're that stupid you must be slipping."

    "That's rich coming from you." Snorted Alden. "You're decent enough at strategy in the heat of battle, but you prepare for combat more carelessly than any student I've ever had. I don't need tips on how to teach people to think things through from a human wrecking ball." He grimaced, flicking his eyes over his shoulder. "Though I admit, I've clearly been too hands off with the young ones. Mel's stirred up too much trouble this time, I'm going to have to step in. And so are YOU, no matter how scared of her you are."

    Abel scoffed. "Don't bait me you old busybody. Mel is terrifying when she's angry. I'm not going to agree to intercede on your behalf just to prove I'm not scared. I'm not a five year old. I'm coming back to find out what's going on and help everyone get out of it. Once that's done I'm going back to my stand. I won't be Cicero's excuse on his mad quest for power, no matter how much I love that twisted sneaky fuck."

    I blinked at that. It was probably the best description of his brother I'd heard from anyone, and it told me that Abel knew perfectly well who Cicero was, flaws and all. Just because he loved his brother didn't make him oblivious, and that made me just a little more hopeful we could work this all out. We could use every ally we could get, if Abel could keep Cicero and Mel both in line and pointed in the same direction that would be an even better solution than just getting Mel on our side.

    We made it back to the circus pretty quickly, even tired and carrying Alden. We were Ascendants, and we were damn strong and fast. We didn't run with him between us, but even a brisk walk ate up ground when you had bodies like ours. Hell, I was at the lower end of that spectrum physically, and I probably could have carried him alone in only a few tens of minutes without hitting a run. When we made it through, I saw Emery watching us enter and then slipping off, so I knew Cicero would be aware of our presence soon.

    We made it back to the Pavilion, setting Alden down to sit on the nearby seats and I dropped down to sit next to him. I heard a slight noise and turned my head to feel Callie slam into my side like a missile, clinging desperately to my much larger frame as she squeezed me hard enough that I think it might have killed an H-ranker. I was about to greet her when a piercing scream ripped through the air. "YOU RAT BASTARD!" I looked up to see Abel standing off to one side, seemingly about to slip away and looking like a deer in headlights as a wave of coruscating golden fire plummeted down to land on top of him. I winced. Looked like Mel was here already.
     
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  2. Threadmarks: Chapter 231
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    I wasn't worried about Abel being hurt. Not after his showing earlier. But I still whistled at the sheer fury of the attack. "Well that doesn't seem like a healthy relationship dynamic at all." Callie giggled against my side and poked me in the ribs, shushing me so the two powerful warriors didn't hear, but they were both far too busy with each other for it to be an issue. Still, I felt it bore mentioning.

    Alden chuckled from his place next to us. "Violence is more a part of their lives than most. They're training lunatics who often talk with their fists, and their relationship mainly grew out of sparring to begin with. Still, they care for each other and would never actually try to hurt the other out of anger. Mel is just confident enough in Abel's strength that she isn't worried that blow will actually land. He won't stop her though. It's good for her to let off some steam, and once she's wasted some of her frustration she'll listen better. He knows her well enough to let her vent."

    I frowned but didn't comment. It wasn't my relationship, so it wasn't my place to say anything. Callie and I did spar, so I supposed I could see a bit of the point. But I felt like this was a bit outside of a consenting and informed battle. If both of them were happy with this way of doing things though it wasn't my place to comment. Not like I could do anything about it even if it was. Besides, I could see the smile on the unmasked portion of Abel's face. He wasn't upset or even afraid. He looked almost relieved that she was trying to burn him alive. Alden had been right. They WERE lunatics.

    Still, Abel wasn't the only one having fun. Despite the blazing glare on her face, I could also see a small twinkle of enjoyment twinkling in Mel's eye if I wasn't mistaken. She was raining down golden flames on Abel, who was altering the space around him to create alternate paths so the fire would pass him by. He didn't even look warm as he casually swatted away torrents of fire that probably would have cooked anyone else. Despite not being the same impressive blue color, Mel's fire was seriously powerful, and pretty damn distinctive too.

    "So what exactly is her power?" I asked Alden. "Because those flames are weird looking. That shade of gold isn't natural at all, they're almost metallic somehow. I've never seen anything quite like it. I assume that isn't a pure fire ability. She mixed in something else right?" Despite acting like regular flames in terms of motion and effect, the fire was visually pretty distinctive. I remember Burning Fist mentioning that most fire wielders mixed other attributes and Skills in with their fire to provide extra power.

    Alden nodded. "I won't give away trade secrets obviously, but the name isn't exactly unknown. She calls it Starflame. It's why her title was Starbreak, back when she bothered to use one. Some of the circus performers still use that, but for the most part she's just Mel. Starbreak was Apollyon's partner, and after Abel left she had no desire to use it anymore." His voice sounded sad.

    I felt for the man, but I was more focused on something else. "Apollyon?" I asked. "Was that the name Abel used?" I'd never bothered to find out what his original name was. Thinking back, I doubted it had always been Spruce Bunny. "I've never heard anyone mention it before. Was he important back in the day or something?" I couldn't imagine anyone as terrifying as Abel not having a hell of a reputation. He'd made it to G-rank at the very least, and young enough that he didn't strike me as having aged much.

    Alden nodded. "He was a member of the Titan Twenty way back when. He and Starbreak both. The strongest twenty Ascendants under tthirty years old in all of Rajak. If he hadn't vanished when he did his Ascension to F-rank was expected with a year or so. Once he was gone he got replaced and people forgot him. Such is the way of renown sadly. People have short attention spans. There's always someone clawing to be relevant, so if you don't make a move for a while they'll forget you within a month. Especially with the mastery some forces have over the media outlets."

    "The Titan Twenty?" I asked, intrigued. "That sounds awesome." I was still only eighteen. "Wait. The top twenty Ascendants under twenty? Wouldn't they just all be from the Academy?" I imagined anyone who managed to gain that kind of renown could write their own check in the Academy. I wondered how many of those people were at the school, and what their rankings were?

    That got a loud snort out of Alden. "They'd certainly like to think so. But no. As you've seen from our training methods stat pumping isn't the best way to make a strong warrior. Don't get me wrong, there are some real monsters at that school of yours, but there are plenty outside it. Hell, they aren't even all members of the Unity or WCP. There are at least a few independents last time I checked, and a few from other factions living in town. The Twenty are anything but uniform."

    That sounded...fucking awesome. Callie looked as excited as I did. Granted, we had a ways to go for sure, but still, we had years to go. I glued my eyes to the formerly irrelevant fight, trying to pay attention to how they were both engaging. Looking close, I could see Mel's flame waves looked big and sloppy, but they were actually incredibly precise. Abel was forcing them off course to avoid being hit, but the heat in those waves was tightly controlled. No radiant energy was leaking off to singe or bother anything around them. Granted in Abel's case that might just be his own power, but she wasn't burning or damaging the objects nearby either, and I couldn't feel the fire from here, or even a spike in the ambient heat of the Pavilion.

    It was astonishing to notice given the wild shifting waves of fire, but the obvious implication was the Mel had pinpoint control over those flames. There was no stat for that, though there was a Skill if it was like Shadows. Still, the absolutely absurd amount of effort and training needed for that level of control must have been insane. It also spoke to Alden's point that they were just playing around. If she had that kind of control she could have made something much hotter and more focused. I still wasn't sure what was mixed into those flames, but I somehow doubted it made them LESS dangerous when condensed.

    She hurled fire at him for about ten minutes, and he just stood there and let her, deflecting and avoiding it. He didn't stand still the whole time, probably worried it would come across smug, and actually ran off to let her chase him around the Pavilion for a while. They both knew it wasn't a real threat, but they did it anyway, and seeing that made me rethink my earlier reaction. They weren't anymore insane than any other couple, though they were a bit more vigorous. Eventually though, Mel calmed down and let the fire fade away, vanishing in a swirl of flames and appearing right next to him, hurling herself into his arms.

    She buried her face in his chest, and I was pretty sure she was talking based on the slight body movements, but I didn't hear a word. It took me a second to realize the air was slightly warped around them, and figure out that Abel was using his ability to catch and funnel the sound waves away from anyone else around the tent so no one would overhear. It was another display of absolutely terrifying control on a much finer scale than I'd seen from him, and made it clearer than ever that I hadn't even scratched the surface of what he was capable of.

    Abel had been a monster before he'd vanished all those years ago and it seemed like despite not accruing any stats after he dropped off the map, he'd kept up his training. His easy defeat of that F-ranker had shown me exactly what the difference was between a true Ascendant and someone who just made numbers go up. I remembered what I'd heard before, about how some more powerful clans had full heritages where they taught people the control and Skill combinations that Abel had learned on his own, just because they all the family ability and had been able to spend years working on it.

    I even briefly wondered if I'd have learned things like that back at the WCP if I'd grown up with the family. Then I dismissed that. My combat style was massively impacted by my DS Mastery, which was gained from the way I spent my life when I was on my own. I might not have a heritage to show me what direction worked best, but I truly believed I could be stronger than any other candidate if I just learned to use what I had better. I'd make my own path, and become stronger than any other Wishmaster, candidate or otherwise.

    My new attack stockpile would certainly help, but I was sure plenty of other candidates had figured out the uses of that. No, my main advantage was in DS Mastery, and how it combined with my new style. My character abilities tended towards buffs and augmentations, giving me unique twists on the attacks I copied that no other candidate could match. It was just one more reason to finish ranking up DS Mastery to Intermediate. Once everything calmed down between those two though I hopped down and headed over. I wanted to talk this out with Mel before she had a chance to adjust to what had happened, especially since Abel was here. That would be my best shot at getting her on my side.

    As I approached, Abel let go of Mel and stepped back a bit, just enough so she would look up and see me coming. She cocked her head to one side, her gaze complicated. "So I heard you helped bail Marc out, and held some assholes off Alden until this dumbass could make himself useful and save our teacher. Still, I get the feeling from how this all went down that there's more than a bit going on that I'm not aware of, and I'm not really a fan of being kept in the dark."
    I turned to find Alden approaching, and at my gaze he nodded, ready to fill her in. He caught her up on finding out about us, the talk, his worries and his attempt to keep an eye on things. By her clenched fists she wasn't happy, but Alden didn't even give her a chance to interject before cutting her off. "And before you go mouthing off to your teacher, girl, consider how the situation went down. If anything, I wasn't paranoid enough, and if I hadn't come alone that idiot Marc would have been slaughtered."

    "Fine." Snapped Mel. "I'll admit your sneaky bullshit was mildly useful in this instance. I'm still not happy you let spies stick around and even trained them." She shot us a pointed look but then sighed. "Not that the plan is even still viable, so there isn't much to spy on now. I'm not working with Cicero, but given what a mess this turned into I'll at least hear you kids out."

    She turned and headed into the back area we'd met her in originally. "Come along then, all of you. We can figure out our next move. Somehow I doubt those bastards will let it go at this after losing an F-ranker, and we'd better have a plan when they arrive." With a glance at the others I shrugged and trailed after her. She wasn't wrong, we'd need a hell of a plan. Luckily I already had the beginnings of one. I just hoped it would work.
     
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  3. Ranan

    Ranan Not too sore, are you?

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    I honestly think the people who have been complaining are fairly insecure and immature, I’m of the belief that most of the fault lies with the person in a relationship. Also as of Chapter 101 nothing has been revealed as to what exactly Midknight may or may not have told her to convince her, ignoring the massive stat difference which even with a few dozen point difference has made Shane many times more intelligent so I assume Midknights high stats made manipulating her easy, we have no idea what lies he may have told or anything else. The people complaining obviously have little experience with real world relationships because they are trying to lay the blame on a victim rather than the perpetrator and are completely ignoring her own perspective and possible reasonings
     
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  4. Threadmarks: chapter 232
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    Mel's office seemed smaller than I remembered, but to be fair, there were more of us this time. She slumped into her chair with a groan. She put a hand over her red mask in despair, like she was trying to rub the bridge of her nose but couldn't reach. "This is such a mess. All I wanted was to kick Cicero out of the leadership position and replace him with someone less backstabby." Her eyes flicked to Abel, but she didn't say what she'd obviously been thinking: that if Cicero was gone he wouldn't have to stay away for his brother's own safety.

    Abel rolled his eyes. "Revenant, Mel. You used to be smarted than this. No one approaching you to undermine the power structure of the circus is someone with good intentions. You lay down with dags, you get up with fleas." His voice was reproving, but I could tell he was very carefully avoiding any implications that she'd done this for him. He knew it was well as the rest of us, he just wasn't stupid enough to try to make her admit it.

    "I'll neuter you like a dog." Mel snapped.She hurled a fireball at him, which he dispersed rather than deflecting it. He made a casual motion, snapping his fingers once, and the small but powerful ball of flame just...collapsed. I blinked, staring in shock as I tried to puzzle out how he'd done that. I'd seen a slight shimmer in the air around the flame orb, but I had no clue what he'd actually done. Still, whatever it was it had become obvious that he wasn't in the mood to humor her anymore, and Mel acknowledged that by getting serious.

    She cleared her throat in embarrassment at having misread the situation. "I mean, sorry, yeah. I screwed up." Her voice sounded genuinely contrite and she let her head thunk down on the desk. "I didn't mean to bring these assholes to our door. I just hated seeing him every day, strolling around like he's some big hero that everyone should respect." The desk cracked under her hands, scorch marks scoring the wood as her fingers raked toward the edge like molted claws.

    Abel stared at her in shock. "I...I didn't realize it was that bad between you two. I mean, I knew you'd be angry at him, but I figured you would get past it. You were so close when we were younger." He sounded bewildered, his serious mood melting away in the face of a confusion so deep it almost sounded like hurt. "What could he have done to make you hate him this much? Did he hurt you?"

    "Did he-" Mel's head snapped up, her orange eyes boring into Abel furiously. "Did he HURT me? He took away the one person I loved most in the world, you frigid asshole. Or course he hurt me. He was the reason you left, the reason you abandoned me. I couldn't hate YOU for it. I could never hate you, especially not when I knew you were just doing what you'd always done, bending over backwards to accommodate him. I don't care what you intended or how you viewed it. He stole you from me. I despise him."

    Abel looked horrified. "That's not what happened. I left to protect all of you. Sure, his ambition would have drawn a target on us, but my own abilities were almost as bad all on their own. I was making waves, and people would have come calling to find out if I was really as good as the rumors said. It was safer for everyone if I just faded into the background. Cicero gave me a good excuse, but I couldn't have stayed in any case. Independents can make it into the Titan Twenty, but we can't afford to be on top. The wrong sort of people were starting to get upset about my power."

    "You think I cared?" Mel spat. "That I wouldn't have gone with you? You didn't even ask. You just walked away. You didn't even say goodbye in person. You just left me a fucking note. I never thought I'd see the day that Abel Castleton slunk off into the dark like a coward." He flinched when she said that, like she'd physically struck him with the word, and I had to marvel that one poisonous comment could hurt him when even that F-ranker had been unable to leave a scratch.

    I cleared my throat, and Mel wheeled to glare at me, but I glared right back. "Listen, you guys have stuff to sort through, I get that, but can we maybe save the romance novel drama for when we aren't dealing with a probable war with an E-rank faction? Because we have some possible options, but they won't do us much good if this whole fucking place is already burning down by the time we can enact them because you decided Abel needed to be yelled at." I paused as Callie gave me a disapproving look and rolled my eyes. "Not that you shouldn't have your conversation. But just maybe save it til after the meeting."

    You-" Mel hissed, her orange eyes blazing. "Might have a point." She let out a long sigh, the exhalation stealing the tension from her body like it was taking literal wind out of sails. "Now isn't the time for this, no matter how urgent it feels to me. We won't survive a war with Sanctuary Hall. Even with the deed in hand, the defenses here won't hold back the kind of force someone that influential can throw at us. Even lower end E-ranked factions might shy away from the protections in place, but anyone with that much money and power, not to mention access to unlimited healing, can just throw people at us until they get through." Her eyes fixed on me. "What options do you have? You mentioned a possible plan."

    I nodded. "Well, the beginnings of one. We're members of the Beast Lord Garden. I'm pretty sure we can get them to intervene. Melinda is an E-ranker herself, and Travis, her partner, is the same. Having two members at that level makes them a terrifying force to reckon with. I bet even the Peace Lord won't screw with them." I had no idea if that was true, actually, but even if it wasn't I refused to let the other candidate win this after all the bullshit she put me through. I'd bring Burning Fist into the loop for an alliance if I had to.

    Mel looked skeptical. "I mean. If you're members it can't have been for long. How exactly are you planning to convince a force that large to move? I'm sure they like you fine, but you might be underestimating the motivation of a faction to help out a low rank member. Hell, they might just forbid you from taking part in this mess at all. It's what I would do in that position." I could tell she was trying to be polite, which at least meant she was taking us seriously as allies if nothing else. I could work with that.

    I looked to Callie, who gave me a supportive smile. She was in charge usually, but this involved who to tell about my abilities and she'd already told me that was my call. This was my show until Melinda had officially accepted the offer. I turned back to Mel and gave a serious nod. "We have some assurance of getting them involved. I can't go into details but we have leverage. Assuming we can get them on board though, how is this going to work? It's not like they'll be sending their E-rankers down here. Hell even any more F-rankers would probably destabilize the entire structure of the WCP."

    Abel was the one who answered that. "They'll swarm G-rankers. If there were more factions involved there are alternate methods to take, but it would become a huge mess pretty quickly. The large factions have access to huge reserves of G-ranked Ascendants. The F-rankers might engage in F-district, but that won't effect us here, and E-district forbids outright battle. Too destructive and hard to clean up. Having an extra E-ranker would put a ton of pressure on them to avoid tipping this into a full on brawl in one of the dark districts though."

    "Dark districts?" I asked with confusion. "Not sure I've heard that term before. What are those?" We hadn't exactly memorized every corner of the WCP. G-district was pretty much our main base of operations at our current level, and any place higher would essentially be suicide for people at our level.

    Abel grimaced. "The dark districts aren't level restricted. The large forces sometimes use them for proxy battles, but for the most part they're a place for desperate Ascendants to try to accrue reputation by mixing with higher level enemies. Rank doesn't matter there, it's just a free for all when anyone can show up. Even some E-rankers have been seen there, though usually only the craziest and most powerful will risk it. If an E-ranker dies their whole faction takes a hit and can even collapse, so letting them see combat is a huge risk. Everyone will avoid that situation if possible, but having an extra E-ranker will definitely help."

    "Except we don't." Said Benny. We all looked at him. "Don't forget how we got into this mess. Mr. Jack-tastic is in town because he hit E-rank. That means they have a second E-ranked fighter too. Albeit a much newer and weaker one." I cursed silently. I had forgotten that. The Jerks had become so low priority in the face of this whole convoluted mess that I'd let them slip my mind completely.

    I turned to Callie. "What are the chances M-Jack will be a legit threat to Melinda and Travis. I know next to nothing about how he fights or what he can do. Is this something we have to worry about?" Honestly the Peace Lord alone sounded terrifying, and the two on one aspect was the main reason I'd been confident in Melinda winning. That weird conceptual peace ability sounded hellish in a fight.

    Thankfully, Callie shook her head. "No. In fact, Melinda is the worst possible matchup for someone like him. His ability manifests in a manner similar to summoning beasts, though it isn't exactly the same. Melinda should be able to handle him easily enough, especially given how recently he hit E-rank." That was a relief. Honestly she was right, even if the other candidate had been pumping no one but him every day, those points wouldn't be enough to put a dent in the E-rank, and I knew she hadn't been doing that anyway since she was working with the Peace Lord primarily.

    This would stay at our level for now, and I'd do everything possible to keep it that way. With Abel and Mel on our side we would be at a huge advantage in the G-ranks, and keeping the fight at that level would help us train and improve anyway. I had a long way to go before I was satisfied that I was strong enough to hit F-rank. I didn't want to end up some stat heavy joke who didn't have any combat ability when push came to shove.

    Before any of that happened though, we had other things to do. It was time to do something I'd been worried about since I got my power. I'd trusted my friends and used my abilities as best I could, but I'd never really leaned into the true strength of a Wishmaster. Connections. Everyone wanted wishes, and almost as much as the ability to grant them, having people to pay for them and put them to use was an important aspect of what I could do. It was time to take the plunge and trust someone more powerful than me with my secret. I just hoped I'd picked the right person. Even if I had though, I had a feeling things were going to start getting complicated.
     
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  5. Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    Yeah, that was pretty much my own take on things, but enough people disliked her as a character that I just scrapped it. Royal Road readers are way more conservative than people on QQ anyway, if it bothered people on there it would go over even worse on RR. She's around, but I nixed the plans for the redemption arc. Shame too because I like her.
     
  6. Threadmarks: chapter 233
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    This journey to the Beast Lord Garden was a solo one. I could have brought the others, but I decided against it. This seemed like something I should do solo. I had plenty of attacks stored up if I needed them, and as a member I doubted I'd run into trouble. I should at least be able to escape, though I made a mental note to try to get my hands on some kind of mobility effect. That would show dividends when combined with Leaf on the Wind not to mention Cloud Step.

    When I got to the Garden, they let me in without an invite. I was a member, and while I did have to show off this cool green stone token with gold veins Jessie had brought back for us, once I did no one hassled me. I let the guard know I needed to see Melinda, and that it was urgent, and while I expected to be told to wait or come back later, he just escorted me back to the formation garden when I'd met with her the first time. Melinda was apparently pretty chill with her faction members, and treated everyone with respect, even if they were newbies.

    It made me much more willing to trust her with my secret, and I'd already been leaning towards yes. Seeing how she treated her people like family, regardless of power, made my good impression of her grow by leaps and bounds. When I got to where she was waiting she smiled up at me warmly. "Ah, Solomon. It's so wonderful to see you. I see Agria didn't join you on your trip. That's a shame. Travis has developed quite a fondness for the girl. Apparently she gives excellent scratches and smells good."

    I chuckled at that, sitting down next to her as she gestured me to take a seat on the bank of a small pond I hadn't even noticed when I'd been here before. Looking back, I realized it was hard to focus on individual aspects of the formation rather than the whole, and briefly wondered if that was a factor of the formation itself. Sadly it wasn't the time to do research on interesting topics. I was here to make a choice, or rather, to follow through on one I'd already made.

    In the interested of that I took a deep breath, trying to figure out the best way to broach this subject. "What do you think of the Peace Lord?" I was going to have to broach the topic carefully. The best way I could think of was to try to get her to commit to some sort of position on the enemy. Once I'd established a baseline for their relationship I'd have a better idea of how to broach the topic of what to do about stopping him.

    "He's an ass." She responded serenely. I blinked, not expecting such a direct response from her. "I wouldn't have spoken so freely in the past, but since you've joined my faction, there's no need for niceties. The Peace Lord is a bully and an arrogant blowhard. That isn't to say he's not dangerous. He's a slippery bastard, and I don't recommend crossing him if you can help it. But the man has an ego the size of this whole galaxy, even if he hides it behind his pompous nonsense."

    I couldn't really argue that after having met him. It wasn't obvious exactly, but I could definitely look back on our meeting and see where that kind of arrogance could have been present. "Alright, well that makes things simpler." I said with a wry smile. "If that's the case, I'd like to ask you to help me deal with a problem. I'm not asking for free, I have means of paying you, but in order for me to do that I needed to know if you would be willing to set yourself against the Peace Lord, because he is firmly on the path to becoming my enemy."

    Melinda burst into giggles, and I glared at her a bit, because that wasn't really polite. She took a second to choke down the laughter, holding up her hands. "I'm sorry. It's just, you sounded so serious there. I recognize that you're probably very upset with the Peace Lord, but someone like you being an enemy to someone like him seems a bit far fetched. Not that you won't get there eventually, but the Peace Lord has better things to do than pick fights with G-rankers."

    "That-" I sighed. "That's fair. I didn't exactly do this properly. You have no reason to think I would be a threat to him, but I wanted to take your measure before I told you this next part. Can we be assured of our privacy?" She smiled at me again, and snapped her fingers in response. There was a sort of...shift in the air. The force of the snap rippled out, and the space we occupied seemed to change in some way I couldn't describe.

    She glanced around appraisingly before nodding. "Alright, that should work. This formation can conceal our words and presence from basically anything. I use it to isolate myself from the world when meditating or training. It wouldn't do to have someone spy on my capabilities. But it's occasionally useful for meetings as well. We are as secure as anyone on this planet at the moment, so please, unburden yourself."

    Her words sounded like she was humoring me, but somehow, I got the feeling she was interested in what I had to say. I imagine her Fantasy stat was high enough that her sense for opportunities was finely tuned. She must have picked up something to indicate that this would be important. I took a deep breath, preparing myself, and decided to just get it out there. "I've come to ask you to consider backing me in my dealings with Sanctuary Hall. They've been starting trouble at the urging of another party, a party I'm having a problem with, and I have reason to believe they won't stop unless I stop them. I can offer you a unique resource in exchange for your help...wishes. I am a Wishmaster candidate, and I'd like your support in exchange for my own."

    I felt the weight drop off my shoulders as I just...ripped off the band-aid. I didn't have any sort of subtle or gradual way to work up to the actual reveal. I'd never been suited to that kind of subterfuge, it was half the reason we'd been so careful choosing the people we would work with. This was a reveal that couldn't be taken back, once it was out, it was out, and I was completely at Melinda's mercy, barring an attack and Zeke's intervention. Despite that though, I just felt relieved. It was so exhausting keeping this kind of secret from everyone, having to watch every step.

    There was something freeing about sharing your secret, especially with someone that you were pretty sure would be able to protect you. Melinda was getting the chance to get a unique resource, but to me she would be my new backer. She would be the person who could keep me safe without all the strings that Zeke had attached. In that moment, it occurred to me that this might be the whole point of the candidacy. Teaching us to build our own forces, to see what we could put together to protect ourselves and take advantage of our abilities as best we could.

    The Wishmaster had built the WCP on his own merits, what better test of a candidate than seeing if they could use their own abilities to do the same? It even helped explain why the other candidate was so set on depriving me of the backing of the forces on this planet. This would be my foundation, the base of my power as I expanded into the universe. If I couldn't get my planet of origin on my side, bring a backwater rock into my faction to act as a stepping stone, then how would I manage to convince any future forces to work with me?

    I forced down my excitement at digging up a potential piece of the puzzle and any implications thereof and focused on Melinda, who was the more immediate concern. She was staring at me, all amusement and gentle humoring gone from her expression, replaced by shock and if I wasn't mistaken, greed. That was fine, I didn't mind greed. If she tried to use force I had Zeke, and if she didn't there was no need to worry. I was planning to grant her wishes anyway. She swallowed hard, getting her expression under control. When she spoke, her voice was a bit hoarse. "A...a Wishmaster candidate?"

    I nodded. "Yes. Not just me either. There's another candidate working with the Peace Lord. That's what I meant about another party. I'm sure you can see how that situation might pose a problem for you if left unchecked?" That was the part that I'd needed to confirm. If the Peace Lord hadn't been an enemy there was a chance she might side with Sanctuary Hall, and possibly with the other candidate.

    As it was though, that was unlikely at best. Not just because she didn't like him, but because it would be stupid. Why would she share an asset like a Wishmaster (even if only a potential one) with another group she didn't like. The less people who knew the more wishes she got for herself and her people.

    Still, she was going to be going up against another candidate, and she deserved to know that. It might be dangerous to deal with, and forewarned was forearmed. As expected, she barely thought about it, the lure of having her own Wishmaster too great a lure to even pretend to turn down. "I won't insult you by pretending not to be interested." She said with barely contained excitement. "But if we're doing this I'd like so assurances about exactly what we're going to be getting from this arrangement. What are your capabilities, at least the ones you're comfortable sharing?"

    That was a fair question, and I took a moment to mull over how to answer. Deciding that if I was trusting her I'd trust her with most of it. "Five wishes per day. I can grant stats but for the most part I trade them for others, so it's more along the lines of redistribution than actual power gain. I can grant Skills but it's costly and I can't do anything past beginner at the moment. The actual wishes I can grant are dependent on my own stats, so the more I grow the better I can help, and I can only grant a total of three stats per wish right now."

    I didn't tell her everything. Trusting was one thing, but it would be stupid to spill all of it. The stat thing would become obvious and if I didn't tell her the number of wishes I couldn't make sure to clarify that she couldn't use them all. But just in case I kept my ability to trade attacks to myself. I could take the memories of the fact from anyone I needed to make the swap with, and having that ace in the hole couldn't hurt if push came to shove. Always good to have a trump card up your sleeve.

    I saw her getting more and more excited as I spoke, though my statement about stats being mostly traded caused her to wilt a bit. I expected she'd been hoping to be be able to boost a bunch of her people to E-rank, which I absolutely wouldn't do at the moment. Backing or not, messing with balance of power like that would firmly push most other factions into the other candidates camp just to keep ahead of the potential fallout. Melinda took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. "Alright. Well in that case let's talk about cost. What exactly can I do for you?" I grinned behind my mask. The hard part was over, I'd gotten through my speech. Now came the fun.
     
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  7. Threadmarks: chapter 234
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    "So, I'd like to start out saying that I'm not willing to commit to more than three wishes a day." I kept my tone firm as I stared down Melinda. I wanted to make sure she took me seriously as a partner, which meant making my terms clear and refusing to bend on basic framework as much as it meant being flexible and amenable to change. I wanted to have a reasonable and productive discussion, but if I gave too much too fast I'd get taken for everything I had.

    My reason for picking three was simple. It left me two a day to work with my friends, and it also allowed me to gain a massive amount of access to the stat pool of the whole faction while seeming like I was doing them a favor. As much as liked to make sure my team was up to speed, it was a fact that too confined of a circle would put a strain on resources. I could theoretically give stats for attacks, but I didn't grow from that, not in a direct sense. I could only hold so many attacks too. Doing it this way would mean they'd feel like I was showing a lot of sincerity but it would leave me with wishes to burn for myself and my people while gaining more points. It was a win win.

    As expected, Melinda didn't object to that at all. "Three is fine." She said with a warm smile. "I have plenty of people who would love the chance to focus their stat distribution into something a bit more suited to their style of combat. Even that is a huge boon. I can't help but note however, that you've described something you can give us. I'm curious about what you want in exchange for this gift."

    "Well there's the obvious. Protection and backing against Sanctuary Hall." I said matter of factly. I wanted a direct commitment to help with the healer problem first thing, and while I was pretty sure she would give it I was hardly going to base the whole negotiation on that assumption. That said, filling her in on the more important aspects of the battle might ease some tension. "Specifically in G-district. They're trying to consolidate the whole district under their banner, presumably without anyone noticing. The Flame Riot Militia picked up on it, but I'm surprised that more groups haven't stepped in to stop it."

    Melinda shrugged. "G-district is a feeder district, but none of the real power players bother with it. Most of the powerful groups have their G-rankers deployed to the dark districts. It's more dangerous, but they reap better rewards. The Militia is pretty weak in the grand scheme of things. Burning Fist is young for an E-ranker. It's not exactly a stupid idea to take over G-district if you can swing it, but most powerful factions don't bother with low hanging fruit like that. Besides, Sanctuary Hall is a particularly influential force. They may have paid some people off to stay out of the attempt."

    Considering the existence of the other candidate I could believe that. It wouldn't be impossible for them to make up any losses. It also didn't shock me that the high rankers considered G-district expendable despite it being a large gathering. I imagined it was easy to underestimate that kind of force as an E-ranker. Hell, thinking back to what I'd been like at I-rank it was hard not to do it myself. The further you got from mortal the less you had in common with what you used to be.

    I stared at Melinda, not making any other comments, until she finally sighed and nodded. "Fine. I have some G-ranked forces I can pull to send down to support you. I suppose it'll be a good opportunity to blood some of our people in any case. A battle between large factions in a district that low isn't a common occurrence. This might be the first one in my lifetime. You can get to know some of the warriors with potential among our ranks."

    That sounded interesting, but I was worried about something else. "Will they send more F-rankers? They sent one down there last time, albeit in disguise. If they don't we should be fine, but if they do it could be a problem." I wasn't worried about anyone managing to beat Abel and Mel at G-rank, but enough F-rankers could drown them in raw force. I wasn't sure even Abel could fight too many opponents up ranks.

    "No." Melinda's voice was firm. "With our attention on this matter, any room for backstabbing or double dealing as at an end. Their only recourse now would be to either face Travis and myself, or to stick to the structure of the battle and drown you in G-rankers. That said, don't dismiss them. As I mentioned, they are wealthy beyond measure. There are plenty of powerful Ascendants they can higher that would abide by the restrictions of the district. We are fairly well off, but not nearly so much as Sanctuary Hall, and I'm afraid that hiring outsiders would be a bad decision given the unusual nature of your gift."

    I cursed. She was right. She could control her own group and limit the spread of information, but there was not possible way to control mercenaries. Which meant we couldn't use them. Not in such a short time anyway. It might be possible tp arrange a contract or something if we had more time to work. but nothing short term. Still, I was confident in Mel and Abel. I doubted anyone would see them coming. They'd been out of the game for years, but were scary powerful still. Most of their peers were probably F-ranked already, so they would be relative unknowns to start I bet.

    "Alright." I said decisively. "You put together the group you want to send and I'll bring them down. Do you want me using the wishes we agreed on to improve their capabilities? Also can we get a contract written up, just for my peace of mind." I wasn't sure if that would be offensive, but I didn't really care. Cicero had fucked us over even with a contract, I absolutely wasn't going without one for something this important.

    Luckily it didn't seem to be a problem. Melinda just gave me another warm smile. "Of course, nearly every faction has someone with the contract Skill on staff. The ones that don't have to consult the Lawbinder Cavern for every little thing, and those crooks charge more than even we can afford easily." I cocked my head in confusion and she chuckled. "The Lawbinder is one of the older E-rankers. His ability is contract based. Not sure exactly what, people tend to keep that under wraps, but he can make incredibly powerful binding documents and words for a fee. He recruits similar talents for his faction and they serve a purpose much like we and Sanctuary hall fulfill."

    The more I found out about this place, the more intrigued I got. I wondered what other factions there were, with something like a hundred E-rankers around, that meant if it was an even split between Unity and WCP there were a full fifty factions around. There must be so many amazing groups with so many interesting aspects to hear about. For now though, I just needed to focus on the Beast Lord Garden. If I could help them solidify their position I'd naturally come into contact with the others.

    It occurred to me that since we were driving out Sanctuary Hall, we could help the Beast Lord Garden take over G-district instead. There would be some things to work out there, but since Sanctuary Hall saw a benefit in it, we could definitely gain as well. Plus Melinda was my backer now, which meant the stronger she got, the more secure I was around here. It was something to keep in mind long term in any case. "We can get that figured out in a minute though." I said. "You never mentioned if you wanted me to use the wishes on the G-rankers coming along?"

    Melinda's smile turned into a beaming grin. "Of course. Since you won't be able to just add points to anyone to bump them up ranks directly, adjustment will be priority, and the G-rankers are the ones with the least time adjusting to their current stats. Giving them a solid foundation to build off of will help them make better impressions in the upcoming battles and pay dividends anyway. If they can make powerful reputations down in G-district some of them might even break through before all this is over."

    She seemed to have come to the same conclusion about the snowballing effects of reallocating stats that I had, which wasn't a surprise since she was an E-ranker whose Focus was probably higher than all of my other stats put together.
    With that decided Melinda shut down the privacy formation and called one of her people, asking him to retrieve someone named Basken. Based on the context I assumed he was the contract maker we needed, and I was happy to see she was taking my comfort so seriously. Having seen how worried I was she'd gone out of her way to make sure we got this done quickly.

    Basken, as it turned out, was a fairly normal looking guy. I was used to Ascendants being strange or visually striking, but Basken was just a lanky man with curly dark hair, a goatee, and thin wire rimmed glasses perched on a thin nose, making his brown eyes seem larger than they should have been.

    He had a lazy, almost tired manner about him and when he was introduced he gave me a sleepy smile. Melinda didn't tell him about my ability, happily, just gave him a bare bones framework. "Basken, this is Solomon. He's working with us for the foreseeable future. We need a contract drawn up for a guest elder position. Nothing restrictive, and something he can break at any time. Support and resources in exchange for services rendered as a growth consultant for our lower ranked members I think." She looked at me questioningly and I gave a nod of confirmation.

    "That sounds fine to me." I said. "A guest elder position certainly sounds like what I'm looking for. A member of the organization without being too bound by the command structure." I noted she hadn't mentioned THEM being able to dissolve it, just me, and looking over the shoulder of the contractor as he scrawled out a lengthy document I didn't see a loophole for that. It was a hell of a gesture for them to make me solely responsible for the deal staying in place, and it made me even more certain of my choice.

    I went over terms with them for the next hour. Despite my good impression, I wasn't some moron who took what I was offered. I combed the contract top to bottom, making small changes and quibbling over what looked on the surface like minutiae. My old man hadn't been around too much, but the exercises he had me do as a kid and the few conversations we had were a strong motivator to understand contracts. Even before I'd know about his power, my father treated everything like a contract.

    I'd had lots of practice finding loopholes and gaps, and I put all of it to work, trying to get the best terms possible. Melinda, for her part, just laughed it off. I think the fact that I was taking the contract so seriously made her more confident I'd stick to it. Allowing me to break it at any time was a calculated risk, and bargaining so hard was putting her mind at ease. Eventually though, we finished the contract and we both signed it, finalizing the deal. With that done, I was ready to head back, but not before meeting my new entourage. I'd be bringing back a bunch of new G-rankers for the war effort. Strong ones hopefully. Time to meet our new comrades.
     
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  8. Threadmarks: chapter 235
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    There were easily a dozen G-rankers tapped to come with us down to G-district, and the first thing I did when I saw them was ask Melinda why there weren't more. "Ok, I appreciate the help for sure, but isn't it just asking for trouble sending so few of them down help us? There are hundreds of G-rankers in the major factions right? Won't they drown us in bodies this way?" The last thing I wanted was to see all my new allies killed off. I was pretty firmly convinced that Abel was invincible in G-rank but that wouldn't save these people.

    "Normally yes." Melinda said with that ever present doting smile. "But not in this case. While a full on war in G-district might be viable, it's also attention grabbing. Normally it wouldn't matter if it grabbed attention, the Peace Lord is paying people off as we talked about, so no one would get involved even if a full scale army battle broke out. In this case it's different though. With your revelation about your origins and the origins of his backer, too much attention would bring in competitors for your resources."

    My eyes widened in understanding. "Ah, so he's going to send his best, and you'll do the same. Smaller groups of elite Ascendants to battle it out without draining resources that would obviously be missed in the dark districts and bring in new players." She gave me a startled look and I glared at her. "I'm not an idiot you know. Just because I let Nightstrike call the shots and recognize she's better at planning than I am doesn't make me stupid. I notice plenty, I just mostly keep it to myself."

    Which was true. Despite the constant tinge of violence over my thoughts these days I did think things through, my thoughts were just so scattered and wandering that I didn't bother to say most of it out loud. I needed to prioritize Focus. I kept meaning to try to even it out with my Perception. I was hoping it would fix the whole wandering thoughts thing. Too much input and not enough processing power to deal with it was leading to lag in my thoughts that I couldn't afford. I'd gotten some more points into it recently and that seemed to be helping though.

    Melinda gave me that warm smile again before turning to her people. "Well then, I suppose I should introduce your companions. I don't have time to give you a thorough run down on all of them, but these three are the leaders of our younger generation." She pointed to a trio of Ascendants, two men and a woman. One of the men was huge and pale with long hair and intense amber eyes, the second was shorter with darker skin and high cheekbones framing bright blue eyes. The last was the girl, an olive skinned woman of middling height who looked incredibly athletic.

    Melinda pointed to the two men. "This is Baric and Croll." Then she pointed to the girl. "This is Sloane, my apprentice. She's the strongest G-ranked member of our organization. Her ability is Beginner Beast Embodiment, and she can use it to assume aspects and body parts of her tamed beasts." Her voice was proud as she pointed out her obvious favorite. "Sloane, this is Solomon, a new guest elder of the Beast Lord Garden. Despite his rank being similar to yours, he's a greatly capable person, and I expect you to show him nothing but respect. Is that understood?"

    The green eyed girl nodded solemnly, intense gaze fixed on my mask as she tried to give me a once over to see what made me so special. Her gaze was intense and a little wild. I wondered how she stacked up to someone like Abel. That was a hell of a power. My eyes flicked to the animals at her side. A massive black fox and a small silver bird that perched on one shoulder. They both gave me the familiar pressure that told me they were G-ranked. Then I looked to the other two, Baric and Croll. "What about those two? I'd love to hear about their abilities, if they're open to sharing."

    "Of course." Melinda said proudly. "Baric shifts into a tiger-man hybrid, and Croll into a lizard-man. Their alternate forms have other abilities they got through synergizing, but those are the base forms. They're extremely potent. and are some of our most powerful front line combatants. Full form shifting is rare. It provides a bit of an advantage to taming beasts of a similar species as well, though both of their animal partners are still H-ranked and are being left at home to prevent them from being harmed in the upcoming battles."

    I paused, thinking back to Fang. "What's the difference between someone with a form shifting ability and a racial trait. I met a werewolf recently I think, but that was just an assumption. His power might have been some form of shifting. Unless being a werewolf is a form of shifting?" The line between some powers was tough to spot sometimes, and since these people were experts in the whole beast thing I might as well ask them while I had the chance.

    Apparently it was a good question, because Mel nodded like I'd pointed out something important. "Well spotted. The major difference between a natural shifter and someone with a racial trait like werewolf is that a werewolf is always a werewolf. Baric and Croll are human when they're human, and beast form when they shift. A werewolf possesses their werewolf abilities in human form as well, though they're not as potent. It's rare to find them out and about, but not unheard of. Still, I'm surprised you met one here. I'd be interested in speaking to him."

    That didn't seem like a big deal, but it wasn't really my call, so I just shrugged. "I'll extend the offer. I don't really have any say in what he does, but I don't see a reason he wouldn't want to. That's the best I can do though." Seeing that she was happy enough with that sentiment, I moved on. "So, I take it these three will be the ones I'm going to be working with most. In terms of...resource allocation?"

    It was hard to think of a way to obliquely hint at wishes and be understood, but after thinking about it I realized I didn't have to. The whole point of the guest elder position was to be able to act semi-overtly without being questioned. From the explanation she gave during the contract negotiation, guest elders were a mostly ceremonial position given to people who had something to contribute but wanted independence and secrecy outside the organization. Saying 'I'm doing this don't ask about it' was fine. Plus the whole resource claim could easily be explained away by an ability to acquire wishes made by others.

    Melinda nodded. She glanced over at the other nine G-rankers, having them remove themselves from the area, and then activated the formation again, this time with the three elites inside. "As our most promising seeds, these three can be trusted. I won't tell them anything, I'll leave that to you, but know they're all bound by fairly strict contracts as well as being people I personally consider absolutely loyal."

    I weighted my options for a minute, before figuring that I'd have to tell them something eventually, and inside the stealth formation was probably the best spot anyway. I fixed my gaze on the three of them. "I have access to a steady supply of wishes from the WCP main branch due to a favor I did for an executive." I fed them the story Callie and I had come up with to explain my access to wishes if push ever came to shove. "I can, most interestingly to you I suspect, grant Skills and reallocate points between stats to align your build more closely with your preferences."

    That got an approving smile from Melinda, clearly happy I'd chosen to share. "Their main stats are Vitality, Might, and Perception. Shifters tend to be mainly physically focused, and Sloane needs plenty of Vitality to fuel her embodiment. I trust you can work with that?" I grinned internally, though I only gave a solemn nod to acknowledge the comment. That was perfect actually. My Fantasy and Focus were both falling behind, with Creation being a distant third. My Fantasy stat in particular was only twenty one, easily the lowest stat I had.

    The three Ascendants, for their part, were wide eyed, and starting to look a bit excited. The idea of respeccing was such a novelty that they hadn't even considered it. They were smart enough to grasp the value of that gift, especially for someone still early enough in their path that it would make a marked difference on their still developing reputations, compounding the gains over time. It had taken me a bit of time to notice that. I wondered if that meant they had high Focus stats?

    Apparently hearing I could give them pretty much anything they wanted had made me worthy of the treatment, because that appraising look I'd seen from Sloane earlier had faded completely from her gaze. I'd figure out more about their details later though, when we had actual time to grant some wishes. For now having their respect (even if it was by proxy) was plenty. I addressed my one final concern to Melinda. "So, how do we do this? We need to make sure they don't send too many don't we? Do we like...challenge them directly? Do we send them some kind of declaration of war?"

    "Gods no." Melinda laughed. Covering it with a cough when she realized it might have come across as rude. "Ahem, sorry. No. There's no need. This is E-district. Every faction keeps an eye on what happens here. You coming to meet us and possibly joining wasn't enough to make waves. But the seeds moving out is bound to stir up some attention. We usually keep them down here for personal training. It won't be enough to raise any real red flags, but once Sanctuary Hall notices them heading for G-district our position will be clear. They'll dispatch their own elites soon after, as well as mobilizing any forces they have down there already in reserve."

    Which meant the Jerks were finally going to come into play for real. Way Crazy Wyatt wasn't the only G-ranker left in that crowd, and we'd be facing the others. It was just lucky for us we had the Pavilion members. I hadn't gotten a read on the total number of G-rankers down there, but I knew we had at least three or four, depending on how combat capable Cicero was. With the twelve represented here that was a solid force. With a basic gameplan we officially decided to move out. Melinda took down the formation and bid Sloane and the others goodbye and good luck, and we all made our way to the elevators.

    As we mounted the lift, I sat down and considered exactly how thinks might go from here. I didn't know how wars functioned in the WCP, not really. I had the impression that anything I had learned should be taken with a grain of salt though. There was a difference between stories and the real thing, even in a world like ours. But the war itself wasn't my biggest worry. This action had effectively declared my ability to stand as a real threat to the other candidate, as well as made it clear I was aware of her presence.

    Something told me with that challenge on the table she wasn't likely to stick to the shadows. There was a good chance the coming war would be managed by her directly. I didn't know what another candidate would be capable of, but one thing was for sure. I needed to be as strong as possible before that fight finally occurred. I couldn't afford to face a member of the family with anything less than my best. It was a good thing I had all these new clients to make wishes, because I needed to pad my stats quite a bit, more than that though, I needed to train. It was time to see if Abel would be willing to teach me directly.
     
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  9. Threadmarks: chapter 236
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    Once we got to G-district, we headed right for the Pavilion. Once we got there I found a private spot and spoke to Beric the were-tiger. He was eager to get his stats redistributed, and I picked up 15 points of Focus first thing, since he was a pure physical combatant. He had them all funneled into Might, to my absolute lack of surprise. That brought me up to 88 Focus, which helped to bring it closer to evening out with my Perception. Once it was done I did a quick check of my status to catch up on all the changes.

    Wishmaster candidate status. G-rank. Ability: Beginner Wish- Five times a day grant a Beginner wish in return for proper compensation. Wish must be feasibly achievable by the candidate's own efforts within a three day period with current statistics.

    Might-97
    Impact-12
    Fantasy-21
    Vitality-71
    Focus-88
    Perception-90
    Creation-82


    Stored:9 shadow attack, 1 fire attack, 7 triple strenth tranq blows, 4 triple strength density shifted attacks. 2 spider leg attacks, 8 heal bursts

    Skills:Beginner Doom Sovereign Mastery,Lesser Enchanting Mastery, Lesser Cooking Mastery,Lesser Inventing Mastery, Lesser Stealth,Lesser Balam Mastery, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Gymnastics Mastery, Minor Swimming Mastery, Minor Guitar Mastery, Minor Singing Mastery,Minor Poker Mastery, Minor Archery Mastery, Minor Boxing Mastery, Minor First Aid Mastery, Minor Herbalism Mastery.

    I could see an accounting of all the stored attacks I had access to, and I whistled internally at the list. Those would be some damn powerful trump cards if I needed them. I also took note that I was only a few tens of points shy of a five hundred total, nearly halfway to F-rank. I was glad I'd figured out the whole attack storage thing, because I never would have been able to keep up in terms of raw output without it. Spreading myself so evenly across every stat made me much weaker in terms of individual stat values, even if it was the optimum build for my Wish power to show its worth.

    Once the day's wishes were done we headed for the Pavilion itself, where Callie, Jessie, Benny, Alden, Abel, and Mel were currently holding a meeting about how to deal with the potential sea of G-rankers coming to most likely burn this place to the ground. After a discussion we all came to the conclusion that destroying the cavalcade would be the most expedient way to erase its influence and pave the way for Sanctuary Hall to take over, and the new information from
    Melinda made that much more likely, at least to me.

    Once I got in, I introduced the three G-rankers and their nine companions. To my surprise, at least one person was already familiar. "Sloane!" Jessie squealed with excitement, tackling the other girl. Melinda's apprentice gave a small grunt as the tiny blonde barrelled into her, sweeping her up in a crushing hug. "I didn't know you were coming! This is so great, we really need the help, and you're so strong!"

    Sloane, for her part, was laughing affectionately as she squeezed Jessie back. "Good to see you Agria. You'll definitely be a huge help down here. Especially given we're going to be fighting the damn healer capital of the planet. Good thing you're worth a dozen of those garbage bandage peddlers." Jessie put her down as she heard her speaking, and I could see a blush on my teammate's face at the compliment.

    I raised an eyebrow, cocking my head so my confusion was visible. "I thought the Garden was all about earning your keep. Melinda didn't want to give Agria any special treatment, how did she end up palling around with the Beast Queen's personal disciple?" It occurred to me that I had taken way too much of what Melinda said at face value. It seemed like she was taking care of Jessie behind the scenes even before I revealed my ability. I couldn't exactly be mad, but it made me wonder what else I'd missed.

    Sloane just shrugged. "Master can't directly interfere with newbies without breaking established tradition, but there's no rules about who can and can't be friends. Agria is a sweetie, and she has a damn useful power. She's also a fast learner. I was able to teach her the Beast Taming Mastery Skill pretty quickly." She shot my teammate a bright smile, and Jessie beamed back at her. Despite the blushing I didn't think Jessie's interest was romantic, she was just extremely flattered to have such a high evaluation from someone she respected.

    "Well this is all very nice." Mel said, cutting in. "But we kind of have other things to deal with. Another thirteen G-rankers is a solid boost to our capabilities. The pavilion itself has ten of us at a level I'd be comfortable fielding in combat. The cavalcade has another eight I'd call combat capable, but they're all directly under Cicero, and we need his support if we want them to jump in on this." I could literally hear the disgust in her voice as she asked Abel. "Can you talk to him about lending aid?"

    The rabbit masked man rolled his eyes. "Yes, Mel. Revenant, you act like he's pure evil. He's not going to leave us twisting in the wind. Gods, even if he wanted to, this is his place too, at this point he doesn't really have a choice on whether to join in or not. They're coming to tear down the whole cavalcade, when they come at all. His options are to help or watch everything he's worked for get destroyed, possibly dying in the process."

    I cut in before Mel could snap back. "Speaking of the cavalcade, should we try to talk him into closing it? I don't think anyone here wants a bunch of civilians underfoot when the attack goes down. I know the defenses are supposed to be powerful, and I'd rather not see them all get mowed down in the crossfire." Left unsaid was my worry that Cicero wouldn't be quite as worried about civilian losses because he was a selfish dick.

    "I was already planning to do so." Came a familiar voice from behind me. I jumped slightly, not having expected to hear it so soon, and spun to see Cicero stepping into the Pavilion, Emery following at a distance that seemed aimed at providing the top hatted man room to move around, while still staying close enough to step in if anything went wrong. I wasn't sure what the point of that was honestly, unless Emery was WAY more dangerous than I'd been led to believe, there was no possible way the spymaster would be able to stop Abel if he chose to attack his brother.

    It didn't matter anyway. Abel stepped forward with a wide, welcoming smile, opening his arms in greeting. "I've been back for hours and you're just now stopping in to visit? You're a terrible host. I'm surprised this place hasn't gone belly up with you in charge the last few years." He stepped forward to hug his brother, and Emery tensed until Cicero waved a hand subtly meeting his brother's embrace with a tight hug of his own.

    To my shock, the mustachioed ring master stayed like that for a minute, squeezing his big brother tightly as if reassuring himself he was real. I might be misreading him again, but I got the impression that despite his double dealing personality, not all of Cicero's stated affection for his brother was a lie. Maybe her personal strength really wasn't the only reason Mel had lasted so many years sewing dissent around here.

    The hug only lasted a minute though, and once he composed himself Cicero pulled back, his face melting from a peaceful expression of relief that I'd almost missed as he turned to face us, to it's usual calm, positive smile, the one I knew for a fact was utter bullshit. His eyes raked over the assembled group. "Well, it seems the lot of you have been busy. What an interesting array of allies. Tell me then, Melissa, are these here to deal with me? You seem to have suborned my new spies easily enough. Perhaps you've become more skilled at gathering subordinates yourself."

    Despite the dire nature of the question he didn't sound distressed at all, perhaps reassured that Abel would come down on his side. "Yeah, she's got this revolutionary technique called not being an asshole. I was bowled over." I chimed in helpfully. Callie snorted out a laugh, and Mel raised a hand to her mask in an exaggerated cough to hide her own chuckles. "Sadly, as much as I would love to participate in a rousing game of 'kick the bastard in the hat' we have bigger problems now, and Mel is on your side, though I suspect she'd rather have her teeth pulled than admit it out loud."

    Mel gave a silent shrug, her lack of commentary a clear agreement with my sentiment. Cicero raised an eyebrow, seemingly unbothered by my hostility, or at most slightly miffed. He sighed. "Well, I suppose an explanation is in order. That does explain why my brother has shown himself. Very well. Regale me with your tale." He walked over to one of the massive bench seats lining the dirt ring and sat, leaning back casually to wait.

    Abel looked over at Mel, who glanced away, then at me, then at Callie. When he saw none of us were willing to tolerate talking to his asshole brother without being forced to, he sighed heavily, rolling his eyes before beginning to fill Cicero in on everything that had happened. Mel had apparently given him all the details she had, as had Callie, because his summary of the situation included quite a few things he hadn't known before (though he didn't mention the candidate or me, so Callie had held at least a few things back) but he gave a coherent and concise summary of events.

    Cicero waited, listening to his brother for a few minutes, before turning to glare at Mel. "So our resident firebrand put as all in horrible danger with her recklessness and thoughtlessness, how shocking. This is what I get for tolerating your nonsense for all these years I suppose. I should have handled you years ago." To my shock, his voice was laced with actual rage, some of the first negative emotion he'd allowed himself to show in my presence.

    Mel stepped forward, golden flames roaring to life in her palms. "YOU tolerated ME? You want to try to evict me yourself you cowardly fuck? I was here at the beginning of this entire place. I would have left years ago if I wasn't worried your poison would ruin the place Abel and I worked so hard to create. You're a pathetic, simpering, backstabber, and if you want to start a fight I'll gladly oblige!" Mel's tone was every bit as enraged as Cicero's and Abel was staring between them in shock and what looked a bit like panic.

    Before they could actually fight though, a wave of crushing force smashed into my shoulders, and theirs too from the looks of it, forcing us all to our knees. "Enough, children." Came an authoritative voice that was barely recognizable for it's intensity. We all turned to look at Alden, who scowled through his beard at the three of them. "I've had enough. You're fucking adults, act like it. Cicero, you'll supply the manpower we need and deal with your issues with Mel later. Mel, you'll focus on the task at hand and worry about your grudges when we aren't all about to die."

    His eyes flicked to Abel, who looked relieved to have been skipped. "And you!" Abel's eyes jerked up in surprise as his teacher laid into him. "If you're going to come back after so long have the decency to deal with the trouble you start. You're one of the most terrifying people I've ever trained, but you refuse to stand up to Mel or your brother and it's absurd. I realize you worried about hurting them as kids, but you aren't ten anymore. You can't just let them do whatever they want because you don't want to upset them. Stop coddling them and grow a spine."

    The three of them all looked like they'd been slapped, and I thanked Zeke mentally for the mask he'd made not showing my mouth, because I was grinning at seeing them all chastised. The older man sighed in annoyance. "Damn kids will be the death of me. Now, the rest of you, gather our forces while Cicero clears this place out. Who knows how long we have before the enemy arrives." He gave us all a savage grin. "We need to make sure to show our hospitality, and thorough preparations are a necessity for a proper welcome."
     
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  10. Threadmarks: chapter 237
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    The welcome, of course, was traps. So many traps. Like more traps than you would normally see. Despite the existence of the defenses we were informed by Cicero that traps would be necessary to bounce out the invaders for one very simple reason. The defensive systems in the cavalcade were only designed to attack people who entered the buildings.

    Tents counted, but since so much of the place was outside, we couldn't count on the defenses to take care of too many of the attackers. Callie, who had a badass trap Skill I'd given her and as such would be a perfect choice to lay them down, called bullshit immediately. "Why the hell would they design the protections not to work outside? There are so many ways to take advantage of that. I assume they at least protect the buildings themselves so the invaders can't bust open the sides and expose the internals to attack, or worse just burn the tents down themselves?"

    Cicero sighed. "Yes, the buildings are protected. As for the reasoning, it's so we don't abuse the ability and start wiping out whoever we feel like killing when they enter our territory. Don't get me wrong, there are still methods to take advantage of it, as long as SOME people had played along." He cut his eyes at Abel sulkily, but then moved on. "But they're meant to be defensive and not offensive. The amount of enemies is also relevant here. If they try to push into enough of the buildings the defenses will be spread thin, which would prevent them from being nearly as effective. Hence the traps. To whittle them down before they get to our actual troops."

    "Hes right." Mel said, with a grimace so pronounced I could hear it in her voice. " It'll save more lives than we can count if we can soften them up. My Pavilion members can hold their own, and I'm sure our beast master friends are terrors in their own right, but even the most combat capable of Cicero's forces are silk pants little milktoasts. They'll need all the help they can get." That last part was sad with a taunting glance at the mustachioed man, whose eye twitched as he pretended to ignore her.

    Callie rolled her eyes, cutting off the brewing argument before it got started. "Anyway, so we have thirty G-rankers that are combat capable. I doubt we need thirty places to hole up, so we can split us up into teams. You all talk that through while Solomon and I work on traps and we can finalize it when we get back. I don't know how long we have, but the sooner we get them up the better. I have some ideas for how we can put some of them together quickly." Without waiting for a response she grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the tent. I was getting the impression my girlfriend was sick of dealing with those three and just wanted a break.

    I started chuckling as soon as we were out, but she shushed me, looking around before she grabbed my hand and activated her stealth Skill to cover is both. Once that was done she hip checked me lightly, arm wrapped in mine so she could channel the Skill. "Hush you, if they think it's an excuse they're going to make a big deal about it, and I'm SO sick of listening to those two bitch. Believe it or not that was actually better than before Alden yelled at them. They were sniping way worse before you got back. Anyway, I did have an idea of how we might be able to use your ability to make traps."

    I briefly thought over that. I didn't have many abilities that could be considered useful in construction. It only took me a second to figure it out. " Sucking Mud? Softening the earth could be a useful way to dig pits and arrange attacks." With Callie's trap Skill I was sure she had a dozen ways to arrange traps with access to quick and modifiable holes in the ground. If I softened the dirt up and she scooped it out with her shadows it would be the quickest way I could think of to make a hole. Granted, Callie could also just dig, but that wouldn't be quite a delicate in terms of shape.

    She shrugged. "Oh sure, but we only need to use that for certain traps. Mostly I just wanted to spend some time with you before the battle. I know you well enough to know you're probably too jittery to see straight. You like combat, but this whole candidate thing is really scary. It's your first real taste of the big show, so I wanted to check on you and see how you were doing. You did the same for me, remember?" She laid her head on my shoulder as we walked, waiting patiently for me to talk.

    I pulled her close. "I appreciate that. But honestly, I don't know how I feel. It's going to be a hard fight, but really...I'm scared I might have to kill her. I know I don't know her and she's been making trouble for me, but she hasn't tried to kill me or anything, and she's family. I don't want this to turn into a fight to the death. I DO want to see which of us is stronger, I just don't want it to go too far. But after all Zeke's warnings ignoring the possibility seems stupid. This is a pretty fucked up situation right? It's my first time meeting one of my relatives and my biggest concern is having to murder her. There are upsides to this Wish stuff for sure, but it doesn't always make up for how complicated it makes my life."

    Callie leaned up, standing on her toes to press a kiss to the side of my mask. "I know. But you're a resourceful guy. I believe you can finish this without having to lose anyone or do anything you'd hate yourself for. If you don't want to kill her just don't. Remove it as an option. It might be a little naive, but I'll be here with you to help make sure you can pull it off." She gave me a soft smile. "We can do some pretty amazing things when it's the two of us, and that's not even factoring Jessie and Benny into the equation."

    I couldn't say her reassurance magically fixed all my problems. I still had a gnawing feeling of anxiety in the pit of my stomach, but it was definitely partially washed away by the warm rush of gratitude and affection. I leaned down and gave her a tight hug before pulling back. "Thanks, Cal. I should have talked to you about this sooner. Guess it's no surprise that someone I love was able to pull me out of my funk."

    "Why start paying attention now?" She said airily, winking to show she was just teasing. "You never think things through, it's why you need me." She gave me another kiss on the cheek of my mask. "And I love you too, you big softie. Now, let's get to the trap construction already. First thing we need is a map of this place. We'll want to set up the traps in the spots that are most necessary for traversing the fair grounds. There should be a sign with a general layout somewhere around here."

    A quick use of Seek Hidden and a circuit of the grounds was enough to find what she was looking for, and with our Focus remembering it was hardly a problem. Once we found it she went over the sign carefully. "Now, realistically we should go check with the others about the best places to funnel the invaders, but I somehow doubt we would get anything done quickly with so many rival factions. I think out best bet is to funnel them to the main buildings we're familiar with. The Pavilion, Cicero's tent, and for the last one we can use this."

    She pointed to a spot on the map, and I stared at her in horror for a minute before starting to snicker. "Seriously? I'm assuming the Beast Lord crew and our own team will be in the third location, since giving Cicero and Mel's people home ground advantage makes sense, do you really want us to fight in a fucking hall of mirrors?" But the more I thought about it, the better it sounded. Callie and I were both people who did better attacking the unwary, and I had several interesting skills that I was pretty sure would make it a nightmare for the enemy. The defenses protected the buildings from being destroyed, so we didn't need to worry about them just tearing through it either.

    Callie grinned at me shamelessly. "Come on, you know it sounds like fun. Plus, if we don't take some precautions the other teams are going to massively outshine us. How many chances will we get to cut loose like this in such a crazy environment in the future? We can build up some serious reputation this way." She gestured back to the sign. "Anyway, with those parameters we need to set up traps in these locations." She pointed out about a dozen spots. "First though, we need to make a quick stop."

    We headed for Cicero's tent, following the route back to the entrance to the labyrinth. It was still there, which was pretty lucky, and I used Leaf on the Wind to drop us down into the tunnel. Once we got there, we proceeded to loot the place from top to bottom. When we were down there in the first place we hadn't bothered taking trap mechanisms, because why would we? But this time we stole EVERYTHING. Arrows, blades, mechanical parts, Callie used her trap Skill to deconstruct the emplacements, and since we'd already disarmed them all it didn't take us that long.

    Of course, we still had to carry it all back out, but given our Might the weight of the parts was inconsequential, even if we had to make a bunch of trips because we didn't have enough space to carry it all at once. The spatial box in my backpack helped, but there were a LOT of traps down there, and even the bigger on the inside container wasn't enough to take it all in only one or two trips. Still, once we got it all out if the actual labyrinth we just left it lying in the middle of Cicero's tent and used the box to take what we needed for each stretch of open space among the twelve of them we selected.

    With the supplies we needed, we began the process of assembling the traps. We wandered around for a bit until we found one of the twelve locations that was empty, and then we went from there. Some of the traps weren't salvageable, or didn't fit the terrain, but Callie was able to tweak a surprising number of them to function properly. By the time we were finishing the first spot, the people had all been cleared out, so we were able to hit the others without worrying about any of our own triggering the traps, though we had to stop in and fill the others in on the plan.

    Cicero looked annoyed at us for breaking into his tent, which meant Mel was completely on our side, and Abel weighed in for us too so they were able to overrule him. With distribution decided we all dispersed to our various posts while Callie and I finished off the traps. It took us several hours to manage it, but by the time we were done I was practically shaking with anticipation and worry.

    Sloane assured us they wouldn't let the day end without attacking, and waiting this long meant they would be coming in force. Ready for things to begin, Jessie, Callie, Benny, all twelve of the Beast Lord initiates, and I all headed for where we would make our stand. The hall of mirrors was the place I'd finally meet my counterpart, and I had a feeling nothing would ever be the same after that.
     
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  11. Threadmarks: chapter 238
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    The hall of mirrors was bigger than expected. I'd envisioned a tiny little corridor made up of a series of angled glass panes, reflecting each other to create a mild bit of confusion. It had seemed like an excellent place for me personally to work because of Seek Hidden, which would let me be the sole person in the group who could reliably pick out actual people from reflected images.

    While it turned out that it WAS a great place for that, Callie had somewhat underestimated exactly how much of a 'hall' the hall of mirrors was. It literally looked like a huge manor house made up of a variety of reflective surfaces, all bouncing images into each other in such a way that it was almost impossible to tell where the walls and floors began and ended. There were even mirrored pieces of furniture lying around bouncing the reflections even more and interrupting line of sight. It was absolutely absurd.

    I did my best to ignore the small headache I was getting trying to process and take in everything happening at the same time, instead turning to Callie, who was close enough that I could tell she was physical in the open space of the middle of the entryway. I knew because of the furniture and wall layout that if she stepped up to the walls she would effectively vanish, and I imagined stealth would be even more difficult to pick up here, "Ok, this is going to be a huge headache, but it's what we've got, what's the plan?"

    She scowled around the area. "Admittedly this isn't what I imagine when I read hall of mirrors. Kind of wish we'd gotten a chance to visit this place during our date so I knew what was going on, but it is what it is. The plan is pretty simple. Based on what I was told, the defenses on this place are a sort of rejection. Once the enemy enters the building it'll start to punish them for being inside until they leave. There's a limited amount of it in the circus, so I doubt we see the ring leaders early on. They'll probably flood the place with bodies until it wears off."

    That made me grimace. I'd been hoping to talk to my counterpart before the whole siege deal, maybe finding a way to avoid it. The way it was looking though, chances were good I'd have to deal with waves of disposable minions first, and taking them down would make the other candidate much less friendly most likely. Still, it could be worse. "What about damaging the building. I take it that's another way to burn out the defensive systems here. I'm assuming they're Enchantments based on the description. I was kind of imagining big gun emplacements."

    "I think this works better." She said with a shrug. "But no. While they could theoretically wear the defenses out attacking the walls, it would take dozens of times longer. They're designed to withstand attacks in their passive form for much less energy. No, if they want to get through this siege any time soon they would need to take the proactive approach to trying to kill us." She said that cheerfully, and I had to smile along at how blase she had become about all of this. We'd really been through quite a bit, and we'd all grown from the experience, but Callie most of all.

    She headed off to talk to the Beast Lord initiates, and as she did, I slipped over to where Jessie was standing, eyes scanning over the mirrored walls and furniture. I leaned against the nearest wall. "Credit for your thoughts?" I was pretty sure I knew what she was thinking about, but I didn't want to push her into talking if she wasn't ready. She'd mentioned something about this before, and based on her story it wasn't the kind of thing that should be casually picked at. Whether she wanted to vent or not was up to her.

    Her green eyes jerked up in surprise, as if she'd been so lost in her own thoughts that she wasn't even aware I'd approached her. "Oh, Solomon! Wow, you scared me a bit there. I didn't even notice you." Concerning behavior before what was probably going to be a huge battle. Still, I waited, giving her the chance to decide how much to share. She chewed her lip a bit. "Probably not great that I'm so out of it. I was just thinking about a few things from when I was a kid. I think I mentioned it to all of you at one point. My last encounter with a place like this?" Her voice sounded almost desperate, like she was pleading with me to remember so she didn't have to repeat it.

    I did though, and I was happy to talk with her if it helped. "Yeah, a memory with your brother you mentioned. Being here is making you think of him?" She nodded, looking a bit uncertain. I put a hand on her shoulder, knowing the general shape of her thoughts. "Hey, just because we have a plan doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt being without him. Agreeing to help you try to get him back wasn't some attempt to get you to stop grieving. Feel what you need to feel. Though, I'm a bit worried about your timing, I have to admit."

    She winced, looking around the mirrored hall. I scanned the surrounding area, and something occurred to me. "Wait, where are the wolves? I haven't seen them today." I felt a bit bad for not noticing Jin wasn't here, but to be fair there had been quite a bit going on today.

    Jessie perked up, happily distracted by talking about her 'puppies'. "Oh, they're on the way. I left them at the Rowdy Badger today since we were working on things. I called for them once we got set up here, and Randall too. That should seriously help with any attempted siege. I already called and gave Cark a path through the traps to get here like Nightstrike texted me to earlier. He should be showing up soon. That's part of what had me so worried. I wasn't sure they would get here in time, but they're getting close. I can feel Randall's energy even from here."

    I was pretty shocked Callie had put so much together without me noticing, but I probably shouldn't have been. She was the boss because she noticed things I missed. I was just glad we'd have so much backup. I had a thought and had to break off the discussion. Apologizing to Jessie for cutting off her introspection, I stepped over to let Callie know she needed to talk before dropping in on Sloane.

    She saw me approaching and sighed dramatically. "You know, I wish we would have had a better timeline for this attack. I'm sure it'll be today, but I wasn't expecting the delay. All this hurry up and wait nonsense is driving me crazy." She reached up to scratch the silver bird on her shoulder under the chin. "You have some place you need me, or did you just feel like checking in? Because I'll be honest, I'm not in the mood for idle conversation right now. Trying to keep myself hyped for the battle."

    Her response to my supposed attempt at conversation was blunt and to the point, and it made me smile, not that she could see it. "No." I said dryly. "No casual chatting on the agenda. I'm here to ask a question about the fight. We have a bit of backup coming, one of whom is tamed beast Agria has who is at F-rank. Is that going to violate the spirit of the war? Like are we opening the door to them using more powerful combatants if we field him?"

    Sloane looked impressed. "Most people wouldn't have bothered asking that, for the same reason it won't be an issue. Other factions don't consider tamed beasts combatants as much as they consider them tools. It's a disgusting mindset, though a useful one at times. Agria herself is G-rank so it'll be fine. Being able to tame a creature above her level is just considered a form of genius. Like having a combat standard above your rank. It isn't an opening for things to escalate."

    I exhaled in relief. Callie had probably considered that and might even have asked someone else, but the thought had scared me enough to compel me to ask about it. I thanked Sloane and headed back to where Jessie and Callie were, and my girlfriend gave me a nod. "I heard what you asked her. That was a good catch. I didn't realize Cark was bringing Randall and not just the wolves or I would have asked. I expected him to leave the bear back at the Badger to protect their people."

    "Yeah." I said. "I probably would have assumed so too. I guess he decided that one way or the other things will end tonight. Might as well go all in, it's not like the G-ranker Militia members could resist on their own if we got wiped out." I wasn't sure Burning Fist would even be able to do anything if that happened. Given how powerful Sanctuary Hall seemed to be, and the implication from Melinda that the Militia was a middle to low tier organization in E-district, he might not even try, and if he did he had M-Jack to deal with on top of the Peace Lord.

    Jessie, who had continued to stare off into the distance in the direction I assumed Randall was coming from, lit up. "They're here. Quick, let them in." We rushed up to the door and levered it open, removing a mirrored metal bar keeping it closed and pulling the doors apart to let in the wolves as well as the five G-ranked members of the militia. Once they saw us, Cark grinned with relief. Sage and Saffron were with him, along with the two other G-rankers we'd seen when Ronnie attacked.

    He gestured back at them. "We brought who we could. I wasn't leaving the Badger empty, but these are the most combat capable of my subordinates." Sage cleared her throat loudly, glaring at her boyfriend, who coughed in embarrassment. "And Sage of course, who is my partner and definitely doesn't work for me or have to do what I say." He gave her a sarcastic smile and she rolled her eyes are his obvious attempt to point out how ridiculous she was being by going overboard. I saw a small smile on her face though.

    Cark turned and looked outside for a minute before nodding to the purple haired guy we'd seen at the Badger. The guy clapped and there was a waver in the air as Randall appeared next to the entrance. The huge bear had been under some kind of stealth field and he followed the wolves over the threshold without waiting for any sort of response from any of us. Once he was in, we slammed the door and barricaded it again. I wasn't sure how they were going to get in, but I assumed if the defenses were internal there had to be a way.

    We talked over the distribution of forces, and mostly just had people hide around the hall where they thought they would be hardest to detect, with the exception of the heavies like Baric and Croll, who decided to stick by Randall, a decision I couldn't really fault them for. I slipped into stealth mode, Callie right next to me as we waited. It was assumed that the meat shields would be first through the door, but even with the candidate waiting in the wings I was jittery. I felt my foot tap rapidly and unconsciously as my body tried to let out some of the tension through fidgeting, but I put a stop to it. After about an hour, we finally heard a loud boom as something hit the door. It seemed like the first wave had arrived. Time to fight.
     
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  12. Pef

    Pef Versed in the lewd.

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    I keep thinking about that F rank dagger...
    Sure it would be useful during most of the adventures, only we never learned what happened to it, since it should have belonged to the MC as a loot from his kill. Plus some other loot for disguise, detection and so on.
     
  13. Threadmarks: chapter 239
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    The door rattled in its frame at the impact, and it occurred to me that the protections probably reinforced existing defenses. Doors and windows would be the weakest spots even with the protections. It made sense to create entry points like that too, because otherwise there'd be no point to the internal defenses and the invaders could just bust in anywhere once the protections came down.

    Still, the door was big and looked sturdy. The mirrored surface was metal, not glass, and the thing was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. Whatever was trying to take it down was STRONG. I'd lifted that bar holding it shut, if the door was made of the same material I knew I wouldn't have been able to make it shake like that even if I used my strongest blow. Whatever was out there was raining down blows and from the look of it the thing wasn't going to hold out for long. I reached out to take Callie's hand, giving it a squeeze, half to reassure me and half to reassure her.

    Before I even had a chance to withdraw my hand and the door was smashed inward with a boom. Not just broken down either, it was like a cork popping out of a champagne bottle. It burst inward, flying across the room to smash into the wall, and a THING, stepped through. It was huge. Easily fifteen feet tall and bipedal, with huge slumped shoulders and long, thin arms tipped with long fingered, sharp taloned hands dragging dark metal shackles attached to nothing. It's blood red eyes had no irises, just a single pitch black dot in the middle that roamed around the room as it turned it's massive, antlered head.

    I thought back to an exchange I'd heard from the others back when Abel saved us, a comment one of the enemies had made about 'releasing the Wendigo'. The others had dismissed it, almost disgusted by the idea, and part of me had been amused that they would dismiss a potential weapon like that. It had sounded like a living, thinking thing, so holding it in containment instead of using it seemed stupid, even if I was glad they'd decided to do it.

    Now though...now I got it. I'd looked up the word Wendigo. It was a racial trait, a horrifying one that granted some pretty immense bonuses at the cost of losing your inborn ability. Mostly passive multiplicative enhancements to Vitality and Might (ten Might counted as twenty, that sort of thing), along with some ice based touch abilities. I hadn't been able to find a picture though, just a description, and this thing definitely fit the bill. 'Red eyes blazing with hellish flames of hate' was a dead on description of this beast.

    It radiated a palpable sense of malice and hate, and I could almost feel the decay and death coming off of it. Just looking at it made me sick, and that was without even taking into account that this thing had been a fucking PERSON. Someone had willingly chosen to become this in order to gain power. Racial traits couldn't be forced any more than abilities could. This had been a decision, and it just proved to me how monstrous the other side of the hero coin could really be. I'd always thought about criminals and gangsters when I thought about villains, but the line between human and monster wasn't exactly impassable. Hell, the Lich proved that, even if I hadn't really taken it to heart.

    From behind the Wendigo poured a score of robed figures, all wearing beaten bronze masks just like the ones we'd seen on the other Sanctuary Hall goons. Like the Wendigo, they were all G-ranked as expected, and it occurred to me that we were damn lucky the Wendigo had been a person, because if it was a tamed beast they could have brought something at the F-rank. Still, I was pretty sure from the damage it had done that it was almost entirely Might and Vitality focused, and I was guessing the thing was at the high end of G rank, meaning we were talking potentially thousands of effective Might after passive enhancement.

    A fact that everyone, including Jessie, clearly understood, because my blonde teammate gave a quiet command and Randall, all several tons of him, hit the Wendigo like a speeding truck, smashing the unnaturally lanky creature to the ground and beginning to rain down blows on it one after the other. I hadn't ever been slapped by a bear before, but something about the way it looked made me pretty sure I didn't want to try it. I wasn't sure what it was about those strikes that made them look so much heavier than a normal super strong person could deliver, but they were scary to see.

    With Randall moving, Sloane, Beric, and Croll also blitzed forward, ready to attack. Sloane blurred as she moved, her fox and bird vanishing, and I saw her hands flatten and twist into talons as a pair of fox ears emerged from her scalp. She sprouted a pair of silver wings and her face elongated into a fang filled muzzle. Beric had expanded into a massive fur covered tiger form, and Croll had shifted into a thin, swift looking scaled form that looked incredibly deadly. The three of them spread out around the big fight between the Wendigo and the bear and hit the other robed figures as hard as they could.

    I wanted to watch, but I found my gaze drawn back to the spectacle of animal vs. monster. The Wendigo had twisted in some sort of unnatural, jerky lunge and managed to get out from under the paws, slamming its antlered head into Randall's upper body and driving the huge bear back. Randall snarled, but the bloody furrows the antlers dug (surface wounds only from the looks of it) closed almost immediately, a green glow knitting them back together. Jessie had obviously juiced her tamed beast up nice and full.

    Still, it was terrifying that the G-ranked Wendigo had managed to actually drive back the bear. Granted, Wendigos had some serious weaknesses, being almost completely Might and Vitality dependent and unable to properly utilize most Skills, but still, being able to accrue this kind of power at our rank...it scared me. Abel's combat power had shown me another path than just grinding, and this was showing me a third. There were more than just one or two ways to become powerful, and if I forgot that I would probably end up dead soon enough.

    The Wendigo reared up on its elongated hind legs, suddenly even taller than before as it shed the hunched posture. Randall was on his own back paws, reared up in a display of primal fury I doubted I'd ever forget as he sent a series of powerful swipes smashing into the stretched, too thin grey body. Thw Wendigo's hide was the sickening pale grey of diseased meat and its thin papery skin was stretched taught over its sharply angled bones.

    The monster opened its mouth, baring far too many serrated and improperly sized teeth, and then it did the most horrible thing it had done since it got here. It spoke. "Beast." It hissed out, its voice the unsettling hiss and crackle of cold wind in dead branches. "Were I not hampered by this place. No mere animal would restrain me." I blinked in horror as I realized that this was the Wendigo AFTER suppression by the defenses, and a terrified part of me decided this thing had to die before that suppression wore off or we were all going to suffer in ways I couldn't imagine.

    Luckily, I was in a position to help. The Wendigo was distracted, and my reading had informed me of their biggest weakness. Wendigos were monsters of ice and emptiness, unceasing pits of hunger. But ice could melt. I reached for one of my fire attacks, triggering Touch of Tears, Consecration of Flame, and Mercy Kill. I did NOT use afterburner, though it probably would have straight up killed the thing, because this was just their can opener, and being weakened before the real threat arrived would be pure stupidity.

    So I kept the attack to my easily repeatable moves and then triggered a stored blast of flame from Cark. The absolute torrent of aqua flames flew at the Wendigo's exposed back, and it turned with unnatural, jerky quickness to stare right at me as the fire came toward it. There was a gravelly roar and it raised its arms, now wreathed in ice, to intercept the fire. I wasn't sure the ice would be able to counter my flame, but in the end it didn't matter.

    When focusing on me the monster had ended up ignoring Randall, and the bear didn't let that go unpunished. He brought both paws down in an arc on the Wendigo's wide antlers, and the monsters red, hate filled eyes went wide in shock as it was driven to its knees from the force. The ice dispersed as it unconsciously began to turn to the beast before regaining its focus just in time to shove one of those long arms forward in desperation to take the attack.

    It roared in pain and hate as the poisonous flame consumed its limb, leaving behind a smoldering stump at the shoulder along with several burns along the chest and ribs on that side of its body, all spiderwebbed with green cracks filled with guttering embers. The Wendigo turned to glare at me, vicious teeth exposed by peeled back facial skin, but it didn't have a chance to attack before another powerful smash of paw landed upside its head.

    Down and arm, poisoned, and reeling from being bear slapped in its ugly face, the Wendigo had absolutely no chance as the higher ranked beast fell on it ravenously and began to tear it apart. Razor sharp claws and fangs were flashing like a busy nightclub as Randall laid into it, and I exhaled in relief as I shot Jessie a thumbs up. She gave me a cold, solemn nod, that showed me she was taking the threat seriously, and I carefully tucked away the emotions that killing the thing were starting to stir, even by proxy. I made a mental note to confront those feelings though. Not just because they were important, but because I knew Jessie would need to talk about it too, and she never would if I didn't bring it up.

    Looking at my blonde friend was all the saved me as I watched eyes widen in horror. I didn't even think, I activated Double Trouble as I felt the blades dig into me on either side, leaving deep gashes under my ribs. I appeared behind the robed figure trying to bisect me with his daggers, seeing another engaging a frantic looking Callie, who visibly relaxed into her fight when she saw me escape, her mouth firming with determination as she focused on taking her own opponent. I brought up my cane, unleashing the force burst and a poison fire smash into the short ribs of the dagger wielding assailant.

    Then I had to throw myself to the side, triggering a healing burst to patch up the wounds in my sides as a second robed figure attacked. I cursed under my breath as I rolled to my feet, readying myself for the rest of this fight. Using my last fire attack to take out the Wendigo had been the right call, but it had pierced my stealth and drawn attackers to me like a beacon, endangering Callie too. I had to finish my fights and help with hers to make up for that. I spun my cane as I pushed my back to the wall behind me, cutting off an attack direction as I prepared. The big guy was down, now we needed to finish the small fries before the boss herself showed her face. I had a feeling that confrontation would be problematic enough without minions underfoot.
     
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  14. Threadmarks: chgapter 240
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    With the Wendigo down, I realized that the flood of robed figures had spread out and started hitting our people. I wasn't the only one attacked but I WAS the only one busy burning a horrible murder abomination badly enough to allow our pet bear to kill it. Or at least seriously fuck it up. It wasn't quite dead yet, though it was certainly on its way. Regardless, I was more than confident in our odds if we could focus up, given the suppression I could see the black robed figures under as they laid siege to our own.

    The two I was fighting had some kind of vague golden glow around them, and they seemed frustrated as they engaged me. Summoning weapons to try to kill me, one a pair of daggers made of red light and the other an axe of sickly blue energy. My cane spun before me, deflecting and redirecting attacks with all the skill my Lesser Balam Mastery gave me. I was relieved that I'd managed to upgrade it, because I wasn't sure I would have been able to keep up with both of them if I hadn't. Between that and the Vitality boost from the heal burst that hadn't been used up on the wounds I was more keeping them off balance.

    Which meant that they were actually WAY stronger than I was most likely, since I wasn't even using my DS Mastery to do it. The suppression was keeping them low enough in terms of stats to let me bridge the gap. I was torn though. My skill advantage and poison fire meant I could wear them down, but the longer I waited the closer they got to wearing out the protections, and I didn't really have the time.

    Erring on the side of caution, I used Flurry of Blows to create an opening before triggering a shadow blade attack, using my poison fire infused cane as a focus for it. I'd figured this trick out when I helped Cark juice up his staff and had given it a try during training. It was a relief because using the attacks through an already enhanced weapon would let me avoid wasting charges having to use the DS Mastery skills every time.

    The burning, poisonous shadows scythed up from the ground, an explosion of dark, razor sharp blades that tore through the feet of the distracted robe guys as they avoided my Flurry of Blows. They both screamed as their legs were perforated, unable to fully escape my cane as it slammed into their unsteady forms, knocking them both into a writhing forest of noxious energy. I heard a sizzle and a muffled scream as they were torn apart, and my eye twitched as I felt my stomach churn.

    This was so much worse than the Wendigo, but it was me or them, and me included my girlfriend and closest friends. I ignored the smell of burning meat, tainted with a faint almost minty scent from the poison, and turned to where Callie was engaging her opponent, some kind of rabbit shifter that was bouncing around her like a childrens toy. As I stepped toward them though, another form stepped between us, and I growled in frustration. There were way too many of these assholes, even with a bunch of us to counter them.

    The new form in my way was bulky and tall, incredibly wide through the shoulder with muscles straining the chest and arms of the robe so tight it looked like the thing might split. Dark eyes glared down at me from behind a beaten bronze mask as he glanced down at the bodies of his fellow invaders. "You're going to pay for that." His voice was quiet, almost a murmur, but I could hear it easily with my Perception.

    I glanced behind him, seeing yet another opponent appear to surround Callie. I activated Leaf on the Wind and hurled myself forward. I refused to be slowed down any more. I readied a healing burst if I needed to recover from something, but with my F-rank armor I should be more than up to the task of taking the hits. Then again, that first guy had managed to hurt me somehow through the armor. Maybe his ability had an armor piercing effect or something.

    Regardless, I couldn't surrender my momentum when my people needed me. I sailed through the air at the enemy, readying myself to do as much damage as I could. Ironically, my impatience and recklessness probably saved my life. The big man stomped down even as I jumped, and from his foot came a series of crashing waves. Not of water, but actually waves of the material of the floor beneath us, as if the ground itself was somehow liquid and solid all at once.

    I was pretty sure if I'd been standing on that I'd have fallen right into it, and I somehow doubted I'd have been able to easily survive the experience. My foot got clipped by a mirrored wave even as I jumped over them, and I noted the long scratch on the surface of my boot. It was like the wave was liquid and solid at the same time, and the crest of it was like a razors edge of glass. I shuddered to imagine how strong this power would be without the suppression of the defenses.

    It didn't matter though. I was in the air, and I didn't need to come down. I swung my cane at the big man's head,
    triggering Flurry of Blows to increase the speed of the strike, and used one of the triple strength density shifted blows from Benny, compounded with Mercy Kill. The cane slammed down on the mans head and I felt my stomach heave as the hooded skull caved in under the blow.

    Ignoring the panic and horror of that action, and locking away the part of me that screamed that he should have been tougher than that and that I hadn't meant to just murder him like that, I focused on Callie, who was surrounded and still in danger. I could fall apart later. Callie was currently up against three different opponents. The rabbit shifter was being held off by a razor sharp spiderweb of shadow wires Callie had strung up around her, several clones already out and creating a zone of slicing death.

    As with her fight against Gust, Callie was mixed into the shadow versions of herself in such a way that even I couldn't tell which was which without Seek Hidden, which I wasn't willing to use since I was already eating into my charges. Still the rabbit shifter wasn't the biggest problem. That one was being held off, along with a robed woman who seemed to be making some kind of exploding rainbow bubbles that Callie was countering with shadow blades. The biggest issue was the third and most recent figure, one whose robe had since been shredded to reveal a hide made of rusty metal that seemed to be resisting the attacks my girlfriend was dishing out.

    Since Callie had handled the first two, I stuck to my stealthiest movements as I approached and circled around behind the big guy. When I was close enough I triggered a shadow blade attack, resonating the blades with my Kidney Blow ability, the armor penetration skill I got when I hit Beginner rank in DS Mastery. Alongside the enhancements I already had from Touch of Tears and Consecration of flame, Kidney Blow gave the razor sharp blades enough effectiveness to spear into the huge form from below.

    I was kind of torn between relief and unhappiness when the blades didn't shred the big metal man like that had the two earlier robed figures. Relieved I didn't have to watch someone else get torn apart and know it was my fault, and unhappy he wasn't going down, but the blades scored deep furrows in the man's hide at least. The poisonous effects of my flames leeched into the wounds, but from the incredibly slow speed of the spread this guy must have insane Vitality.

    Still, I got his attention at least though only generally, since he hadn't actually seen me yet, I took advantage of the temporary confusion to slam my cane into his knee with another triple strength density shifted blow augmented with Mercy Kill. I heard a loud crack and the man roared in pain, whirling surprisingly fast for someone with only one good leg and lashing out with a fist.

    Between Leaf on the Wind and my Gymnastics Skill, my dodging capabilities were pretty damn effective, especially since the big thug was slowed down by the defenses still. I nearly avoided the blow, flipping back to create some room between us and hopefully lure him away from Callie. I blocked out the sounds of pitched battle behind me, as well as Randall's earthshaking roar of what sounded a bit like triumph as he presumably finished the Wendigo, and focused entirely on this battle.

    The big guy was a dangerous opponent. While the shadow blades had done some real damage, they were also single use, and his rusty hide was seemingly immune to blunt force of a level lower than that insane triple stacked blow, which I didn't have the reserves to spam. Luckily, I had been expanding my repertoire quite a bit with all my absorbed attacks, and I had one for this. Sharp force was totally feasible as long as I could get in close. I fired up my overlay, focusing on ways to avoid his attacks.

    Leaf on the Wind was a life saver combined with the overlay, and along with my Balam Mastery and Gymnastics I was able to avoid the huge, sweeping blows from my enemy. It was a far cry from being able to close the gap though, and it took me a minute or two to find an opening to get close enough. I got tagged a time or three along the way, heavy blows mostly absorbed by my armor though still strong enough to bruise. Eventually, the big bastard overextended, going for a wide smash that left him open for me to get close.

    As he wound up, I dropped into a forward roll between his shoulder width bent kneed stance and popped up on the other side facing away, I leaned back, bending into an arch, and wrapped my arms around his stomach, straightening up and continuing the motion into a suplex, even dropping to my knees as his head and neck came near the ground to put my full weight behind the smash.

    I considered augmenting that with Mercy Kill, but instead, I bore down on the enermy and triggered a density shifted spider leg attack augmented with Kidney Blow. The G-ranked gold spider legs arched over my shoulder like descending scythes and bit deep into the large man, one sinking into the throat and the other digging in under the arm because of the angle. The armor piercing weapons drove deep into the body of my enemy, and by the time they faded away, I could already see his life beginning to fade.

    I exhaled in both discomfort and relief that this was over, until I heard a loud crack sound through the air. I looked around to see where it came from, but realized quickly I was thinking to literally. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the big rust skinned man twitch, and as I watched I saw the green flaming cracks begin to dim even as the wounds pumped blood onto the floor.

    It wasn't enough to save him, the stab to the throat ended the fight, but the changes were enough to clue me into the fact that what I'd been most afraid of had finally happened. The gold aura surrounding the enemies was gone. Which meant that the other candidate had no reason to avoid entering anymore. I let my eyes flick up to watch in uncertain terror as a trio of shapes loomed in the doorway, one a small figure in a hooded cloak and the other two a pair of guardians obviously accompanying her. Guess I was finally getting that family reunion.
     
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  15. Threadmarks: chapter 241
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    The two people next to the other candidate radiated power and danger. They weren't exactly at the same level as Abel, but they were both obvious badasses who could most likely break us in half. The only real bit of relief I found in the situation was that Randall was still here, and chances were good he would be able to help us counter at least one of them. Still, it wasn't hard to figure out exactly what these two were. They were her bodyguards. Probably a pair of loyal subordinates that she augmented with frequent access to wishes.

    Wish was the ultimate support ability, and I imagined most people weren't quite as determined to turn it into a combat power as I was. The two people were radically different in appearance. One a huge redheaded woman with broad shoulders and her hair pulled back in a tight braid, and the other a small, dark skinned man with hazel eyes and close cropped hair. I had no clue what their abilities might be, but I knew if they were part of her direct entourage, they were probably strong.

    Since there was no chance she didn't know I was here, I decided to take control of the tempo of the meeting. I stepped up, clearing my throat. "Hello. I take it you know who I am?" I didn't give a name. She would know the family name, and probably could have found me easily enough in my civilian identity. I had no reason to reveal that information in front of the Militia or any of our still living enemies. The Sanctuary Hall people had frozen when she came in, and my own allies were hanging back as they tried to identify what was going on, not wanting to disrupt a situation they didn't understand.

    From under the dark hood, a set of white teeth split into a wide smile, the teeth and the lips surrounding them the only thing visible in the blackness. The now visible mouth chuckled. "Obviously. I wouldn't be on this backwater if I didn't. After all, bumping the competition out of the running and picking up some slots for the Moonsong Glade all at once is a lucky break. I have to say, you noticing I was making moves was surprising though I expected to be mostly done before I was ever discovered. That was almost impressive."

    I filed away the Moonsong Glade thing, I had no clue what it was, but it seemed like it might be important in the future. I didn't want to give away my ignorance though, so I kept my mouth shut about it and moved on. "And what kind of bumping out did you have in mind? Because this seems a lot like a murder attempt. Is that how this needs to go? I don't want to kill a family member if I don't have to. I realize that might be a bit warm and fuzzy for you if you grew up back at the main branch, but it's just how I feel."

    I'd debated keeping that to myself so I'd have an advantage, but I eventually decided to just come out and say it for a few reasons. First off, things were more likely to go in a lethal direction if she thought she was dealing with that situation from the start. If she knew I didn't want to kill her she might hold back a bit. Second of all she would notice that I was trying to avoid conflict soon enough anyway, better to start out with some honesty and hopefully make a good impression on here by sticking to my guns. I could learn a lot from her if I could make her an ally, even a temporary one.

    To my surprise I didn't get a sneer in response, though it did warrant an amused smile. "Well, I won't say that it's not nice to hear some of us actually care. I suppose I can humor you. Destroying this circus was the quickest way to get my new allies in the position we wanted, but based on the indications I'm getting from my people, it isn't going to happen. I have no clue where you found some of these people, but they are absolutely terrifying. That Wendigo was supposed to be a trump card not even MY people could deal with. I'm going to owe the Peace Lord for letting it get killed."

    From her tone she had some sort of battlefield awareness ability or artifact. I was guessing she was referencing Abel. An F-ranked bear was scary, but Randall was pretty worn out after that fight. I was betting her guards could finish him off if they really had to. Or at least that she thought they could. I wasn't sure how close to full strength Jessie could jack the bear up. I glanced over at Callie. "Alright then, lets talk. We have a way of arranging a private discussion of you're amenable. You can bring your guards and I'll bring a few of my people?"

    Benny, Jessie, Cark, and I specifically. I liked Sloane and she knew some of my abilities, but she wasn't inner circle or anything. I was only bringing my most trusted friends. The hooded figure of the other candidate nodded and I gestured Callie over to us, looking around. "Any chance you can call a halt to the attack while we meet?" I wasn't worried about the Pavilion, but Cicero might lose a few people, and that would be a pretty terrible thing to allow when I could prevent it.

    The other Wishmaster potential shrugged. "Sorry. We co-opted this attack, but we don't run the show. The Peace Lord wants control, even if I wasn't there to back him I suspect he'd push forward to try to grab the prize. I can halt the people here though." The hood turned, and suddenly I saw a pair of green eyes that looked a lot like mine in the darkness, pinning everyone in the room with an icy glare. "No one moves until I give the say so. Otherwise Katia and Reflan might be...unhappy." She flicked her eyes to the pair of guards, who didn't have to try to look menacing as they radiated power.

    Every single robed figure took an involuntary step back in perfect unison, and I raised an eyebrow at that. Apparently her guards were every bit as scary as their auras let on. I made a similar indication to my own people who backed off without complaint, much to my surprise, though both sides were glaring tensely at each other. With that accomplished the other candidate stepped forward towards the center of the room flanked by her lackeys, and my team walked to meet them in a space that had been cleared almost unnoticeably when we were talking.

    Once we were standing there, separate from the rest, Callie raised her hands and called a huge dome of shadows over us, resonating the stealth skill with the darkness. I saw the shadows shift and churn in a way that implied her costume had played a part too, and I blinked in surprise because I hadn't been aware it could do that. With all that out of the way though, I turned to look at the hooded figure. "So. First things first, let's dispense with the formalities. I've been calling you 'the other candidate' in my head, and it's a mouthful." I reached up and removed my mask, giving her a hopeful smile. "My name is Shane Wyndham, as you probably know. What should I call you?"

    The green eyes flashed with amusement and she reached up to push back her hood. The girl under it was...not what I was expecting. She her green eyes, so similar to mine, were big and guileless, she had a button nose spattered with freckles and a wide, cheerful smile. Her hair was blonde like mine, though more golden wheat than my own sandy color. Still, the only thing I could say about her was that she looked like everyone's favorite little sister. I didn't think I'd ever seen anyone so harmless looking.

    She actually reminded me a bit of Jessie in several ways, even being similar height. She took in my own stature and pouted lightly. "Ugh. You're one of the giant ones. That's almost always from the other side of the family. Whatever." She pushed her cloak aside, dipping into a...curtsy of all things. "My name is Natalie Wyndham, daughter of Allison Wyndham." She stood back up, smirking slightly. "In case you missed the implication, it's polite to include the name of your blood tie to the clan when you introduce yourself to a member of the family."

    I flushed a bit at that, not used to this weird formal way of doing things, but she seemed like she wasn't so bad. Being willing to tell me that on top of not trying to outright kill me was winning her brownie points. I nodded solemnly. "Sorry. Shane Wyndham, son of Elijah Wyndham then. If that helps put you at ease." Her eyes flew open wide at the name, and I saw the blood actually drain from her face when I said it. I was guessing that didn't put her at ease at all.

    She swallowed hard. "Oh. That's...oh. I wasn't aware that Elijah had a son in this competition. I'm surprised he was still eligible, given the change he made reaching A-rank. Still, he was one of the top three of the last competition, so I suppose it makes sense." She bit her lip. "Ok, I'm going to break some rules here. My mom and your dad aren't...friends, exactly. As far as I know Janus is Elijah's only friend, but they got along better than most. Full siblings tend to be a bit closer, even in a family as big as ours. You should be very careful about who you say Elijah's name to. I know I just said to introduce yourself, but if I were you, I would lie. You can use my moms name if you want."

    My eyes were wide, not because of all the information about my dad, but because of what she'd let slip about her own. "Wait, are we cousins? I didn't know my dad had any siblings. Do we have any other cousins? It's really nice to meet you by the way." I was grinning like a loon. Despite all the scary things going on here, I'd never had any cousins or siblings growing up, obviously. It was kind of nerve wracking to meet one, but also really exciting. I had to force myself to try to focus back on the matter at hand.

    She gave me an amused but confused smile. "You...aren't what I expected from Elijah's kid. He's kind of a boogeyman in the family. He was damn close to managing to take the last Wishmaster spot. He only failed because the current Wishmaster is a straight up monster who was born with two abilities. To answer your question, yes. Your dad has twelve siblings though only two full siblings, the others are half-brothers and sisters. He's in the direct line of descent. Not everyone involved in the selection is going to be a cousin obviously, there are hundreds of us, but there will be more than a few."

    "The others are all children of various cousins from the last generation, the family tree is complicated." She continued, not giving me a chance to interrupt. "Like I said though, I wouldn't advertise Elijah being your dad. He might not have won the last selection, but he definitely made an impression. He killed a LOT of members of the family on his way up the ladder." She paused. "Well, he mostly had Janus do it." She shook her head as if to clear it, and I smiled at the idea that spacing out and letting our thoughts wander was a family thing. The mile faded though, as her expression got serious. "As nice as all this is, we ARE still in competition here. I assume you want to negotiate. Let's begin." Well then, time for business.
     
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  16. Threadmarks: chapter 242
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    My head was spinning. I had more than a few crazy things to deal with right now, but I forced myself to focus on the negotiation. I figured I'd start it with an up front question. "Ok." I said. "What exactly is the point of all this? Why go through any of it. Why are we negotiating at all? Your people are tough, why not just have them kick my ass and lock me in a cell until you take over the planet or something. That would strip me of my qualifications right?" I didn't understand the nuances here, or how she was measuring any of this.

    "It was an option." She said. "But I decided against it for a few reasons. What do you know about how the candidacy works? I take it not much based on some of the things you've said. We get sent away as kids to live away from the family, but the amount your parents can and do tell you about the clan before your powers manifest is up in the air. The whole blindsiding you with your nature thing is kind of an old school way to do things, though I'm hardly surprised Elijah decided to go in that direction."

    I shrugged. "Only what I figured out on my own mostly. Even my guardian isn't able to tell me much because of certain outside factors." I decided that as much as I liked meeting family, I wasn't exposing Zeke's vulnerability to someone who was basically a stranger. "I have some guesses. I figure the point of the whole thing is to gather our forces. Create factions we can use for...something. I haven't really gotten that part yet."

    She nodded along as I spoke. "Close enough. Yes, it's a test of gathering resources and allies. The part you might not know is that not all of those allies have to be outsiders. Alliances between candidate factions DO happen, they just usually don't crop up until later. The early phases of the selection let the other candidates see who is and isn't worth working with. Granted, only one of us can win, but not everyone even wants to. From what I've managed to dig up there have been plenty of candidates who decided to back another candidate, securing a position in the next administration so to speak."

    My eyes widened as the implications of that dawned on me. "Oh. So you were impressed enough that you think you might be interested in working with me. Either backing me or having me back you? That seems a bit premature though doesn't it? We've just barely met." Not that I was against the idea. Having an ally would be damn useful, but despite how much I wanted to get to know family, it seemed a bit too good to be true.

    "Not exactly." She said matter-of-factly. "You're jumping ahead a few steps. It's more that I've decided you're competent enough to leave in the running. Overt alliances aren't our only option. It's fine to leave certain other candidates who have a decent opinion of you around even without a formal alliance. Trips up your enemies and sows confusion in the selection. I wouldn't commit to an alliance this early, but Elijah is a scary guy, and he and my mom are on relatively good terms. Like I said, full siblings. Having you around and owing me a favor down the line might be agreeable. Provided we can come to an arrangement."

    I blew out a breath. "I can get behind that idea I suppose. Before we get into the actual negotiations though, i have to ask. How do you know so much about all this? My dad didn't say anything to me about any of it, and made it sound like he wasn't even allowed to. How was your mom able to share so much? Also how the hell did you find me? It seems weirdly convenient you showed up here right now. If I did something that might have tipped people off I need to know so I can fix it."

    That got a chuckle from my cousin. "Same answer, in a way. Most of the candidates focus entirely on grinding up stats to go to higher level worlds. It's the quickest way to the top after all. But my mom advised me to travel between lower ranked planets as much as possible. It slows down your growth but it makes your foundation far more solid. Much more diverse allies and the chance to gather lots of info. My policy is to search new planets I hit for signs of other candidates. The appearance of a bunch of wishes wasn't exactly subtly when I was already looking for it, though you picked up the whole memory trick faster than most."

    I blinked at that. "So...it was just a coincidence? That's anticlimactic, I'm not gonna lie." Though on second thought there might be more to it. She might have a high Fantasy stat. The instinct that came with that stat was a useful way to find opportunities, and being on the move constantly would give her a much better chance of stumbling on those than most anyway and that was assuming dad didn't put his finger on the scale. Still, I wondered exactly how many planets she'd been to.

    She seemed to dismiss the comment, not bothering to address it before moving on. "Anyway the information I've gathered on the selection has been the result of lots and lots travel. Enough little facts start to add up over time. Of course, Elijah has been completely cutting you off from even the basic family information, but that might be for your own good as much as anything. After all, I didn't know you existed, and if anyone in the family would it would be me or uncle Felix's son Michael."

    It was hard not to resent my dad for his secrecy and vagueness, but thinking about it that way did make a bit of sense. He'd even mentioned in his message that if I couldn't handle it, he wouldn't see me again. At the time that seemed cold and brutal, but looking back it almost felt like his way of telling me that I didn't need to do this. That he would keep the family away if I decided to live a normal life. Not that I had any interest in that nonsense at all, but still, it gave me some hope that the old man wasn't the unbelievable bastard I'd painted him in my head. Maybe he was just a regular bastard.

    "As fascinating as all this is." I said, with far more poise and tranquility than I was feeling. "I can't help but notice none of the things you've mentioned have been terms. If this is a negotiation then there'll be give and take. The give here is you leaving, and hopefully taking your guards and maybe a few robe idiots with you. So what is the take? What do you want in exchange for bailing on this. I can't imagine the Peace Lord will be happy to hear you left, and I don't want to cause trouble for you. But I kind of need you to go, so what is that going to cost me?"

    She snickered at that. "Now that sounds more like the Elijah I've heard stories about. You do have a bit of your dad in you. No sentiment, just brass tacks." I winced at the comment. Callie was right, that did NOT feel good to hear. I didn't even hate my dad, but it made my skin crawl to think of people comparing me to him, not to mention the added dimension of recursion making it actively dangerous. She didn't seem to notice thankfully, or chose not to comment. "I want a promise from you."

    I raised an eyebrow. "A contract of some kind? It obviously depends what it is, I'm not stupid enough to agree to binding terms without knowing the fine print." Callie put a hand on my arm, squeezing lightly, and when I looked at her she caught my eye and flicked hers out of the bubble. I got it immediately. "Oh, and we don't just want you to leave, we want information on the people the Peace Lord sent."

    "Good catch." She said, nodding approvingly. " The Moonsong Glade is about to open. The slots for it will be decided by tournament. The winner gets ten spots, and its going to require cutting through a line of this star system's best. The glade is limited to F-rank, and it's rarely accessible. To keep the higher ranking forces from just curb stomping everyone the tournament is restricted to peak G-rankers. The presumption is that participants will be able to break through before the glade opens. There's another dungeon local to the area that usually crops up, but this one has something that's important enough that everyone in the Gloryfire System will be attending, and even a few well informed outsiders. Moonglow dew."

    At my blank look she smiled. "Moonglow dew can grant the user a point of Impact." I jolted at that, my eyes going wide. Giving Impact was a big fucking deal. I'd never seen anything that could increase it. Benny had even tried wishing for Impact before, my Beginner Wish Ability couldn't even make the attempt. It was like trying to wish for Master level Skills. Just completely impossible with my rank.

    Getting even one point of Impact essentially made you more than anyone else your rank, making you that much tougher and harder to hurt. It even stuck with you, because the amount of Impact a person gained when ranking up was set. Getting one point now meant you would ALWAYS be stronger than people your rank. I swallowed, aware now that this wasn't something to play around with. "So, what exactly do you want. We're obviously entering. Do you want us to take a dive or something?"

    She chuckled. "Not at all. No need for any self-sabotage. Like I said, they'll be giving ten spots to the winner. We want three of them if that's you. We're relatively certain we can get the win ourselves, but if we can't, no reason not to hedge our bets a bit. You agree, and we leave. I'll give you the information you requested as a thank you. The Peace Lord can fuck off, I'm not scared of that asshat. My people are strong enough to deal with a couple F-rank hillbillies, and if he tries to touch me my guardian will smash him like a bug, which he knows."

    I had the urge to shrug and agree, but one of my dads few lessons to me during our talks as a kid was never to show how much or little you valued the terms of an agreement. Every payment was simultaneously priceless and worthless until you figured out which option would benefit you the most. I pretended to think it over for a bit before grudgingly agreeing. "I can agree to that. But I want the same agreement. Four slots for my team if you win. You're already considering becoming my ally, why not just use this chance to cement an alliance?"

    She stared for a few minutes before sighing. "I suppose if you manage to get through this you'll have proved your value here anyway. Fine. If you repel the attack without losing control of the circus I'll accept your terms. Consider it an audition. As for the information, there are more G-rankers here than I could bother to remember, but there are only three of consequence. Serenity, the Peace Lord's daughter, who inherited his ability, and a pair of hired mercenaries who are on the Titan Twenty named Beat and Sever. Their abilities are shockwaves and cutting respectively."

    With that she turned and flipped her hood back up, heading for the exit to the dome. "It was nice meeting you, little cousin. Lets see exactly what you're capable of here, you AND your allies. I look forward to learning more about what you can do." She chuckled as she and her lackeys passed through the dome and out of sight, and I turned a worried look on Callie. Something told me if these people were so weak that Abel and Mel could handle them without issue, she wouldn't have been so interested to see what happened. There were only two of them in any case, and there was no telling if there were other strong fighters around besides those three. We needed to get out of here and go help.
     
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  17. Threadmarks: chapter 243
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    As soon as the dome dropped we checked on everyone else. As expected, Natalie had taken her guards with her and most of the robed figures had gone along. Trying to fight an F-ranked BEAR without any trump cards was obviously a level of stupid not even Sanctuary Hall could motivate their people to achieve. The few left were easily cleaned up by our superior numbers, even as the morons wailed at the retreating forms of their comrades, proclaiming them traitors and swearing vengeance on them.

    Most of them wouldn't be accomplishing that goal, sadly. While my people were somewhat reticent to kill, Sloane and the other Beast Lord Garden elites had no such compunctions, nor did most of the Militia. Even Cark didn't seem too broken up about it. Considering most of them had left already and the ones left were all fanatics, I decided to let it go. They made their decision, and every second I wasted trying to save morons suffering the consequences of their own actions, my actual friends might be getting hurt.

    After we cleaned it up I sent Sloane and co. along with Cark and his people to backup Cicero. I figured whatever they would run into there they could handle as a group, especially with our bear along. Jessie unfortunately had to go with them since Randall was needed, and because Callie had given her enough of a rundown on the traps to help the group avoid them if they came across some.

    We could have gone with them, but I was pretty sure I knew what Natalie had been hinting at with her test comment. The two members of the Titan Twenty and princess of Sanctuary Hall were fighting Mel, Abel, and the rest of our friends at the pavilion. Based on her comments, things weren't going too well for them. I didn't want to thing about what that might mean for Alden and the others, but I really hoped they were all ok. We made good time getting to the tent, and I checked with everyone else before we headed in. "You all ready? This is going to be rough I'm guessing."

    We'd scouted everything out, and from what we could tell, the majority of the enemy were assaulting Cicero, so we sent everyone who wasn't an essential part of our combat team with the other group. The smart call would have been to just crush them with overwhelming force, but Cicero still had the damn deed with him, and that was the target. As much as we wanted to help our friends, losing the circus in the process would be a net loss, so we sent nearly everyone we could spare to help Cicero.

    The three of us weren't necessary for the assault, and were really all that could be spared for this mission, but it was just as important. I was pretty sure Natalie would withdraw her support for Sanctuary Hall completely if their failed here, not to mention getting shit stomped like this would be a huge black eye and would have all the other forces on guard if they found out. My cousin withdrawing would turn this into a last ditch effort, and that was pretty much the only chance of us keeping this place long term.

    With everyone seemingly prepared, we burst into the tent, ready to rain hell down on whoever was there, but we weren't even remotely ready for what we found there. Mel was standing in the stands, in front the other members of the pavilion, including Alden, most of whom were seriously injured. Alden was missing a leg, and the only thing keeping it from bleeding him dry was the obvious cauterization patch job that I assumed had been Mel's doing. For her part, Mel, or I suppose Starbreaker, was raining down a hurricane of blazing golden flames on a pair of small forms that were managing to hold her off.

    The pair of skinny, dark haired twins that she was up against were dressed in normal seeming clothes. Cargo pants, hoodies, and t-shirts, each with only a half mask covering the top of their faces. One had fists up and rippling with concentrated energy, while the other had a vicious looking knife in one hand, gleaming with a red light concentrated along the razor sharp edge.

    Mel was conducting her flames like a symphony, a riot of golden light and heat whirling in circular shifting patterns, collected into shapes like serpents as they wove together into a tapestry of devastating power and unbreakable defense. But despite her obvious skill and power, Mel herself was dripping blood from several surgically clean cuts on her body, and I could see sweat staining her clothes as she swayed on her feet. Beat and Sever, from what I could guess, and they were clearly absurdly powerful.

    I expected Abel to be on hand to help her, but the rabbit masked warrior was standing on the other side of the ring, raining down a torrent of powerful and precise blows on a calm looking brown haired girl with golden eyes and a peaceful smile. As each blow came close, she lifted a hand, creating a wave of soothing golden energy that collided with the fists and seemed to fade away like snow melting in the sunshine.

    "Shit." I said venomously. "This isn't great. How the hell are we supposed to help? I mean, I assume we should try and weigh in for Mel. Anyone who can counter Abel is out of our weight class, but how are we supposed to get close enough to get involved? Mel is obviously exhausted, and I'm pretty sure if we get caught on the wrong side of that flame wall we're going to get butchered. If we have any shot at helping we need to get to our people." I had healing bursts saved up I could start dropping on the heavier hitters. I wasn't entirely sure I could regrow a lost leg, but I could at least give Mel a second wind. Beat and Sever had to be at least winded, right?

    I turned to Callie, waiting for her input. She scanned the scene, trying to figure out some method of entry to the battle we could use. She scanned for a while, until she seemed to hit on an idea. She turned to me. "Solomon, do you remember the trick I used in my fight with Gust? The ground thing? Doing that now would take way too long, but it proves my shadows can effect the earth. Do you think we could use them in conjunction with your Sucking Mud? Would that do anything?"

    Biting my lip, I nodded. I'd seen what combining skills could do with my poison fire. The results could be unpredictable, but I was pretty sure it would do SOMETHING useful, and at the very least the normal Sucking Mud skill was distracting.
    I closed my eyes, focusing on the Sucking Mud skill, and on one of the shadow attacks I had stored, and resonated them together before triggering the result. I was pretty vague on what it would do, but Shadow Swamp, as I called the combination, was launched immediately.

    My eyes widened in shock as the dirt beneath Beat and Sever turned to liquid darkness below their feet. The shadow mud took on the consistency of quicksand as normal, but the sand was much quicker than usual, and not nearly as static. Instead of slowly sinking into the mud, spears of darkness shot up out of the ground and began trying to swallow them both up, the multiple blades of the shadow attack mixing with the sucking and consuming nature of Sucking Mud to make tentacles that attempted to drag them into the dirt.

    I turned wide eyed to the others. "Go!" I shouted, as we turned and booked it around the furthest possible edge of the ring, as far from those two as possible while still going the right way. I still had Leaf on the Wind active, and I took long, flashing steps, sailing longer distances as my feet kicked off, remaining low to the ground with the low arcs I was taking. Beat and Sever, to my lack of surprise, appeared to be trying to get loose. Luckily Beat's power, those rippling shockwaves, was NOT suited to getting out of quicksand, and the churning and shifting effects of the force were actually making it worse.

    Sever was having much better luck above ground, cutting away the tentacles with his knife, but the part of him submerged wasn't nearly as effective. We barely managed to make it to the wall, bellowing for Mel, and the pavilion master heard us, dropping the flames for just a second as we bolted through, before raising the blaze again behind us. She didn't dare to lower it with them on the other side, even if it would have been tempting given how tired she was.

    Speaking of which, I triggered one of my healing bursts, the wounds knitting along her body and her posture seeming to straighten as her energy was refilled. I wasn't dumb enough to think it would last very long with that kind of output, but for now it bought us time to figure out a plan. I stepped over to lay a hand on Alden as well, looking down at him questioningly before I used the healing ability. "I can heal you up, but with that wound cauterized I don't think your leg is going to grow back. It's going to scar over most likely, do you want to just wait and see if we can re-injure it and try to get Agria to help when she gets here?"

    I could actually grant him a new leg in a wish if necessary, but now wasn't the time for that discussion. He gave a pained grunt and shook his head. "No time lad, I'll worry about getting a new one later. Just heal me up so I can get back in the fight. Even without both legs my ability will still let me fight." I grimaced at the image but nodded anyway, putting a hand on him and triggering another healing surge. He hissed as the wound, which was perfectly level in a way that implied he'd been cut by a VERY sharp blade, began to burn with green light as it scarred over.

    The various scraped and bruises across his body mended before my eyes, and he gave a sigh of relief at the lack of pain. His eyes were a bit unfocused though, which made sense. The endorphin dump from a thorough healing could be intense. Going from feeling a ton of pain to none was great, but the adrenaline in your body didn't magically vanish like the wounds did. The worse the injury the more extreme the loop it could knock you for, and having a leg lopped off and then burned closed would probably be a big one.

    With him taken care of I checked the others, but none were injured enough to need immediate attention. I only had five bursts left, and I was going to need them before the night was out if I didn't miss my guess. I turned to Mel, who was looking much more relaxed with the energy blazing through her. The massive expenditure of the wall would run through that powerup pretty fast, but not within a minute or two. "So, what can we do here?" I said. "Because I have no concept of how tough these guys are other than 'very'. You're the one who knows how to play at this level, where do you need us?"

    Mel's eyes flicked to us. She stared out at the forms of our enemies through the flames, and remained silent for a few minutes as she weighed her options. Finally she let out a long sigh. "Alright, we might be able to make something work. I have a good idea what you can do since I've watched most of your training with Alden. I think I can use you, but you need to do EXACTLY as I say. Understood?" We all nodded and she chuckled. "Alright then, I suppose we'd better get to work. Listen close children, Auntie Mel is about to take you to school."
     
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  18. Threadmarks: chapter 244
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    Mel had paid WAY more attention to us than I had expected. Not enough to know we were spies, but in a way that was even more impressive. She hadn't known we were special or anything, she had just watched us closely because we were part of the Pavilion. We were her people, and she looked out for her own the only way she knew how. Helping them get stronger. If we hadn't come clean already the whole thing would have made me feel like a giant asshole. Luckily we had, so I didn't have any distractions from her strategies for deploying us.

    Not that it would have mattered. They were more straightforward than expected, but they were also highly efficient and shockingly intuitive for what we could do. The basic breakdown of what she wanted from us was pretty simple. Firstly she wanted us far away from either of the enemies, avoiding direct conflict. As skilled and talented as we were, we didn't have the raw stats to keep up with people like Beat and Sever aside from short bursts from Skill powerups.

    In order to counter that particular weakness Mel told us about a useful and extremely powerful type of attack called an 'invocation'. An invocation was, at its core, a group Skill. Sort of like a larger version of what Callie and I had already been doing when we merged Skills. It was apparently uncommon at lower levels because of the strain I had already noticed and been using to train my own Skills. Something Mel called 'soul weight'.

    Invocations had a ton of soul weight. More than any of the Skills we had been using up to this point, and Mel made it clear that even a three person invocation wouldn't be something any of us would be able to bear. As I had already discovered, the ability to resist soul weight was independent of stats or Skills, and Mel likened it to training the soul as a muscle. Soul strength was an important part of cultivation and became more so as we ranked up, but at the moment even the training I had been doing didn't come close to enough.

    Soul strength increased naturally as we ranked up as well, the weight of our Impact and other stats acting as a form of passive growth, but for any abilities that crossed the rank gap, you needed to train it up ahead of time, and it also made the rank up and Skill growth process easier. Abel's soul strength was massive for his level, which was one of many reasons he was such an absolute monster in combat. If you didn't have enough soul strength to use a powerful Skill, even if you had the stats and Skills to use it, your soul would collapse under the weight, similar to the effects of ranking up with too many stats from elixirs.

    I was incredibly lucky I'd been training mine so consistently without meaning to, otherwise that flame burst I'd used on the asshole with the gas power would have straight up killed me. All this was to say that while we could theoretically use an invocation to smash one of the others, none of us could bear the soul weight to actually DO it. Luckily Alden was old and had been in G-rank for decades or longer. His soul strength was pretty substantial, and he agreed to support us in the invocation so we could effectively use the combination of abilities in the attack that Mel wanted.

    The abilities she wanted us using were...a doozy. The attack we were supposed to execute required massive stacks of effort and Skill from all of us. From Callie, the strongest shadow attack she could use, a massive sea of powerful shadow blades, which I would be doubling up on by dumping in two of her stored full power attacks (more would apparently be too much even for Alden). From Benny, a triple damage, a density shift, and some of that cerebral overclocking to let Callie maneuver them more easily.

    Finally, I was going to be putting in the most, even if most of it was subskills. Mercy Kill, Consecration of Flame, Touch of Tears, Stone Limb, and an Afterburner to top it all off. The raw power of the attack we were cooking up would have pretty much flattened any of us, and Mel said even she wouldn't have been able to bear the weight of it. Luckily Alden had a soul strength second only to Abel, and he would be able to keep it up for approximately thirty seconds. Thirty seconds for Callie to attack with everything all three of us had.

    Even for a member of the Titan Twenty and someone whose stats were probably multiple times what mine were, I was pretty sure this would be enough to take them down. Or at least I hoped so. It also made me even more determined to increase my soul strength as I had been. So much of the fluidity in the system was down to the strength of the soul, and the more I increased it the better I could use that. I was pretty sure I'd even be able to manipulate stored attacks like they were my own if I got it high enough, and that alone would be reason enough to do it.

    The process of the invocation wasn't complicated, surprisingly. What it WAS was difficult, and it required a lot of trust. Much like I knew Callie needed to let me work with her Skills and vice versa, in order to the invocation we all needed to open up our power to each other completely. It wasn't something you could just do with a stranger. It required a level of implicit belief in another person that I wouldn't have had with anyone but my team. Alden, who was just taking the weight on himself rather than adding anything in, had less stringent requirements, and we did trust the old man quite a bit for all the help and training, even if not to the same extent.

    We were lucky to have him with us really. Using an invocation wasn't just a matter of being high ranked, you needed someone with enough soul strength, and that amount changed based on how much power was used. That meant you either needed someone like Alden who was extremely powerful for his rank from long term training, or you needed someone higher ranked to take the weight, which kind of defeated the purpose since at that point they could just USE a higher ranked Skill.

    The actual execution of the attack just required physical contact and the use of all the Skills we'd picked out. Each of us put a hand on Alden and funneled in the abilities we needed to use. It wasn't exactly effortless. There was still some soul weight on my side that I needed to bear to mold the attacks into something that could be shaped by Alden. Touch of tears wasn't naturally made to be given to another person, and I hadn't finished the process of altering that one to be usable easily by others, so I had to do that manually.

    Still, we managed to get all of it in place, and Alden was able to bear it. We didn't sever the connection after that though. Callie would be directing the actual attack with her Shadow Manipulation Skill. Alden was just acting as the cauldron where we mixed the ingredients so to speak. Knowing time was short, the bearded man grunted when he was done, nodding to Callie. "Thirty seconds lass, can't hold it longer, so make it count." His voice was rough with strain that I recognized from my own attempts at Skill manipulation.

    Callie took a deep breath. "Got it. Let's do this." She triggered the invocation, staring out past the wall of flame through a small hole Mel had made in the barrier for us to use. With a focused effort she held out a hand, unleashing...power. The result of the invocation was staggering. A wave of magma infused darkness that almost seemed like a forest of power snaking up from the ground surrounding the already fading Shadow Swamp.

    Mel had told us she was having the most trouble with Sever. Beat's abilities weren't as effective a counter against her flames, but Sever could cut through her defenses if he had time to prepare, so it was our job to pin him down at the very least. Once Mel finished Beat she would jump in, providing the other twin was still alive at that point. Callie was supposed to go at him all out. Thirty seconds wasn't really that long in the grand scheme of things, but in a fight between people with our levels of Perception and Focus, there was still a lot that could be done in that time.

    The magma shadows scythed through the air at Sever, aiming for several vital points on his body and attacking with very little warning. Little was apparently enough, however, because the masked blade user reacted nearly instantly. His body nearly blurred as he flickered between stabs, the red light on the edge of his knife parting the few that managed to get close like an axe through tissue paper. The only thing that prevented it from being a perfect evasion was the very last of the Shadow Swamp. One of the dark tentacles had lashed around an ankle, and while Sever had dispatched it quickly, it slowed him down enough for one of the magma spears to graze his shoulder.

    There was a blaze of poison fire as the sleeve of his hoodie went up and his non-knife hand flickered up to tear it free, tossing the burning fabric away even as he exposed the smoldering gash in his arm. I saw his knuckles grip his knife hilt harder as he turned to glare through the flames right at us, but he was already in motion, dodging yet another wave of poisonous magma spears aimed at his vital spots.

    The next twenty seconds or so were a blur of flashing lights and flickering knives as Sever danced between the attacks. His Vitality was countering the arm wound, but Callie managed to surprise him and score another on his leg, which he cut free with his knife to save time so he didn't get pincushioned while dealing with the injury. The longer it went on though, the more certain I became that even with this invocation, we wouldn't be able to finish this in time.

    Mel seemed to agree, because she waited until the last possible second and then completely bypassed Beat to attack Sever while he was distracted just as Callie was launching the last assault Alden could handle the weight of. Beat dashed across the ring with a shout, desperately trying to rescue his brother, but he needn't have bothered. As a wave of golden fire smashed into Sever's location in the shape of a roaring flame serpent a golden wall of gentle energy appeared in front of him, soundlessly cancelling out the roaring flames, melting them like snow in the sunshine.

    Serenity appeared next to the pair even as Abel's fist created a massive crater in the ground where she'd been standing. Apparently the rabbit masked warrior had been distracted by momentarily by the shout and given Serenity an opening to regroup with the others. Abel took a step, appearing next to Mel as he creating a fluid zone of space between the two points, all but teleporting up to where his partner was standing. He checked her over with concern, and the hand she laid on his face showed better than any smile how much she adored him.

    I cleared my throat. "Sorry to interrupt the couple time guys, but they seem to have grouped up, and I somehow doubt this is going to be the end of it." Without letting on what I was doing I triggered a trip of heal bursts, one each for Alden, Abel, and Mel, bringing our best back up to not only peak efficiency, but beyond as they were infused with fresh lifeforce to keep them going. Then I turned back to the enemy. I hadn't been bullshitting just then. I didn't think this was over. Not by a long shot.
     
  19. Threadmarks: chapter 245
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    The biggest issue going forward was that I was about out of charges. I wasn't completely tapped, since I was still conscious, but too many more DS skills would put me out of the fight, which only left me with normal Skills and stored attacks. I was so glad I'd started stockpiling those, because I was pretty sure this whole thing would have gone way worse without the new tricks I had up my sleeve. Invocations were out now too, since lifeforce might restore Vitality, but I knew from experience it couldn't completely recover you from the effects of soul weight.

    Still, we had an advantage now, even if they didn't know it, given that Abel and Mel were both raring to go now. I had to imagine Serenity would be at least a bit tired after holding off a monster like Abel for however long the fight had been going. Mel had already let the wall of fire drop since we were all grouped up, and I suppose she though Abel would catch any attacks that came our way.

    Beat and Sever were flanking Serenity, who looked stared blankly up at us, expression as serene as her name would suggest. Beat, however, was less stoic, snarling silently at us as Sever tried to treat the still smouldering sounds on his arm and leg. He stalked forward, and we all tensed, ready to fight, but he stopped halfway to the stands, staring up at us murderously, fists clenching. "Why the fuck are people like you even here?" He hissed up at Abel and Mel. "We aren't high up in the Titan Twenty, but even being on the list makes you pretty much untouchable at the same rank. Being able to fight all three of us means you would be top five level on the planet, minimum."

    Abel gave a casual shrug. "Does it? Maybe you're just having an off day. You could always try again to see if you do better the second time." His voice was as light and teasing as ever as he goaded the angry brawler, but Beat wasn't as big a hothead as he seemed. He didn't even tense to step forward, ignoring the sing song mockery lacing Abel's words. When there was no reaction Abel sulked. "Ah, a cautious one. Those are never much fun. Fine, tell us what you want to do here? I can hardly see an amicable way out of this."

    Beat turned to Serenity, who gave a calm smile and stepped forward to speak at last. "I suspect we may have more options for diplomacy than you might think." Her voice was...soothing. Melodic and calming, like inhaling the vapor from herbal tea. It made my hair stand on end. Was she doing that on purpose? Or did she have some kind of persuasion Skill? Whichever it was, I didn't like being fucked with, and her voice tricks rolled over me without finding much purchase, not affecting any of my team much either.

    It occurred to me that every person currently with us had a pretty solid amount of Focus. Benny was at 75, I was at 88, and even Callie, who had the lowest in the group was over fifty. I checked her face to be sure I was on the right track, and I noted her eyes having a slight glaze to them. She seemed to catch herself even as I looked, shaking off the effect, but it confirmed what I suspected. I bet that mesmerism thing worked much better on H-rankers than it did us too, it was probably still a Lesser Skill.

    Abel obviously barely even noticed. I didn't know what his Focus was, but considering the speeds he had to move at when fighting, I was guessing high if only to keep up with his own movements. Mel seemed fine too, as did Alden. and all of them being high G-rankers that made sense. I knew the higher your stats got, the more the lower ones filled in just by virtue of the reputation you had as a powerhouse. Not to the same extent, but people tended to catch up. Hell, Jessie would probably start seeing some of that soon, given her lack of several stats. I should take some time to check in with her about it.

    Despite not being affected by her mind fuck though, Abel did look mildly curious. "Ok, you've got my attention. What exactly are you suggesting here? Because I can't see an out here where we don't have to throw down. You want the circus gone or under control, and you can't afford to leave one of those undone, not with all this ruckus. You won't get another chance to try this without the other major factions stepping in. This is my brother's circus, my circus, I helped found it. What could you possibly give me to make up for it."

    "A bigger one." Serenity didn't even miss a beat. "You're a powerful and impressive man, and your brother has clearly built a skilled and loyal following. Staying down here is a waste of your talent. Sign on with us and we can pay anything you wish, within reason. We'll give you a place in F-district twice this size, and provide F-rankers to help you hold it until you can Ascend. We aren't idiots, Mr. Castleton. This fight alone speaks to a staggering amount of potential. I was unaware of your skills, clearly an oversight on my part, but I can see your value."

    Mel's eyes narrowed. "Watch it bitch. Your tone gets any more flattering and I'm going to think you're trying to steal my man. I don't put up with poachers, especially not ones whose flunkies just tried to cut me to pieces and lopped a limb off my teacher. Speaking of which, what about Alden? You think we're just going to forget that you took his leg in your little attack, not to mention all my boys you tore up." She pointed demandingly back to the bearded man.

    "That is hardly a concern." Serenity said with that same placid, reassuring tone. "We have access to the best healers on Callus. We're more than happy to restore your employees to perfect health as part of our deal. We're open to discussion of terms as well. We simply ask that you walk away from here. The deed will default back to the Wish Curse Palace upon the destruction of the circus, as is stated in the contract itself." She paused. "If you wish to save even more time, you could hand over the deed itself."

    Which explained so much about this whole situation. Destroying this place in the war had seemed odd to me up to this point, but since I didn't have the context to question it, I'd just chalked it up to Ascendant weirdness. The war thing made sense, and I knew it would be a win for them politically if they wrecked the place, but this little tidbit made the way they'd gone about things so far much more logical. Not that it helped at all us in the moment, but it was nice info to have at least.

    I glanced over to Abel, who was just standing around waiting for her to finish, looking more bored than anything else. His eyes were glazed behind his rabbit mask, and once Serenity stopped talking he just stood there for a second, before jerking back to awareness, eyes flicking to her in surprise. "Oh, sorry, were you done? Those usually take longer, so I tend to zone out. I was going over the statements for my sausage carts." He shook his head ruefully. "Taxes down here can be such a pain. If you're finished though we can get started, I was about done anyway."

    He didn't even wait for a response before throwing a punch. With his physical power restored, he was clearly going all out from the beginning. The fist he threw came rushing at them like an oncoming train, large enough to target all of them at once. Serenity's placid expression finally broke into a very satisfying expression of jaw dropping shock and a small amount of panic as the colossal punch smashed down at them. She threw up both hands and created a massive field of golden energy to nullify the punch.

    Unfortunately, she was still exhausted from their fight, and Abel wasn't anymore. Her peace energy nullified a portion of the blow, causing the fist to fade to a translucent image, but she didn't manage to disperse this one. Beat and Sever stepped up, the red edged knife flashing out to bisect the fist image twice, cutting it into quarters that beat proceeded to smash with that rippling energy on his fists, but despite the quickness with which they handled the attack, they both looked visibly shaken by the ferocity of it.

    Abel rolled his shoulders, cracking his neck with his hand by pushing in each direction on his chin, limbering up for the battle. "Not bad, I'm surprised you managed to counter that. But as you can see, I don't need to negotiate with you. You're weak, and I'm strong. When prey attacks a predator, it dies. Of course, I'm not stupid enough to think you didn't bring any insurance, but I'm not exactly here alone either. Let's quit with the chit-chat and you all get serious, otherwise I'll just flatten you solo and save my friends the effort."

    I felt a chill at that, but on second thought it made sense. Even my team had trump cards in case of emergencies. Someone from a place as wealthy as Sanctuary Hall was bound to be strapped with some serious gear to break out if they needed it. Serenity, face now pretty much the exact OPPOSITE of serene, snarled at him before flicking her wrists. The gold bracelets that appeared on them were new, I was pretty sure, but the jingling when the clanged off each other easily dragged my attention to them, and the sparks of golden light glinting off them sparkled ominously in places light SHOULDN'T be hitting them. They were G-ranked, but seemed like they were complimentary to each other.

    Beat didn't even speak, just reached into his cargo pants and took out a pair of black leather gloves with no fingers and dull metal caps over the knuckles. They looked well worn, but otherwise ordinary, if not for the obvious sense of weight that told me they were F-ranked artifacts. Apparently being a member of the Titan Twenty who worked for cash paid well. Sever's knife vanished without him even moving, and was suddenly replaced with a short, leaf bladed sword of tarnished bronze, covered in a tracery of golden swirls. It was also F-ranked, and it looked OLD.

    Knowing that they hadn't been worried enough to use these bothered me for a bit, but then I realized that I was making a lot of assumptions about the items. They might be limited use, or fragile, or put lots of strain on their wielders. The weapons in particular must be taxing. F-ranked armor was passive, and wearing it didn't do much more than require a period of adjustment, but weapons were an active use item, it was probably a strain to use them to focus abilities like I did with my cane. Hell, it would have to be, otherwise people would just carry around massively overleveled items everywhere to crush their enemies with.

    For the moment it didn't matter though. Whatever they did, we only had to deal with it as it came. Don't get cut or punches, and leave Serenity and her weird bracelets to Abel where possible. I felt out my limits, checking to see if I could manage one more charge without straining myself too much, and I noted that I should have some left, though I was tiring quickly using my soul strength so often today. I had enough to trigger the same combo as earlier. Before they had a chance to react, a Shadow Swamp sprang up beneath their feet, tendrils of shadowy earth shooting up to grapple them, and the rest of us attacked.
     
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  20. Threadmarks: chapter 246
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    My first move was to take advantage of the opening from the Shadow Swamp to attack Beat head on. Using my still active Leaf on the Wind to dart to one side and circle around. I'd considered every angle here, and Beat was pretty much my only option. I had zero experience countering a talented swordsman and far more avoiding straight punches, not to mention close combat was the only way I could hang long term, given my stored attacks were running low and the ones I had were mostly up close hits.

    On top of all of that my still overclocked body was pulsing with life force, and Beat's wasn't. Even with all that I would have been screwed, except Benny and Callie were right on my heels, and with the three of us we should be able to take advantage of the wolflike circular tactics I'd developed with Balam to keep the already frustrated and tiring G-ranker off balance...hopefully.

    As we approached, I let Callie pull ahead. My girlfriend had a much higher Might stat than I did, and a higher Skill level in Balam as well. She was infinitely more dangerous than I was outside of some of my unique tricks, most of which I was running low on. I considered using a heal burst on her, but on second though decided to hold off. I could always apply it later in the fight, and I only had the two left. I needed them in case someone got injured, and Callie was in decent shape already, having gotten a top up from Jessie directly before we came here.

    As she closed in, her form blurring from her armor, she split into about a dozen of those shadows duplicates, fanning out around Beat and pulling his attention even more thoroughly than the head on attack had. The masked fighter snarled a bit at the action. "Damn it, I hate the tricksy ones. Why can't any of you just fight me head on. I can handle a straight fight so much better than this nonsense."

    Callie actually snickered at that. Or rather, all of the Callies snickered. When they spoke, the words sporadically came out of the mouths of the constructs at random, bouncing around in circles as the different clones called out part of her sentences. "That's funny. I thought I saw you barely managing to hold on against Abel. And you needed your brother to fight Mel. You don't seem as tough as you like to pretend." The bouncing, alternating speech pattern was deeply creepy, and Beat seemed offput by it as well.

    Despite that, he shook it off fast, attacking the last clone to speak and smashing it into wisps of darkness with a concussive burst of concentrated force. His snarl didn't so much dim as change into more of a sneer of frustration. "Whatever. I don't need to justify shit to you rookies. Just shut up and die." His fists blurred, thunder cracking the air as it literally shattered under the blows like a lightning strike unleashing rumbles of thunder.

    Balam Mastery came in handy as Callies clones circled around him in strange, constantly changing patterns, but he still managed to land a few blows. The force acted as a long range attack with each swing, magnifying what was probably an already terrifying Might stat. I wasn't sure if it was his ability, the gloves, or a combination of both, but those blows fired off like cannon shells, and I could see the air warp in a sort of sphere as they fired off, detonating as they hit to devastating effect.

    I wasn't pleased either. Callie was holding his attention, but Benny and I needed to get in there. Callie couldn't get close either, she was just playing distraction for all she was worth. I considered my resources. I was too low to use charges, but I had a bunch of stored attacks. I could combine them with DS Mastery skills, so what was to say I couldn't combine them with each other.

    Without much to lose, I decided to try it out with something I had more than a few of. I unleashed a shadow blade attack, and one of the triple strength tranq blows that I had seven of. A forest of shadowy stabs erupted from the ground, and Beat swatted them aside. A few managed to nick him, but he showed no sign of slowing down. It would have been easy to assume it failed, but the tattoo was gone for each attack, and I felt them resonate the same way my normal Skills could. It had worked.

    Unfortunately even triple strength that tranq punch wasn't actually a G-ranked ability. Benny had set it up when he was an H-ranker, and it was barely functional against someone our rank without a ton of solid hits to stack it. Since I'd gotten a few light scratches tops, I knew it wouldn't do the trick. But that didn't matter. What mattered was that I COULD use the attacks in conjunction with each other. At least a few of them. I had to mind the soul weight, since I was guessing trying to so a huge invocation on my own would kill me. But I had options.

    Beat hadn't bothered to search for his attacker when I used the move either. The upside to using ranged shadow attacks against a guy fighting my shadow manipulator girlfriend was that when shadows tried to pincushion him, he didn't bother to wonder where they were coming from. He just assumed it was her and raised his guard against her even further. Though I do think that he assumed the attack meant the last clone he'd been aiming at was the real Callie, as he seemed to be prioritizing that one now. What a dumbass.

    I prepared myself for another attack. This one was triple stacked, and it was HARD. I wasn't sure I could do another one of these in my current condition. I added a triple stack density shifted attack, and the spider leg attack, and this time I unleashed all of them using my cane (which was still imbued with poison fire) as a focus. Beat barely had time to react as a forest of black metal spider legs blazing with toxic green flame scythed up from the ground and did their best to tear him to shreds.

    I had to actually put my cane against the ground to prop me up as my head pulsed with agony. Triple stacking stored attacks was something I should save for when I was in good condition. Physically I was still riding high on the heal burst energy, but it didn't patch up soul fatigue, which I'd accumulated quite a bit of. It could manage the pain a bit, but lifeforce didn't repair the strain on my soul, only time did that. I decided to stick to exclusively doubled attacks from this point on.

    I was just lucky it had worked. Beat had been speared in the side by one of the vicious legs, and the wound was blazing with poisonous green fire as it seared deeper into him. His eyes flicked over to Serenity, who was currently holding off Abel and Mel with Sever, and cursed under his breath. He could tell there wasn't going to be any rescue from that corner. Sadly he'd destroyed or evaded all the rest of the legs, but the one that hit got him deep. Which was good, because I had one of those damn spider leg attacks left, and they were painful and difficult to trade for Benny.

    With the damage done he'd slowed down significantly, and I could see if I stared at his face that his eyes were flickering shut, having to be forced open with concentration as something tried to make him pass out. I grinned behind my mask. The tranquilizer effect. It stacked, which meant it stuck around. While using a dozen of them would put someone down, compromising their Vitality with a grievous wound and a potent poison was another good way to render them vulnerable as long as you caught them while they were still affected.

    With Beat's faculties affected, I decided to approach, giving Benny a nod, as we closed with the brawler from either side. We took our cues from the wolves, coming on from opposite points, but we didn't attack immediately. We waited for Callie's clones to dip in for a series of assaults and dashed forward under the cover of their joint attack. Beat, who was already groggy, lashed out hard at the shadow that had been closest during both shadow attacks, a fact I'd arranged on the second try to keep him thrown off about their origin.

    As his fist scattered the dark figure into a cloud of mist, my cane dipped in and smashed into his side. I unleashed what charge I had in my cane right into the wound, along with another triple strength tranq blow, darting away before he could react. He turned angrily to attack before his eyes widened and he threw himself sideways to avoid a blow from Benny's spider legs. By the time he got back to his feet we were both gone and the clones had circled in again, blocking his view of us.

    From the corner of my eye I could see Abel and Mel dominating Sever and Serenity. Between the supercharge to counter the tiredness and the fact that they were exponentially better at joint combat than the other two, it was easy to see who was going to come out on top. It was a good thing too, because from brief glimpses that sword was scary, and the bracelets seemed to increase Serenity's energy output by several times over. Still, Mel and Abel were seamless, perfectly integrating their combat styles together without any hesitation.

    It was kind of beautiful to watch, and I wondered if Callie and I would ever be like that. Their cooperation wasn't just one plus one. They were more than the sum of their parts, managing to output an absurd amount of power. If it wasn't for the overpowered gear I somehow doubted that the other two would have lasted even a second. Titan Twenty or not, Beat and Sever just weren't in their league. Speaking of Beat, the brawler was swaying on his feet, which seemed like it would make him LESS dangerous, except those fucking erupting punches were just being hurled haphazardly around because he was too punch drunk to aim them properly.

    I slipped around behind him, making a spread out gesture to Benny and Callie and getting them to move apart on the other side, the clones doing the same to split his attention as much as possible. As tired as he was hopefully this would be enough. I spun up my cane, twirling it between my fingers, getting it ready for the final blow, and waited, looking carefully. When there was a hitch in his stance from seeming to nod off I jerked my hand to tell them to close in and they both attacked, Benny falling into the crowd of clones.

    When they moved, so did I, pushing off the ground on a long, low leap, Leaf on the Wind helping me maintain distance as I completely avoided the ground to prevent noise. As I closed in, I tucked into a roll mid air, pulling my body into a toght front flip and using my momentum and rotation to put as much force behind the cane as possible as I brought it smashing down from overhead, triggering a pair of triple strength tranq blows through that cane as it smashed into the back of Beat's head.

    There wasn't even a second of wait time as he dropped like a rock, slamming into the ground, out like a light, though whether the blow or the skill was to blame I couldn't say. I landed on the other side of him, stumbling but easily catching myself with the effects of Leaf on the Wind. I planted my cane once I did, my head hurting as the adrenaline drained out of me. It was a strange feeling, being energized and tired at the same time. But I'd done it. Beat was down, and Sever and Serenity were on the ropes. We just needed to check on things on Cicero's end and this whole thing could be over. Finally.
     
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  21. Fema

    Fema Getting some practice in, huh?

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    eh, kinda dissapointed it turned out to be Stricture The loner that no one likes. I was rooting for Jessie the spymaster with high social skills and cute face no one will suspect, maybe it would have taught a lesson to Shane about not taking people at face value and thinking with his dick like he often does. Love triangles being trite and Harems so cringy.
     
  22. Threadmarks: chapter 247
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    Once Beat went down it was only a matter of time until Abel and Mel took down the others. Sever was frantic and distracted after seeing his brother dropped like that, and that wasn't a safe way to fight Abel (assuming you could claim such a thing existed). Still, with the gaps they were able to beat the two of them into submission, with Mel overwhelming Serenity with a split second attack out of nowhere that forced her to lose track of Sever while he was distracted by trying to get to and check on his brother.

    Abel disarmed him and knocked him out cold with a brutal blow to the back of the neck, and the two of them teamed up to take Serenity down with the pressure off. To my relief, no one suggested or attempted killing the elites, probably because two members of the Titan Twenty and the daughter of one of the richest E-ranker's on the planet were people likely to be missed.

    When it was finally done I didn't even bother dragging myself to a seat, I just collapsed in the dirt. The sensation of being energized and ready to move while my head felt like a used dishrag was jarring, and I needed to lay down for a second to try to recover from my soul fatigue at least a little. I closed my eyes, trying to let my head settle as the Pavilion members dragged the three powerhouses out of the way to restrain them.

    I was interrupted by the feeling of a weight slamming into my midsection, and I let out a grunt before forcing one eye open to find my girlfriend sitting on me, apparently uncaring of my feelings on the subject as she casually watched the other work. I groaned. "You know, some women show concern when their boyfriend keels over in the dirt. Or at least they don't treat them like a chair."

    She reached down to pat my head condescendingly. "Don't be so hard on yourself baby, you're more of a couch." She wriggled around on me, grinning at my eyeroll. "Besides you're so comfy." Her smile dropped, eyes narrowing. "Unless I'm making you uncomfortable. Why, am I too heavy for you to deal with? Should I move before I injure you?" Her tone was sweet, but oblivious or not, I wasn't stupid enough to answer that verbally.

    Instead I reached up, grabbed her around the midsection and rolled, drawing a squeak of surprise from her as I let my weight fall on her completely, going completely boneless. She shoved at me lightly, not enough to actually move me, which she could have easily done with so much Might, but just enough to wriggle me into a more comfortable position. I chuckled at that. "Oh, I'm sorry. My mistake. I thought this was how we show affection now." I put on a saccharine tone. "Unless I'm too heavy for you to deal with?"

    "Can you just not?" I heard Benny groan from behind us. "Because I haven't seen my girlfriend in days because of all this nonsense, and the last thing I want is to watch you cuddling in the dirt. Besides, they have the prisoners secured. We're supposed to go check in on the others. Since they weren't here I assume the Jerks were in that team, and I really want to see the results of those idiots trying to fight an F-ranked bear. You know one of them tried it. Probably Way Crazy Wyatt."

    I had to choke down a laugh at that. He was right, I could definitely see Wyatt doing that. I knew that it was possible someone had been hurt or killed, but the results here made me hopeful they managed almost as easily. I was trying not to dwell on the fatalities we'd already racked up until this was over. Especially not the ones I'd caused personally. At least I knew Jessie and Cark would be fine with Randall there as protection.

    Still, he'd killed the mood so hard it was already starting to decompose, so just gave an annoyed snarl and pushed off the ground, leaping nimbly up and back to my feet, cheating slightly with my still active Leaf on the Wind to look cool. Judging by Callie's eye roll as she blew her hair out of her face it hadn't worked, but judging by the twitch of a stifled smirk on the corner of her lips it had at least amused her. I held out my hand and she took it, letting me pull her to her feet.

    If nothing else, out little back and forth had distracted me from my brain pain enough that I was barely noticing it. I turned to Benny. "I'm sorry, if you're going to be a huge buzz kill at least you can be a useful one. I assume you have some sort of next step you want us to do, rather than just ruining our cuddle time for no reason. Or are you as good at ruining my day as you are at being short." I made sure the smirk when I said that was obvious in my voice, just so it twisted the knife even further.

    Benny glared at me. "You son of a bitch. You're ONE INCH taller than me, and its not even natural! You're a cheating bastard. You might as well be wearing lifts." He shook off his annoyance. "No, we should go meet with Abel and Mel and see about making the trip to find the others. I'm not getting sucked into your childish antics."

    I nodded sagely. "You're already the size of a child, acting like one too would be embarrassing." I had to fight down a laugh as his jaw clenched for a second and his face turned bright red. It looked for a second like he might lose it and try to slug me, but eventually he couldn't hold out and burst into gales of laughter.

    He reached up and clapped me on the shoulder, and Callie looked at us like we were insane. Benny decided to explain. "He saw how stressed I was and decided to poke me a bit so I could let off some of my frustration. I'm not THAT sensitive about the height difference." He narrowed his eyes at me. "Even if it is absolute bullshit." He shook off the expression. "Regardless, things were getting grim, and he knew I needed a laugh. Hell, so did he. This was just an easy way for us both to calm down in such a tense situation."

    "You're both lunatics." Callie said with another eye roll. "But whatever keeps you sane. Or at least the poor approximation of it you try to put on for the masses." She winked at me to take the sting out of that, getting into the spirit of the ribbing, and I laughed, grabbing her and pulling her against my side. She She poked my ribs again lightly, but it was clearly playing around, and I couldn't help but try to hold onto the joy I was feeling. Despite still being a bit worried, it was important to take happy times as they came. This was a win, we needed to treat it like one.

    We also needed to be serious about the next part though. With all of us we could handle the remaining forces even if the others hadn't, not that I expected that, but we weren't invincible. Going over there without a care would be dangerous and stupid. So as we walked over I let the calm of pre-battle fall over me. I was too exhausted to do much more than swing my cane, but I could still do that much if needed.

    Abel and Mel gave us wide grins when they saw us. "There are my favorite customers." Said the rabbit masked man. "Caught some of your fight, not bad at all. Creative, well optimized, and cheap as hell. Perfect strategy, I give it a ten out of ten. Of course, it could have easily failed, which would have made it a stupid plan with no redeeming value, but we believe in results here. Remember that the world is based on reputation, if you do something crazy and it works, that was your intention all along, and you can definitely do it again, no matter who asks."

    Mel rolled her eyes at that but didn't really correct him. "We were about to take everyone over to check on the others. We had the hard part, so I'm sure they're fine, but more than a few of ours got pretty beat up, and we could use Agria's help on this. They're all stable and in no danger of course, but no use leaving wounds that could impede progress. Actual battle injuries aren't the same as bruises from spars. Having those healed as soon as possible is a priority." She held up both hands. "Of course, we'd pay for her services if needed, or we can send for someone else, but we trust her so we figured we'd at least ask if she would help out."

    She would, Callie and I both knew it. Jessie wasn't the type to leave people hurting when she could help them, especially people she liked. It was nice of them not to assume though. I turned to stare over at Alden. The older man was walking around completely fine with only one leg. It had apparently taken him no time at all to figure out how to suspend himself with his gravity ability as he moved his leg, which was an odd sight to see but seemed pretty smooth by the time I spotted him doing it. Still, it was a jarring thing to see, and I made a promise to myself to offer him a wish if Jessie couldn't fix his leg. He'd done a lot for us, and my abilities were partly out now anyway.

    Callie told the two of them she would ask, but didn't think it would be a problem, and we set out to check on the others. Walking through the paths between the tents we found...bodies. Lots of them. Most of them in robes and masks, but there were a few dressed in the eclectic clothes of the circus employees. I even saw one or two members of the Pavilion I recognized. No one big or important, just people I'd shared a drink with at the party that first night.

    My stomach twisted. It hurt to see people I'd met and liked just...snuffed out like that. I hadn't been friends with them really, but I'd known them, talked to them, and the difference between the lively people I'd spoken to and the bodies on the ground was all the more unsettling for the environment we'd crossed paths in. This was why I'd tried my best to enjoy the time decompressing from the battle, I had the feeling I wouldn't be in a celebratory mood after this, even if all my friends were ok.

    It was easy to forget the nature of the WCP. The Unity was cold and brutal at times, but it also at least pretended to embrace heroism, in a world like ours that was almost as good as actually being a hero. The WCP made no such pretentions. It was simply a proving ground. It was where people came to get stronger, to accrue power no matter the cost. This was my first time seeing that cost myself. Paying it in person too. It was a sobering thing to see. I'd killed monsters, seen people die, but this was my first time taking part in a battle like this, and I didn't think I'd ever be the same.

    I pulled Callie against me tightly as we walked among the dead and the remains of the traps we'd built ourselves. I didn't think the traps had obviously killed any of our own that I could see, but I didn't know for sure. One more weight to add to my conscience. I could see how Zeke had ended up as unattached and blase as he had. I might cut people off if I had to see things like this all the time too. I felt my scan ring buzz and looked down to see a text incoming from a blocked number. It was my cousin congratulating me on my victory and asking to meet. I didn't bother to respond, there would be time for that later, once I knew my friends were alright.
     
  23. Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    I mean, there's not a love triangle or a harem. A lot of people made that leap on RR too, but he wasn't ever really pursuing Jessie. He thought she was kind of cute, they hung out once in what could have eventually become something romantic but it didn't end up working out that way because she vibed with Maria. Maria is basically the little sister Shane never had, so he backed off.
     
  24. Fema

    Fema Getting some practice in, huh?

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    Thats cool, I am so done with harems outside of Porn, the wishmaker power its very cool and the universe setting is incredibly original and intriguing but I am afraid I am dipping out anyway, I just cant with reading all that sympathy for Annie(maybe you mean it in another way in your head, but by reading the text its most like "she is hot and sad and I have Daddy Issues so I am totally okay with her disgusting behaviour and will try to push Callie to forgive her eventually".

    While the dad does gets the bigger share of the blame, unless Annie was outright mindcontrolled or blackmailed, fuck her. Her surprise and wounded act at Callie not wanting to sing Kumbaya with her, makes her incredibly Stupid(which I admit does deserve some pity) or super self centered(which I find utterly revolting), at least the Dad is openly dastardly and not trying to gaslight Callie into believing that poor Annie is the biggest victim that totally suffered the most, like Annie is doing with her victim act.
     
  25. Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    I was heading that way but people in general disliked the idea of a redemption arc so I dropped it. I personally feel for her, as for outright mind control, having the Perception to read any microexpressions she makes and the Focus to process that information like a supercomputer, on top of being literal decades older really throws off the power dynamic there. Still, like I said I dropped the redemption arc because it was an unpopular direction.
     
  26. Threadmarks: chapter 248
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    By the time we arrived at the tent where we had met Cicero the churning in my stomach had turned into terror. No matter how thoroughly I told myself my friends were fine, seeing so many dead combined with the long walk had me terrified of what we would be walking into. I'm imagining Jessie like that or having to tell Cark's sister her brother had died, was more terrifying than any bone dragon or elite fighter I could imagine.

    Even Callie noticed how shaky I was, twining her fingers in mine as we walked, even without removing my arm from her shoulders. It was a slightly awkward position to walk in, but neither of us cared, too worried about friends to ignore even the slight amount of comfort that walking like this provided. Neither of us spoke at all until we made it to the tent, and I held my breath as we pushed aside the flap to find...relief.

    Jessie was standing next to Randall, who was literally sitting on Way Crazy Wyatt. The G-ranked Jerk was hollering threats of bodily harm as soon as he escaped, in between demands to be set free, and seemed to see no apparent conflict between those two objectives. Cark and Sage were sitting on a pair of chairs off to one side, looking drained but unhurt. I noted a few bloody gashes in Cark's clothes that made me pretty sure Jessie had already healed some pretty serious damage on our fire calling friend though, so the fight hadn't been too easy.

    As soon as she saw the three of us Jessie yelped in relief and barreled across the tent throwing herself at Callie and I first because we were closest and together. She latched onto us both and squeezed us surprisingly hard for such a tiny girl, then peeled off and jumped on Benny, who took the squeezing much less stoically, wheezing a bit at the bone crushing force until she noticed and let up. She looked over us carefully before nodding. "Good, you're all ok. I was really worried. I wanted to drag Randall to find you all, but apparently he's the only thing holding Wyatt down and despite his
    weirdness I didn't think any of us wanted him dead." She chucked her chin at the still screaming meathead, and even I couldn't help but smile at the ridiculous tableau.

    I saw a few bodies around here too, but no one I recognized. The overwhelming force they'd brought along had clearly made the difference here, and I was gratified that our decision to take on the other three with Abel and Mel was borne out. I wasn't sure even those two could have managed in the original scenario. They'd been exhausted before the heal bursts, and the introduction of the trump card artifacts might have proved too much, especially without us there to distract Beat. Of course, I could just be humoring myself to feel important, but I was pretty sure we'd done SOMETHING.

    All the dead seemed to be the robed figures, and while that was still horrible, it was much easier to push down the nausea at the sight of the bodies when I remembered they were here to kill my friends, at least in comparison to the loss of people I knew. I didn't even see any dead Jerks, which considering their penchant for stupid reckless action was actually a damn miracle. I wondered briefly if Mr. Jack-tastic might have used a wish to make sure any bodies would just happen to drop on the side of Sanctuary Hall, but I had no way to confirm the thought so I dismissed it as soon as I had it.

    My ring buzzed again, another text, and having confirmed the safety of all my friends I decided to read it. I leaned down to murmur to Callie. "Hey, Natalie wants a meeting, just us, no bodyguards. I still have a few stored attacks, so I should be good if she pulls anything, at least enough to escape or signal for help. Stay here, ok?" It might have been stupid, but I was tired, and sad, and I didn't have it in me to distrust the one family member I was now supposed to be able to actually count on, at least assuming I passed her test.

    Callie must have heard something along those lines in my voice, because despite looking like she wanted to argue, she bit her lip and nodded, before going up on tip toes to kiss the cheek of my mask. She squeezed my hand before letting it go. "Be safe, ok? I'll be here waiting. And if you get into trouble make some noise and I'll bring everyone running. Bet even her guards couldn't take down Mel and Abel easily." Her eyes were cold and hard as she said that last bit, and I leaned down and pulled her into a hug that might have gone on a bit too long to conceal how upset I was. She just squeezed me back, and I jumped a bit as I felt Jessie and Benny both pile on.

    I could have laughed it off or made a joke of it, but I didn't. As lame as it was I kind of needed a hug from my team right now. This night had been a lot. Eventually I broke away, nodding to the others as I walked from the tent, heading around to the area where we'd seen Ronnie make his wish with Natalie. I wasn't worried about traps, they were all sprung, and the bodies made it easy to notice what spots to avoid. The circus was going to have to hire some new G-rankers, or put a lot of time into raising some from their own staff. Sanctuary Hall... well fuck those guys.

    When I finally reached the spot we'd seen them, I recognized Natalie easily enough, standing in the same place with her back to me, alone and with her hood up. When she heard me coming she turned to look at me, smiling widely as she did, her face visible instead of obscured by shadow. She gave me a wave. "Hey, there's my new favorite cousin. I caught the show. Very impressive work. You have a few interesting tricks up your sleeve huh?"

    It was hard not to wonder how she'd managed to watch the fight without anyone noticing, but I better than anyone knew how the rules could bend when you had the Wish ability. I wasn't exactly in a great mood, but she was being friendly, and there was no reason to shoot down an ally after going through so much to land her support. I shrugged at the comment. "Thanks. I didn't do that much, Abel and Mel were the real MVPs of the night." Which was true. I'd done ok in the fight with Beat, but those two had taken out the main threats.

    Natalie just laughed and shook her head. "You need to get used to taking credit. In the family, what your people accomplish, you accomplish. Building alliances and spotting talent is what its all about. We can pump up anyone we find, so it takes a serious eye for potential to get ahead. Your allies were scary good, which means you've got the skills to find the right subordinates. Even if you don't really feel it, you need to keep up appearances, especially if we're going to be allies."

    I cocked my head. "And are we?" I asked bluntly. "Going to be allies? Because this whole thing feels sort of...half assed. No offense, but you changed lanes pretty quick, and I'm stuck waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don't really know you, and this all seems..." I thought back to the bodies lying in the paths on the way here. "Well, not easy, but convenient?" Or maybe Cicero had just given me trust issues.

    Far from being upset, Natalie looked pleased by the question. "Good. You had a problem and you came out and said it. I knew I liked your vibe. The answer is yes. This is convenient for you, but sometimes things are. We live in a world of conflicting forces. Especially for our family, it's important to remember that there are almost always things going on behind the scenes. For the moment, your relation to me makes you a desirable ally, later on...well there's no guarantees with the final prize on the line."

    "Gee. Thanks." My deadpan sarcasm was so thick in my voice I was pretty sure she could HEAR me rolling my eyes. "That's comforting. You basically didn't say anything at all. 'Oh, I'm going to work with you but I might betray you later' isn't exactly a confidence booster from a prospective ally. I get that you're trying to educate me or whatever, but can I at least get some kind of guarantee? Not permanent, but some limited time contract or geas that'll make sure I don't have to worry in the short term."

    Once again, Natalie seemed completely unbothered. "Of course. That's how most of us do these things. Traditionally we do it by contract directly, but since we're establishing a baseline I'll tell you what. I'll give you a wish. It's considered bad form for us to do feedback loops, but for an alliance contract that won't be pushing things." My head had jerked up a bit at that. I couldn't help it, I hadn't even considered that possibility, but it was...it could change so many things for me. I could wish for anything.

    I forced myself to calm down. I couldn't wish for anything. She had the same power as me, at around the same level. She was limited in what she could give me. Still, it was an overwhelming amount of choice to put on someone on the spot. I couldn't think of what to ask for. My first wish, and I was drawing a blank. Now I knew how all of my clients felt during this part of the process. obviously I'd be paying with the contract for the alliance, so it would need to be something commensurate to that. I assumed she would be wishing for something next so we could finalize the terms on both sides too.

    With those caveats, it was easier to consider but still overwhelming. What it came down to though was what I needed most. That wasn't stats, or powers, or attacks. I had a nice toolkit right now. What I needed was the ability to use it more. I'd been hitting the end of my rope with DS Mastery constantly. I could wish for an upgrade of the Skill itself, but I was on track to do that on my own, and if I did it that way I'd give up plenty of fine tuning I was looking forward to figuring out for myself.

    In the end, the best move for me was a simple one, even if it wasn't as flashy as some other wishes. I fixed her with a stare. "I'll expect you to make your wish before granting mine so we can do the contracts simultaneously. But I wish for the highest Beginner Enchanting Skill you can give me. I'll be paying with a contract of alliance for the next ten years, to be cancelled in the even of the final showdown for Wishmaster occurring, and in that scenario, only after we've both confirmed the others awareness, and with a seventy two hour grace period." I watched the purple electricity begin to build as soon as I finished talking, and I knew exactly what she was seeing.

    We'd discussed alliance terms already at least enough for it to be easily referred to in the cost of the wish. Natalie grinned widely. "Damn, that's air tight. In that case, I wish for a Beginner Contract Negotiation Skill. I've been dying to get that one but no one is ever willing to trade for it. I'll offer the same terms for an alliance contract as payment, with the same stipulations."

    As expected, I saw the usual words flow across my vision. Wish detected. Grant wish? I confirmed the wish, and I felt the familiar static start to build in me. It felt different this time, almost unstable, and I could see why granting wishes for each other was a rare thing. I could already tell this was going to fucking hurt. Either way I reached out to grab my cousin's hand to confirm the wishes. It's not like I wasn't used to pain.
     
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  27. Threadmarks: chapter 249
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    Once we got everything worked out with the contracts and we got our wishes granted, we went our separate ways, agreeing to meet up and discuss the details of the tournament soon. Even as I walked away though, I officially regretted the wish I made. I could have asked for anything, and I would have been able to get it. Rare Skills, items, some more stats, there was just so many options to pick from. Instead I'd gotten an upgrade to a Skill I already had and could have upgraded manually anyway. It just seemed like such a waste.

    Despite the second guessing though, I knew deep down it had been the right call. Beginner Enchanting Mastery at the level I got wouldn't just get me to the next rank, it would be a crazy solid foundation that would let me get to Intermediate much more easily. It already doubled the number of charges I could use per day, putting me at forty eight DS Mastery skills in a twenty four hour period, but brought me within spitting distance of doubling that number again once I put some more work into it.

    I had enough tricks in my arsenal, another Skill wouldn't make or break me, it would just split my focus even more. I used DS Mastery in all of my fights, and recently I'd been hitting the wall on the number of times I could do that. With my whole stored attack thing I could churn out damage like a rainstorm if I needed to, but I needed my DS Mastery to augment and amplify those.

    I wasn't second guessing my choice not to upgrade that Skill though. Getting a one off wish might help me get DS Mastery to Intermediate, but that would make getting it past that level all the harder without the same wish to rely on. Sure, it would be reasonable to do that with a more common Skill with lots of source material to pull from, but aside from being stupidly expensive (if I could even do it) upgrading DS Mastery would just mean I had less of an understanding to upgrade it myself later. Eventually I wouldn't be able to just wish it higher, even if I did find someone to make the wish to, because there would be no information to source at all. The cost would shoot up so high that it wouldn't even matter.

    It didn't matter though. I'd made it back to the tent, and I had to shake off my second guessing now as I got back to the others. They seemed relieved I was safe, but not relieved enough for another group hug. I guess they'd gotten past the worry when I was gone. Callie was the only one who put her arms around me when I got back, and I gave her a tight squeeze in return before stepping back with a long sigh. "Alright. Since that issue is taken care of for now what's our next move. I have information but this isn't the place to talk. We can save that for later."

    Callie just nodded. "Sure. Sounds good. In that case I think we need to go and have a chat with Cicero. Probably best to do it while the others are here. just so he doesn't try to weasel out of it." I blinked, having forgotten the whole 'we get our own territory if we helped him out' thing. Hell, we were technically done once we figured out who was doing all this, but realistically collecting the prize before making sure the entire place wasn't going to be burned to the ground wouldn't have been useful.

    So we all headed over to where Cicero was standing next to Abel, looking a bit pale but otherwise unharmed. The two of them were in a quiet conversation, with Mel standing off to the side glaring at the top hatted man, when we finally came close enough to hear and they stopped talking. It was weird that we couldn't hear it before given our Perception, but I guessed they'd been using Stealth, which was a use for that Skill I had never even considered. It was definitely the right tool for the job.

    Abel saw us come up and gave an exhausted smile. "Sorry you lot, probably not the best time. I'm arguing with my idiot brother. Apparently the genius here wants to expel the Pavilion from the Cavalcade. Never mind that the majority of the G-rankers in the circus are dead now, and that the Pavilion has more than the rest of the circus put together." His words made it pretty obvious the exhaustion was from dealing with this shit and not from the actual fight, which even with the heal burst was impressive as hell.

    Cicero actually snarled at Mel, ignoring the rest of us and his reputation in favor of venting his frustration. "She fucked all of us over. Stabbed us in the back. This entire thing is her fault, and everyone knows it. If she hadn't been fomenting insurrection like a sneaky little backstabbing harpy no one here would have died! I won't have her in my circus, I've put up with her nonsense for too long. She goes. No discussion." He was snarling the words at her, and to my surprise, Mel was flinching as he said them like she was being hit.

    For the first time since I'd met him, I saw Abel do the one thing I hadn't thought he was really capable of. He got mad at his brother. The eyes behind the rabbit mask hardened into a stony flatness as the aura of danger and violence he wore like a bloody mantle in combat fell over all of us. He took a step toward Cicero, and the mustachioed man paled and stepped back, visibly terrified of his enraged brother.

    Despite the fury painted across his face, when Abel spoke, his voice was calm and quiet. Almost a whisper. "That's enough. You brought this on yourself. You spent years after I left shoring up power and playing your political games, and you ignored the needs of the people here. Mel was just doing what she thought was right, and seeing you acting like this, I'm not sure she wasn't right. I've spent far too long enabling your power plays and ambition. I love you little brother, but Mel isn't going anywhere, and if you try to make her I'll toss your ass out the front gate myself."

    The calm, soothing tone of his voice made the threat much more visceral as he spoke it, ensuring we all knew exactly how serious the masked man was. He wasn't dealing with this anymore. Despite the heavy vibes, Callie actually put a hand up. "If you boys are done measuring, I might have a solution that works for both parties." They turned to glare at her, but she just blithely ignored Abel and strode up to his brother, poking him in the chest as she planted a fist on her hip. "You. Asshat. You owe us a territory within your borders as payment for this whole mess. We want the Pavilion."

    My jaw fell open in shock. That was...perfect. Holy shit that was absolutely perfect. Why the hell hadn't I even considered that? I'd been trying to figure out a way to ally with Mel and the others without getting in bed with Cicero, and this was absolutely the easiest way. Even if the Pavilion was part of the cavalcade physically, if the place was handed over to me, a guest elder of the Beast Lord Garden, it would politically removed from Cicero's sphere of influence completely. Hell, even Abel could stick around, because he'd be spending his time in a protected area under the aegis of an E-ranked faction.

    Cicero, naturally, was far less impressed with the idea. "What? That isn't..." He trailed off as Abel turned his icy gaze back on his brother. "I mean...that's a large and incredibly lucrative portion of the circus. I promised you territory, but that's going to cut into my bottom line." He hurriedly raised his hands placatingly before Abel could respond. "Not that I won't do it. I'm just saying that while it's not technically outside the parameters allowed for territory in the contract, it violates the spirit of our deal, so I would require some...additional commitments from you both. "

    Callie looked genuinely floored. "Spirit of our deal? You dropped us in a potentially fatal labyrinth to pick up the deed to this place and tried to claim it was a test of capability. Fuck you! It would be within the 'spirit' of our deal for me to let Solomon break your kneecaps like he was hoping to do in the first place now that this is all over. You're lucky we're both under the impression your brother would intervene, or I'm pretty sure you would already be mid assault."

    For effect, I cracked my knuckles menacingly and drove a fist into my palm, which I was proud to see drew a harsh swallow from the top hatted man. I was a big guy, and while there was no way I was fighting Abel, this asshat had almost gotten my girlfriend and I both killed, so I had zero compunctions scaring him a bit. He wisely chose to shut up and Callie turned to check with Mel. "How about you?" She said to the older woman. "I know that's not really ideal for you, but what do you think? We wouldn't interfere in your leadership or anything."

    Mel stared for a minute and then gave a long sigh. "That's...probably the best we're going to get, isn't it? You're good kids, and despite a rough start I think we get along. Plus if you don't take the Pavilion you'll just get some other part of the circus, and I'd still be stuck figuring out what to do next. So...what the hell. Sure. The Starburst Pavilion officially accepts Nightstrike and Solomon as co-leaders provided you sign a few documents ensuring our people positions and certain levels of treatment."

    Callie glanced at me and I nodded, I could put together an employment contract no problem. With that our of the way we all headed out back to the Pavilion to talk over details. Cicero insisted on it, probably because once the Pavilion was officially ours he wouldn't have to deal us being in his circus and could just leave. As we walked though, I finally let myself truly relax. We'd done it. Repelled the invaders, completed the job, even inherited our own faction, which was pretty crazy when I thought about it.

    The amount we had been through in this short time was staggering, and there was still so much to do. The tournament, the Academy, and we still had the Jerks to deal with, even if we had cut off this one avenue. I somehow doubted Sanctuary Hall was going to let this go, even if they probably wouldn't try anything else in G-district. We'd have to be on the lookout in the city proper, in the other districts, and maybe even back at the Academy. We also had the Academy mission to collect points for, given we thwarted the invasion.

    Aside from that I was betting we'd all gotten more than a few points for this and I wanted to check in with everyone to see where they were at before we went any further. Before any of that though, I just put an arm around my girlfriend as I walked, enjoying the drained tension as I processed the lull in my crazy life. I loved getting stronger, picking fights, and finding treasure, but it was nice to just take a breath sometime. I might as well do it while I could, because I had a hell of a lot more crazy coming based on the looming threats. I gave Callie a squeeze. Yeah, a quick breather was enough, my life was crazy, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
     
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  28. Hyperion47

    Hyperion47 Titan of the east.

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    This is one story I will always want more of.
     
  29. Threadmarks: chapter 250
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

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    The whole 'checking on stat gains' thing, didn't really happen until the next day. We talked a while about the Pavilion, but eventually I caught Jessie starting to nod off and we decided to head home. She'd been life force juicing us all for most of the battle, so I wasn't really tired yet, but I knew I was going to be. Jessie's ability was damn convenient, but it wasn't infinite or free. The energy could be supplied, the life force healed you and energized you, but it didn't really fuel the actions you took with that energy, just repaired the damage from them.

    It sounded like a meaningless distinction, until the charge ended, and you crashed. It wasn't too serious after just one or two boosts, but I'd been spamming those damn heal bursts all day, and I was going to drop like a rock when we got back. Which I did. We made it back to the house just in time for me to collapse in bed and sleep for about eleven hours, thankfully completely unbothered by any outside forces as I recovered from an extremely emotionally and physically taxing day of combat.

    When I woke up I dragged myself out of my room, yawning loudly and waving to Cark and Cass, who were in the living room watching some cartoon or other. Cark waved back, looking as drained as I was, probably from constant power use. Benny was curled up on the other couch, and Jessie was sitting on the floor next to Cass, watching with her. As I headed into the kitchen I found Callie sitting on a stool, sipping a cup of coffee and looking haggard.

    I leaned down to give her a quick kiss, and she pulled back. "Gross." She moaned in annoyance. "Morning breath. Brush your teeth first." I plucked her cup of coffee from her fingers, took a sip swished it around in my mouth, and spit it into the sink before giving her a wide grin. I handed it back to her, but she pushed it away. "Ew, no thanks. I'll make a fresh cup." Her eyes narrowed. "Unless you're planning to replace that one?"

    "Oh come on." I said with a laugh. "Spitting it in the sink means I didn't backwash." She glared at me venomously and I put my hands up in placation. "Sorry, sorry. I'll make you a new one. It was just a joke." I probably should have felt that out first. I knew some people were weird about drinking after anyone else, and that had maybe been a bit far since I didn't know if Callie was one of those. I made a point of putting extra effort into her coffee, giving her a huge mug with exactly the sweetener and amount of cream she preferred.

    I passed it to her, and she took a long sip. "Not terrible." She intoned gravely. "I guess I can let it slide this time, but don't do it again. Your jokes aren't funny when they're at the expense of my coffee." She shooed me toward the stove. "As your final act of penance make me an omelette. Goat cheese and fennel sausage. Five eggs."

    That got a laugh from me. "Oh I see how it is. Play up your emotional trauma so I'll be forced to be your personal chef. Fine. Since I was in the wrong, I'll play along just this once." Which was bullshit. I was always happy to cook for Callie and we both knew it, but we were just bantering. I took out a full dozen eggs, deciding to make one of me as well. "So. I didn't get to ask last night, how many points did you get after the fight? I'm assuming you got some like I did?"

    She grinned. "Yup. Twenty points of Creation, fifteen points of Might, ten of Perception, ten of Fantasy, and weirdly five of Vitality. I'd guess that we weren't the only ones either. Though I suspect Abel and Mel were the subject of more of the stories about what happened than we were. My totals are up pretty high, I broke eight hundred points overall, which means I'm only two hundred away from F-rank." Her voice was nearly shaking with excitement at reaching the same height our Guild Master had been at back home, and so much earlier than she had ever imagine.

    Calliope Reynolds

    Beginner Shadow Embodiment- The ability to control and shape shadows either molding them into
    constructs of imbuing them into specially prepared objects to enable enhancement and control.


    Might-198
    Impact-12
    Vitality-142
    Fantasy-85
    Focus-58
    Perception-175
    Creation-132
    Pet-Wolf named Rellia


    Skills: Minor Tracking, Beginner Stealth, Beginner Trap Mastery, Beginner Disguise, Lesser Balam Mastery, Beginner Shadow Manipulation Mastery.

    I whistled at the numbers. "Damn. Your Might has almost broken two hundred. Are you sure you want to rank up like that? From what I can tell, the result of synergizing takes into account a lot of factors, and stats are one of them. You have that Shadow Manipulation Skill to mix in, and if your Might is so high you're going to end up with something physical and close combat when you do it. With Might already so high, it might be a good idea to put the rest of your upcoming points into Perception or Creation."

    My girlfriend let out a sigh. "I'd considered it. Might is damn useful, and it makes fights insanely convenient, but you aren't wrong that its not the main aspect of my combat style. Still, a more physical ability might not be as unsuited to me as you're thinking. I'll probably push Creation and Perception like you suggested, but don't be surprised if having high Might pays off in an unexpected way. I have some ideas for what I may get from the mix, and it's something I've never heard of a shadow manipulator getting, at least not around here."

    I tried to pry at that statement, but she refused to say any more. I just rolled my eyes. If she wanted to keep it secret until rank up that was her call. "Anyway. I got a solid boost too. Thirty points to Vitality, probably from all the heal bursts, twenty five to Might, twenty to Focus, and ten to Creation. I kind of wish I'd gotten some Fantasy, but it seems like none of my tricks really push my legend in that direction. I have other ways to pad that number though, so it hardly matters." The stats had applied in my sleep, much like the first time I'd gotten them. So I hadn't had some big dramatic stat dump.

    Wishmaster candidate status. G-rank. Ability: Beginner Wish- Five times a day grant a Beginner wish in return for proper compensation. Wish must be feasibly achievable by the candidate's own efforts within a three day period with current statistics.

    Might-122
    Impact-12
    Fantasy-21
    Vitality-101
    Focus-108
    Perception-90
    Creation-92


    Stored:3 shadow attacks, 5 triple strength tranq blows, 2 triple strength density shifted attacks. 1 spider leg attacks, 2 heal bursts

    Pet- Wolf named Jin

    Skills:Beginner Doom Sovereign Mastery,Beginner Enchanting Mastery (four charges per point of Impact), Lesser Cooking Mastery,Lesser Inventing Mastery, Lesser Stealth, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Gymnastics Mastery, Minor Swimming Mastery, Minor Guitar Mastery, Minor Singing Mastery,Minor Poker Mastery, Minor Archery Mastery, Minor Boxing Mastery,Lesser Balam Mastery, Minor First Aid Mastery, Minor Herbalism Mastery

    My stats were looking fantastic. I'd officially made it past a hundred in three of them, was only ten points from that milestone in two others, and had broken the five hundred point barrier already on the way. I was actually at a level where I wasn't much weaker than your average G-ranker in individual stats. At least not in their unspecialized stats. Not that it would matter for long. "So." I said with a sigh as I started the omelette. "My cousin says this tournament is a big deal, and that it's aimed at the peak of G-rank."

    Callie made an interested sound. "Yeah, when is it going to be? Even for us, breaking through too soon isn't going to be simple. I mean, granted, we all have some elixir capacity left, most of us a decent chunk. But still, Jessie and Benny are both pretty low in the G-ranks. I'm not sure if we can rank them up in time for them to combat viable if it's too soon. Hell, I'd say we couldn't rank ourselves up in time and still be able to put up a fight, if not for how specialized I am and your new tricks."

    I sighed at that. "Two months, from what I can tell. You're right though. I don't have the capacity to rank all of us up that quickly. Especially not with three of my wishes promised to the Beast Lord Garden." I was already kind of regretting that decision, but in the end it didn't actually hinder me so much as force me to dedicate three of those wishes to myself daily. Still, it left forty or so wishes for me to use to continue boosting Benny and Jessie. Not nearly enough to get them to F-rank in time for the tournament, but enough to get started.

    I felt a poke in my ribs and turned to see Callie smiling up at me. "Hey, stop being such a worrier. Even if they can't participate in the tournament we can still have them up to speed by the time we have to go to the actual dungeon, right? It's not like a tournament that size is going to be quick and painless. We'll need to deal with plenty of bullshit to get through it. That just leaves us entering as a duo. Which is fine with me. Though it's also possible Mel and Abel could be entering. Hard to say with them."

    That was a good point. Abel seemed to want to be left alone mainly, but how much of that was just trying to avoid giving his brother a chance to start trouble and drag him into it was hard to say. The man had a natural inclination for battle that couldn't be common even on higher ranked planets, and a genuine love of combat. With the Pavilion severed from the circus and his own return to his former home, not to mention Mel's involvement in the place. It wasn't exactly out of the question for Apollyon and Starbreaker to return to Rajak in style.

    I was reminded of my first rank up, and how I'd had to accept it. I couldn't remember hearing anything about suppressing your rank, but then again, who would bother? Maybe they'd reached F-rank a long time ago and just decided to stay where they were. It certainly fit Abel's whole foundation building strategy. It would be convenient if nothing else. Assuming they even wanted to enter. It also opened up the possibility we would be facing other G-rankers who had done the same thing.

    Either way, we had plenty of training to do before the tournament, stats to gain, combat to master, and attacks to stockpile in my case. I had forty eight charges per day to use for my DS Mastery now, or any Enchanting I needed to do, with the foundation to double that again sometime down the line. I still had to upgrade all my subskills in DS Mastery to reach Intermediate with it and unlock new ones too.

    There was more things to do than I could possibly count, and more ways to get stronger than I could imagine. Part of me felt overwhelmed at the idea of it, and part of me was just excited. For now I would just focus on making breakfast for my girlfriend, and then we could check in with the others about their own gains from the big blowout. After that, I was thinking a trip up to the Academy was long overdue. We should check in with Grimmengap and invite them to the Pavilion, and collect the points from the mission we had completed. I was sure our rankings had dropped, might as well get them back up. At the very least, I doubted we would be bored anytime soon.
     
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  30. Threadmarks: chapter 251
    Malcolm Tent

    Malcolm Tent Monkey with a typewriter.

    Joined:
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    After breakfast we went and got the others, It was decided we could do the debrief on how they'd grown on the way, so piled into the car after saying goodbye to Cass and Cark and headed for the Academy. As usual Jessie drove, because we wanted to arrive at our destination via landing and not smash into the ground in a horrifying explosion of twisted metal. Callie had mostly gotten used to being forbidden to operate the thing, so she hardly even pouted, though I was secretly glad she hadn't stopped completely because she had a gorgeous pout, not that I would tell her that to her face.

    Benny, being the one who wasn't driving, was the first one to catch us up, after hearing about our own growth. "Damn, that's an impressive jump for both of you. I went up twenty five Perception, twenty Might, and shockingly twenty Creation. That last one kind of confused me, but I have to assume someone was talking about the origin of my ability being Inventing."

    "Only real downside is that I guess I got Creation instead of Focus." He said. "Which is what I needed, but I can always trade some attacks for more points in that." He shuddered at the idea. "Those spider leg attack hurt a ton, but it sounds like you got some serious use from them. I might be willing to try again sometime. Anyway this was what I ended up with."

    Benicio Cortez- G rank. Ability: Lesser Mechanical Embodiment- Allows the integration of existing inventions into the users body for the purposes of strengthening and enhancing them. insignia is a half gear in the shape of a C

    Might-84
    Impact-12
    Fantasy-10
    Vitality-31
    Focus-75
    Perception-42
    Creation-30


    Pet- Wolf named Rolf

    Current integrated tech. 9/10. Torso: Extending rope. Right fist: triple punch. Left forearm: long range attack attraction. Left fist: minor slow acting tranquilizer effect. Right foot: Density shifting to create heavier kicks and more powerful jumps. Left Foot: momentum neutralization to allow stopping instantly. Head: slight cognitive boost to allow more thinking time. Back: ability to grow a shell to tank damage. Chest: Pair of golden G rank spider legs that arch up from the shoulders.

    Skills:Minor Cooking Mastery, Beginner Inventing Mastery, Minor Haggling Mastery, Minor Stealth Mastery

    It was solid gains. Now that I had those three mandatory wishes reserved for the Beast Lord Garden, an attack stockpile was the best way to help my friends grow from here, and I needed it badly myself. I'd burned off most of mine during the battle but they'd been indispensable to the fight as a whole. Plus Benny's stats were so low already that the additions to Creation and Perception provided at least a solid baseline for him to work with. No matter how specialized, it was a good idea to have at least some foundation on the other stats, especially something like Perception.

    Jessie's cheerful voice rang out from the front seat. "Wow, not bad at all. I got a huge points dump into Vitality, obviously. Fifty points directly. I also got twenty five in Focus, probably for the mental component of beast taming, and oddly fifteen points in Perception, most likely from using my raven to scout out Cicero's tent before we went in." I could hear the annoyance in her voice. "Once again I'm absurdly specialized without even trying. Though it's nice I at least managed to get my last two stats unlocked. It feels...strange. Hard to describe. I ended up with this though, stat wise."

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

    Might-52
    Impact-12
    Fantasy-28
    Vitality-191
    Focus-25
    Perception-15
    Creation-8


    Pet- Wolf named Lily and bear named Randall

    Skills: Beginner Horticulture,Beginner First Aid, Minor Herbalism, Minor Flower Arrangement, Minor Beast Taming Mastery

    It was staggering how high Jessie's Vitality was given how low her total point count was, but then again her power WAS life. I couldn't think of anyone whose ability exemplified a stat so perfectly anywhere else I had seen. It was truly staggering. It also explained how fast she was growing. Fifty points was a crazy amount, but it made sense. Our world tended to favor big flashy feats, and Jessie's healing had always been staggeringly effective whenever it was used. She was naturally suited to rapid growth whenever she was in battle, especially with a tamed beast like Randall.

    I was honestly wondering if we should bring her with us to the tournament anyway, but it seemed unlikely to go well. Even if Randall could keep up she wouldn't be able to, and I had no way of getting her to F-rank fast enough to be viable. Hell, I wasn't sure WE would be viable. We were bound to run into people just as established in the F-ranks as Abel was in the G-ranks. Could we even take someone like that? They wouldn't BE Abel obviously, because then we would just get crushed, but we had a long way to go, and I had a feeling I would need every advantage to make it through.

    Still, we'd all made great progress from this, and it was nice to hear. I was particularly glad that Jessie and Benny had slept through their gains too. Given how large the percentage jump had been, I was guessing it wouldn't have been pleasant to experience awake. It made me wonder if letting the points slowly come in your sleep was the proper way to do things and the Academy had encouraged us to take the points dump to scare us away from rushing too fast. If so, it was a pretty effective method, even if it hadn't actually worked for us.

    I decided to change topics though, because we had a big one to discuss. "What are the chances there are other jobs to do with what we found? I mean, it was a pretty big conspiracy. With all that information already out it's only a matter of time before it leaks, might as well cash in on the points before it hits the grapevine."

    "Should be decent." Callie said contemplatively. "I mean, we'll need to talk to Celine about the details since she knows the place pretty well, but there's no way we haven't moved up the scale on what missions we can take. We might need to do some of the tests over and crank our rankings a bit. But that might be a good idea anyway. If nothing else, Jessie has a pretty amazing Vitality stat. I don't actually know what the Vitality test entails but getting her rank up will give her some regular points that should boost her overall ranking."

    I groaned a bit at the thought of all the numbers needed to calculate the rankings. There were so many factors, it really boggled the mind. The only upside to this whole mess was the the tournament was going to be far more important than the local one that usually took place, so we didn't need to bother with trying to rank up to join. I was pretty sure the Moonsong Glade tournament was one you could just join, though I should probably learn the details soon.

    All of that was a problem for future Shane though. I decided to tease my best friend instead. "So, Benny. Haven't seen your girl in a while huh? Think she's going to be mad you haven't been around? Or have you been sneaking away for long soulful phone calls every night to check in?" He had, and I knew that, which was why I said it in the most irritating way possible. In reality I thought it was sweet, but I also remembered him constantly harassing me about Callie, and I was owed vengeance.

    My best friend narrowed his eyes at me. "A joke about me being too attentive? How clever. Did you come up with that this morning while you were making your girlfriend her extravagant breakfast?" Callie smirked a bit at that, though whether it was from amusement at the barb or happiness at the memory itself I had no idea.

    I brushed off the shoulder of my coat. "Extravagant? Oh, I'm sorry, is an omelette a difficult meal for you to prepare. I'm happy to do things for Callie but it was hardly necessary to put myself out for such a simple recipe. I think you're confusing my effort with your own incompetence." My faux haughty tone got a legitimate laugh from my girlfriend this time. Alone with an eyeroll.

    "Alright you idiots." She said through her laughter. "You're both stoic badasses who don't wear your hearts on your sleeves and remain a mystery to those around you. Can we get back on topic now? I swear, going anywhere with the two of you is like herding cats." Despite the mocking words her tone was fond as she curled against me, and I put my arm around her as I laughed along.

    Benny snickered a bit too. We both knew we were being stupid, but familiar childhood rituals were comforting. We spent the next hour or two talking about possible missions we could do to improve our rankings, provided we had enough time to squeeze them in. We wouldn't obviously, but it was nice to just go over some of the tasks we'd seen when we were first at the information hall from the perspective of someone with much more strength and ability than we could possibly have imagined when we first got to the Academy.

    Part of me wanted to go challenge Fisher or one of the other heavy hitters from the scavenger hunt, just to see what they were capable of and how their growth stacked up to us. I dismissed it immediately, it seemed pretty unlikely they had managed to keep up Though Fisher in particular had been pretty terrifying and had a hell of a reputation for a freshman. Maybe he would surprise us. Plus there were always elixirs. Even if he did though, I doubted he would have the combat ability of members of the Titan Twenty. Looking back, Beat and Sever were exponentially scarier than any of the freshman we had come across, and they were the weakest of that lineup.

    When we finally arrived at the school, we headed straight for Grimmengap's dorm. Sarah answered, and beamed as soon as she saw us. Stepping forward to give us each a hug. "Hey, guys! It's so good to see you. Been busy lately? We haven't heard from you in a while." She shot Benny a wink. "Celine has been extra quiet lately, and that's saying something. I don't think she's mad or anything, but she always seems happier when you're around."

    My best friend's face lit up a bit at the thought that the pretty elf girl was so affected by his presence, and even I didn't have the heart to tease him about his obvious excitement. Jokes aside, I was really happy for Benny. I hoped he found with Celine what I had with Callie, and I reached down to lace my fingers with hers at the thought. She didn't look away from Sarah, but she squeezed my hand, her cheeks flushing slightly.

    We headed inside to chat with the others before heading down to the information hall, and as we walked in I looked around with a wide smile. It felt...strange, to be back. It had been such a short time really, but we'd changed so much. Still, it was comfortable. We hadn't spent much time in the dorm, but it had been warm and welcoming for the time we had spent, it was nice to be back. I hoped not too long from now our friends would feel the same way about the pavilion. Until then it was just nice to be back.
     
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