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

The next day, we officially headed for our new territory. Well, Celine's new territory. She was the one officially marked to be the noble in charge of this place. Since she'd be getting the renown from the Empire for its operation, and since Callie would be making the wishes, I should be able to grant the wishes for upgrading the territory itself.

With that decided, we just had to figure out exactly where we were going to begin work. Highgrave's territory did contain a city, as well as a manor, but both belonged to Highgrave and the latter was not only probably full of traps, but also pretty damaged.

Besides that, since we were building from the ground up, we decided we needed to find a location with a lot of natural defenses, somewhere that would make our job easier.

Which brought us…here. As I stared out over the valley, I couldn't help but whistle at the sight before me. "Damn." I said quietly. "That's amazing." I put an arm around Callie as we stared down into the idyllic landscape of what was going to be our first real home since leaving Callus. Sure, we'd be off and heading for the conclave in a few months, but it would be waiting for us to come back.

"It IS amazon." She murmured. "I can't believe the cats found this place. Thanks for the assist Bethy."

The vampire giggled. "Um, duh. Of course I found somewhere awesome. I have the best taste ever, right Gabe?" She shot a slightly strained smile at the big blonde man, and he nodded solemnly. Ever since her outburst in the healing tent, she'd been acting incredibly guilty whenever she was around Gabe. For his part, he didn't seem to care about her shoving him away, but I could tell he was concerned about her new demeanor.

I forced myself to focus on the valley itself though, smiling at the beautiful scenery. Stretched our below us, a deep depression in the ground cut out a huge section of the forest. Inside was a large idyllic meadow filled with lush green grass and the occasional patch of wildflowers. A few trees dotted the landscape, but only in the singular, and they were all large sturdy fruit bearing behemoths.

At the far end of the valley was a huge clear lake. The lake was backed up against a sheer cliff face, and a waterfall tumbled from the rocks at the top. I could see a deep stone cave at the back of the waterfall, allowing the lake to drain out without overflowing its peaceful banks, and peaceful fish and frogs and turtles enjoyed both the shore and the glasslike water nearest to it.

Benny, who was escorting Celine, took a long deep breath, smiled pleasantly and said aloud what we were all thinking. "So…this is a trap right?"

"Oh, gods yes." I said immediately. "I'm surprised someone didn't build a candy house in the middle of that meadow. It's super pretty though. And unfortunately for whoever or whatever is expecting to ensnare us, we have other means of securing our territory." Kneeling down, I pressed a hand to the grass, and called on Song of the Soil.

Earth. For miles in every direction I felt myself spread through the earth. My Perception was miles ahead of where it had been last time I used this skill outside of a Pit of Despair I made myself, but I had an easy fix for that. I triggered Piece of Mind twice, letting each of my three selves take a portion of the information load to sift through.

"Ok, let's see." I said as I sorted through stimuli. "Small settlement of giant moles, but they're pretty deep and don't seem hostile. Den of river otters, judging by the piles of suspiciously human bones in their cave they ARE hostile, but there's only like ten of them and they're just F-rank. And, oh, that'd be the one. Ouch, that's nasty."

Benny cleared his throat. "We can't see what you're talking about, mind filling us in on what you're looking at?"

"Ambush predator." Said Callie in my stead. She could access my skills through our bond, and was looking at it right alongside me. "It's disguised as a one square mile section of meadow. Basically a giant mouth waiting to snap shut on anything that steps…there." She pointed to a particularly sunny and inviting stretch of grass, one with no trees or flowers but that looked lush and soft."

Benny hissed. "A square mile. Someone needs to cut back on carbs."

"No monster shaming." I said with a snicker. "It's tacky. Don't worry though, I've got this. Gabe, feel like hammering in a nail for me?"

He shrugged. "Not sure what you mean by that, but I can go with the flow. What did you have in mind." I headed down the hill opposite the cliff, the alternate and much more inviting entrance to the valley, and he followed me.

"Ok. I'm going to set up an attack, and I want you to use your Path to make sure it does the job. Can you get up there?" I pointed up to a spot maybe twenty feet above the ground.

In answer, he conjured his starlight charger and swung onto its back. To my surprise, it stepped on air as easily as the ground, charging up into the sky and then stopping where I'd pointed. I gave him a thumbs up, then took a deep breath, triggering Afterburner, Mercy Kill and Mephistopheles.

I was careful about it, because the ambush predator felt strong. It was E-rank, but HIGH E-rank, and if it decided to attack it could almost definitely kill us.

To make sure that didn't happen, I called up Moonlit Night, and empowered with Afterburner, the stealth aspect of the ability was even stronger. I made sure Gabe could see through the fog, then walked over to the VERY edge of the ambush predator's range, and knelt down, putting a hand on the grass. With the stealth covering me, I triggered Pit of Despair, and then I started letting black flame seep into the dust. I controlled both meticulously, using my two still active parallels to manipulate both the dust and the flame.

Once the flame had permeated the dust, I used Dust Construction to lift it all up. The ambush predator noticed, but it couldn't sense the cause and froze up. Hammering the Dust with my willpower, I slammed it together into a twenty foot long spike of black stone roiling with black flame energy. "Now!" I called to Gabe.

Being able to see the flat platform under him at the top, he dismissed his charger and landed on it just as I released the spike and it began to fall. I saw the world shift slightly as Gabe channeled his Path of the Adamant into the falling spike, and the rod of black stone plummeted into the still open and now exposed mouth of the ambush predator.

The spike slammed into flesh at high speeds, driven by Gabe's path alongside my black flame as an explosion of powerful damaging energy, enhanced by multiple effects and channeled along the length of the dense stone slammed into it and blasted the spike into the depths of the creature.

Gabe himself leapt off at the last second, backflipping up to land on his suddenly coalescing charger as the monster screamed its death throes, fountains of rancid blood shooting up from the hole we'd left as it died.

Swinging by, Gabe caught me with a high five as he went by, and I whooped with joy as I let the fog fade away. The others hurried over to us, and whistled as they saw the results. Callie looked particularly impressed. "That's amazing. Think of how much damage an attack like that could do from higher up."

"I call it the rod from the gods." I said proudly. "But realistically that's the best I can do. Lifting that much dust is a huge strain. The higher it goes the more stress it puts on my soul. Twenty feet is about my limit, and only because I was in the process of compacting it."

She grimaced. "Ah, yeah that might be a problem. Maybe I could teleport it? We'd need something up there casting a shadow. Good idea using Gabe's Path to charge up the momentum."

"Wouldn't have done much otherwise." I said with a shrug. I offered the Adamant a grin, not that he could see it. "Damned impressive job there man."

He hopped off his horse, letting it dissolve in silver shimmers. "Hell of a payload, I just delivered it." it felt good, knowing that despite being extremely weak amongst the throngs of E-rankers, we could still get shit done, especially working together. Our Paths really were an extreme advantage at this juncture, though I suspected we'd be meeting more and more people who had them already as we approached D-rank.

"Not to rain on anyone's parade." Said Benny as he looked at the huge corpse. "But what the hell are we supposed to do with this big bastard? Killing it means we can start work right? But like…don't we need to move the body?"

I glanced at Callie, who would be making the wishes for this place. "I'm going to say no." She said after some deliberation. "We can work around it. We'll figure out something to do with it when we have time, but it's not like it'll attack. Worst case after its gone we'll fill the hole with water and make a pond or something."

"Sure, because that's not weird at all." I said with a laugh. "I can just imagine including that in the tour for prospective citizens. 'And here we have Predator Pond, which used to be the grave of a giant super predator that called this valley its lair'. That'll bring in the investors."

She just shrugged, mostly ignoring me. "Now, to get started, I think we need to take the same steps you did with the walls. Namely, we need foundations. Seven buildings as a start. The question is what we need first." She turned to Celine. "This is going to be your territory, and you have more experience with this kind of thing. What's our first building?"

The elf looked thoughtful. "I think…we need an inn. We'll need city planners, workmen, and plenty of other dedicated craftsmen. Shipping them here every day isn't cost effective. An inn would let us keep our workers close."

"That's a good idea." Callie said cheerfully. "Actually, it makes a lot of sense to consult a professional about placement. In that case, how about we focus on getting the inn up today and we can save the other foundations for once the planner arrives?" Once Celine agreed, my girlfriend clapped her hands together and rubbed them vigorously. "Aright. Let's do this. Shane, I wish for the nicest and sturdiest inn foundation we can afford. Celine will be paying for all of today's wishes with a D-ranked chit."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

The elf smiled, tossing me a particularly dense looking coin, which I caught with a surprised grunt and slipped into my ring. Heavier than it looked. I felt the power start to build and grinned as it charged to absurd levels. 'Best we could afford' meant lots of Impact. With an explosion of purple sparks a sea of light covered the entire area…where the monster body was.

When it vanished, there was a big empty hole in the shape of a well structured basement, with beams and supports that looked suspiciously like bone.

I blinked, staring down in shock. Apparently the best she could afford meant using all resources. We had a giant hole filled with powerful monster parts, and apparently the wish decided to count them as assets. I stared down at the sturdy looking foundation and then turned to Callie who looked as shocked as I did. "Well." I said cheerfully. "That solves that problem. Next wish I guess."

Rather than jump straight to wish number two though, Callie decided to check out the basement first. The foundation was going to be important when we built the rest of the place, so it made sense to figure out the dimensions and stuff. I followed her down, curious to see what a basement made of monster would look like.

It was…surprisingly homey. The supports were made of bone, but the bone wasn't white and porous like human bones. I could still tell what it was, but the bones were black and glossy. The stairs down into the place were made of teeth, at least based on the shapes, but they were fitted together, joined into a solid series of platforms.

The floor was…leather? It had been made of some kind of hide tanned firm enough to be almost like tile. There was a slight give, but it didn't feel disturbing or anything. It reminded me of walking on rubber floors as a kid, back when Benny and I were in childcare together. Kind of springy but still hard.

Lastly was the walls, made of some sort of scales, overlapping in a surprisingly pretty shimmer of blue and green, melding into pretty images that seemed to shift and change based on where you were standing. The whole place was shockingly beautiful for a building (or part of one) made from a monster corpse.

"This is big." Said Callie with interest, pacing out the length and width of the basement. "Like…really big. Not exactly a mile like I expected though."

I pointed to the supports. "You asked for strong. It condensed the material to make sure it could hold up whatever building we end up with. Speaking of which, do you have any ideas how you're going to need to do this?"

She nodded. "Yup. First I'm using my next wish to wish for a blueprint. Having an exact layout is going to make things substantially easier." I waited, and she rolled her eyes. "Right. I wish I had a blueprint for the perfect inn for our needs." Nodding in approval, I waited until the familiar purple flame rolled across my vision.

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I confirmed, and the familiar buildup of electricity rolled across my skin. It wasn't a strong buildup, a piece of paper with a design wasn't a stretch for my power and didn't require much effort, even customized to Callie's wishes.

There was a flash of purple electricity and the light coalesced into a rolled up tube of papers, which I passed to my girlfriend.

She popped the top, sliding them out, and then carried them over to a central patch of floor and laid them out on the ground, pinning them with a few conjured rocks of shadow to keep the pages from curling. I followed her over and leaned down to get a good look.
I whistled. "Those are…extensive. Thirteen rooms, expansive kitchen, of course, training area, basement meeting hall, secret exit, there's a lot here."

She nodded. "The design is even modular. It calls for very general materials, wood, nails, and so on. We can substitute out better materials if we want something sturdier and that will last, or just use the bare minimum."

"And which one are you going with?" I asked casually. I could grant the wishes for her, but I still didn't want to influence her calls too much. You never knew when a wish would fail because of unfair compensation. I had a good idea of what she'd choose though, knowing Callie as well as I did.

Sure enough, she rolled her eyes. "Obviously we're using top of the line E-ranked materials. Or at least the best materials possible with what I have. I'm going to use four of my remaining five wishes maximizing material conjuration, and then the last one to actually put the place together. With all the mats here and a proper blueprint the actual construction should be coverable in one wish."

I nodded thoughtfully. "That seems like it would work. So, four wishes for the materials, how are you going to divide them up?"

Picking up the blueprints, she turned and headed back up the stairs, out into the meadow outside the spacious basement. "Ok, I think I've got this sorted to get the best results. First wish we'll wish for external building materials, then internal, then the roof, and finally furnishings." She turned to the others, who had approached when we came out. "That sound alright to you guys?"

Benny looked thoughtful. "If you really wanted to maximize your material quality you'd wish for them one by one. Wish for the best wood, then the best nails, and so on. But that would take more than you've got wish-wise. I think your way will get you a solid build, and should cut down on unnecessary time wastage."

"We don't need to make it impregnable anyway." She said with a laugh. "It's an inn, not a fortress. The rooms will be usable while we're here though. The layout is ten normal rooms and three suites. Obviously as the local Lady Celine gets one, and I'm claiming another. As for the third…I suspect Chelsea will get it. Political reasons." Celine nodded at that and everyone else cursed.

Callie spun, fire in her eyes. "Alright. Time to get started. I wish we had the perfect mix of materials for the outside of this Inn, both in terms of fitting the design and our own preferences." She was careful with her wording, and I nodded as the message came.

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I winced a bit at the details stat wise. The Might and Creation requirement was expected, but the real kicker was the Impact. It made sense since each of the items in question would be a fully functional real object. I confirmed, and the electricity started to build.

It started with a tingling sort of buzzing along my skin, like normal static that built and built. That was pretty normal, but something about this one felt…different. This was going to be the biggest conjuration I'd done. The wish power worked by creating custom ability templates to maximize my stat usage, which meant different wishes functioned differently, like those bindings we'd used on Weston.

This one felt strange, and I wasn't quite sure why for a moment. I felt the electricity build inside me, and I waited for it to explode from my hands or what have you, but instead it seemed to concentrate in my stomach. My eyes widened and I retracted the bottom part of my mask as my head fell back and I screamed, a beam of purple lightning streaking up into the sky.

The beam hit the clouds above us and they darkened, flickering ominously with purple light before erupting into a torrent of wrist thick bolts of lightning, all striking the spot directly in front of us. When it finally cleared, I was doubled over, hands on my knees, wheezing, and there was a huge pile of well cut black timber in front of us, shot through with odd grey crystals.

"What." I wheezed. "The actual fuck?" My voice was gravelly, like I'd just been smoking. Which I suppose I kind of had, if you considered the puff of black soot I'd just coughed up smoking.

Callie, who looked concerned, looked me over until she was sure I was ok, then she walked over to the wood. "These are fulgurites." She said as she pointed to the branching grey crystals. "The wood is probably some kind of lightning material." She leaned over, making an interested sound. "There are other materials, neatly stacked and seemingly way less dramatic to make."

I considered what I knew about my ability. "You asked for the best. I'm guessing a normal conjuration wasn't enough for that material. It gave me an ability that allowed me to mobilize natural resources to make the stats I used go further. Like with the basement. It seems weird this has only just started happening though."

"Not really." Said Benny. "If I had to guess it has to do with your soul. Remember abilities can do more dramatic things and stretch the bounds of possibility more with a stronger soul. Your wishes are getting more effective for the same reason. The ability templates can be flexed further with your current soul strength."

I considered his theory, and I had to admit he might be right. The bindings on Weston had been big and dramatic, and prior to that I hadn't really pushed myself wish wise for a while. We'd been sticking with basic stat trades and attack stockpiling.

"You still up for the next one?" Callie asked worriedly. "If you need a minute we can wait."

I put a hand to my chest. "I am shocked at how little you think of me. Shocked I say." Callie just rolled her eyes, trying not to laugh.

"If you can make bad puns you're fine." She said with a teasing smirk. "In that case, I wish for the best material possible for the interior of the Inn within the confines of the budget and my preferences, one of which is that my boyfriend doesn't have to vomit lightning bolts again." She winked at me, and I laughed as the message came.

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I confirmed. Luckily her deciding not to fry my lungs didn't seem to count as compensation of any sort for me, which was fair. Not electrocuting me wasn't my idea of a bribe either. This time the electricity grounded out of my feet, and the earth churned as the materials pushed up from out of the dirt.

She wished again, this time for the roof, and then the furnishings, and by the time she finished with those we were standing in the middle of a very odd pile of random stuff including lumber, fasteners, light fixtures, and a surprising number of expensive looking filigreed doorknobs. I was panting, these creation abilities were taxing in a way I wasn't used to.

After giving me a second to catch my breath, with Benny doing his spiritual calming thing just in case it helped (it did a bit) we moved on to the last wish. "Alright." Said Callie excitedly. "Time to put it all together. I wish the materials we have her would be assembled in the manner indicated in the blueprint I wished for earlier, adjusted in any way necessary for optimal material application."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

This time I took a second before confirming and then once I did, it began. The electricity built as usual, but instead of coming out as a blast it started to radiate from my palms as a pulse. Purple lightning flowed out in circular waves, and as it hit the materials, they started to glow.

Like a magnetic draw, they started to lift into the air and move toward the foundation, gently rotating around it at first, then picking up speed as it started to draw in more and more parts. Before I knew it there was a tornado of stuff surrounding the basement, with the tip of the funnel seeming to be a zone of construction laying the materials in place.

Timber shoved itself into place, nails flew at top speed into wood with perfect accuracy, and as we watched, the Inn built itself from the ground up, visible at first, but within minutes it had sealed itself off, and everything, fixtures, furnishings and all, was gone, leaving the meadow looking perfect and pristine.

Walking up the to the new building, I knocked solidly on the door. When it held, I opened it up, stepping inside, and whistled loudly at the sheer elegance of the decor. The furnishings had looked much less impressive when they were in a pile outside. Now it was kind of a quiet understated opulence that made me glad we'd gone with this particular design. I loved it. Turning to the others, I shot them a grin. "Good news. It worked."

"This place is fantastic!" I said in awe as I toured the halls of our new inn. We'd named it The Hearthflame Inn (my suggestion of Inn Cognito had been dismissed as stupid) and we were exploring the completed building. We'd all be sleeping here tonight, and tomorrow most of the group would had back to the Imperial Fork when the City Planner and Workmen we'd hired through Camden showed up.

Callie, who was beaming at the flawlessly constructed building, nodded sharply. "It's perfect. I love everything about it." She froze, turning to look at Celine. "I mean…I hope you like it, since this is your territory."

Smiling, the elf girl shook her head. "I'm grateful for your help developing the territory, and the Starlight Pavilion is always welcome in my borders. I know I can't actually give you the territory because of your cultivation method, but as the Lady of this territory I am always willing to shield you and yours."

That was why we were able to make wishes about this place to begin with. There was no mechanism to turn over Imperial territory to anyone but a noble. If we'd had Jobs we might have been able to switch to being nobles ourselves, but as it was that wasn't on the table.

Still, having a home was…nice. This was our place, where we belonged, and being here gave me the strength to do something I'd been thinking of doing for a long time. I'd already made my plan, but it would need to wait until later. I wanted to make sure everything went perfectly, so for now I'd just enjoy the tour, knowing the layout could only help.

I'd developed enough soul control to prevent my nervous excitement from leaking down the bond, but it was still hard to focus on what was going on, despite my interest. Still, when we reached the kitchen, even anticipation couldn't keep me from being entranced.

Black metal appliances of every size and shape lined the counters, pots and pans stacked in cupboards, knives of every shape and size, and every object you could think of to peel, press, dice, puree, blend, or otherwise destroy ingredients in cooking adjacent ways was packed into the drawers.

Turning to Callie, I smirked at her knowingly. "It occurs to me that with such an impressive kitchen at my disposal, I'll have more reason to cook."

She shrugged with faux nonchalance. "Oh, is that right? I hadn't really thought about it. Obviously an inn needs a kitchen, but this place was designed to be perfect for me, so obviously a food prep area would be a must."

"Yes, and I'm sure you pictured some nameless chef doing the preparing." I said dryly. "But if you wouldn't be too disappointed, why don't I test it out for you tonight. I can make us dinner."

Benny, who was standing behind me inspecting the fridge, turned sharply. "Oh shit, really? I haven't had your food in ages, I'd love to come over fo-ow!" He turned to Celine, who was glaring at him menacingly. "What? Why did you smack me? I was just telling him I wanted him to make some for us too."

"I thought I saw a fly." Said the elf in a deadpan voice. "In fact, it's still buzzing around. We should leave so I don't need to try to swat it again."

Sulkily, and muttering under his breath, Benny let her drag him out of the room. Celine may not know what I had planned, but it didn't take a genius to figure out it started with a romantic dinner. The others were all exploring the inn, but I suspected they'd be subtly tipped off as well, so I shouldn't have trouble getting some alone time with Callie.

Watching them go, she shot me a soft smile. "I think dinner would be wonderful." She said quietly. "We haven't had time to eat a nice home cooked meal just the two of us in a while." She reached out and took my hand. "But if you don't want to cook we can have Anna make something, I don't want you to feel obligated to feed me."

I barked out a laugh. "That ship sailed a long time ago, love. But don't you worry. I want to cook. I promise you'll love it. I do need to go out and get some things though. Can you set up a table in the basement? That should be empty enough for us to have a nice evening."

"Already done." She said with a chuckle. "Remember we're using it for meetings. Go get whatever you need, I can wait."

Pulling my mask up, I leaned down for a quick kiss before turning and heading out. The kitchen was stocked with general food stuff, but nothing specific, and aside from cooking I had something else I wanted to pick up.

I sprinted flat out to Saltzberg, so it didn't take me too long to arrive. My body being in a constant State of Grace helped. Stopping at the market I picked up the stuff for Chicken and Dumplings, one of the first dishes I ever made for Callie, and then made my second stop to grab the other essential I needed.

When I made it back, I started cooking immediately. We still had a few hours until dinner, but I wanted to do it right. It was relaxing, really. I'd forgotten how much cooking centered me. The repetition, the ritual. I could have done it faster, but that would have defeated the purpose of the whole thing. I wanted to take my time, put my all into it.

Using high end ingredients helped, but with my Lesser Cooking Mastery, I had to put a lot of time and concentration into not screwing up. I had the Impact and the stats to cook E-ranked stuff, but not nearly the Skill, so I'd made sure to get F-ranked ingredients. Even with the lower Skill level my stats should let me bluff my way past as long as I remained focused.

The Starplucker Chicken (no I don't know why it was called that but it sounded impressive as hell) was tough to cut in its uncooked form, and I admit to abusing my Eye of Revelation and my Overlay to properly cut it up, and once that was done, I had to boil it in a high ranking pot with the F-ranked stove and special Clear Mind Water that I'd bought specifically for that purpose (after searing it to seal in the flavor).

I went on like that for a while, enjoying myself as I got lost in my task. I'd been so focused on war and battle lately I'd forgotten the simple pleasures, and by the time I was done, it was already getting dark.

Leaving the food under a towel to keep it hot, I bolted for a bathroom, where I showered and got changed into clothes from my ring. Then, once I was sure I looked good without my mask (shaving, styling my hair, etcetera) I went back to the kitchen, collected the food, and took it down to the basement.

The meeting room was nice and spacious and I was able to spruce it up even more with some table cloths and candles I'd snagged while shopping. Once that was done I set the food out and plated it onto some nice chine before sending a pulse of notification through the bond to Callie.

When she came down the steps, I turned to smile at her and…froze. My jaw dropped almost to the floor as I saw her smiling up at me through her lashes. She'd gotten all dolled up, and it was clear that I was still every bit as blown away by her as the day we met. She was wearing a fancy looking black dress that draped down to her shiny black heels, a pair of black crystal earrings dangling from her lobes.

Her makeup was subtle, not that she needed any (which I'd told her a dozen times but she never listened about that kind of thing) and it drew the eye to her sparkling, intelligent blue eyes, one of the things I loved most about her.

"I…words." I blurted. Her eyebrow went up, and I coughed. "I mean. I wasn't expecting for you to get so dressed up."

She smiled shyly. "I don't know. We don't get as much time together like this as I'd like. I wanted to make it special>' She frowned. "Is it too much? I know you wanted this to be just a chill evening together. I can change."

"Don't you dare." I said with a laugh. "Now come sit down, the food will get cold." I pulled out her chair and she sat down, lighting up when she saw what I made. Her mom had used to make it for her when she was a kid, and it was one of her favorite dishes. She didn't thank me out loud, she didn't need to. I could feel the affection and adoration across the bond like a banked star. Steady and unceasing, but still powerful.

She took a bite, groaning in happiness at the taste, and snorted in confusion when she saw me staring. "What? Something on my face?"
I considered making a joke, but I decided to just start. "I wanted to talk to you about something. With all this mess with Camden and Spencer, I've been pushing pretty hard. I've been stretched to my breaking point time and again, and every single time, you're always there to pull me back. You're my rock, the center of my universe, and you make every day we have together better than the best day I ever had before you were in my life."

Her eyes widened, mouth full of her next bite of food, so I kept going, barreling on as best I could. "I know it's pretty soon. It's only been a bit over a year, and that's not too long, but…I love you. When I think about my life without you in it it's just dull and lifeless, and I can't imagine ever being happy in a world like that."

She swallowed her food, eyes stuck to me. "I love you too, Shane, you know that. But all this windup is making me nervous. Are you…" She swallowed. "Do you have something to ask me?" I wasn't surprised she'd noticed. She knew me better than anyone, and the bond made hiding the terrified pit in my stomach a pipe dream.

I got up from my chair at the table and walked over to hers, kneeling down next to her as I fished out the ring box I'd stopped to buy earlier in town. "I know it's a little early, but we've been through so much together. Life and death, happiness and sadness, and I for one can't wait to find out what tomorrow is going to bring us. I can't wait to start the rest of my life with you."

Opening the box, I showed off the bright silver band with the pitch black diamond I'd spent an entire D-ranked coin on (it was enchanted, obviously). "I love you more than anyone I've ever met. You're the other half of my soul, pretty much literally, and it would make me the happiest man alive if you'd do me the honor of being my wife." I stared into her eyes, amazed at their glow as they pulled me in like blue supernovas. "Calliope Reynolds, will you marry me?"

Her adoration and heartfelt acceptance hit me through the bond almost as hard as her tackle hit me as she threw herself at me and kissed me senseless. "Yes, you idiot." She laughed through ecstatic tears. "Why did it take you godsdamned long to ask?" She pulled me back in for another kiss, and I let the joy and peace overtake me completely. Needless to say, the food ended up getting cold.

Waking up the next morning felt…weirdly normal. Callie was with me, as per usual, though she was already awake, an abnormality in the morning for my usually grumpy girlfriend. I paused. I guessed the term was fiancee now. Damn, that was weird. Still mornings were not usually her jam. Today though, she was up before me, though still in bed, staring at her hand, or more specifically, the glittering ring that now sat on her third finger.

"It's not going to disappear, you know." I said with a laugh. "That thing might not be D-ranked, but it's basically the most expensive E-ranked enchanted ring I could find."

"I guess I didn't ask about it last night, huh?" She said with interest. "So, what exactly does it do? If it's peak E-rank it must be impressive. Does it summon a swarm of meteors? Turn me into a lion? Give me wings?"

I laughed. "No, no, and if you want wings you can make them out of shadows. It's a shield. It drains excess energy from you when you're in peak condition, just overflow that would go to waste, and stockpiles it for a single use defensive charge. The shield itself will stop a single blow from a Master, though it'll break right after."

"Shane, that must have cost a fortune!" She said in shock. "I love it, but you didn't need to spend so much."

Shrugging, I gave her a sappy grin. "It's self defense. Had to make sure that shield was strong enough. My heart is in there, after all." I felt the love and contentment through the bond as she threw herself at me, pinning me to the bed and kissing me senseless. I finally managed to pull away, laughing breathlessly. "Alright enough of that. We've got big plans today. Meetings with the city planner and the workmen."

Laughing, she sat up, stretching expansively. Standing, she snapped her fingers and her costume was suddenly wrapped around her. It was one of the more useful tricks that a spatial ring allowed for. Callie's was still on her left ring finger, opposite the engagement ring. "Fine." She said grumpily. "But if you're going to make me get up I want breakfast."

"You know." I said, climbing out of bed and letting my armor cover me with the same snap. "When we're married, your pouting is probably going to get less effective."

She grinned widely at me. "And YOU know that the bond lets me feel it when you lie. Now mush, go make us breakfast. I'm in the mood for crepes." She made a shooing motion with her fingers and I laughed, rolling my eyes as I headed downstairs to the kitchen.

Cooking this morning was even more relaxing that yesterday. I just felt so…happy. Like nothing could bring me down. This was the happiest I'd ever been in my life. Getting stronger was great, and I'd had some impressive victories, but this…this was a new level of joy. It was like I'd taken a bath in contentment.

Callie came into the room, plopping down on a stool to watch me cook, and didn't say a word, just kind of smiled, playing with her ring absently. I could feel everything she was feeling, and vice versa, neither of us wanted to hide something like this from the other.

"Wow, you two are even more sappy than usual-" Came Jessie's voice as she entered the kitchen, but she cut off, the sound of breaking glass drawing my gaze to where she stood frozen, staring at Callie's hand. "Is that?" Smirking, my fiancee nodded and Jessie squealed in excitement, hurling herself across the room at as.

I fumbled, yelping in panic. "Hot pan, hot PAN." I managed to save the crepe from burning without lighting myself on fire with F-ranked stove flames, tossing it to the plate next to the frying pan as Jessie squeezed us both hard enough to make our ribs creak. "Yes, we're super happy about it too, but it'll be tough for you to be in the wedding if you crush us like soda cans."

She released us both immediately, wheeling on Callie. "Tell me everything. I want reenactments. Benny is going to be so jealous I found out first."

"Found out what?" Came my best friend's voice as he walked into the room. "Because I told you last time, Shane's love of otters is not a secret and I doubt whatever you're talking about this time is either." Jessie just grinned, grabbing Callie's hand and holding it up triumphantly. He wheeled on me. "Rat bastard! I had next year in the poll!"

Celine breezed in past him, stopping to hold out her hand as he grudgingly dropped a few F-ranked chits into her waiting palm. "That, my love, is because you're almost as dense as he is about matters of the heart." She smiled at us both brilliantly. "Congratulations, to both of you. It's been a long time coming."

"She's right." Said Benny with a shrug. "You're basically married already. Maybe this will stop all the sickening cuteness."

Rolling my eyes, I gestured to the table. "Benny, why don't you put out plates, Cal, you and Jessie go tell everyone else. I've only been through the reveal twice and I'm already getting exhausted."

Callie snickered, popping to her feet and planting a kiss on my maskless cheek. I was wearing my armor but I'd left the crown and mask off. I was home, so it was alright to walk around without it. That felt pretty good to think. "Alright, I'll let you cook. I'd like mine with blueberries, please."

I just laughed as the two of them took off, anxious to tell everyone else, including probably my sister. For now though, I just enjoyed the cooking process as my best friend sat beside me, silent for a minute before he finally figured out what to say.

"You're getting married." He said simply. His tone was disbelieving, but happy, and I knew he approved. "That's…damn, Shane. Holy shit. I mean, I get it, you love her, but still, that's a lot. Was it hard to ask?"

I snorted. "I felt like I was going to throw up all day. I'd like to say I thought it out, planned it meticulously but…I kind of just decided it was time and went with it."

"Of course you did." He said with an eye roll. "It's what you do. But it doesn't sound like you regret it at all. Which is a good sign I'd say. Did you figure out who's going to be in the wedding yet? Or where you're having it?"

It was my turn for an eye roll. "I mean, I obviously already have my best man picked out, dipshit. But the wedding won't be right away. We have the conclave coming up, and that'll be a whole big mess. We're thinking after that. As for where…probably Callus. Callie's mom is there, and I want Maria to come of course, and Stella and Ian."

"Mom and dad will want to be there." He said with a nod. Then paused. "Well, dad will want to be there. Mom will find out what rank you are and how much influence you have and probably try to spin it into some kind of business expansion."

That got a laugh out of me. "I'm sure, but I don't mind. Besides, you're E-rank too. She doesn't need my influence to be sitting pretty. Don't forget we're already top of the charts for Callus, and that's assuming we don't manage D-rank before we show up. I think Callie might do it out of sheer spite so she can lord it over her dad."

"That does sound like her." He chuckled. "You're going to have to work your ass up to keep up with your godslayer girlfriend."

I just shook my head. "We have to get through this shitshow first." I said with a sigh. "Spencer is going to try to kill us, and I'm definitely going to do the same." My voice hardened. "He's too dangerous to leave alive. I won't feel safe leaving this planet unless he's dead." The way he'd looked at Callie, hell the way he'd looked at me. One of us wasn't getting off this rock.

"Agreed." Said Benny coldly. And we shared a brief look, acknowledging how much things had changed. We'd just been talking about my wedding and now we were planning to kill someone. Sure, he definitely deserved it, but it was still a bit surreal. "I'm working on procuring the enhancement artifacts I need. Should have them by the time the month long protections end."

That was good. I'd been a bit worried, though I was sure Benny had benefited from the giant stone golem thing we'd pulled off. It was damned impressive. I had to check my stats actually, I hadn't bothered but I was sure they'd gone up. It would be nice to see after the whole mess with the battle. I was starting to feel weak again.

Tricks aside, I wasn't even close to a power player in the E-rank community. My powerful soul let me pull of some serious bullshit, but it didn't mean I wouldn't be capable of way more with the stats to back it up. Stats were the most important thing an Ascendant could have. More than Skills or anything but abilities honestly.

There was some noise and I turned to see a small stampede of people coming into the kitchen. Bethy and Chelsea and Gabe and Cark and Cass, who I guessed had made their way over with Zeke all tumbled in grinning and congratulating and clapping me on the back. My uncle caught my eye and smiled, nodding slightly as he headed to the table to sit and wait for the crepes.

I was just finishing them up, so I plated some for everyone (only one or two because I hadn't been cooking for the whole inn) and sat down to eat myself, grinning at all the excited chattering.

This was almost as amazing as Callie saying yes. Being here together, with my family and friends, talking about the wedding. It was…perfect.

Which was of course when the city planner and the work crew showed up. Callie hopped up, devouring her last crepe like a taco and kissing me on the cheek (I had to wipe syrup off my face) as she ran out to meet them with Celine.

I finished eating and headed out to find them all clustered up in the front yard, listening to a small, round bellied man with a warm smile and a close cropped black beard point out important landmarks and fill them in on his thoughts about where everything should go. Stopping a few feet away I waited and listened, interested to hear his thoughts on things.

When I realized those thoughts were boring, I tuned them out and turned to run my eyes over the valley, taking in the amazing idyllic scenery.

Zeke stepped up next to me. "Congrats kid." He said with a soft smile. "Your mom is going to flip her lid." His cheek twitched as the mark on his forehead flared and he rolled his eyes, but the geas didn't actually manifest. "You're having it back on Callus?"

"Of course." I said with a smile. "Anyone who wants to come can drag their happy ass to my neck of the woods. Not that I assume everyone will make it." My smile wilted a bit. "People are busy." Neither of us said anything else after that, we both knew I was right, and we just stood and watched the scenery.

Somehow, it all looked different today. I wasn't sure why, but I could feel a sort of hum of destiny around it. That was part of why I'd proposed here. Fate sense, divination, who knew. I'd just gotten a feeling. I didn't know what caused that, but I was betting the place could become special. I couldn't wait to help turn it into something amazing. A month would be plenty of time. Spencer wouldn't know what hit him.

Because of all the planning, I decided to slip off on my own to relax and assimilate some stats. I'd been suppressing some income stat gains for a while, and now that I had some down time I was more than happy to let them roll.

That was one amazing thing about having a stronger soul. The control I had over how and when I received my stats. I'd know of course, that E-rankers especially were capable of this, because I'd seen it first hand. Back on Callus, I'd seen the E-rankers in charge delay stat gains until after the scavenger hunt, same thing with the Moonsong Glade.

I'd known it was soul related, but I hadn't really equated it with my own growing ability to restrain myself stat wise, even though the connection should have been obvious.

Now that I thought about it though I could see small facets of that ability, and the limitations of it. I knew for instance, that it was impossible to use your soul to prevent someone else from gaining stats. I also knew the power of contracts. We'd all agreed to be in that scavenger hunt, and as such, had given permission for the Academy to fuck with stat allocation to maximize gains.

I wondered if I was capable of holding back stat gains for hundreds if not thousands of G-rankers…and then I realized that yeah, I probably was.

G-rankers got a few points here and there, but nothing like the hundreds or thousands I got when a huge windfall landed on my head. Not to mention the massive Impact disparity might lessen the strain on my soul, I wasn't sure about that though.

But it was clear that getting random point bumps mid battle or when you were busy was a liability, and the higher you got up the ladder the more necessary that kind of control was. Smiling and exhaling slowly, I relaxed a clenched part of my soul I had barely even realized I was holding, and I felt the last few weeks of renown hit me all at once.

With my increased familiarity with stats and Skill, I was able to almost feel the secondary effects, like the muscles getting stronger, as the points infused my body, I blinked at the extreme amount of points compared to my usual.

Some of them I got. Creation for example had gotten a full thousand points. That was odd given the limitations of the local landscape where Empire citizens wouldn't generate too much, but I supposed plenty of people might be watching what I was doing after my previous escapades. It was possible some of them had been spreading information about my new construction hobby. That or the construction of the giant stone golem battlesuit during my fight with Weston.

Three hundred Might made sense, since I HAD helped kill a D-ranker, even if indirectly. Nothing like I'd have gotten if I'd offed him personally like Callen, but it was a solid bump, and the five hundred Fantasy probably had something to do with those crazy ass chains I'd used to help bind the bastard.
The two hundred forty Vitality was most likely for surviving the fight, even suppressed. A hit from him should have straight up snuffed me out like a candle.

Finishing up, I looked over my stats, a grand total of fourteen thousand eight hundred points. Even a month ago this would have been an unimaginable windfall, but it was clear that after hitting E-rank, the real grind began. I had a LOT of points to gain before I was ready to become a Master.

"There you are." Said a voice, jerking me out of my reverie. I looked up to see Abel standing over me, looking as relaxed as ever. "Saw you slip off and figured you might be getting some training done. Or you were just getting bored of the building talk."

I laughed ruefully, plopping down next to a fruit tree. Abel sat beside me and, without looking up, smacked an elbow into the trunk, catching an apple as it fell from the branches without even looking.

"You realize we can throw small buildings right?" I asked in amusement. "That's not really an impressive trick. Why bother with the showmanship?"

"You're talking about it, aren't ya?" I blinked, having no real response to that. "Mostly I was here to check on you. After that big mess with the invasion, I know it's probably tempting to bury yourself in pre matrimonial bliss, but distracting yourself from that shit only works for so long. Not to bring down the mood, but if you need to talk, I'm happy to listen without you killing the buzz for everyone else."

That wasn't what I expected at all. "I'm…kind of shocked, honestly. I expected you to be all like 'suck it up, people die, go punch something until you feel better'." I put on a semi-manic tone, imitating my mentor, and he snorted at the attempt.

"I don't sound like that." He said with a laugh. "But in any case, that's shitty advice. Losing people sucks, I've been there. It hurts no matter how much it happens. That's why I don't bother caring about more than a few relatively hard to kill people."

I stared at him. "You're saying…it grinds you down? Even you? I thought all this combat shit was your life?"

"Oh it is." He agreed. "Loss sucks for everyone, but I'm…I'm built different. I don't say that as a flex, or as some kind of brag, it's just true. Do you know why I'm as strong as I am?"

Laughing, I rolled my eyes. "You gave me this speech, it's because you don't care what anyone thinks." My mentor's rant was still firmly fixed in my mind even after months. I knew his reasoning, and as much as I didn't agree exactly, it worked for him.

"False." He rebutted. "I told you HOW I got strong, I didn't tell you why. Do you know why?"
"Because you're a punch happy lunatic?" I said, half jokingly.

He snorted. "You bet your ass that's why." He said bluntly. "I'm like this because I LOVE fighting. I love combat, I love hardship, I even love pain. Hurting makes me feel alive, it lets me know that I'm getting stronger. Every ache, every twinge, its all part of a beautiful song my body sings, a beautiful symphony of creation and destruction where every note works to make me more than I currently am."

"Damn." I said in shock. "That's almost poetic. But I'm sure there are other people who love to train, why aren't they as strong as you."

He shrugged. "Some of them are. But it's not as common as you think. My point isn't that being like that makes me awesome though, even if I think it does. It's a matter of mindset. You like fighting don't you? Like to feel you blood pumping as you crush your enemies?"

"Sure." I said uncertainly. "It's something I enjoy doing once in a while. I'm not going to make it my life, I need time to decompress sometimes."

Pointing at me, he snapped his fingers. "There." He said with a nod. "That's the difference. You like to fight, it's fun for you, but it's exhausting. Mentally, emotionally, you need time to recover, time to build back up. Your body can handle a ton more than you put it through, but your mind isn't ready for non stop grinding."

"And yours is?" I said, half disbelievingly. "You're just some kind of machine that never needs to recover and has no mental strain?" It would have sounded ridiculous from anyone else, but if anyone could make that claim it would be Abel.

To my surprise, he shook his head. "Of course not. People like that don't exist. Everyone gets run down, everyone has problems at some point. Everyone feels pain and fear and exhaustion, even me. I'm not some ultimate warrior that can't be defeated and needs no rest. I like to relax as much as the next guy."

"So what the hell are you talking about?" I asked in irritation. "You said that's the difference between us."

Laughing, he just shook his head. "Because it IS the difference. The difference isn't that I don't feel strain though, it's what I consider relaxing in the first place. Fighting isn't strain, it doesn't push me or wear me out. Fighting is what I live, it's what I breathe. Fights are what I DO to decompress. Training is how I vacation. I LIVE for this shit."

"How is that any different?" I said owlishly. "You just…don't get worn down because you like it?"

He nodded, pleased. "Exactly. People need downtime. Mental health is a real thing, and no one is an island. All that cliche bullshit. But that only applies when you get worn down to begin with. It's like pain. Getting your nose broken sucks, unless you're a masochist, and then maybe it's a good time. It's a matter of perspective. Like I said, I'm just built different. My point wasn't a speech about how great I am though, it's that I KNOW I'm built different and I adjust my expectations accordingly."

"So you think I need to let off some steam about all the death and destruction instead of burying it in good news?" I said quietly.

Another shrug. "Maybe, or maybe you need something good to focus on. That's not my call, kid. I'm just saying I realize talking about this would be a buzzkill on your happy day, and that might stop you from being willing to bring it up. I'm here to listen if you need to vent but don't want to bring the others down."

"Callie-" I started, but he cut me off immediately.

"Callie has her own shit to deal with, and don't forget I have a bond just like yours." He said bluntly. "I know you well enough to know you wouldn't want to bring her down after cheering her up, and I know the bond well enough to know you can avoid it."

I deflated a bit. He was right. I'd been avoiding thinking about all the losses specifically to prevent my bad mood from infecting my fiancee. She was already reeling from Perit's death, even after all this time, I didn't want her dwelling on who had been killed in this mess. We hadn't lost any of our group members, thankfully, but it was still hard to think about.

"Anyone ever tell you you're a dick?" I asked flatly as I made a mental effort to block off the bond so Callie didn't get a heaping helping of guilt and self recrimination.

Abel just burst out laughing. "No." He said sarcastically. "You're the first person to ever say that to me. I'm shocked I tell you, shocked." I glared at him, and despite my mask covering my whole face, he seemed to get how I felt. He grinned at me. "You're thinking about dropping me in one of those dust pits right now huh?"

I clicked my tongue. "Yeah, but you're too close. You'de probably either avoid it or drag me in." I scowled. "You sat right next to me for that exact reason didn't you? So I wouldn't drop you in a hole?"

"Maybe." He said, shrugging expansively. "Who knows. Regardless, I'm just sitting here, minding my own business. I figure you have another hour or two before they finish planning everything out and the missus comes looking for you. Personally I think I'll just sit here eating my apple, but if someone started talking I couldn't exactly tune them out."

Sighing, I shook my head. "You know, you are simultaneously the best and worst teacher I've ever had."

He nodded seriously. "Disappointingly impressive." He said humbly. "It's my sweet spot. Now stop asking my questions and let me eat this apple. Your turn to talk." He took another loud bite, averting his eyes and I smiled. It was nice to know I could vent to somebody. So I did. By the time Callie came looking for me I was feeling a lot better. For someone who didn't care about people Abel was kind of a people person. Who knew?

"Are you sure this was a good use of wishes?" I asked Callie as I rolled my shiny new D-ranked chit over my knuckles. "Because we can just like…manifest buildings. We have a month, it's not like there's a rush." Well, we had twenty eight days at least, but still, I'd expected the City Planner to excitedly start raising buildings overnight.

The portly man, whose name is learned was Alvus, was every bit as excited as expected, but it wasn't at the thought of instant buildings, it was at the FOUNDATIONS. He's heard about the way we laid out the wall and was over the moon.

When he heard my question, the jovial planner turned to smile at me. "A good question, my boy. This is the best possible use of wishes. How much do you know about Ascendant architecture."

"I know that it happens spontaneously when someone makes a wish and pays me for it." I said wryly. "Or when Benny uses Inventing, we got a pretty awesome building during a trial back in the day, should we do that again?"

His eyes went wide in panic. "No!" He shouted, waving his hands. "It is NEVER wise to Invent buildings. Inventing allows maximum use of powerful reagents and crafting materials, the more powerful the better, but also the more unpredictable. It's also nearly impossible to impose any controls on building spawns because of the way they manifest."

I raised an eyebrow. "But ours was fine. We got a cool sentry tower and a nice place to hang our hats for a while."

"I assume this took place on a low ranked planet?" He said patiently. At my nod, he chuckled weakly. "As I thought. Inventing uses ALL the ingredients available, and that includes the natural energies of the environment. Higher level planets have more of that energy, and as such, contribute more. That's not even mentioning possible structures like the Undertrek, which might influence things."

I nodded as I started to get it. "Oh. That's why you said they're unpredictable. Trying to use your soul to influence that much power would be difficult, even if I assume the actual result wouldn't surpass the level of your materials."

"Quite so." He said with a laugh. "Invented buildings can have…drastic results, even within their rank. Cursed manors, infinitely spawning machine factories, monster spawning dens, flesh pits that consume the unwary, there are an unlimited number of unpleasant outcomes to using such a risky ability on a higher rank planet."

That sucked to hear, but it meant Benny could still add some new buildings back on Callus when we eventually went home. That might be interesting.

"You were talking about Ascendant architecture?" Callie prodded, rolling her eyes at my tendency to get sidetracked. I shot her a charming grin that she couldn't see but obviously felt through the bond because her lips quirked up in a small smile, though she looked no less exasperated with me.

"Oh!" Laughed Alvus. "Quite right. My apologies. Yes, Ascendant architecture is a fascinating subject. You see, buildings are complex and require multiple skillsets, but most of those overlap within the various crafting professions. Work crews are also often staffed with people with different Jobs, a Carpenter, a Mason, a Plumber, and so on. However, the creation of a foundation is a delicate bit of work for multiple reasons."

I paused, thinking it over. "Because it's earth based? I know there are people with abilities that let them shape earth and they do big business in construction back home."

The man waggled shook his head. "It helps, but one of the main benefits of the Job system is versatility. Stable and consistent growth along with a variety of supplemental skills for your profession. No, it isn't that. What sets Ascendant architecture apart is the variety. The Skills that crafters have vary, with each main Skill being the ability that person was born with."

"And those Skills affect the outcome of a building project." I filled in. "So foundations need to be constructed differently for each one?"

He shrugged. "Need is a strong word. A basic foundation can be laid for any building. Dig out the ground and pour in the material to hold the place up, but for a true Ascendant structure, just like for Ascendants ourselves, the more solid the foundation the more you can bring out of the materials. Even with the proper crafting Skills and disciplines, with a generic foundation, you're limited in what kind of building you can make."

Thinking back to the Callus, I wondered if the Unity building in Rajak had a specialized foundation, or maybe the materials were too low level for it to matter. Still, this did explain a few things.

"Well I didn't understand the specifications you gave me." I said with a shrug. "Smart idea writing them out and wishing for foundations that matched the specs on the paper. Mind explaining what each building will be?" I glanced at Celine. "Assuming it's not like…a state secret or something." I was mostly kidding, I knew my friend would tell me if I asked, but I wanted to let her know she wasn't obligated to share.

She waved me off. "Of course not. As I said, you're always welcome here. This might be my land but it's your home."

My heart warmed at that. I trusted Celine. It might be stupid in some people's eyes to do that after she'd betrayed me, but that was WHY I trusted her. I'd seen what almost losing Benny had done to her, and seen how much she regretted it. I trusted her not to want to go through that again, and so extending her control over this territory was a calculated risk.

So far, she hadn't disappointed me. At her nod, the portly planner grinned, escorting us back to the very first foundation he'd laid. It was at the edge of the water, and represented the far boundary of the future…settlement? Complex? I wasn't sure exactly.

"To understand exactly what kind of benefit we have here, you need to understand how buildings work in the Empire." The planner said excitedly as he led us to the lakeside foundation. "Much like Jobs, there are regional variations of structures developed over time by the residents of different biomes and areas to take advantage of features."

He gestured down to the large sunken pit with the dark blue metal frame in it. "Now, these particular buildings can't be built just anywhere, they require not only special plans and materials, but special foundations that take into account the land and energies around them."

My eyes lit up. "It's like a formation!" I said with interest. "They use the natural environment as part of the enchantments."

With a snap, he pointed at me happily. "Exactly! I already mentioned this in regards to Invented buildings, but any Ascendant structure works on a similar principal. The difference is the amount of control you have with each, which is why we use Enchanters, which are the most stable form of magical crafter."

"So, because of the wish crafter foundations." Callie said slowly. "We can use buildings that would normally only be constructable in special locations?"

He nodded excitedly. "And that is a huge advantage! Every territory has their own specialties. Some their horses, some their shipping, but these are all maximized by the nobles in charge over generations to bring out the absolute best of what their land has to offer. Because of the unique foundations you can construct, not only can we get the best of what our crafters can do, but we can go beyond that."

"Ok." I said with a laugh. "Enough buildup, what is this building going to be?"

Puffing up, he gestured to it grandly. "A pearl farm. The Delton family in Count Eston's territory are famed for their specialty pearls. Because of a special collision of natural energies and geography, they've learned to create a building that can induce and speed the growth of pearls inside a special type of clam."

I blinked at that. "Ok, that's,,,cool?" I said slowly. "Are these pearls valuable?"

"Immensely!" He gushed. "They're a special water type crafting material, and can be used to make a wide variety of expensive goods."

That did sound pretty cool. "Ok, that one is neat." I admitted. "What about the others? There are six more foundations, and can your people make the best of them?" He'd mentioned the benefits, but it sounded like we'd need more than just the foundations, which seemed to act as a pseudo environment.

"They can." He said solemnly. "But we'll need to use tomorrows wishes on blueprints. That isn't an issue though, because we can not only get the proper plans, we can wish for modified versions that take advantage of the external conditions on TOP of our constructed foundations." His excitement was palpable.

Once he was done hyperventilating from joy, he dragged me around the rest of the fledgeling village and showed me the various other useful buildings we were going to have.

I had to admit there were some cool ones there. On the other side of the lake, closer to the waterfall, there was a foundation that would become a power station, where the energy of the waterfall would be harvested to charge gems with Might that we could use in both crafting and battle.

Closer to the inn was going to be a special kind of sentry tower that could let them sense enemies and showed their positions on some kind of giant map display of the area, even having some features that showed relative strength.

There were a few that were less impressive to me. A butcher's shop that increased the speed of meat curing (also apparently the taste). A bar that made extra potent ale which I was told was imperative. And one I thought was amazing,a barracks based on one that was apparently situated on some kind of sword tomb that made training people faster when they focused on the blade.

That last one was damned impressive and I was excited to see it in action, but the last building was the one that really blew me out of the water. With Spencer coming we needed safety more than anything, which was why I was shocked when I was escorted to the long foundation at the entrance to the valley.

"This." Said the City Planner. "Will be the most complex building we construct. Even with the foundations, there are a limit to the number of buildings that can be woven into the natural flow of the world without damaging the natural energies. This won't be the last, but it will most likely be one of them, and it will be worth it."

He gestured grandly. "This, will be a Mistshroud Gate. When constructed, it will hide the entire valley in a natural concealment formation, making it invisible to anyone who doesn't pass through this archway."

"Wait…you're going to stealth the whole valley?" I gaped. "That's possible?"

He shook his head. "Well, invisible is perhaps the wrong word. Camouflage might be more accurate. It'll create an area of confusion for anyone looking. Now in order for this to work it needs to be at least D-rank, which would normally be impossible. But with the correct plans, wishes to gather materials, and specialized tools…this valley should be hidden from any but the Earl himself!"

Which meant it would be hidden completely. If the Earl tried to get involved it would violate the terms of non-interference Zeke had given him. I grinned as I stared down at the long trench with the stone and metal base of what would be my greatest defense. If we could get this done, we would have an unassailable base from which to pick off Spencer's people.

I didn't expect the sociopathic Tolbert to stick to the same back and forth doctrine as Clairdon and Camden, and this solved that problem nicely. I couldn't help but grin as I considered how best to maximize this advantage. I had so many ideas.

Staring down into the lake, I winced. "I don't really want to do this." I said to Benny. "Like, on a scale of one to ten, the amount that I want to do this is like a negative six. That's REALLY deep water." Benny stared at me blankly. "I HATE deep water. Ponds and pools and shit are fine, but I don't want to dive into a fathomless black hole."

"We have to scout it." He said bluntly. "And it's pitch dark so Callie can't use her shadows to map it. Someone needs to go down there. Someone with a special Skill that lets them see things even when it's dark."

I cursed my Eye of Revelation. "But why do we even need to go down there? It's just a random cave?"

Callie stepped up next to me. "Because there might be things down there. Valuable or dangerous things. If it's the former we can set up an expedition, or rather, Celine can, and if it's the latter she can wish to seal up the cavern so they don't get into the lake."

"And I'm the ONLY person with an advanced sensory Skill?" I glared at Callie. "I'm still not sure that whole complete darkness thing is how your power works. I could have sworn you could use your information gathering abilities in the dark."

She reached up and put her hand on my cheek lovingly. "But you can't prove it. And that's the important thing. Now take a deep breath honey, and take your bath." I blinked, and suddenly my world was upside down. As I fell into the water I saw a springboard made of shadow under where my feet had just been, and then I was diving.

I'd held my breath as I dropped in, and with my Might I could inhale enough to last me for about an hour combined with my Vitality, so I triggered Eye of Revelation and began my descent.

I didn't actually mind looking around, but if you don't complain when people make you do things they try to do it more often. Really though, as I swam down into the depths of the lake and then into the dark cavern behind the waterfall, I had to admit this was kind of nice. The serene blue water, the sugar fine sand, the waving seaweed. It was…idyllic.

When I finally reached the cave entrance though, it was like someone flipped a switch. One second it was bright and inviting, and the next I was buried in a cascading avalanche of darkness. It was oppressive and threatening, but luckily, my Eye of Revelation punched through it to reveal…

I screamed, releasing my air as I came face to face with a chalk white face, mad eyes and a wide grin stretching it to absurd tension. I grabbed my staff, lashing out at the thing, but as I blinked it was gone, my staff smashing into the rock behind it, leaving a long crack in the wall but not doing much else.

I spun, looking for whatever the hell that had been. I didn't see it. I didn't see anything really, but at the same time I saw it all. Eye of Revelation had been improved by my crown, and I could see the stats that made up the walls of the cave, and even the darkness itself, which wasn't really darkness at all. It was a creature.

The face appeared inches from mine, and I called on Mephistopheles, smashing my skull into the chalk white abomination. There was an explosion of black flame and I felt the water around me vibrate with an inhuman scream.

The darkness retreated, fleeing from the damage and leaving me in a bubble of light in the center of the cloud of black. I wished I'd had Callie at least TRY to take a look. She'd have noticed this thing. I grimaced. The dark was a monster. The face was a manifestation of it, but the blackness itself was the beast's true form.

Sadly, Mephistopheles, while impressive, wasn't particularly suited to this task. Large diffuse enemies were the opposite of what it was good for. I considered using Belial, but I eventually settled on a more circumspect method of moving forward.

Swimming down, I planted my feet on the stone of the shaft, triggering Mornax. My body turned heavy, dense, and nearly invulnerable at my own rank. The cavern tunnel was at an incline but it was still angled, so I could walk along the bottom, feet planted to the rock. I started moving forward.

Based on my Eye of Revelation, the darkness wasn't just around me, it continued down into the cave. Mornax wasn't made to leave the earth, but since one of my feet was on the ground at all times I was able to push the Skill to function. I walked along the dark tunnel, safe in my defensive form.

The face manifested a few more times, but never close enough to reach. It had tasted pain when I gave it that headbut, and it wanted to avoid another helping.

Finally, I reached the edge of the tunnel, and, very carefully so I didn't lose contact with the rock, I climbed out of the pond in a pitch black cavern. Once I was free, I looked around, unable to make out anything.

The cavern was too big for me to see properly, too dark for me to see much at all actually. Where earlier I could see the dark monster thing because of the light that should have been in the tunnel, now I was well and truly in the dark. I grinned, and without hesitation, triggered Moonlit Night.

A wide, dense fog filled the area, and in that fog I could see everything, easily able to make out the well lit cavern in the glowing fog. I could also see wisps of dark in the fog, but the formerly cohesive dark monster had dissolved into floating bits of wayward black, as if it was confused by the lack of sensory input.
Now that I could think and see properly (and wasn't surrounded by randomly appearing creepy faces, I was able to get a good look around as I slowly walked through the cavern. It took me a good thirty minutes to look around. At one point I got a worried pulse from the bond, but sent back reassurance so Callie knew I was fine. "I'm all good, love." I mentally informed her. "Something weird down here, but it can't hurt me."

Which was true. In fact, with Moonlit Night up, it couldn't even find me. The radius of the fog was a bit wider than usual, about fifty feet, and because of the stealth the monster didn't seem to be able to navigate or even stick together.

After looking around for a while, I finally found the center of both the chamber and, if I wasn't mistaken, the monster.

Lying in the center of the cavern was a small black building. Well, calling it a building wasn't really accurate. More like a roof over a an altar with no walls. In the center of the altar were three things. One was a knife made of black metal, one was a metallic red disk the color of fresh blood with a bird on it, and one was a silver cup, which appeared to be spewing black smoke out the top.

The smoke rolled across the altar, not quite high enough to obscure the other two, and onto the floor where it spread out into the cavern. I was able to drop the fog when I got close to the altar, because aside from the creeping carpet of the stuff on the floor the smoke didn't appear within about a ten foot radius of the thing.

"Gods damn it." I said to nobody. "This is a shrine." Which was bad. Because shrines meant gods. Hopefully not in any important or urgent way. This was probably just a REALLY old place. The god or gods being worshipped were hopefully dead. Permanently dead. I kept telling myself that until I almost believed it.

Walking up to the altar, I stood over the cup, peering down into it with a grimace. I had nothing for…whatever this was. I considered trying to blow it up, but that might backfire. So I decided to call in an expert. "Callie, do me a solid and send my sister down here. She can bring Callen if she's worried, the…whatever it is that's down here can't hurt a D-ranker."

She responded quickly in the affirmative, and after about ten minutes I heard footsteps approaching from the dark. I was standing in the light zone around the altar, and when Chelsea and Callen emerged from the dark.

My sister stopped, staring at the shrine. "Gods damn it." She unknowingly echoed. "That's a shrine, isn't it?"

"Your powers of deduction astound me." I said dryly. "But I mostly want to know if you can stop…that." I gestured vaguely at the cup. "I considered blowing it up, but I wasn't sure what would happen."
She snorted. "Monkeys and typewriters I guess." She shot me a grin to let me know she was teasing and we both snickered. Chelsea was trying to relate to me the way she saw Benny and I interact, and the friendly teasing was new, but I didn't mind it. Striding up to the cup she leaned over and sniffed it. "It smells like watermelon."

"Is that important?" I asked eagerly. Did she know what this was? Maybe it was some powerful ancient artifact.

She shot me a confused look. "No. It's just weird. I like to read, I'm not a walking library. These artifacts probably predate the Empire settling on this planet. It would be insane for me to know what they do or mean." She pointed at the cup. "THAT, however, I can tell is…bad. Not how bad, but my power doesn't like it."

"Well it's an evil dark smoke monster." I said casually. "It makes sense that your flame of purification wouldn't be a fan."

She shook her head. "Not that power." My eyes widened. My sister's alternate ability was one inherited from our grandmother by way of her own mother, the goddess Black Sorrow. I didn't know what it meant for that to be the case, but it was probably important.

Holding out a hand, a white flame flickered into existence on her palm, shimmering with an opalescent array of colors around the edges. Without hesitating, she shoved it into the cup.

There was a shudder and then a sort of pause, and then a scream issued out from the cup. White flame ignited the smoke, rolling over the altar and then down across the floor. I had to cover my eyes as the darkness in the whole room ignited like gasoline after someone dropped a match.

I felt heat around us for a flash and then it receded. When I opened my eyes, I could see the cavern clearly, and I gaped at what I found. Up on small plateaus of rock, I saw a dozen or so buildings made of black stone. They all looked to be in perfect condition, untouched by time or wear, without even any dust.

"I have good news and bad news." I told my sister. "The good news is that you're going to be getting out of the library for a while. The bad news is you're the closest thing to a historian we have, so you're going to be looking into this."

Fate sense guided us all, but it seemed to guide me more than most. While this clearly wasn't some imminent threat that needed dealing with right now, I couldn't shake the instinct from my Fatewalker class that this was an important place. The thing that was worshipped here probably wasn't Hatescream, but it might be one of the other gods he was bringing back. We needed as much information as we could get. Thank the gods I wasn't a researcher.

Getting everyone else down into the cavern was simple. After the dark thing had been destroyed, it was just a lazy swim down. Once everyone arrived, we sent out teams to explore the place. My century and Callie's had been turned over to us for defense of the settlement, so we had two hundred F-rankers ready and able to explore, and we put them to work.

Luckily, we found out pretty quickly that the cavern had no other entrances. It made sense, this place was untouched by time or anything else. I wondered if it counted as part of the Undertrek, or if it was just its own thing.

Standing in front of the shrine, I frowned down at the items on top of it, then looked over at Zeke. "You were the only one who might be able to identify this stuff, do we need to pay?"

He shook his head. "No. This isn't directly related to the competition, and is totally out of your depth, not to mention it might impact my duty to protect Chelsea. I'll take a look at them, but honestly…I wouldn't hold your breath. These are sealed items, but they have weight to them. At least A-rank, probably higher."

"Sealed items?" I asked with interest. "Like how I can seal my staff so it isn't so heavy? How did Chelsea destroy the monster then?"

Nodding, he locked his eyes on the medallion, cup, and, knife. "Similar. And the thing she killed wasn't part of these items. If I had to guess it was some kind of shadow elemental or fragment of darkness that fell into the cup and mutated. It was young, only having barely attained any sort of power."

I nodded slowly. "Ok, well then we should know what these are. Why is you Identify Skill so high anyway, I don't think I ever asked?"

He shrugged. "Any decent crafter needs Identify. Sometimes you take a risk or get some inspiration while you're working and need to see the exact result. I went through a lot of masks to get where I am now."

"Alright, so…what can you tell me about these?" I gestured back to the items. "Anything helps."

Nodding, he raised his hands, hovering them over the items. Before he could do anything though, he stopped, then reached into his coat and pulled out a mask. One of his combat masks, though I didn't know which one. He slipped it over his face, then gestured for me to step back.

As he raised his hands, there was a flash of black, and the dark liquid in the silver cup shot out like tentacles, wrapping around his wrists. There was a flash and white opalescent flame leapt up from the spot where the tentacles had touched, the liquid shrieking and pulling back.

"Please, like I wasn't expecting that." Zeke said derisively. "A-rank then, but weakened. Let's see what we can see."

There was a pause, and then he hissed, stepping back quickly. "Sacrificial items. All three of them. They're part of a set. The knife wounds the soul, draining it out with the blood, the cup converts the blood and spirit into power, and the medallion goes in the cup to soak up the energy."

I nodded slowly. "What's the medallion for though? Like is it just a battery?"

"Like I said, sacrifice. It's the emblem of a god." I winced, my guesses being confirmed. When I stared at him, waiting, he just shrugged. "I have no idea WHICH god. Not one I know of. I know it's not any of the six, and it's not Hatescream."

I stared down at the items worriedly. "Can you purify it with the flames from the mask?" I asked cautiously. "I don't really want to just leave these here. Who knows what they could do."

He shook his head. "Not even close. The liquid that tried to grab me is left over dregs after the medallion absorbed most of the power. These are A-rank sacrificial tools. Granted, I'm guessing there used to be a LOT of them lying around, but still. They're out of my depth. Luckily, containment and purification are not the same thing."

Snapping his fingers, he flicked his hand and a huge trunk appeared in the air, slamming down with a thump. He threw it open and started rummaging around, Finally he pulled out a bowl, then emptied a series of vials into it. "You're going to want to stand back."

I did, and he walked around behind the shrine, then flicked a finger and a burst of flames condensed into a hand smacked out and knocked the items off the altar. I heard a few wet plops, and then an explosions of darkness burst up from the bowl in a torrent of horrifying black shot through with an evil red light.

We stood there, taking cover, for about ten minutes, and when it finally ended, I let out a sigh of relief. "What the fuck was THAT?" I shouted at my uncle, who was standing up and wiping off his coat.

"Little mix I use to temporarily disarm failed products to be disposed of." He sounded nonchalant. "Expensive as hell, but when you work with A-ranked materials you need a backup plan. The base is void essence, and the rest is a proprietary mix of shade lurker blood, hope pheonix feather dust, and spinal fluid from an astral ravager."

I stared at the now opaque liquid, which looked an almost uncomfortable shade of grey. "And it…neutralizes them?"

"Temporarily." He reiterated. "But that's where this comes in." He walked over and dug back into the trunk, pulling out a heavy black stone box, which he thumped on the ground. Pulling a key from a pocket, he unlocked the huge dark metal padlock on the chains wrapping the box. Once he'd unwound them all he paused. Walking back over to the trunk he pulled out another vial, this one full of golden glowing liquid.

Walking back to the box, he gingerly kicked it open. As soon as he did, there was a boom and a massive purple serpent far too big for the opening exploded outward, rearing back as if to strike. Zeke hurled the vial, not even unstoppering it, and it burst on the snake, golden fluid drenching it.

The monster roared, smoke rising from its face as it dove back into the box, which just lay there, open, as if nothing was wrong with it. Zeke walked over, picked up the bowl, then dropped it into the box and kicked the lid shut. He re-wrapped it with chains, then locked the padlock and carried back over and dropped it back in the trunk.

"There. Safe as houses." He said happily.

I was frozen, staring at him in terror. "What the fuck was THAT?"

"Prank." He shrugged nonchalantly. "It's a Cosmic Rot Viper I bought ages ago as an egg. I was going to leave it in your dad's sink when I saw him next. Don't worry, it's only barely B-rank and it's starving."

I sputtered, trying to figure out which part of that I should address first. "What did you throw on it?"

He held up the vial. "Sunlight Sherry. They make this stuff out of real stars. Not like, good ones, obviously. I'm not wasting decent liquor on scaring off a snake. Rot Vipers are dark aligned creatures. They're particularly sensitive to starlight, hence the Cosmic tag."

"Fine." I said, shaking my head. "We can talk about that later. What about the items, what did you put them in?"

"Berenthar Box." He said seriously. "The Berenthar family specialize in secure storage items. Their big Vaults are prohibitively expensive, but some of the smaller lock boxes are affordable. It's made of some strange stone mix they created themselves."

I nodded in relief. "Alright. So they're safe for now. What are you going to do with them?"

"Hand them over to someone from the WCP." He said bluntly. "I don't need this kind of trouble. There should be at least a representative at the Conclave, if not the Wishmaster himself. The current one, the old man doesn't really do day trips."

"You don't think the gods will show up in person?" I asked. I'd kind of assumed for something this important they'd put in an appearance.

Zeke just laughed. "No. I don't. Remember that the original Wishmaster doesn't even run the family anymore. Aiden will probably show. The Revenant will send one of his popes, same for Black Sorrow, the Emperor will send one of the Kings, and the Queen will probably send one of her own nobles."

It was nice to get a straight answer from my uncle. Zeke could talk to me about the gods because they were so absurdly above my weight class they didn't trip his geas. It was less like telling me political details and more like telling me which city was about to be hit by a hurricane.

"This is kind of important though, isn't it?" I said angrily. "There are enemy gods out there plotting destroy our whole way of life."

Zeke shook his head. "It's complicated. I don't understand it all myself, but gods aren't…like us. I told you once that I-rankers don't count as real Ascendants. Well, H-rankers aren't really much better. You remember being I and H-ranked right? Did you feel much different than a normal person?"

"Not really." I said with a shrug. "A point or two of Impact isn't a big deal."

He nodded. "Right. Ten points, when you hit G-rank, that's when the differences became apparent. Ten. You saw the same thing at a hundred. D-rankers are a different breed. They're just a higher form of life, and it takes something absurd for any lower ranked Ascendant to kill one."

I followed his train of thought. "That's why gods become gods at a thousand Impact. It's another watershed. The next step up the lifeform ladder. Does it really matter that much?"

He gestured around us. "That touches on things you aren't ready to know yet. The short answer is yes. It matters. Effectiveness aside, the sheer amount of stats combined with the pure power of a Mirror soul is…it defies description. I've never seen a god in battle before and I hope I don't for a long time."

"So what does this have to do with the conclave?" I asked. "Are you worried they might fight?"

I was actually scared of his answer, but he shook his head. "No. The Wishmaster, Emperor, and the Queen would prevent any squabbling Between Black Sorrow and the Revenant, who are the only ones likely to start anything. It's not that I'm worried about what they might do, it's that they don't NEED to be there."

"You're saying they all have methods of making their will known and keeping track of what happens." I said, finally getting it.

"Basically." He confirmed."Besides which, they'll probably already be moving when the conclave begins. You don't get to be a god by sitting around and waiting to see what happens. The six have dealt with other gods before. Maybe not quite so many, but they know what they're doing. The conclave is more to iron out cooperation than anything."

It made me wonder exactly how things worked behind the scenes. And who would be coming to the conclave? Would I meet my grandfather there? Would my dad show up? Did I want him to? Turning back to the buildings around us, I considered my earlier instinct about this place, about the god they worshipped here.

If this was a place where one of the five gods Hatescream had brought back had been venerated, maybe we could learn more about them. Learn their weaknesses, and be a bit more prepared when the war came. In any case we needed more info, and I hoped my sister and the others could get it for us. Knowledge was power, and we needed all the power we could get.

Walking through the darkened miniature city below our territory, I scanned the ground carefully with Eye of Revelation. "This is stupid." I grumbled. "I'm not a metal detector. I get not wanting to waste wishes on this, and dedicating todays to getting the plans for the town was fine, I got paid either way, but why does that mean I have to walk around using Eye of Revelation on everything?" I was up to three D-ranked chits now, and was building a nice little fortune, I was planning to use at the conclave.

"Because we need more context." Callie said seriously as she trailed behind me. " We can't waste wishes with only twenty seven days left. Whatever that dark thing was protected the buildings and the shrine, but it was a mutation, which means there's a good chance whatever happened here that drove off all the people happened before it came into existence."

"Yeah, but why does that matter?" I held up a small basket. "So far we found six forks, eight plates, what looks like a very dirty sponge, and a rock with a face painted on it."

She winced. "Yeah, but at least Chelsea seemed excited about the rock. She seems sure it means something." Her upbeat tone fell a bit flat when I noticed that she was trying not to snicker, but at least she tried.

"Yeah, it means she needs a hobby." I said flatly. "I get why this place might be important, but it's just demeaning to have to-" I stopped. "Hold on, what's that?" I pointed off to one side, indicating a bump in the dirt. My Eye of Revelation showed me something interesting. I knelt down, dusting off the layer of dirt to reveal…a mask.

I reached for it, but Callie slapped my hand away. "Are you crazy?" She snapped. "The mask on your FACE eats people, and that thing looks evil as shit. Call your uncle."

"Ah." I said as I pulled my hand back. "That's a great point." Throwing my head back I bellowed. "Hey! Zeke!" Callie jumped, glaring at me, and I shrugged. "What? You said to call him. Pick a lane."

She held up her hand angrily. "On your scan ring!" She snarled. "Not in my EAR!"

Before I could respond, I heard a cough and turned to see my uncle standing there, looking bored. "What do you want?" He asked in annoyance. "I was teaching Cas how to play Straga."

I groaned. "Don't teach her that. I still have nightmares about taking lessons as a kid. That game is a mess." At Callie's confused look, I sighed. "It's like chess, only you play it on eight boards and usually with four players. Zeke can play three sides himself, and often does, but it's nightmarishly complicated."

"He likes to whine about his lessons." Zeke said pitilessly. "But all you have to do is control your pieces to assault the defensive positions of the inner board, reach the center square of one of the other players, ascend to one of the two second layer boards, beat the other player who managed it, and then get to the third and final heavens board to face off for the win."

I waved him off. "Enough about your stupid six dimensional chess game. We called you here for THAT." I gestured down at the mask, and he glanced at it, eyes narrowing in interest.

He knelt down next to it. "Well now, isn't that interesting." Snapping his finger, he revealed a long wooden handle with a thin metal blade on it, one of his tools, and picked the mask up out of the first with it gingerly.

The mask looked…weird. It was made of rough, dark wood, with several parts of it lacquered in red to form a sort of fierce bird face.

"Do you know what it is?" I asked cautiously. "Like is it going to kill us?"

He shook his head. "Follow me." He said without responding to my questions. He stood and strode off toward the buildings, and we trailed behind. Once he was inside the hall where Chelsea was collecting research material, he dropped the mask on an empty table and pulled out his trunk again.

Shuffling through it, he pulled out a few books, and started skimming through them. I winced when I looked at them, the pages were basically black, the text so small and dense even I could barely read it. I saw a few small boxes that might have been pictures, and finally, Zeke located something he'd been looking for.

Reaching down to flip the mask over, he squinted at the back of it, then shook his head, slammed the book closed and repeated the action. We sat there for about fifteen minutes as he scanned books, before finally finding something he was looking for.

"Detwemer mask." He muttered, then grabbed a new book, starting to flip again. Every now and then he would mutter something else. One time it was "Khalda valley." Then after that. "Rhugash ruins." Finally he came to the last thing he needed, grimacing and nodding before saying. "The Cardinal Cult."

"Was that aimed at us?" I asked after he didn't go back to looking. "Because you've just been sitting and muttering for like a half hour, so it's hard to tell."

He shrugged. "Had to check something. As an artisan I've studied masks made all across history and all throughout the universe. I'm not an expert on ancient cultures or religions, but I AM an expert on masks, and I know where to look for information on them."

We'd expected that, it was part of why I called him, I gestured for him to continue. "Yeah, we got that. WHAT information."

He snorted. "Kids these days have no respect for a dramatic buildup. Fine, I'd seen work like this before, The Detwemers made them, but when I checked it turned out they got the design from some old ruins in the Khalda valley, that place was built on the ruins of the Rhugash. They used the masks for a few centuries but originally they came from the old state religion of the place. The Cardinal Cult."

"The ancient cult used the word 'Cardinal'?" I asked in disbelief.

Pausing, he admitted. "Well, the exact translation is 'bright colored bird with feathers of blood' but Cardinal is pretty close. Plus the alliteration sounds better. But yes, the Cardinal Cult. I don't have much on them, the masks they used weren't a huge part of the religious rites, but what little I know matches up with the other stuff we found."

I turned to my sister. "Ok, what do you know about the Cardinal Cult?"

She just stared at me. "Shane, I'm slightly nerdy, as we've discussed before I am NOT an encyclopedia. I have no clue who or what they are." She paused. "But I might know someone who would."

Without explanation, she got up and all but sprinted out of the room, Callen following her with a sigh as I glanced at Callie in confusion. Of course I figured it out pretty quickly, but wasn't able to confirm it until about an hour later when she came back in. By the time she got back she found us combing through Zeke's books again (I was using a magnifying glass), and had Anna's friend Syl from the library with her.

The tiny blonde woman from the library was a member of the History Hunters, an Archivist faction that searched for historical documentation for an S-ranked force called the Vikram family. She was scowling as Chelsea dragged her in. "What are you doing, Anders. If you found some ruins you just had to tell me. I'd have scheduled…" She trailed off as she came into the room, where all the various odds and ends I'd found had ended up.

"See." Said Chelsea smugly. "I told you there's interesting stuff down here. You're lucky I'm letting you in on this dig."

The blonde stepped forward, poking at a few things. "I'm not familiar with this style of pottery." She said, touching one of the plates. "It's Rakian glazing practices, but the molding of the clay is Veltish." She leaned down, pulling out a small brush as she started dusting off some of the dirtier parts of the dish.

Chelsea stared at her, sighing. "You can study all of this later Syl. We need your input on this." She grabbed the smaller woman, physically turning her body by the shoulders to look at the mask.

Syl had started to get annoyed, but once she saw the mask her expression became interested. "Is that Khaldish?"

"Not originally." I said absently, passing her the book and magnifying glass. We'd marked the passages we'd found on the masks, and she scanned them in fascination. "Where did you get these texts?" She demanded. "This one is a Malkan Artificium. I didn't even know there were any of these left intact. And this one is some kind of porcelain sculpting text from the Drellan Empire."

I blinked. "How many cultures were there before the five factions."

"A lot." Answered Zeke, Chelsea, and Syl in unison. The librarian picked up the explanation after that. "Almost every planet we've terraformed had some other people living on it at one time. Especially higher ranked ones. Just look at the other gods, who do you think worshipped them."

I nodded. "Like the Aetherbright Empire." I said, happy to know something.

Syl whirled on me. "Like the WHAT?" She snapped. "Because I've met probably ten people who have HEARD of the Aetherbright empire, and two of them are S-ranked Historians."

"I've been there." I shrugged. "Or at least some ruins. But that's not important. Do you know anything about the Cardinal Cult?" I tried to refocus her on the task at hand, and despite her glare which promised later conversation, it seemed to work.

She snapped her fingers, and a book appeared. Then another. Then about ten more. She made a pile on the table.

"First of all." She said bluntly. "Cardinal cult is a mistranslation. The word means 'bright red bird with feathers of blood'. That's important, because while I've never heard of the Cardinal Cult, I HAVE seen that word before. Or at least that phrasing."

She leafed through her books for a bit until she found something, then scribbled a few notes on some paper and did it again. Finally, she spun it around., showing us the writing. "I've cobbled together a few different sources, but I have an eidetic memory, and this tickled a few keys for me. From what I can tell, you're dealing with this being."

"The Lady of Lamentations?" I asked as I squinted at the page. "That sounds…morbid. She's a god?"

"Well they don't call her that. But the descriptions basically confirm it." She agreed. "Her name is Felicity, and she appears to be some kind of goddess of torment." She pointed out a few of the references, and as I read them, my blood drained from my face.

I pointed at a line. "Your notes on that aren't clear." I said as a cold feeling of dread settled in my stomach. "You mentioned associates, what's the translation of this one. It says Bellow of Loathing." I could think of another way to say that, and I desperately hoped I was mistaken. She read over it, then crossed a few things out.

"My mistake." She said casually. "I misconjugated. Contextually that's not supposed to be an angry action, but a fearful one. Scream, not bellow. Which changes the sentence structure. It means that other word should be-"

"Hate." I said flatly. "The word is supposed to be one title. Hatescream." Looked like we found a connection to this place just like my instincts told me. I looked at Callie, who took my hand in worry as I turned back to Syl. "We need you to pass this up the chain of your organization." Chelsea could contact mom to have her follow up, but this needed to be checked. I was pretty sure we'd just found the identity of one of the other enemy gods.

A week flew by, leaving me at twenty days remaining and up to ten D-ranked chits. We put every single wish into building, setting foundations and getting plans, with the occasional wish for a full building to be built when we were dealing with things like houses and markets. With all that out of the way though, the construction workers made great time, and by the time we hit one week the territory was starting to LOOK like a real town.

"This place is really shaping up." Benny said, echoing my thoughts unknowingly from where he sat next to me on the hill overlooking the valley. All of us were lying out enjoying the sun which managed to come through the concealment formation on the wall perfectly despite us having confirmed the valley wasn't visible from outside.

Callie, who was laying in the grass on my other side nodded. "It does look good. I'm still worried about Spencer attacking though. We got lucky last time. The chances of us pulling off another D-rank kill are infinitesimal. We have two D-rankers on our side now, but who knows how many Spencer has?"

"I don't think it's just two." I disagreed. "Clairdon's territory was rich as hell. A lot of the payouts Camden promised hinged on success, but he's had it. With a month to dig up assets I'm betting he'll be able to hire a few more for backup."

Jessie made a sound of agreement. "Plus you can tell how well this place is going based on how close to ranking up Celine is getting."

"I think it's nice." Said Bethy from further down. "The cats love the buildings here. They say they make excellent scratching posts." She seemed…lighter, recently. Like she'd always been a bit wacky, but that had been almost forced. Her manic exuberance had calmed somewhat, and while I would never call the tiny vampire NORMAL exactly, she seemed like she was having more fun.

Which I was happy about until I processed what she said. "Wait, was that YOU?" I snapped, sitting up to glare at the vampire. "The contractors have been furious because something keeps carving up the materials."

"No!" She said, looking offended. "It was Donuts. He's been acting out because Luggage has been getting more attention."

Gabe cleared his throat. "Um, Bethy, I think it might be more that he's been being terrorized by Chalk. Randall is getting harder to push around. The cats are E-rank now too, but they're smaller and weaker."

We all turned to my sister, who was snuggling her rabbit. She shrugged. "Chalk gets jealous of other animals. We've been working on it. Speaking of work, I heard Nat has been over at Camden's helping out. Anyone talked to her?"

"I have." Said Jessie. "She's been doing…better. Not amazing, but better. This mess has given her something to focus on besides losing Perit. Camden has been a machine preparing for Spencer's attack. He has a lot to lose now that he's actually taken over Clairdon's territory. Speaking of…" She looked at me. "Do we have a plan?"

"We do." I said delightedly. "In fact, it's one of my better plans. Spencer is rich, entrenched, and willing and able to declare war on two different territories at once. I considered dozens of potential defensive options…and then I realized, defense is the wrong way to go."

Benny turned to face me with a flat look. "What?"

"Think about it." I said excitedly. "We just got these new territories, we have a month to prepare, we used walls to beat the lions. There are so many indicators that we're going to be taking a defensive stance in the upcoming battle. In fact, just about the only thing Spencer can reasonably count on is that we're going to be reacting and not acting."

He threw his hands in the air. "You don't get to just state common sense things like they're an example of us being predictable and then claim we should do the opposite to throw off the bad guy? That's not clever, it's five year old logic." He turned on Callie. "Just because you're marrying him doesn't mean you need to agree to all his stupid ideas now!"

"I talked him out of the meteor plan didn't I?" She said with an eye roll. "Hear him out though, this one isn't really as stupid as it seems. He actually thought things out."

When Benny finally looked back to me, I grinned. "Ok, so first off Anna will be the one doing the deed. With a few supplementary Skills and artifacts to enhance her stealth abilities, and a decent weapon, taking out Spencer should be easy."

"There's no way he doesn't have a dozen different countermeasures for that." Benny said slowly. Not like he was rejecting the idea, but like he was trying to work through problems.

"Yup." I confirmed. "But we have a workaround. He can't use any items more than two ranks higher than he is. In fact, even using anything C-rank will be tough. The difference between soul strain from E to D is substantial as we've seen. The main issue is that even shutting down the security is going to set it off. We need to give him something else to focus on while she gets in position."

He groaned. "You mean that we need to break into his manor in parallel with the assassin we're sending and get noticed, possibly putting ourselves in mortal peril, so we be BAIT?"

"Exactly." I nodded. "And bait is a good word. We need him to remove himself from the built in security, and he's a vicious little fuck. He'll come out to kill us personally, just to demonstrate he's the better man."

Callie spoke up to reassure everyone. "Don't worry. We have an actual plan, and we'll be using wishes to support. Every step will meticulously controlled and influenced externally to give us the best chance of pulling this off. It's safer than it sounds."

She was right. We'd been planning out step by step instructions for everyone, using a combination of Callie's spying, and Anna's sources. Callie was even going to consult Nat to try and squeeze out what few bits of information she could glean around the inherent disadvantage wishes had towards secrets.

We were doing our best to confirm who, what, when , why, and where. All the mercs Spencer had would be uncovered, as would their abilities, placement, schedules, motivations, and locations. With all that info, we'd be able to plan everything out perfectly. Breaking in, securing a room, setting our trap and then making sure they discovered us and came after us would become infinitely simpler.

"So…did you guys tell Anna about this?" Asked Jessie. "Because we might need her input."

I nodded. "We brought her in last visit. The valley is the only safe place to talk about this stuff. The defenses protect from notice, which is its own form of isolation, plus Celine had a blank room like Camden's set up below the inn."

"So…why aren't we there right now?" Asked Bethy curiously.

I shrugged. "No point. Anna isn't here so there's no reason to spy, especially not at a level that would get past the wall." I glanced up at the hulking structure that created the obfuscation effects over the valley. "Anyway, this stay between us. We need to keep this on the DL because the valley is still going to be fielding a defense."

"You're worried about what Camden said about traitors." Callie said softly. "You don't want anyone knowing to minimize risk."

"Basically." i admitted. "But its more than that. Since Celine is the owner of this territory we aren't expected to be front and center. She is, and Benny will be with her, but the rest of us don't need-"

Benny smashed a fist into the ground. "You want to repeat that again?" He said quietly.

"I said." I repeated slowly, purposefully dragging it out to piss him off. "That you aren't coming with us. If everyone important vanishes at once it'll be obvious. It'll be me, Callie, Bethy, Abel, and Mel."

Chelsea's head snapped around. "Wait what? I'm not going? That's absurd!"

"Of course you aren't." I said patiently. "Callen needs to make an appearance here, or if necessary at Camden's place if they don't find the valley. He'll be tracked without a doubt. Anna will be too, but we're taking steps. We can't take both of our best D-rankers with us, it would draw far too much attention. Same with Gabe."

The Adamant looked upset, but he knew I was right, so he didn't argue. Chelsea didn't have any such compunctions, but I dismantled her points pretty easily, and eventually she had to admit staying behind was the smarter call. Even if she hated it.

"You're doing your research?" She finally asked when she'd given in. "Like, blueprints and detailed plans? I know how much you like to wing it." She smirked at Bethy, who gave her a fang filled grin and a wink. "But that isn't going to cut it here. You've gotten a few rough outlines for dealing with any problems that come up, but you need for info."

"You can even help." I consoled her. "Talk to Anna next time she's here. Ask her if there's anything you can do. I'm sure your nerdiness will come in handy somehow. Like you probably know how like…deadbolts work, or whatever."

Everyone looked at me. "Shane…do you…not know how deadbolts work?"

"What?" I was surprised. "Nobody does. They're some scientific bullshit with magnets or something."

Callie sighed, pinching her nose. "Honey, no."

Benny, meanwhile, was snickering. "Dude, it's literally a crossbar inside the door. You turn the knob and it shoves a piece of metal between the door itself and the frame, holding them in line with each other."

"Duh." I snorted, looking away and grateful my face was covered. "I was…totally messing with you guys." I let out a bark of strained laughter. "I can't believe you bought that. You're all so easy to trick."

Callie patted me on my shoulder consolingly. "It's ok, hon. We all have little things that we never learned for one reason or another that seem obvious to other people."

"Fine." I grumbled. "But we never locked our doors. Probably because Zeke was B-ranked. All the buildings I've been in that did have locks used electronic fasteners." I climbed to my feet, dusting myself off. "Anyway, this is lame. Who wants to go watch the rookies get their asses kicked in the sword barracks."

That seemed to distract them all well enough, and we all hopped up, heading to take in the site of the two hundred soldiers Callie and I had brought with us when we came receiving training. They were technically ours, not Celine's but she'd signed mercenary contracts with us and we were using this place as a garrison. Paying for room and board with manpower made this a business arrangement, which removed any of the obligations that might have interfered in the wishes Celine had been making.

Looking around, I took in the sight of the village, beautiful, peaceful, and new. I'd never been somewhere so serene, though that had something to do with Callie too. I'd been chatting with Abel about the losses in the first battle and was feeling much better lately, and this place had definitely been part of that process.

Soon though, it would be time to go. After the fight with Spencer we only had another month before we had to leave. The trip to the conclave would take time, and we only had six months on Stratholme total, though it felt like it'd been much longer.

For the first time though, I wasn't worried about what was coming. God wars, evil deities, assassins, or cultists. I'd dealt with it all before. Soon enough I'd be a Master, and a real power player in this universe. And I wasn't alone either. I had my friends by my side, and I truly believed there was nothing that could stop us.

The next three weeks were consumed by work. Wishes, both to myself and Nat, paid for with money that I was going to desperately need soon enough, finished up the construction of the new territory (which Celine named Bennington in what I was SURE was an obvious troll) and got all the information we needed for the attack.

The last few weeks had been surprisingly good for my progress. Since we were coming up on the big fight I'd not only netted myself another twenty D-ranked chits of spending money, but with legends of my feats spreading even further, gathered another twelve hundred stat points, three hundred Might, two hundred Perception, two hundred Fantasy, and five hundred Focus. Bringing me up to sixteen thousand total.

Wishmaster candidate status. E-rank. Ability: Expert Wish- Seven times a day grant an Expert 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.

Expert Path of the Doom Sovereign- A Solid Path toward a great destiny.

Might-4005
Impact-65
Fantasy-2250
Vitality-2902
Focus-2020
Perception-2204
Creation-2554
Progress to next rank:16000/100000
Soul strength- Sapphire Soul Body


Stored:7 shadow attacks, 10 shadow jump (seven in reserve), 10 Stealth charges, 0 fire attacks, 10 triple strenth tranq blows (ten in reserve), 0 triple strength density shifted attacks. 10 spider leg attacks (ten in reserve), 0 heal bursts (3 reserve), 3 gravity attacks, 10 shadow clone (2 in reserve), 19 scan heals (I-rank ability so Shane can hold more)

Pet- Wolf named Jin

Financial resources:10 E-rank chits 30 D-ranked(worth 100 E-ranked, past master rank is a watershed)


Skills: Expert Path of the Doom Sovereign, Lesser Valtek Mastery, Lesser Cooking Mastery, Lesser Inventing Mastery, Beginner Balam Mastery, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Guitar Mastery, Minor First Aid Mastery, Intermediate Paired Dueling, Expert Dust Construction Mastery

DS Subskills. Monk: Stone Limb, Moonlit Night, Consecration of Flame, Ripple Running, State of Grace, Steam Arrow, Afterburner, Pit of Despair, Mountain Stance.

Rogue: Mercy Kill, Double Trouble, Touch of Tears, Flurry of Blows, Heavy hands, Marked for Death, False Fatality

Diviner: Overlay, Song of the Soil, Rhythm of the Wild, Eye of Revelation, Danger Sense, Piece of Mind



Goetia Staff Art: First form- Belial. Touch of Tears, Stone Limb, Consecration of Flames
Second Form- Mephistopheles. Consecration of Flame, Afterburner, Mercy Kill, Marked for Death.
Third form- Mornax. Stone Limb, Triple Strength Density Shifting (x10 F-rank stored attacks), Mountain Stance


Turning to Callie, I raised an eyebrow. "Tomorrow is the big day. Are we completely prepared?" We'd acquired so much information, but I'd delegated a lot of the actual planning to the researchers. I didn't have as much experience with any of this as Anna did, and she was the main influence.

"Yup." She said grimly. "And the divination wishes were able to confirm their tactics. Secrets are expensive, but yes or no questions can really help narrow down information in a set window. Since we knew they'd be attacking right after the month protection period was up, we had enough to flush out some details."

Nat had been consulted for a lot of that, and I was glad Celine was rich, because she'd been spending like crazy for this, as had Camden. Speaking of which. "Will Camden need any help? Can we afford to send it?"

Anna, who was here with us preparing for tomorrow's operation, nodded. "He will, and you can. Celine spent a few wishes shoring up the anonymity of this place. With your shielding in place it's a lot easier to make sure no one finds it. All she had to do was pay for it in short blocks of time, and she can afford to dispatch the Garrisoned forces here to Camden's aid."

I whistled at that. "Damn. That's clever. Must have been pretty pricey though. Are you going to use the stealth capability to ambush Spencer's forces once they're mid-attack?"

"Of course." The D-ranker said with a grin. "And Callen will be attacking right alongside them. You have the plans now, study them, learn your part. We'll be hitting them tomorrow at three forty six in the morning. According to our divinations from Nat that's when the most of them will be asleep."

Divination meaning lots of yes no questions based on the specific time blocks we'd already identified. Knowing exactly when they were coming was definitely a big help. It got around the weaknesses that usually prevented us from using wishes for info gathering. I just wished things were always this convenient.

Once they left, I turned to Callie. "Ok, this is going to be a mess. My part is simple…kind of, but your mobility means you'll be separated from me and disabling some of the security alone, and I don't like it. Anna is going to be using those Impact soaking straw dolls to draw off the only remaining D-rank guard, but there's still lots of danger from stronger E-rankers."

She beamed at me. "Now you know how I feel when you go do dumb shit." She put her arms around me, leaning her head on my chest. "But seriously, I'll be fine. We've planned this meticulously down to the second. Just stick to the plan and we'll get Anna her shot. Once Spencer is dead all this ends."

"Then we can start wedding planning." I said with a grin. "I mean, we have the conclave first, but we'll be en route for a while after the Necromedes picks us up. We can use that time to decide on things like location and cake flavor. You know, the important stuff."

"I thought we were having it at my mom's house?" She asked. "That's the cheapest option right?"

I shrugged. "Have you even started on your guest list? We've met a lot of people since leaving home. Even if we kept it to the Pavilion members we couldn't fit. Not to mention all the friends we made at the Bazaar, in the glade, HERE. Mom will want to come, obviously, and I bet Killian will stop by."

"Damn it." She cursed. "This is going to be a whole big thing." Then she paused. "Hey, you're distracting me!" She accused.

"I'm distracting myself." I admitted. "I'm worried. Your stats are probably way up by this point, can you at least show me how much you grew over the last month? With the conclave coming up I'm betting stories about godslayers are going like gangbusters."

She grinned at me. "I wanted to keep it a surprise. I even locked down the bond so you didn't notice the jump. It's been crazy. Three thousand Might, two thousand Perception, four thousand Fantasy, and a thousand Creation. A full ten thousand points,though I'm rounding a bit! I think if anything spread of my story took some time to build up." Her smile dropped. "Just a shame its a drop in the bucket." She passed me a listing of her stats.

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

Might-7350
Impact-65
Vitality-742
Fantasy-8105
Focus-908
Perception-6375
Creation-1485
Progress to next rank: 25210/100000

Soul strength- Sapphire Soul Body
Pet-Wolf named Rellia

Skills: Minor Tracking, Minor Dual Dagger Mastery, Beginner Stealth, Beginner Trap Mastery, Beginner Disguise, Lesser Balam Mastery, Intermediate Shadow Manipulation Mastery. Intermediate Paired Dueling.
Path of the Abyss-Illusory.

I whistled. "Seven thousand Might? That's insane. "And eight thousand Fantasy. Man the stories about that must be nuts to drive that one so high. But it's hardly a drop in the bucket, Cal. Twenty five thousand! You're a quarter of the way to D-rank. I'm jealous as hell. Not to mention the boost you'll get off marrying me."

Smacking my shoulder, she scowled at me. "That's not why I said yes and you know it!"

"Of course I do." I said soothingly. "But it's true. The wedding is going to bump both of us up a ton. All the high rankers that'll be coming? There will be stories all over. And I'm glad. The stronger you get the safer you are. I don't consider you benefitting from us getting married a bad thing."

We'd had this conversation before, and it never failed to put a scowl on her face. "I don't like it." She repeated for the tenth time. "That's why I wanted to do a small ceremony at my moms. I don't want people thinking I'm some ladder climber. Making a big deal out of the wedding for attention seems like something my dad would do."

I pulled her close. "We're getting married because we love each other and because we want to be together forever. You didn't even think of the wedding benefits until I mentioned them, which I know because I felt your surprise when I brought it up. It would be stupid to avoid it just because your dad would approve."

"I know." She muttered. "I guess it's unavoidable."

"Besides." I said with a grin. "I'm the one marrying a godslayer. If anything I'm getting the better end of this deal. With the war blowing up your story like it is, I'm gonna rake in some serious points for landing you." I said in the most dramatic voice possible. "Maybe I should retire and let you become a god while I live a life of indulgent luxury."

Callie just rolled her eyes. "Right." She said sarcastically. "Because I'm definitely guaranteed to become a goddess. Because I'M the one with a foot halfway into B-rank already. I'm not even sure I'll manage to hit C."

She'd been worrying about her Path lately. We'd talked over how I'd gotten DS Mastery to a Solid Path, but my experience was hardly usual. I was pretty sure just shoving Skills willy nilly into one big super Skill normally wouldn't have worked. Especially knowing what I did about proper Skill construction. I was convinced it had been a fluke.

That didn't help her calm down, since her own Path was still Illusionary (something I'd repeatedly told her was completely normal and even advanced for her rank). "Look, get to Master and THEN worry about it. Besides I don't think B-rank is going to be as easy as the earlier ranks." At her flat stare I grimaced. "Ok, not easy…straightforward. Zeke has implied it gets more complex."

The one thing I knew was that learning to make Skills properly was going to be important, and I'd been working on it for a while, taking apart and rebuilding the worst of my Skills to be more efficient.

She sighed, cuddling into my side. "I miss back when things were simple. Catch a serial killer running around our small town."

"Well…I mean, I almost got butchered with a snack knife." I said. "So maybe not THAT simple."

Snorting, she shook her head. "You can't let me have my misplaced nostalgia? You're a terrible boyfriend." She stuck out her tongue at me and I couldn't help but laugh at her antics.

"Fiance." I reminded her with a grin. "And how about I cook us dinner to make up for it. I got fresh clams for linguine." I'd been planning to surprise her before the big day, but the immediate light in her eyes told me telling her now was a good choice.

Grabbing her hand, I pulled her after me out of the basement of the inn, off toward the kitchen where I would put dinner together. Despite the big mess tomorrow though, I felt at ease. Risk was always present, but Callie and I were on the right track, and as long as we were all together we could do this. I forced myself to temper that confidence so I didn't overlook any important details, but I held onto the sentiment. I had a feeling I'd need it.

We slipped out of the valley at two forty five the next morning. It was a simple thing to do, we had Anna, Callie, and Bethy with us, and the latter's domain made what might have been a risky exfiltration easy as pie. We didn't speak for about ten minutes as we walked the miles between the valley and Spencer's estate, but when we finally got to the edge of the property, we stopped for a powwow.

"What the fuck was that?" I hissed, spinning on Anna. "I thought they didn't know where we were. We passed ten different search parties!"

She shrugged. "I said they didn't know, not that they didn't care. I didn't expect them to put in that much effort though." She glanced at Bethy. "That Domain of yours is damned useful. I didn't know it worked with stealth."

"It's a vampire thing." Said Bethy casually. "Stealth is one of the powers attributed to us. Vampirism is a flexible and powerful trait. I'm totally awesome at making stuff go whoosh!" She waved her hands dramatically. "And just disappear. Illusions are easy, so I made us all like ghosts."

I chuckled. "You scare me sometimes." I told my friend. "But I'm glad you're on our side. Speaking of which, you and Abel are first up on the docket. Anna will be filling you in on the details, but you'll be getting us through before we all split up to do our parts."

Anna nodded, gesturing ahead of us. "This is the weakest spot in the ward scheme. There are detection enchantments, combat enchantments, and a few shields mixed in there, but the foundation for the manor can't hold an unlimited amount of magic. They already had extensive wards, and while Spencer paid to tune them up there was only so much he could do."

Reaching into a bag hanging on her belt, she pulled out a handful of powder and blew it lightly. The crystalline sand flared out in a small cloud, and before our eyes landed gently on a series of multi-colored sparks where enchantments were standing. My Eye of Revelation could make out most of them, but there were a few even I hadn't been able to spot.

"This." She said, gesturing to the bag. "Is all seeing mirror dust. It's rare and hard to make. You need to enchant a mirror with truesight, then crush it into powder without breaking that enchantment. The preparation method is complicated."

Bethy clapped happily. "It's so pretty. I want some, can you get it for me? I could use to make murals in the air!"

"No. It's expensive." Said Anna in exasperation. "But it did its job. You can see the gaps between the wards. Can you do your part?" She gestured to a series of complicated and twisty avenues where we could see space between the overlapping defenses. Some of them were big enough to squeeze through, some of them were the size of a pin. Luckily, that was what we'd brought Bethy and Abel for.
Bethy turned to my mentor. "You ready for this Alice?" She said lightly. "It's going to be tough." He didn't even bother to respond verbally, just nodding, and she closed her eyes, stepping up next to him and expanding her Domain until we were all inside. "You're up." She said tightly. "I won't be able to allow your ability to affect this for long, so hurry up."

Grinning, Abel raised his hands, spreading them slowly and then pushing them in. Around us a large area of lubricated space manifested, and as he brought his hands together, it compacted, shrinking until his palms were cupped around an orb shaped space and the spatial distortion was perfectly overlaid on the Domain.

Instead of stopping, he continued to compact it, pressing and slowly shrinking US, using the separated nature of the domain and his own spatial powers to slowly warp the area we were standing in. Then he started to push forward. The sphere changed shape, becoming a snake and I could feel a stretch and pull as he slowly slithered us forward.

Shrinking, twisting, turning, I felt like I was in kaleidoscope and a blender all at once, we warped and shifted, the Domain being reshaped and slipping between the wards in a way that neither Bethy nor Abel couldn't have managed alone. Finally, we touched down in an open space Anna had pointed out, and Abel dropped, wheezing, Mel catching him as Bethy let the Domain fade with a quiet grunt of effort.

"We're in." Said Bethy solemnly. We all just stared at her and she pouted. "What? I've always wanted to say that. I think I earned it."

I chuckled. "Agreed. So everyone has their own mission. No need to go over them again, split up and get it done." I looked at Callie. "Be careful with those straw dolls. Use the shadows to activate them at a distance, because that D-ranker will be on you within a second once that aura pops."

"I thought we weren't restating people's jobs." She said with a smirk. "I love you too honey. Be safe down there." She pecked me on the cheek through my mask and then stepped into the shadows, vanishing. Anna went after, with Bethy giving a toothy smile and erupting into a cloud of surprisingly stealthy winged cats.

Abel hunkered down to wait, sheltering under a nearby tree. Mel gave me a nod. "Wish I was coming with you on this." She said. "It's right up my alley. But he's wiped out, and he needs me."

"I knew this was a solo op for me." I said with a smile. "Don't sweat it. I'll make sure everything goes as planned." Waving, I turned and tapped into Callie's Stealth, her Perception letting me make me way unseen. Past the wards no one would be looking for sneaking, so unless someone tripped over me I should be fine. Fortified positions were the worst for anti-stealth, according to Anna, because they got used to relying on preventative measures like wards and didn't do regular sweeps.

Despite that, I still had to be careful. A long, slow walk into the manor, Eye of Revelation letting me slip by the sparse wards inside. They may not take security seriously enough, but it wasn't nonexistent. We'd gotten our hands on the blueprints, and I knew exactly which way to go, so with a bit of careful stepping (sometimes on the ceiling with State of Grace) I eventually made it to a door that led to the basement.

Unlike us, Spencer didn't have access to wishes to magically build a whole town in a month. He might have been able to pay to have it rushed, but it would take away from his funds for hiring soldiers. Instead, he'd reoutfitted this building, and we'd been able to get nearly up to date blueprints and then tweak them with wishes so we knew all the details.

Slipping through the door, I made my way down into the dark, easily able to see with my Eye of Revelation. The basement was actually pretty nice, but I knew where to go, so I avoided the finished parts, heading to the back to a crawlspace that took me to a room under the finished floor.

The whole place was full of running water, acting as a sort of sewer culvert, with multiple pools of water draining in and then back out. I couldn't smell anything, but that might just be my mask. Walking out onto the dirt floor between the six stone troughs where the water poured in, I looked around, noting multiple pillars in different positions.

Counting them, I came to one in particular. Putting a hand on it I closed my eyes and activated Pit of Despair. I had to shape it, altering the dust so only specific parts of the pillar came out. We knew exactly where Spencer would be, but I had to carefully execute this part of the plan in order to roust him to the area where Bethy was setting the traps we'd prepared.

Forty five degrees, two feet up at an angle. Apply a bit of poison fire. I moved on to the next pillar on the list. Same thing. Slight modification that wouldn't bring it down, but would weaken it. The contractor we'd hired to do the math on this had been given a wish and paid with his memory, but none of us understood construction enough to do it ourselves.

After weakening the six pillars indicated, I walked over to the steps, climbed up and then hung down from the crawlspace to get line of sight on the area in the middle of the dirt. Taking a long, slow breath, I focused and then created a pit of despair in a very precise spot I'd measured out with paces.

The ground warped, and I lifted the dust out with my Dust Construction, pulling it to me where I used it to create a new makeshift pillar near my hatch as I'd asked the contractor to plan out. I didn't want to end up screwed along with the people that were about to be caught in this.

There was a shift in the ground, dirt moving and buckling, and then there was a loud crack, then another, then four more as the weakened supports gave out in exactly the right order, and a full fucking QUARTER of the house collapsed into a giant sinkhole. Not even waiting, I booked it, taking the entrance out of the basement opposite the collapsed section as I headed for the dining room where Bethy was waiting.

I felt a shift and Callie appeared next to me, grinning. We didn't speak aloud, but I checked in on her mentally and she flooded the bond with excitement and triumph. She'd planted the dolls to draw off the D-ranker, as well as compromising the wards in a few key locations that would confuse any leftover defenders trying to react.

We hit the dining room at a dead sprint, finding Bethy waiting for us with Luggage out to defend her. She still looked exhausted, clearly having used up a lot of energy arming everything. On the far end of the room I could see a busted wall where a section of flooring had slid at an angle bursting through and setting up an entrance directly into the room.

The whole place was covered in dust, and I waited cautiously as Spencer and a squad of E-rankers made their way carefully toward us. They couldn't see the traps, but clearly one of them had some kind of danger sense of their own, because they stopped on the edge of the floor section ramp without touching the tiles of the room.

Spencer grinned, clapping slowly. "Very nice." He said sincerely. "I expected you to hole up on the defense, but you brought the fight to me. I can only assume that little collapse was supposed to injure me?" He spread his arms, showing off a glowing golden vest. "Because it might have, if not for my defenses."

We'd known about that, but the traps to deactivate his defensive artifacts were in the room itself, so we'd need to bait him out.

"What can I say?" I told him with a shrug. "Crushing usually works on insects."

His smile tightened, before he waved my comment away. "Oh well, these are your last words. Go on then. Feel free to say what you like. Maybe you have some speech locked and loaded about how I'm a monster, I'm sure Camden has told you plenty."

"He has." I agreed. "But I don't really need him to tell me what I already know. In fact, I just realized I don't need to have this conversation at all." He gave me a politely quizzical look, and I grinned back before looking down and triggering Pit of Despair. As he dropped onto the floor of the dining room, I flexed Dust Construction, creating a dozen spikes that I sent slamming into his guards at random just to sew confusion.

When his feet landed, there was an explosion of magical force as the golden light of the vest faded, and Spencer's eyes went wide as he stared down the formerly active defense…and that was when all hell broke loose.

We waited for a second after he hit the ground, hoping to see him just spontaneously die, but when that failed I cursed under my breath and shifted gears. "That's plan B then" I sent to Callie mentally.

I'd really hoped we wouldn't have to use plan B. This particular part of the plan was hands down the most uncontrollable. We'd machined things down to the smallest detail we could, but when we were doing the planning we ran into a snag.

After Callie set the straw dolls in place as bait. We'd only have a minute or two of lead time tops on their D-ranker. We were hoping they'd be so distracted by the collapse and what felt like a dozen D-ranked attackers popping up that they wouldn't think to check on Spencer.

In that scenario Anna would backstab him out of nowhere. However, if things fell through the second plan was to overlap herself with one of the dolls and use it as a distraction to attack and possibly kill the D-ranked guard.

Since she wasn't here, that meant plan B version two, which meant she'd missing the instant kill on the backstab but had caught their attention and was drawing it off so we could finish things.

This was fine. We had Bethy, who was a monster, and Callie and I worked well together. Plus I'd impaled six of the guards with my spikes which should at least slow them down.

To make best use of our element of surprise, once I realized we wouldn't be taking him out quickly, I triggered Moonlit Night, flooding the room with fog.Within seconds, everything disappeared. Callie was connected to me through the bond so it was easy to allow her to see through the fog, and Bethy was close by so including her was simple enough, barely any strain on my soul.

Without a sound, Bethy dispersed into her cat swarm, streaking out to land on all six of the impaled guards. Each of them was covered in several cats, and within second I heard them start to scream as they collapsed to the floor, twitching as their stats were consumed. It was easy enough to tweak the fog to allow the screams to carry, travelling to the others through the cloak of mist.

Valk had mentioned how terrible it was, and he'd been kind of twitchy about the experience, but given Bethy's demeanor I kind of assumed it wouldn't be that bad. I'd been wrong.

Stats were a part of us, fragments of the whole that made us up, and hearing them torn away…the screaming was terrifying, primal and heart wrenching as she ripped out pieces of who and what they were. No wonder she refused to do this to Gabe, it was terrifying.

Even Spencer, who had gotten his groove back quickly after losing his defenses, seemed genuinely disturbed by the sound of his people being fed on. I understood better now why Morgan Lark was considered so terrifying. Sure, he was scary and tough, but so were plenty of others. This though. This was what people were REALLY afraid of. No wonder Bethy hated doing this.
I felt bad asking her to feed like this when she'd just gotten better control. I hadn't know how traumatic it was going to be, but I didn't have to for a pity party. I had to take advantage of this gap.

Triggering Mephistopheles and Belial, I lunged forward, my staff lashing out in a straight thrust, the cap on the end aimed right at where Spencer was standing.

Only to slam into one of the remaining six guards as he dove in front of the blow. The explosion of black flame ripped a hole in him, and I watched him collapse to the ground screaming as the corrosion spread. The multiple amplifications of the two forms stacked on top of each other, increasing their effectiveness.

It wasn't enough to kill him, he was a strong E-ranker, and despite being completely unprepared to intercept the attack (some more of Spencer's oathbinding I assumed) he was able to drag himself off to the side.

Meanwhile, the second he bought them allowed the other five guards to form up around their boss, and I grimaced as I realized that I wouldn't be able to sucker punch him to end this.

I started to circle, muffling my steps with stealth, looking for an opening. The screaming was still going on, and I wondered exactly how much she was taking from them. How much COULD she take? There had to be limits.

Examining the situation I considered my options. Dust Construction was out, unfortunately. The floor in here wasn't thick enough for it to be a valid sea of dust for me to move in. I'd just end up dropping us into the basement, which I didn't want to do because it would entirely nullify the traps we'd set up.

With that off the table, I needed to lean into something else. Some other area where I had an advantage. Which meant Impact. I had several more points than the rest of these E-rankers, making me a bit more durable, and I had a method of taking advantage of that.

Blurring forward, I planted my feet in Spencers eyeline, then sent a message to Callie as I dropped the fog in front of him and his people, calling on Mornax. My body turned to stone as I took up a defensive stance, waiting for them to notice me. While I could move slightly step by step, it wasn't fast, and trying to do it in combat wouldn't work on this many people.

If I tried to engage I wouldn't be able to hold their attention, but luckily, I didn't need to. I was the only visible enemy in an impenetrable fog bank full of the screams of their colleagues and I was standing five feet away holding a weapon. Not a single one of them even considered holding back, and every single member of Spencer's entourage attacked instantly and without mercy.

The screaming and fog were scary, but seeing me stand there and tank every one of their blows without flinching (between my armor and all the boosts to defense they couldn't even scratch me with off the cuff attacks, and they were all too panicked to stop and try something with buildup) really put them back on their heels. That was good because it hurt like a bitch despite not damaging me.

My hands flew, my staff intercepting and deflecting attacks where it could. I made sure to make plenty of contact with both the fighters and their attacks, draining life energy into my staff. Finally, after a minute or two, I hauled it back like a spear and hurled it at Spencer's head. I condensed every bit of black flame into it that I could manage, having dropped Belial but still using Mephistopheles alongside Mornax.

He saw it coming and sidestepped it easily, letting it sail by without worry before turning to grin at me. "Is that it?" He asked snidely. "All that-" His words cut off as my staff, wielded by Callie, smashed into the arm that he'd barely gotten up in time. An explosion of death energy and black flame consumed the limb, and as the others spun to protect him, I activated Pit of Despair at last.

The E-rankers dropped through the floor, finally in position away from him because of their assault on me, and I blurred forward at the panicking psychopath.

Callie had emerged from the shadows behind him, caught my staff, and then turned it on him, and she was able to pass it back just as easily. Dropping Mornax, I slipped back into Belial alongside my still active Mephistopheles before triggering an old favorite, Flurry of Blows, along with Afterburner.

My staff struck out like dark wooden lightning through the clouds of fog that had rolled back in with my assault.

I had to hand it to spencer, even stripped of his defensive artifacts and guards, he was no slouch. He practiced some kind of weird trusting martial art that left behind after images, and only every few blows landed. He had a wicked looking dark knife he'd pulled that seemed genuinely threatening and he was waving it around to make space.

Each hit slowed him down though, and I could see the erosion from the black flame and corrosive energy tearing away at him.

Despite all that, I could feel the guards heading back. Dropping my two forms, I switched back to Mornax and hurled myself directly at him, tackling him to the ground. Callie screamed in concern as the knife vanished into my chest, my hands planted on the ground to maintain my stone form, pinning him to the ground.

Howling with rage, she streaked down on the struggling Tolbert, slamming a blade of shadow through his eye socket and into his brain, and I felt her pull on Mephistopheles briefly as an explosion of black flame consumed his brain, exploding out through his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

"Shane!' She screamed as she flipped me over, terrified and searching my chest for damage. Of which there was…none. I grinned at her through my mask. "You seem upset, everything ok?"

The dagger, which was on the floor, roiled with awful looking energy. Neither of us wanted to touch it, but she gestured down at it emphatically. "I…I saw him stab you. He drove that thing right into your chest. Your armor didn't even slow it down."

I stood up, gesturing down to an empty hole in my torso. "True." I said happily. "In point of fact, nothing slowed it down. Because it didn't hit anything but air." Waving my hand, I resealed the hole, allowing it to resume the form of stone. "Pit of Despair plus Dust Construction." I said with a grin. "Because my body was made of stone."

Putting my arms around her, I pulled her close…and paused when a series of attacks slammed into my back. Rolling my eyes, I turned slowly to look at the guards, who had just gotten back.

"I'm sorry." I said in annoyance. "Who exactly are you working for?" I pointed at Spencer. "Because that guy is dead, so your whole army will be falling apart momentarily. If I were you I'd bail before Camden and Celine's people start hunting down stragglers. Maybe spread the word if you have any friends among the armies."

They stared at me in fear, then turned and booked it out of the room, the fog having faded and none of them bothering to try to help the feebly weeping men Bethy had torn into. They all looked…bad. Thin to the point of emaciation.

Bethy herself was huddled in the corner, blood all over her face, pressing her manacles over her eyes. I nodded to Callie when she shot me a questioning look, and she went over to help our friend, having to sooth Luggage who was standing guard.

"She looks like shit." I heard from behind me, and turned to see Anna limping into the room, a long gash over one eye and a split lip. She was holding her ribs like they were broken, and I snorted a bit at the comment.

"You're one to talk." I laughed. "Glad to see you're ok though. I think we're going to be tied up here for a bit, do me a favor and let Camden know what happened. He might be able to defuse the situation a bit, and I don't trust those guards further than I could throw this house."

She nodded, reaching into her pocket, and withdrew a piece of paper. Pressing it to the wall she scrawled a note, then put it in an envelope and and stamped it with a black wax seal. The message was consumed in fire and she turned to nod to me before slumping down against the wall.

Looking around, I took in the damaged Dining Room and sighed. This place was going to be a pain to repair and disarm. I was just glad it wasn't my job. No…my job was done. And I couldn't be more relieved.

"Alright." I said after a minute or two letting everyone recover. "I think we should get moving. Things should be over, but that doesn't mean we won't run into looters or something, I bet people will start picking this place clean soon."

Callie nodded. "Good point. So what's our next move?"

"Looting." I responded bluntly. "We're going to pick this place clean." Despite being mildly traumatized, Bethy let out a wet giggle, wiping her face as she looked up. I could see a lambent red glow in her irises, but it was incredibly faint.

I offered her a hand. "You ok?" I asked cautiously. "Because I didn't realize that was going to be so bad."

She shook her head. "Feeding from multiple people at once like that was…rough. I take more than just stats when I drink. So many different inputs, so much pain from so many people at once…I've never done that before. And I don't want to do it again."

Callie reached down and pulled her into a quick hug, offering a soft smile. "We know. We'll do our best to make sure we never need your help for something like that again. Right Shane?"

"Definitely." I said with a nod. "If I'd know it would be so hard for you I wouldn't have asked." Not to mention how terrifying it was going to be. I was still shuddering on the inside from the screams, but I wasn't going to say that, because I wasn't an insensitive idiot. Bethy was already feeling bad enough.

Deciding that changing the subject would be better, I turned to Anna. "So what happened with the D-ranker anyway? I take it from the timing he noticed what was going on, but even then you had a lot of advantages. Why not just take him out and show up late?" I'd been kind of hoping for a backstab on Anna's part to put down the other D-ranker fast.

She grimaced. "He was a Centurion with an Iron Body ability. Tanky as hell and the worst possible opponent for me. I tried to stick a knife in him from behind and missed. Luckily I had access to a pretty nasty poison."

"Wait." I blinked. "You mean…the wolfhornigator venom? I know I gave you my vials, but it shouldn't have an effect on a D-ranker."

She grinned. "It wouldn't have. At least not until I distilled it and sifted out that nasty corrosive energy inside it. Took me a few vials of the stuff just to make a couple drops, but I infused them into a nast dagger I had that soaks up poisons and it made a world of difference. The dagger itself actually amplifies poison efficacy."

"And that killed him?" I said incredulously. Those wolfhornigators had been nasty, but not THAT nasty. Unless Belial had helped more than I'd though when I was dealing with the venom."
Anna just grinned. "Not quickly. But enough ant bites will kill an elephant. I spent about fifteen minutes cutting into him. The first dozen didn't do much, but the more little nicks I made the more poison got in."

"What happened with the straw dolls?" I asked worriedly. "I mean, we set them up in very specific places. Not only would he have had to run all over to find them, Callie sabotaged a bunch of the defenses in certain spots before she placed them so there would be buildup of wounded soldiers to distract him."

Nodding sagely, Anna said. "Ah, but we made one key mistake." At my cocked head she clarified. "He was an asshole, he didn't care about any of the rest of those soldiers."

"Damn." I said with a sigh. "Oh well, that's what plan B's are for. Now, lets get going. I remember seeing a storeroom on the blueprints that I don't think anyone will have gotten to yet. Not sure whats in it, but I bet its pricey."

Callie's head jerked up, eyes glinting as she heard me mention loot. I swear that girl loved loot almost as much as me. I just grinned, turning and heading off as she scrambled after me. We had a good idea where we were going, heading being easy to figure out between knowing where the room was and the careful collapse of a big section of the manor. Landmarks made navigating easier for everyone.

We came down the hall, then eventually stopped at a door. I gestured for them to follow me and we went back down into the basement, and headed down a side corridor. The collapse had cut off a big chunk of the place, but not all of it. We were able to move around pretty easily with my mental map.

Finally we came to an out of the way room in the basement, when we arrived, I gestured for them to shut the door and stand back. At first glance this was just a closet, but once they had moved out of the way I turned my gaze up, staring at the floor.

I triggered Pit of Despair and then Dust Construction, catching the disintegrating floor sections and smoothing and shaping them before returning them to stone.

Once I finished, I turned to Callie with a grin, bowing deeply as I gestured to the now neat and stable staircase leading up into the second floor where the store room was.

Grinning like a loon, Callie practically skipped up the steps, much to the amusement of our other two companions. When I reached the second floor though, I whistled in awe. Callie had stopped and was staring at the room in awe, and I couldn't blame her.

Materials lined the room. Stacks of expensive looking metals, wood piles, gems, and various other construction odds and ends, all of which would make the creation of more buildings in the village all but free. And it wasn't wish based so we could just donate it, or better yet Callie could wish for plans for herself and have them design us a nice guild hall or something.

This whole experience had shown me that my power might not be QUITE as strict with the whole 'not benefiting' thing as I'd thought, but it was a better safe than sorry kind of thing. I had no clue where the line was with that, and I'd rather be cautious than have a bunch of wishes get nixed because of unfair compensation.

"Alright." I said loudly. "Start getting this stuff in your rings, and I'll close up the floor behind us when we leave. No dragging your feet either. Someone is going to be here soon, and it would be better for us if there was no sign of us. Word gets out we stole a bunch of stuff and we'll need to fight our way back to our own territory."

They all nodded, and started stockpiling the materials, stuffing them away into their spatial storage. We all had plenty of room, so it didn't take too long. We finished up and hurried back down the steps, and I used Pit of Despair again before taking control and closing up the floor.

Making sure it was in good shape, I grinned at the others. "Alright, we're good people, let's move. Abel and Mel should be safe from sucker punches behind the wards, since no one but us is likely to take that route, but they could still get pinned down from this side."

We took off, taking the same hallways I'd taken to get here, with Callie and Anna covering us stealth wise. Bethy seemed…shaky, and pale, even for her. I was a bit worried, and wanted to get her to Jessie to look over and perhaps fuss over a bit. Our healer always knew how to make anyone feel better.

When we arrived at the spot we'd left the others, they were still there, standing around. Abel looked annoyed. "This was boring." He said in irritation. "We just stood here and nothing happened. This whole thing was too easy."

"No.'' I said with an eyeroll. "It was carefully planned. We made sure to account for…" I trailed off suspiciously, looking around. "MOST things that could go wrong." No use tempting fate. "And this was our reward." That didn't feel like enough to offset the jinx, so I knocked on the tree they'd been standing under.

He shrugged. "Whatever. This next part is tough enough to be amusing, and maybe we'll trip over some defectors on the way out." he turned to Bethy. "You ready for this?"

"Sure thing." She smiled wanly. "I've got your back. Just let me get the domain in place."

We all frowned worriedly. Bethy hadn't come up with a stupid fake name for Abel. That wasn't like her. She loved teasing my mentor. And he always made sure to pretend to get all out of sorts about it because he knew it made her smile.

Great, I'd potentially traumatized my friend. My sister was going to kill me, as I wasn't worried enough. She got her Domain up and then I nodded to Abel, who seemed to hesitate before finally recreating the process of overlapping his spatial alteration with the Domain and then slowly snaking us between the wards.

When we got out, I let myself relax a bit. We headed back toward our territory, but apart from stealth we didn't really do much to hide. We were finished.

I put my arm around Callie. "Ok, that was rough, but we got through it fine. We planned everything out perfectly. And there was no blowba-" I was cut off by an explosion of flames in the shape of a giant sword construct appearing above us and smashing down towards my head, ready to bisect me.

It was so fast I couldn't even think, let alone move. Luckily I didn't have to. A massive square shield I recognized from back on Callus appeared around us, and while the blade punched through it, the momentum slowed, grinding the sword to a halt only a foot or two from my upturned face. My eyes were wide as I looked around, trying to find the source, finally locating a man standing in the air above us, looking down at me coldly.

"You killed my son." The man said flatly. "MY son." He said it strangely. Not like he was sad, but like I had crossed some sort of line. "Show yourself, guardian. Lest you think I fear your skulduggery."

Zeke appeared across from him, dressed in a set of long robes with a porcelain mask on his face. Despite the outfit I knew it was him. I'd recognize him anywhere. "Do you know what you're doing? Whose kid that is? Because I don't think you do. What kind of Duke takes a swing at an E-ranker?"

I felt my blood grow cold. Duke. I could feel his power, feel it eclipsed mine by a huge margin, but I hadn't realized it was by THAT much. Dukes were A-rankers. I'd seen Zeke kill an A-ranker before, but those had been punk ass pirates, not real A-rankers from one of the five core factions. This guy was a fucking problem.

In fact, judging by how strong A-rankers were and their sheer stat value, combined with how long it took him to get here, he might have come from another PLANET when he found out his son had been killed.

"He killed my son." Said the Duke. "He dies. If his parents have a problem they can take it up with me. Remove yourself from my path guardian, and you might survive."

Zeke stared at him for a few seconds, then slowly reached up and cracked his neck, first one way, then the other. "Bite my ass." He said bluntly. "You want to touch my nephew, you go through me. Your kid was a psycho anyway."

The duke's grim face finally stretched into an ugly smile. "I was hoping you would say that." Reaching down to his hip, he drew a small rapier, a sharp, fancy looking black with a gilded hilt set with gems. Taking up a fencing stance, he nodded at my uncle. "I'll give you attack priority. Make your move." Standing below a burning simulacrum of that very sword, I stared in fear at my uncle hovering above us. I wasn't sure we could get out of this. It all depended on Zeke. I just hoped he would be ok.