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

[Malcolm Tent]

"Elijah," hissed Percival darkly. "How DARE you? How dare you raise your blade against a branch head of the Wish Curse Palace. If you think Adramalech can save you after this, you-ve got anoth-"


My dad casually tapped his cane and the mirror plated knight raised his non sword holding hand and punched Percival across the face. "Shut up Percy," he drawled cheerfully. "I don't have time for your insecurities. I don't care that dad likes me better, or that you're the oldest, or that you resent my reputation. My kid doesn't need your help, he has mine, and if you speak about him or my best friend in that manner in front of me again, I'm going to rip your tongue out and nail it to your forehead."


Malachai grimaced. "Elijah, there's no need for that. Your brother got carried away, and he learned his lesson. We're in public, and we don't need to make a scene. This is family business."


My dad rolled his eyes, but flicked his fingers, and the three constructs vanished. "You're lucky. If I was feeling really vindictive, I'd have just let my wife's parents tear you apart." His eyes flicked down, and Percival followed his gaze to the pool of endless darkness that had congealed at his feet. "But Sasha would be so upset if I let them kick off a war because I was too lazy to clean up my own trash."


"You can't TALK to me like that," Percival howled. "I am a branch head. An elder of this faction. You're not even IN the WCP anymore. This assault is an act of war!"


"Assault?" My dad said lightly. "I didn't see any assault." He turned to the others. "Did any of you see an assault? As far as I saw, Percival tripped and bumped into the wall face first. It was clearly a tragic accident."


Zeke nodded sagely. "He's always been clumsy. I thought he'd have grown out of it."


"LIARS!" Howled the red haired man. "You're all liars! You're plotting against me! You're all-"


A woman stepped from the crowd, her face serene but her eyes cold. "Percival." Her tone was frosty, and as soon as she spoke, his mouth snapped shut. "I'm so sorry," her dark hair stood out against bronze skin, and her smile was warm and compassionate, as long as you didn't look above her nose. "My husband gets a bit out of sorts when it comes to his little brother."


"Ayra," my dad said mildly. "I'm surprised you let him out on his own. Next time I'd suggest getting him vaccinated first. I think he's foaming at the mouth a bit."


She frowned, eyes flashing. "I'll thank you to keep your nose out of my business, Elijah. I may not despise you as my husband does, but I don't particularly like you either. You would do well not to make an enemy of me."


"Threaten my husband again," my mom said cheerfully. "And I'll stomp your teeth in and wear your head like a shoe."


"Enough, children," my grandfather finally said. His voice was firm, and the echo of power rolled over us as the full weight of a demigod was released into the surroundings. "This isn't productive. We're here to help Shane, not to start trouble between branches. Miss Vetala, we're sorry about your husband's agitation. Perhaps you should take him elsewhere to calm down."


It was easy to forget, given his easygoing nature, that my grandfather was the Radiant Pope, a demigod considered one of the strongest in his whole faction, and one of the top ten S-rankers in the universe.


Ayra tensed for a minute, but finally nodded. "Very well, your holiness. It was nice to meet you." She shot us a hard look before leaving.


My mom shook her head. "I'm sorry, that wasn't-"


"That wasn't your fault," my grandfather said bluntly. "The Vetala clan ability is called Discord. It heightens aggression and exploits insecurity. She was here for a few minutes before she showed herself, and she made sure to start a fight. Granted, she didn't have to try hard, your brother does NOT like you, Elijah."


My dad shrugged. "He's always been a jealous little twit. That did seem extreme though. Don't know how I missed that. She's getting sneakier."


Malachai sighed. "She has. And she's been pushing Percy into situations like that any time she can. She wants to corner him into starting a branch war and cutting ties with me. She basically runs things over there already, but he puts his foot down when it concerns our main branch. I didn't realize it had gotten so bad. He's never gotten THAT unhinged before."


"Might be cumulative damage," I said. Everyone turned to look at me and I shrugged. "Some kind of soul or mental influence can cause damage over time. I'd offer to look at him, but I doubt my abilities would scratch an S-rank soul injury. If it IS the soul."


"If it's not, I might be able to help," my grandfather added. "My purification flame can heal some types of mental damage."


My paternal grandfather nodded. "I'd appreciate that, if the opportunity arises. In the meantime…" his expression hardened. "I think I'll reach out to some of the other council members. Internal politics aside, I don't like the idea of one of our branches being usurped by an Imperial clan. I think I've been ignoring a few too many signs in my preoccupation with this succession war."


"It's fine, dad," my father assured him. "We get it. Everyone has been busy."


"Yeah, and I'm sorry about earlier," my mom said guiltily. "I have my issues with you, but I wouldn't normally be so…confrontational. Not with so much at stake. In fact, I think my dad was the only one of us unaffected. That power of hers is nasty."


It was. Being able to manipulate the minds of so many powerful people at once without detection? That was scary. But it clearly had some limits too. My grandfather was fine, and my grandmother had been a little annoyed but hadn't lost her shit. Dad was an edgy bastard at the best of times, and mom could get volatile when it came to me.


The biggest outlier was probably Percival, though I didn't know him well enough to say for sure. Like I'd said though, consistent contact probably wore him down.


"What are the implications of this?" Callie asked after a minute. "I mean, the candidate selection is the most sacred tradition the WCP has. The Wishmaster himself decreed its sanctity, and every Wishmaster after has endorsed it. Is it really ok for the Imperials to poke their noses into something like this?"


Malachai sighed. "It's the war. Too much going on at once. With the gods focused on the enemy and now the void, there's less oversight among the factions. The succession war is a vulnerable time, and it's not a surprise that clans like the Vetala are hoping to exploit it."


"Bottom feeders," my dad sneered. "The Vetala are habitual opportunists. They wait for any sign of weakness and then pounce. Their whole legacy is nothing but large scale manipulation and trying to scavenge from other people's kills. I don't mind a clever strategy, but I have no patience for career cowards."


"They're pretty smug about it too," Zeke grimaced. "Always looking down on everyone, like they accomplished some monumental task by following stronger forces and taking advantage of opportunities."


I winced. "Are there going to be any down there with us? You said Percival's son was coming, I assume he's also HER son? She sending any cousins?"


"Probably," my paternal grandfather shrugged. "But that's not the main issue."


My wife frowned at him. "How is it not? We basically just declared war on them, he's going to be coming after us with everything he's got."


"You're not thinking this through," my grandmother advised her. "They will be an issue, but not the biggest one. That honor belongs to the candidates. Think about it. You're about to be planet locked with several hundred small scale reality warpers."


Even my dad grimaced at that. "It is a bit annoying. Especially the candidates who are already higher ranked. It might seem like being the Wishmaster wouldn't be useful to a higher ranked candidate, but trust me, A-rank is LONG and arduous. Being the Wishmaster is as good as hopping on the fast track to S-rank. Once you hit that level, you retire, but there's some real variance in timeline between different Wishmasters. Aiden, for instance, has had one of the briefest tenures of any Wishmaster in the last ten thousand years. His predecessor held office for three millennia. Aiden held it for less than three hundred years."


That was…alarming. Not to mention it was probably its own form of boost to renown. Being the most dynamic and effective Wishmaster in recent memory was a hell of a feather in your cap. Big shoes to fill too, if I won. But I was getting distracted, I turned back to watch my dad.


"The point is," he continued. "Wishes are annoying to go up against, and when EVERYONE has them, things get dicey. Sure, most of them get burned paying for services and forming alliances, but you can expect almost everyone you meet to have a spare up their sleeve in case of emergency."


And I knew how they would do it too. Direct combat help, luck, items, communication. You could do anything with a wish. In fact, you could do SO much I didn't know how the hell we would deal with it.


Zeke seemed to pick up my distress. "It's not as bad as it sounds, though. Yes, things get crazy, but you have to remember that wishes can COUNTER other wishes. Direct action risks having one of your moves invalidated, and one wish longer is one wish stronger. Wasting your limited supply on a stalemate is considered the height of stupidity. Any of the REALLY clever candidates will spend their capital recruiting people with more stable capabilities. Like you do."


"I can handle any of the A-rank candidates," my dad said coldly. "My Wish Devil trait is ideal for countering contingencies. Triggering their backups against their will is child's play."


I felt a bit better after he said that, but I wasn't able to allow myself to relax for more than a second before a sound split the air. A high ringing I recognized quickly as someone tapping on a glass. We all turned to find Harrison standing at the head of the large table, smiling warmly at all of us. "Apologies, my friends," he said jovially. "But my son has a few words he'd like to say to our younger generation."


Sure enough, he stepped aside and a new form took his place, one I recognized from my brief talk with him at the conclave. Aiden Wyndham. The current Wishmaster.


Everyone shut up pretty much instantly. And I knew why. His presence was…heavy. Heavier than my mom, than Sebastian, than Killian. He had this sort of suffocating presence that no other A-ranker I'd seen could match. I imagined that Lark might have been like this at A-rank. Or Abel might be in the future.


His eyes panned across the room, briefly stopping on my dad. They exchanged a brief smile and a nod and then he moved on. "I've been told I'm supposed to say a few words. Inspire you to be your best, to make the WCP proud," he said lazily as he scanned the crowd.


Then he shrugged. "I don't see it. You're all pretty mediocre. But hey, somebody has to win, so there's that. As for pride, the WCP doesn't give a fuck about your performance here. Not unless you win, and not even really then. So whatever, try your best, or don't, I don't actually care. Someone get me a beer." Then he sat down and summarily ignored the whole room.


"Damn," Zeke said appreciatively. "I forgot how much I liked him when we were younger." I rolled my eyes. He would have. Shrugging, we all headed for the table to sit down. Guess it was time for the real meeting to start. I wondered if I could get away with napping behind my mask if I could hold myself upright.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The meeting was WAY too long. I nodded off several times, though Callie was listening intently if I needed to know what was said, and I could just check with her. Finally, it ended, and I was allowed to leave. Callie talked to a bunch of people, though she didn't actually SAY much despite chatting for quite a while.


This was a political arena, and while I was slowly improving my mindset and knowledge base in that department, I was still dipping my toes, and wasn't suited for this kind of horse trading.


Not that we had any horses. We were riding around on broomsticks and clacking rocks together to make hoof noises at this point. Nobody wanted to be associated with the potential future tyrant, and while everyone smiled and put on a pleasant face, they mostly stonwalled any discussions of alliance, much to my wife's frustration.


At the very least, they served dinner halfway through, and Callie woke me up to eat some lobster thermidor before we finally headed to the rooms they provided us to wait in before the war started.


It wasn't a long wait. Everyone was already here, so after a good night's sleep, we all gathered in some kind of exit chamber where Harrison was waiting. I was relieved, because it gave me the night to sleep and stockpile a few more scrolls bringing me up to fifteen total (eight plus the seven I had on hand for emergencies).


My dad waited until we were all gathered, then withdrew a long, dark lighter with a bone plate at the top. He flicked it and the flame…well, it didn't LIGHT exactly, more like it UNLIT. The flame created an absence in the air. Not darkness, or void, but just…emptiness. It kind of hurt to look at. But it seemed to steal the sound from our voices after they reached the people nearby. It was kind of impressive.


"Alright, advice time," he said blithely. "Listen up and listen good kids. This might save your life. First up. Passive defense. If you can, you should all use a scroll daily to isolate yourself from direct influence. There are a LOT of nasty things you can do with a wish. Curses, blights, hexes, maledictions, and about a dozen other very unpleasant experiences that you don't want to endure."


I nodded. That wasn't ideal, I had way too many people, but the core group should be coverable, especially with Nat along. Our original alliance from back in the day left room for her to help me now, and she'd shown up, Valk at her side, without even mentioning it. Celine was with them, and all three were clearly pretty firmly into D-rank.


"What about actual combat?" I asked grimly. "We've seen what that kind of thing can do. I know you said that people will be worried about cancellation and wont want to risk losing their scrolls, but I feel like we should at least consider it."


"You shouldn't," he said. "I know it's tempting, but the fact is, the wish power is TOO versatile. You can't plan for everything, and trying is going to spread you far too thin. You're going to have to keep it loose and be ready to react on the fly. Reserves can save your ass, so keeping an emergency stash in case something goes horribly wrong isn't a bad idea, but don't tie yourself in knots."


Zeke spoke up. "Your best bet, by and large, is to meet strength with strength. You know as well as we do that wishes have limited impact on higher ranked Ascendants. They can help pin them down, slow them up, or give you a minor edge, but generally, wishes lack the punch to seriously overcome a direct challenge from an overwhelming force of a higher stage."


"Crell will be invaluable too," my mom added. "Reductive meta abilities are an nightmare for the wish power. Wishes always work, but if he can counter them slightly, it'll drive the price WAY up. If you're proactive enough about it, you can push the prices up beyond the realm of reason and soft cancel some of their responses. Also, it goes without saying, but don't try to use any scrolls you find during the war."


My dad nodded emphatically. "They can and will decline wishes, and it'll screw you mid fight. Not to say they aren't useful. Keep them in stock and you can sell or trade them for favors later. Most candidates will grant a remote wish with proper payment, even if they don't know where it comes from. Profit is profit. They just won't do it during the competition."


"Why are you guys talking like we're going to get separated?" I asked worriedly. "You're coming with us, right?"


They grimaced at each other. "No," my mom said with a grimace. "There are precautions in place to prevent the higher ranked candidates from steamrolling. One of them is that the more powerful faction members are given postings to wait for their candidates. You'll be dropped into a zone commensurate with your rank, and you'll be given a task to recruit a local force to guide you to the city where your C-rankers will be waiting, then another task to find the B-rankers, and then finally us."


"The higher ranked candidates will be with you?" I asked worriedly. "Isn't that an advantage?"


"It is," she admitted. "Though not as big of one as you might expect. It takes time and effort to cultivate sources here, but the high ranked locals have a lot of animosity towards the WCP, and the high rankers are considered low profit investments. They rarely win, because it's a waste to invest the renown in them, and they're less grateful if they do. Less time in charge, less likely to take you with them when they leave. It's an uphill battle for them."


That made me feel a bit better at least. Being younger and weaker might actually be a benefit to me here, at least in some ways.


"So how do we enter?" I asked slowly. "They're not going to have us all go in together, are they? That sounds like a bloodbath waiting to happen. Although, given the D-rankers we have, that might not go too poorly for us."


Ironically, because of the effort we put into finding them we had almost as many C as D-rankers. We were at two hundred and fifty or so D-rankers total for the final drop team. Bethy had them all waiting inside her Domain, so our group looked a lot smaller and less threatening than any of the others, and I was actually looking forward to some idiot trying to take advantage.


"Nothing so gauche," my mother said with a snicker. "They're going to load you all into orbital drop pods and randomly toss you into orbit. Where you end up is almost entirely a matter of luck."


I opened my mouth, but my dad cut me off. "And no, you won't be able to use wishes to influence your landing site. The planetary gravity is intense, and the drop pods are very high rank. They did it that way to prevent tampering. Not to say no one can do it, but your abilities won't be enough, and none of the high rankers are going to be randomly dropped, so it won't be an issue at this stage."


That brought to mind something else though. "What about their wishes?" I asked worriedly. "An A-rank wish would be able to do some serious damage, and the D-rankers who are going to be going in for the high rankers will have access to those through scrolls."


"It's a concern," he admitted. "We can counter any direct application, and wasting scrolls like that would be absurd, but there are ways to exploit that gap. I'd expect to see artifacts or buildings popping up out of nowhere, for instance. Still, it'll be limited by payment. Remember D-rankers don't have the assets to compensate for A-rank wishes. And giving them money directly would make it unfair compensation and invalidate the wish. It's definitely an advantage, but mostly only enough of one to offset the fact that no one wants to work with them."


"Not to mention there aren't many of them," Zeke added. "According to our information, there's only three A-rank and five B-rank candidates in this war. Out of hundreds of potential enemies and hundreds of thousands of miles, you're not likely to run into their forces early on."


I nodded slowly. "So how are they going to distribute us? And how are we supposed to find you all?"


"Hemisphere style," my dad said with a shrug. "Basically, each half of the planet is a curved disc, starting with a D-rank zone and condensing into an A-rank zone at the center. Think of it like a target. The outer ring is where the D-rank territory is, and the local D-rank forces live there. That's the biggest area, a large belt along the equator. You'll start there, and you'll pick a direction and head for the poles, where the A-rankers will be waiting."


That DID leave a large area for us to work in. Absurdly large. But it also brought up a pretty worrying issue. "What if we can't find you?" I asked slowly. "If he head for the wrong pole we're fucked."


"You have scrolls," my dad said dismissively. "Use them. Come on, don't get lazy on me. If you can't even think for yourself you have no shot here. Regardless, you'll be given tasks to accomplish in each zone, and points can be earned. The points can be redeemed for advantages, including springing locals when you leave, so the more you have and are willing to spend the better you do. If you win, you can bring anyone you want out, since you're the Wishmaster, but that's easier said than done."


My mother elbowed him in the ribs. "What your father MEANS," she said acidly. "Is that he's worried about you, and that you need to take care of each other." She stepped forward and pulled Chelsea and I into a tight hug. "You two be safe, alright? All of you should." She stepped back, and then after a brief moment of indecision, pulled Callie into a hug too. "Take care of my babies, ok?"


My wife smiled warmly. "Of course. That's what I'm here for." She winked at my mother. "Don't worry, I'll get him through this in one piece."


I laughed, leaving them to their moment, and turned to Zeke. "So," I said with a sigh. "All this time, and we're finally getting to the big show. Thanks for, you know…not letting me die and all that. Plus the mask is pretty cool."


"Well I was getting tired of looking at your face," he said lazily. "So it was really more of a gift for me."


I burst out laughing and leaned forward to wrap him in a tight hug. "Take care of my parents, you dick. Mostly my mom. The old man could use a beating or two. Maybe let him lose a limb. We can always grow it back later."


He laughed, squeezing me back, then stepped away. "Take care of yourself kid. And take care of your people. They were always going to be your way out of this."


Nodding, I turned to look at my friends. They all looked steady, strong, and powerful. Just like I knew they would. I let out a long breath, then turned to my dad. "Alright, so, where is this drop pod we're supposed to be using? I don't want to get stuck with the shitty one."


I was practically vibrating with tension and worry, but at the same time, the excitement was palpable. This was it. The moment I'd been preparing for since I first became an Ascendant. The real test of everything I'd learned and been through. The next step in my path and the only way I could make a meaningful difference in the universe. It was all riding on this. But hey, no pressure, right?

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Arriving on the surface of the heirworld was surprisingly simple. The drop pods were fairly cushy, and the impact wasn't too intense. We emerged into the hills of this new planet unscathed and ready for a fight…which we didn't get.


"So this is homey," said Abel slowly. "If your home is a dirt hole. Please tell me the whole planet isn't like this."


It was pretty bleak. We were standing on the side of a massive rocky hill. I would have called it a mountain if the slope had been a bit steeper or if it went a bit higher, but it was pretty clearly a hill, as were all the OTHER hills surrounding it. Beyond those hills, I could see…well, more hills. I frowned. Holding up my arm, I whistled, and there was a flash of green fire as Archie materialized.


He'd been learning how to leave Bethy's Domain on his own (as long as she allowed it, of course) and could even feel when I called him through our bond. "Hey bud," I told him casually as I scritched under his chin. "I need a bird's eye view, do me a favor and take a lap?"


He trilled, then took off into the air. As he did, I got a good look at the sky above for the first time. It looked weird. I could see the lines of fire crisscrossing the atmosphere, but there were dim and further apart than I'd expected. I frowned at them, but after a moment of thought I got it. The interior of the defenses was spatially expanded. The WHOLE planet. That was really impressive, especially since I was positive the buildings would still be enlarged.


The sky was a gorgeous unearthly purple, shot through with thin strips of red, and between those I could see planets and stars, whole galaxies spinning through space. I wasn't sure what was causing that effect, if it was the spatial expansion or just the local interstellar layout, but it was very distracting. It took me a moment to focus on Archie and push my vision through the bond so I could see through his eyes.


"So, we're in some kind of…hill range? On either side of it there seems to be empty space, almost to the horizon. But I do see what looks like trees in one direction and in the other…maybe rocks? This would be the equatorial ring, I guess. But we need to head for one of the poles and I don't know which one. Nat, spot me a scroll?"


Now that we were here, some of the prohibitions against using each other's wishes weren't as important. But at the same time, we needed to save them, because we'd be dealing with an endless number of possible wish problems and we needed wishes to counter wishes. But we needed a heading, and the most reasonable way to do that was a wish. Nat had way less stats than I did so her scrolls were less valuable. I pulled out a D-ranked chit, making a quick and easy wish, and with a flash, I was holding a compass that didn't point north.


Or it did. But only because north was the right way. I didn't actually know which way was north, I'd always been bad with directions. I shared my thoughts with my wife, and she just shrugged. "I mean, we're heading for one of the poles of the planet, so realistically, we have a fifty fifty chance of going north."


Bethy perked up. "But what if they don't even HAVE the word north here? What if we're inventing cardinal directions, and by choosing one now, we're creating north for the first time, and our actions will decide the fate of this entire planet!" Her eyes were shining and her fists were clenched tight as she got more and more excited.


My sister rolled her eyes. "Bethy, cardinal directions DO exist here. The people here are all from the WCP originally. They HAVE north in the WCP."


The vampire pouted. "Buzzkill. I was gonna be the savior of the world. Saving them from bad directions. But now im just a boring direction follower. You made me a nerd. Only nerds follow directions. Or eat broccoli."


"I'm not having this argument with you again," Chelsea said acidly. You can't JUST drink blood and eat candy. It's bad for you. It is not NERDY to ask you to eat vegetables sometimes. Or to eat them myself."


"Yuh huh," Bethy said stubbornly. "Because carrots make your eyes better, and if you eat vegetables but not carrots you're going to have bad vision and end up with glasses and that makes you a nerd. That's just science."


Benny looked up sharply. "That is NOT science. It is, in fact, the opposite of science."


"Really," Bethy said archly. "Because I thought the opposite of science was doing the same exact actions over and over again to totally random and unrepeatable results and learning nothing that impact future applications of information."


We all turned to stare at her, and Benny staggered back as if struck. "That's…shut up! It's MAD science. It's different!" He looked around at us imploringly. "Right? Tell her it's different."


I rolled my eyes, turning to orient on the arrow and then headed away from the group at a leisurely stroll. The others followed, my best friend having a minor existential crisis as he tried to explain away the complete invalidation of his entire life's work so far.


"Like it IS still science," he was saying defensively. "I have to identify what materials do and how they interact to combine them to make things. And the better I get the more control I have."


Jessie hummed in disagreement. "I mean, it's not really the same thing. You're cheating with soul strength. You're MAKING the results do a certain thing. That's not science. In fact, it's almost magic. Which IS the opposite of science."


I rolled my eyes. "Bethy, do not slowly erode Benny's sanity by exploiting information you've gathered over years of knowing him. Jessie, don't pile on. Benny, powers are bullshit, get over it. Now can we FOCUS please, because I have some concerns about our game plan going forward, and I'd like some feedback. Namely, should we let all the others out of Bethy's domain or leave them in as a last resort."


Abel snickered. "I was looking forward to watching him slowly unravel. At least it means she isn't doing it to me. But you make a good point. What are you leaning toward?"


"Keeping them in," I shrugged. It seems like a good ace in the hole. But then again, if we do we're leaving ourselves open if any other candidates landed nearby and spot us. They might target us for looking like easy prey, and honestly I'd prefer to avoid a straight conflict for as long as possible, since we don't have any of our scrolls prepped and even if we GET them prepped we'd be wasting them."


Abel hummed. "I'd say that it's probably safer to travel in force. If there are more of us, we're less likely to have to fight since we'll scare off scavengers."


"Or DRAW them," my sister pointed out archly. "More people are more noticeable. I say we keep them in and Shane cranks his Murmur domain to cover out movements." She glanced around worriedly. "I don't like being so exposed with so many enemies falling to earth possibly nearby."


"That's a good idea actually," I mused. "I didn't consider cover on top of minimizing our footprint. Everyone get in close so I can cloak us."


They all did, drawing near so I could trigger Murmur. It hummed to life easily, the domain slowly wiping all traces of us from the face of the planet as it worked. The first to go were the obvious traces, like footprints and ground disturbance, and without that, I didn't think we really needed much more obfuscation in the middle of nowhere like this.


We set off, following the compass, and as we did, I started thinking out loud. "Alright. So we need to get to the C-rank area. But before that, we need to get THROUGH the D-rank area, and possibly do some local recruiting. The local forces in the different zones have connections higher up, so recruiting someone lower down is a good way to get invitations to consult with the big players."


"But that assumes we can actually connect with them easily," my wife cut in. With the C-rankers, we might have an easier time, since our forces will be there interacting with them over time building rapport. Down here we're flying blind, and we need a way to differentiate ourselves from the other candidates."


"We have exactly one of those," I said grimly. "Combat power. We've got more muscle than any other candidate. Me personally, but also Bethy, Abel, and now Callie. Not to mention the Chelsea, the Angels, Gabe, and the animals. We have a ton of top tier combat power."


Callie shook her head. "I'm not sure the difference is as big as we'd like at this level. All of these candidates have been raising their strongest fighters on a steady diet of wish juice for years. Bethy and Abel might be leagues beyond them, but they probably have people at about the same level as the rest of us. Our biggest advantage isn't Bethy or Abel though, it's YOU. You're unique among the candidates. Having two abilities makes you a force in your own right, which means you can do things they can't.


"What that means is that factions entirely predicated on martial strength will be more disposed to you, since you're both our leader AND a strong combatant," she said brightly. "We just need to find strong factions who prioritize combat and you can prove yourself in battle, winning them over for us."


I hummed in interest. "That's a good idea too. And for ones that are just pure strength without caring about leaders, we can have Abel kick their asses. But we need to FIND some of them first. I didn't see any cities or anything. This planet is big. We have a heading to the proper destination, but who knows when we'll intersect with any locals along that line. Not to mention the succession war. We're supposed to start getting tas-"


My voice cut off as a scroll, appearing in a puff of purple fire and unrolling in the air. "Ok…does everyone else see that?" I asked slowly. "Because I'm pretty used to those being invisible to everyone else, but this is…new."


"Announcement: The Mammoth Hunt Begins! All candidates will compete to see who can slay the most mountain mammoths. Mammoth kills will be tallied as points that can be put towards prizes at the end of the competition. Remember, even if you lose the war, you can still win the battle. For resources. Now onward heirs of the palace, to victory! Hint: Look down."


"Not just you," Callie confirmed. "Though I'm not sure what it means. Especially the end. What does it mean, look down?"


I shrugged. "Who knows. We need to find some mountain mamm-" I paused, a slow dread creeping into my gut. "Mountain Mammoth," I said again, chewing on the word as I slowly started backing down the hill. "Do you think the mammoth might BE a mountain, rather than be ON a mountain?"


Everyone else paled, looking down as I turned and triggered my waltz, wings extending. Callie took off in a blur, and everyone else scattered just as the ground started to shake, and the massive hills around us began to move. It wasn't all of them. Just several. But I was still blown away by how fucking BIG they were.


Everyone joined back up near me, reconvening under the Murmur domain as we watched the former hill we'd been standing on raise its giant earthen trunk to the sky and trumpet its fury. "I don't think avoiding notice will be an option," I said dryly. As the chorus of other mammoths joined in with the roar, I sighed. Fucking WCP never made things easy.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The Mountain Mammoth was…well, mountainous. The thing was colossal, standing easily two hundred and fifty feet high once it got up off its folded legs. Its hide was made of dark brown stone, and its eyes were magmatic orbs of burning hate that flicked desperately along the nearby horizon, looking for…something. I wasn't sure what exactly, until I noticed the small hole on its right flank.


"Fuck," I spat in annoyance. "That's why the damned thing woke up. The drop pod punched through its outer layer. We basically stabbed it. It must be pretty slow moving to take a full ten minutes after impact to wake up."


I doubted we were the only drop pod to land on a mammoth, but I also doubted many of us had. There was no need. That monstrous trumpet of rage had woken up all the rest of them.


"So…how do we do this?" I asked the others, glancing around. "They don't know we're here, but if we attack they'll figure it out. Especially if we do something big and obvious. On the upside, I was wrong about drawing attention. The big guy woke up all the others so it seems like we should blend pretty well. But I bet we'll run into problems if we don't take out all the ones nearby quick and get gone."


Abel grimaced. "I'd love to fight one head on. But I get the feeling that won't do much for our stealth."


"You have Murmur up, right? You getting any details of their anatomy or weaknesses?" Callie grimaced at the huge beast. "Because somehow, I don't think hitting them in the head a bunch is going to do the trick."


I squinted up at the Mammoth. My Murmur domain used pieces of Dantalion and Bael, so it was good at gathering intel as well as stealth. I focused on the form of the Mammoth, where I was slowly gleaning more and more information. It had a fairly pronounced rock hump on its back that had camouflage it from me when I first triggered the domain, and it had woken up before I was able to notice what it was.


"Actually…maybe it will," I said slowly. "They seem to have pretty big empty skulls, believe it or not. Very small ear canals, but only relative to the rest of them. A person could fit in one of those if they could make it past the ears." I shot a quick look at Abel. "Could you take one of these things head on? Temporarily? Just enough to pin it down and distract it."


He shrugged. "I mean, if you don't care who sees, sure. Give me a minute."


I glanced at the others. "Get ready to bolt. We're heading for the treeline in that direction," I pointed the way the compass was indicating. "We'll sortie out to hit the Mammoths that we see, but we can't roam around in the open. It's too risky."


Abel circled around, and once we were all in position, I shot off a quick flare of green fire and he engaged. Seeing the massive Ragam Blood Body expand to a size comparable to the Mammoth, I winced. That wasn't its strongest from, but it would do for now. I was reassured when I saw Bethy appear beside him and overlap her domain with the manifestation, stabilizing the huge bloody simulacrum.


The Mammoth caught sight of him almost instantly, and it trumpeted its rage. With a roar of hatred, it rushed forward. It actually moved really slow, but it had incredibly long legs even for its size, and it crossed the distance shockingly fast.


Abel didn't even flinch. His giant blood body stepped forward and seized the two fierce tusks of the mighty beast, and he planted his feet, twisting to pin it in place as best he could. It didn't work that well, at first the monster mostly just kind of…slowed down. But it was enough. He slid for about fifty feet before coming to a final stop.


I spread my wings, flying forward with a blaze of black flame as I triggered my waltz. As I did, Abel shoved back against the tusks, jerking to one side to send an ear flying up. I blitzed into the gap beneath the ear, blazing down the ear canal as I headed into the skull, searching for…the brain! I noticed my target and zoomed toward it, drawing my staff.


Whirling it a few times, I triggered Mephistopheles, firing off a series of Extinction Events into the slim chords of tissue connecting the tiny brain to the rest of the body. To my surprise, they didn't break. The black flames sunk in but they couldn't break through. I scowled, then triggered Belial. I had another idea. A better idea. An EVIL idea. Belial was about corruption, normally I couldn't use it on huge enemies like this. The bigger they were, the more corruption was needed to influence them.


Except this thing was just a huge rocky shell for a very tiny dumb brain. I jammed my staff into the base of the brain stem, pouring corruption out into it. Where the brain chords had resisted destruction, they did NOT resist corruption. I focused on my bond to Callie, letting my wife know to contact Abel and have him release the Mammoth.


Then I abandoned that train of thought, focusing entirely on corrupting the Mammoth brain. This Mammoth was D-rank, but it was VERY high in D-rank. Peak almost. It was resisting, throwing its will against me, but a quick Piece of Mind was all I needed. I slipped the parallel in through the corruption, subsuming the brain, and suddenly…I was the Mammoth.


This little trick required a lot more development in Belial than I'd had before my trip. The staff had been working overtime upgrading all my forms, and my Domains had benefited. I looked around, and I could see all the other Mammoths. They were far, but also very close. The towering legs made crossing the distance a snap. I drove the giant beast's body forward, pushing it into acceleration that would probably have injured it normally…if it had time to register that.


Enormous tusks, speared into the side of the nearest Mammoth, miles away and only a few steps. I gored the other beast, shoving it sideways, and it toppled over, dragging me down with it as the two Mammoth bodies collapsed into a pile of too large limbs and bloody wounds. Bones snapped under the combined weight of two behemoths of earth and tusk.


I snapped back to my body, grimacing as I realized where I was. I charged over to the ear canal, flapping once and shooting down the passage. I hit the ear on the way out, but I was leading with the staff and managed to bat it aside, emerging into midair with a snap of my wings and then shooting off toward my friends.


Somewhere, inside my head, I heard a pair of chimes. I knew I'd gotten credit for those kills, and I grinned as I touched down next to the other. "We gotta go!" I shouted as I dropped Belial and reasserted Murmur. Abel had resumed his normal size, and he and the others rushed to join me in the domain.


By the time we made it a few miles away and turned to look, a colossal bronze titan had plummeted from the sky, smashing into the empty space where out hill had been with a roar. He stomped and flailed and generally threw a giant sized toddler fit to approximately no avail. We made it to the trees within minutes, and when we did, we stopped and allowed Murmur to sink in, really concealing us from anything that might be watching.


"That was interesting," Abel said after a minute. "Did you just fucking POSSESS that thing?"


I waggled a hand. "Kind of. I slipped a parallel into it through the corruption after hijacking its brain. The only reason I was able to do it was because of a confluence of factors. One, those things are barely sentient. Most beasts at D-rank have consciousness, but those thing appear to just be giant pissed off mountain elephants. Second, I had literal physical access to its brain. Third it was distracted."


He nodded along. "Right, right, I get you, but you seem to be missing something. All those circumstances, they're STILL the case. You can get access to more brains. If you can hijack another one of those things, and you can bring us with you, we can try to amplify it like a giant weapon. We can use the Mammoth like a SIEGE engine, and attack more of them as we go on. Hell, imagine GABE at the helm of one of those charges."


I did…and it was fucking amazing. I wasn't sure why I hadn't thought of it. I turned to Bethy. "Can you sneak us into one of those things through your domain if you turn into mist?"


She froze. "I…I think I can. In fact I know I can. They're big and stupid and won't notice me, and I can definitely bring things along in my Domain even when I change forms." She beamed at me. "This is going to be SO MUCH FUN!"


She flung open her Domain, and the rest of us were swallowed up, suddenly standing in a black field of grass under a red sky. Behind us, a towering black castle loomed, and the rest of our D-rank force was surrounding us, obviously watching the events outside with interest. Bethy had been projecting her line of sight onto the MOON, which I hadn't known she could do. As we all watched, she dissolved into bats, the viewpoint fracturing into a thousand tiny visual inputs as she swarmed across the barren space towards the nearest Mammoth, which was currently engaged with a group of people we didn't get a good look at, as she dissolved further into mist and flowed up its trunk.


I'd expected her to go in the ears, but the trunk worked fine for our purposes, and within seconds, we were being pulled from the Domain, all standing inside the large mostly empty skull with only a tiny brain and each other as company.


Without waiting for a response, I drove the staff into the base of the brainstem, triggering Belial and flooding it with corruption as I channeled my parallel inside once again. Once I had control, Callie joined me. She didn't need any physical contact, our bond was enough, and she flooded it with Heretic Fire, pouring out into the Mammoth and bolstering the power of my soul that was controlling it.


I felt a hand on my shoulder, and Abel pushed his infinite blood sea through the brain and into the circulatory system, Bethy poured her Domain in after it, reinforcing the body with powerful blood.


Chelsea put a hand on my other shoulder, and I sense the conglomeration of her powers, dark and light, as her yin yang diagram was layered over top of our working, amplifying it with pure and overwhelming power, balanced on a knife's edge. I grinned as I took control of the Mammoth, turning it away from the candidates toward another Mammoth off in the distance. "Gabriel," I said hoarsely. "You're up."


Chelsea's power was something completely unique to me. Her new Path integrated opposites, merging things together in ways that shouldn't work. Where originally purification and enshrining darkness exploded when they were superimposed, now they became…more, and they pulled in any other energy around to amplify that growth, becoming a sort of universal supercharger. It was staggeringly potent.


It was also EXACTLY what we needed. Under the influence of the diagram, all of our disparate powers melded together, becoming something pure and potent and undiluted. And when Gabe added his power, Chelsea let it sweep through and overbalance her working.


Like a match dropped into a barrel of oil, it went from being oil to being FIRE. Gabe's power converted all of the energy into itself, consuming and overtaking it as the force exploded out, and suddenly we were CHARGING.


An Adamant Mammoth, unstoppably fuelled by the combined force of the strongest group of Ascendants under C-rank. We hit that next Mammoth like a speeding train, punching into it and carrying it alone towards the next one without even slowing down. I needed to congratulate my sister after this was over. Her new Path was fucking amazing. For now though, we had elephants to smash.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We finished a charge and I trumpeted my victory into the blazing sky. Beside me, Bethy cackled maniacally. "Good! Show them our fury Muffins!"


I stopped and turned to glared at her, letting the parallel take charge temporarily. "Bethy, this Mammoth is ME. I am not a pet, and you can NOT keep it. It's a wild animal with no sense of self and the second I release it it will try to harm us. Do not NAME our siege weapon."


"What?" she sputtered. "But he's been so helpful. And he's so cool. Like a walking fortress! I'm going to try to use my Domain to construct my castle around him and give him armor. Muffins the Murder Mammoth, scourge of the seven seas!" She clutched at my armor, eyes wide and shimmering as she painted her word picture.


"Sounds neat," I said mercilessly as I pried her hands off me. "Still no. In fact, based on the nearby skyline, I think we're about done. We should finish this one off and bail before the others realize the Mammoth population is thin and decide to gang up on us."


Bethy actually teared up, and Chelsea patted her shoulder comfortingly as she pulled her away.


"So, how many did we get total?" Callie asked as the Mammoth started its walk towards the forest. "I wasn't able to keep track so well from in here. Pouring my power into the invocation was taking up all my attention."


I beamed at her. "Fifteen. It was a good day. I don't know how the others did, but I doubt many of them managed as well as we did. Hell, we chased more than a few groups off. Part of why I was saying we should bail." I patted the black and green glowing brain fondly. "Sadly this old boy has served his purpose. Like I told Bethy. Too dangerous to keep a wild animal with no sense of self around."


"That confuses me," Jessie said grimly. "I tried to flood the brain with my own energy, hoping we could subvert it, but I'm not getting a proper response. Every time I try to connect with its consciousness I get this feeling of…nothingness."


I frowned. "Honestly, I've been wondering about it myself. D-rank is when beasts are supposed to develop a sense of self. These things aren't coherent at all. Combined with the rocky makeup of their outsides and I'm wondering if they actually ARE beasts. Between the stone construction and the mental gaps, they remind me more of golems almost. Living golems, since they can die, but I wonder if they were created instead of born."


"The placement is suspicious too," Abel piped in. "A ring of "hills" around the direct center of the planet, separating the hemispheres? That can't be natural."


"So you think it's…what?" I asked worriedly. "Some kind of security system? Separate the poles? But then why have us kill them? Is it specifically designed to be used up during the succession war?"


My sister shook her head. "No use guessing. We don't know enough about this place to glean anything solid. You almost ready to abandon ship?"


I sighed, but nodded eventually. "Yeah. We're going out the trunk. I'm going to try to use to fire us in the direction of the nearest city. I was able to get a heading through the Mammoth's eyes. Only issue is how to make sure to finish it off on the way out."


Abel cracked his neck. "I can do it. Just make sure I'm facing the brain as we leave."


My focus was only half on them, I was picking up some possible trouble incoming. I turned the Mammoth around to aim us at the city in question. I was sure we wouldn't make it all the way, but we had wings, so it wasn't like that was a problem.


"Alright, pack it up people," I said distractedly. "Bethy, you're going to be transporting. Callie and I will carry Abel out." The vampire nodded chipperly and started collecting people back into her Domain. It really was absurd how convenient that thing was. Once they were all packed up, I sent her ahead to the entrance of the trunk, which I had aimed up and pointed in the right direction.


Callie and I each grabbed ahold of Abel's coat, walking with him to the exit ourselves, and we made sure to keep clear of his arms. "Alright, now wait until I count to three to let loose. We need to time this carefully."


If he killed it before it expelled us through the trunk it would drop and we'd have to handle our own exit, which defeated the purpose. He nodded solemnly, and I saw the air around him shift as the space turned blood red. I expected to be cut off from the coat we were holding but luckily it seemed to be fine. "Alright," I said slowly. "Ready?" I glanced out through the eyes of the Mammoth and saw a colossal copper form loping toward us. I grimaced.


"Get ready!" I called loudly. "Three. Two. One!" I triggered the trumpeting of the Mammoth once again, going so far as to channel Afterburner to amplify the blast, and at the same time, Abel hauled back and PUNCHED.


The last thing I saw as we were hurled up the trunk towards the light above was a massive bloody fist vaporizing the brain as we were sent hurtling out of the Mammoth at a speed beyond almost anything I'd ever experienced.


Might was definitely their highest stat, and Afterburner combined with the sheer size and power turned the trunk into the barrel of a high velocity cannon.


As we emerged, Callie and I folded our wings against out bodies, carrying Abel as we shot up and out. The air pressure was fierce as we rose through the air, shooting up into the sky like bullets. At the apex of our arc, I spread my wings, Callie doing the same, and we just…hung there.


Catching ourselves during the hangtime between rise and fall, there was a moment of weightlessness before gravity asserted itself. The landscape of the heirworld spread out before us, a vast expanse of shifting landscape of various shades and hues. I looked back to see the copper titan hitting the Mammoth at speed, but he wasn't getting any points from that. It was already dead as could be. I smiled, then turned back towards the city in the near distance.


"WHOOO!" Bethy squealed as she reformed from bats. "This is so COOL!" She was dancing along the clouds, hopping from one to the next.


Our wings caught and we started to slowly glide forward and down, all of our momentum stolen by gravity. Abel hung between us limply, looking sullenly at Bethy as she kept pace beside us. "Can we do that again? Piggy blast!"


"Mammoths are not pigs," I called to her testily. "And how are you doing that? You're walking on clouds."


She shrugged. "Clouds are made of mist, and so am I sometimes, so I can walk on them. Duh."


"That is NOT a duh, moment," I said in exasperation as we drifted forward. "Callie tell her she's being ridiculous."


My wife nodded, calling over the surprisingly loud wind at our slow speed "He's right, they're definitely not pigs. Some kind of elephant I think. Maybe an aardvark or like an ant eater or something. Pigs don't even have trunks."


"Ok, no more of this," I groaned. "Time to dive." And we did. We pitched forward, steepening our angle, and we barreled downward, picking up velocity as we gathered momentum. I could see the city in the distance, and we aimed right at it. I felt something shatter in the air, and laughed breathlessly as the explosion of the shattered sound barrier burst out behind us. A torrent of cats with wings followed us down, Bethy somehow keeping pace.


We pulled out of the dive about three hundred feet in the air, letting our wings drag like parachutes extending behind us, spread to catch as much air as we could as we came in at a a slowly flattening angle.


I let go of Abel when we were about a hundred feet up, and he squawked in surprise, but managed to catch himself anyway. The two of us hit the ground and a casual run, and despite a bit of force on the legs, came to an easy stop in the clearing we'd chosen about a mile outside the city. Abel caught up at a jog, looking annoyed. "You guys are assholes," he spar in annoyance."


"Oh get over it," I shrugged. "It was only a hundred feet. You didn't even fall over."


Bethy appeared in midair, floating gently down on what appeared to be a parasol she'd pulled from nowhere. She landed giddily. "That was so cool. I'm sad I lost the race though."


I raised an eyebrow. "There was no race. We were just falling. Also why did you turn into cats again? I haven't seen that in a while. You usually just do bats nowadays, don't you?" It had seemed out of place even for her, so I was curious about the logic.


She gave me a baffled look. "Um, duh, to get to the ground faster. Cats fall quicker than bats, so they can land on their feet."


"That's…what?" I sputtered. "That's not how ANYTHING works."


I was almost POSITIVE she was fucking with us, but as usual her face was the picture of innocence and sincerity. I shook off the bewilderment. "Anyway, we found our first D-rank city. Now we can get the lay of the land, and hopefully find a place to stay before the others show up. I have to assume we beat the crowd with that little stunt."


Bethy nodded. "Of course, we're going to get so many points for that landing."


"No, Bethy, we aren't being graded on the fall," Callie said with a laugh. "The points were only for killing the Mammoths. But we can get some food and let the others out. It'll be easier to explore with a few hundred people than with just four. Our first job will be to find out more about this town. Name, size, that kind of thing."


"It's called Schvitz," Bethy said bluntly.


"Wait, really?" I asked suspiciously. "How do you know that?"


"Because it's on that sign over there," she said, pointing through the trees to the wooden sign plunked into the ground next to the dirt road into the city. We all froze, then looked at each other in embarrassment.


I sighed, then turned to Bethy. "Alright, well, lets start letting everyone out. I'm pretty sure it'll be less suspicious entering all at once than it would be if a few hundred people randomly showed up inside a town. Don't want to tip our hand too early that we can transport people so easy."


"Alright, just give me a bit," she chirped. Then turned and headed into the clearing to start releasing our friends out onto the surface of the planet, most of them for the first time.


I turned to my wife. "So, I think we're going to need a plan of attack for this next part. I'm not sure what we're supposed to be doing but-" I could have sworn the damned elders were WAITING for me to say things like that, because a new scroll appeared in front of us.


"Announcement: The next task begins. Part 1: the first dozen contestants to enter the city of Schvitz within the next hour will gain points. The fewer contestants who enter, the more points gained."


That brought me up short. WERE they watching? I mean, I guessed they were obviously, but were they tailoring these tasks to us individually? Or were there enough of us nearby for this to be viable. I imagined it was a bit of both. I turned to look at the others with a sigh. "I'm assuming you all got that? Well get ready, because this shit is probably going to get rough."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I grimaced as I looked through the trees. We had a split second to make the call about our strategy. First of all, did we want to go in first or last? If we waited they would fight it out among themselves and we could mop up the leftovers. Tossing out the exhausted remnants would be much easier than defending a fixed position, but at the same time, we'd also be letting them get entrenched.


Alternatively, we could blitz our way in and defend it ourselves. We had ways to make that work, and while we'd end up slapping away a lot of fresh fighters, we probably had the manpower to hold a defensive emplacement.


I posed the issue to my friends. Abel, Mel, Dom, Sable, Chelsea, Nat, Serah, Holly, Gabe, Benny, Bethy, and Jessie were all gathered around me. My core council of advisors, as it were. Which including Callie and made thirteen. That was enough for each of us to pop a scroll and still have three leftover. When I brought that up, Nat cut in.


"Use mine," she said quickly. "You can wish personally, and you're less likely to run out when you need them. This is early game, and chances are we haven't run into anyone really important yet."


I nodded solemnly. "Alright, how many do you have on hand?"


"Fifty," she beamed. "I've been saving them. Figured they'd come in handy, given you were likely to be blitzing through yours. How many do you need?"


I frowned, thinking it over. "One a piece." I decided. "Thirteen. We need to save some for the next engagement, like you said, these aren't going to be the cream of the crop, just the ones who landed locally. Do we know how many we're going to run into?"


"There are a few hundred candidates, but they all came with hundreds of their own retainers." She explained. "Some of the candidates were higher ranked, and they're at the C-rank area or higher, with their retainers being out on their own. They probably still have scrolls, mind you, but there's no candidate with them, so those groups are at a disadvantage."


We watched through the trees as shadowy forms began to emerge. I called everyone from our side close, extending Murmur over the whole group. Luckily it was a distance thing and didn't require too much extra effort with higher population.


I'd expected it to be a problem actually, but since Dantalion had to analyze and render everything within the radius it was barely a difference from analyzing rocks to people, given they were all within my range of Impact. Under the aegis of my domain, we were all completely untraceable, and the longer we remained in this spot the more undetectable we became. With no C-rankers, even my initial stealth was unbreakable here, so I wasn't worried about being noticed.


"I really wish Argaunt was here," I said in annoyance. "Actually…" I looked around. "We have a bunch of Verdyn followers here. Any archers in the crowd? Snipers work too."


A bunch of people raised their hands. "Huh, ok, I assume at least some of you can charge shots?" About half kept them up. "Perfect, and how many of you can aim well enough not to kill when you're charged up?" Abel cocked his head at me and I shrugged. "Look, some of these people are my relatives. I'm not going to hesitate if I'm in a life or death battle, but firing from perfect stealth with elite archers we have the luxury of shooting to wound.


I grinned at him. "Besides, you leave bodies behind, but wounded need to be cared for and moved. Worst case they burn scrolls bringing them back up to fighting fit and we avoid dealing with them in the future, best case they don't and they're temporarily forced to retreat to do triage."


"Kill them with kindness," Callie beamed. "That's my boy. Just like we learned back in the army. Military forces function on logistics, and none of them ever have enough healers."


I glanced at Bethy. "Once suppressive fire starts, I want you and the cats out there causing chaos. Pop out and shred them then retreat. Don't stay in one place for too long, don't get pinned down, and don't let them SEE you unless entirely necessary. I want them paranoid and freaking out.


"Jessie, Daysia, Celine, Alyssa I need a network of vines spread across the forest ahead of us. I'll cover them as far as I can with Murmur, once you're clear of that, move slow and let the archers and Bethy's strike force act as cover." I gestured towards the adjacent clearing where everyone was starting to gather, or at least to take sides. "Once they're off balance, I'm going to spread Belial through the vines and use the corruption to take control of as many of them as possible. If this goes well, we can minimize scroll conflict by forcing them to burn their stock on their own people."


Jessie grimaced. "I can TRY. I'm not great with Vines anymore. My abilities are so synonymous with beasts and healing people that my plant control has kind of fallen to the wayside."


"I've got us," Celine said kindly, putting a hand on our friend's shoulder. "My forestcraft is pretty much perfect for this, and we have two ACTUAL dryad tree singers here to help. We couldn't DESIGN a better team for this."


Alyssa beamed at her girlfriend. "She's right, Jess. This is what tree singing is best at. We're not moving the trees themselves, so we don't need any dancers. Just growing some vines is well within our wheelhouse. We'll handle the motion, you just give us all a heaping helping of supercharged life fire."


"Archie," I called to my companion. He'd been perched on a tree branch at the edge of my Murmur domain, but at the sound of my voice he trilled and then swept down to land on Jessie's arm, giving me a firm nod. "Thanks bud, knew I could count on you."


Archie had learned from me how to snipe and bicker. I was pretty sure he picked up a lot more through our bond than I did, and even more than I was even aware of. He was just a baby, and he'd picked up so much of what he knew by osmosis it seemed like. I'd have to watch out for that in the future. But I was proud of how he was handling himself now. He knew when things were serious and what to do when that time came.


I focused on Bethy. "I'm going to set you up with a shield. Any preferences?"


She frowned. "I don't need one, but I mean, I guess just make it a pretty color? I don't want you to ruin my outfit with some dumb olive drab force field."


"First of all," I said in disbelief. "WHEN have you seen an "olive drab" forcefield? Second of all, this a STEALTH mission, so I will obviously be making it transparent. If I made it colors that would defeat the entire purpose of you BEING in stealth."


She gave me a scathing look. "That's dumb. It's MOST important to look good in stealth. Because then you get to feel smug that they can't even see the kickass outfit you have on. It's way better than being invisible in ugly clothes. That's not being sneaky, it's just being embarrassed and having to hide."


"I…" I trailed off. "I don't know how to respond to that. I fell like it's wrong, but I can't figure out WHY." I looked at Callie worriedly. "Why is Bethy making sense to me? What have I become?"


She patted me on the shoulder consolingly. "Just focus on the battle, honey. Some things we mere mortals weren't meant to know. Bethy's logic is strange and insidious." Her face went pale. "We can never let Crell teach her the doubt Skill. No one would ever be able to stop her."


I physically shuddered at the mental image, and turned to see Bethy pouting at us. "You guys are so mean. I expect that from Abromawitz, but not from you."


Abel threw his hands in the air. "What do I have to do with this? And how did I know you were talking about me? I'm answering to any A name you say now. And they're getting more and more ridiculous."


Bethy squinted at him. "You didn't say anything, Alfalfa, but you were thinking it."


He turned and stalked away, muttering curses under his breath. I just laughed and turned to the others. "Alright, everyone in position. We need to wait for the fighting to kick off. We're fishing in muddied waters here, and the more chaos they cause on their own the easier it'll be to confuse them."


Just because they couldn't see our archers didn't mean they couldn't figure out where we were by tracking the shots. But if we fired into a melee and picked our positions, we could mix the arrows into the gestalt. They would fall apart searching, leaving Bethy her opening, and leaving the ground clear for the girls to expand the vines I'd need for Belial.


I waved to the archers, twelve of them total, and dispatched them to the edge of my Murmur domain to begin charging their shots.


We watched, we waited, and we observed. The enemy was divided into about fifteen groups. Their clearing was the one right outside of Schvitz, they were arguing, several people having arrived late and joined in. I saw one form I recognized. He was smaller now, but it was definitely the same giant who had crushed those Mammoths in a fit of rage. I stepped up next to one of my archers, a slight girl named Whisper, and nodded to him. "You're the strongest, right? Burst damage?"


"Yes sir," she acknowledged. She was blonde and blue eyes, with elfin features that made her look like someone's kid sister, but those blue orbs were icy and flat. It was like she'd swapped them with the eyes of a bird of prey. "You want me to target the metal one?"


I nodded. "Soft tissue, if you can. I want real damage. He's tough enough to survive a little maiming, and I don't want to take chances."


From what I'd seen, that one was strong. Bethy could handle him, but it was my job to make sure she didn't have to. Even vampires weren't invincible, if she got pinned down among that many enemies she could get hurt. I confirmed with Whisper and headed back over to where Bethy was waiting. I withdrew some of the scrolls that Nat gave me, and I started making wishes.


First thing I did was describe my ideal shield. Size, properties, functions. I designed the perfect defensive structure, with all the bells and whistles. Then I dialed back the durability until it was within Nats limits, and then I adjust it a bit lower and made it modular. Then I wished for the same shield again, and again, and I layered them on top of each other. Five times. I paid with D-ranked chits, and by the time it was done, Bethy was under a five layer translucent bell shape.


Once she was taken care of. I returned to the adge of the clearing where the girls were waiting, ready to do tree stuff. I looked out at the clearing full of enemies, seeing them finally snap and charge across the space. I smiled. "NOW!"


A dozen arrows exploded from a dozen bows, tearing through the air to smash into ten different targets. Two of them missed, no fault of their own, the targets had been swatted aside by their opponents, but ten out of twelve wasn't bad.


As they went down, Callie flicked her wrist and a portal of shadow opened on the ground, Bethy dove inside, her cats on her tail, and vanished into the dark. I triggered Belial and pressed my staff to the vines, beginning the spread of corruption. It was almost time for my part, and then they would see what we could really do.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Belial was my very first form. It had changed, of course. Evolved. But it was my root. My origin. And I was most familiar with it out of any of my forms. Channeling it through my staff, I was able to push that even further, elevating the form itself to a C-rank ability for a short time, and my control of it reached a supreme state of pinpoint accuracy, especially when I let Dantalion unfold through the vines alongside it.


As they wove and twisted through the still growing vines, I was able to perceive more of the battlefield, to see more of what I was doing, and what I saw gave me a clear grasp on some very important information.


Firstly, my archers were a fucking menace. Especially from perfect cover. Whisper's arrow had blown a chunk out of the titan's thigh, and none of the other arrows that had hit had done any less. Feet blown off, kneecaps severed, one guy had a hole the size of a grapefruit through his shoulder, and it appeared to have VAPORIZED the ball and socket joint at the top of his arm. That one made me wince.


By the time Belial reached them through the vines, everything was in chaos. No one noticed the slight tinge of green and black creeping up through their shoes, and I waited and watched as Bethy tore into them from seemingly a dozen angles at once, appearing and disappearing alongside Donuts and Poptarts.


The cats were holding their own much better than expected. The Night Pride were born in darkness, and had a natural power similar to Callie's. They were ALSO thralls. Bethy fed on her pets as an emergency food source, and I knew that becoming a thrall had certain benefits to the recipient.


Because of the combination, the cats were putting on almost as good a show as their mistress, and it was more than enough for the distraction I needed to complete the corruption of one of the enemy, a completely unassuming man with bottle green hair and bronze skin holding a strange combination sword and shield the size of a door. As soon as I assumed control, he became my weapon, and another fulcrum for me to bring my power to bear against the battlefield.


His giant sword spread the corruption even faster, and I was able to easily direct him into a series of spinning slashes that carried the huge weapon through large crowds of enemies, speeding up the corruption of multiple enemy warriors.


Within about two minutes, I'd corrupted fifteen or twenty more people, and was using them to surgically dismantle any attempt being made to establish order. "Abel, Mel, Dom, Sable, Dastan, Gabe, Serah, and Holly." I called sharply. "You're up, Callie is going to mark your targets. I'm stopping them from putting together a proper resistance, but some of them are building small groups I can't crack. Shatter them."


My mentor cackled with delight. "FINALLY!" he crowed as he strode forward, his body shimmering as he became a living blood warrior. He was quickly surpassed by Dastan as the werewolf transformed and loped forward into battle with a joyful howl.


The battlefield was in complete disarray. My controlled fighters were tearing into any alliances they could get to, and with random fighters turning on friends for seemingly no reason, cohesion was shot. When Abel hit the first group, they barely noticed he was coming until a train sized fist bulldozed them all.


Dastan fell upon the copper titan, fangs gleaming and jaws slavering as he tore into the metallic flesh with savage glee. The titan tried to grow, but as soon as his size started to shift, Bethy appeared like a ghost from behind him, her teeth flashing as she bit into his neck. His strength drained away, accompanied by the soul crushing agony of being fed on without being a thrall, screaming as his stats were siphoned away.


Leaving him to the vampire, Dastan bounded off the giant man (who was about ten feet tall at this point) and landed on a nearby minotaur, bearing him to the ground with reckless abandon.


Randall appeared, the D-rank bear glowing with the powerful enhancement of his mistress, smashing through a huge group of mid level flunkies to get to what appeared to be an actual rhinoceros someone had pulled from SOMEWHERE.


Then things changed. There was a buzz in the air, the world started to shift, and dark clouds gathered above us. I recognized what was happening, and pulled out a few scrolls. One after another, I wished, grinding away at the gathering power of the wish above us. Because thats what it was. A wish. I could see the flickers of purple lightning playing across the clouds. That wasn't a scroll. There was a candidate granting a combat wish right here.


I searched through the vines. Wishes varied in difficulty and time based on how powerful the candidate was, how powerful the wish was, and what the person actually asked for. This one was probably something really complicated that only targeted enemies and needed time to ramp up, and the scrolls were dragging it out.


I couldn't stop the wish. If it had been paid for it was coming, but I COULD take down the candidate who was granting it before they got another one off. Above me, the clouds rumbled ominously. I'd just dropped five D-rank chits on five wishes to nullify that attack, and they were struggling. The candidate in question was clearly much stronger than Nat. Finally, I found him. A short young looking guy with floppy brown hair and mismatched eyes. I could see purple light glowing in his eyes, and I knew this was the right one.


Focusing on the nearest corrupted, I turned his attention to the candidate, and I urged him into a lunging attack with his long spear. Before he could arrive, an armored woman with a severe ponytail appeared from behind the candidate, a short sword batting the spear aside before she blurred forward to try to slit his throat.


My control wavered for a moment as he became terrified for his life, which I hadn't realized was a thing, and he jerked free to hurl himself aside and avoid having his carotid artery opened by the severe looking girl.


She was younger than I'd thought, closer to my age, but then again, age was impossible to measure accurately for Ascendants, so maybe she was a thousand. Either way, she was dangerous, and her eyes were tracking everything nearby. "Dravus, what the fuck is wrong with you?" she spat in disgust. "How could you attack Hadrian?"


My former corrupted coughed, staggering to his feet with a look of terror. "I…I don't know Dara. I couldn't control my body. It was like someone was moving me, but I didn't even realize it was happening until I'd already attacked. You almost killed me!"


She sneered. "Don't be insipid. Bleeding out wouldn't be enough to end you. Not that I'd have shed a tear for the death of a traitor. Help me find what's going on. If someone is controlling people we need to figure out who. Something is wrong with this battle. At least they took Kordax out of the fight. That giant metal bastard is a nightmare to defend against."


Well, I had a name for the copper titan now, I was pretty sure. I scowled. This woman was really competent, and getting by her would be a mess, which meant getting rid of the candidate was going to be tough.


Then I smiled. I didn't need to fight him. I had the vines stretching out to under his feet. I reached through them, and with a slight effort of will, triggered Pit of Despair.


Dara spun in horror at the strangled scream from her boss, shocked to see him falling through a pool of super fine dust and INTO the ground. I smirked, withdrawing the power, and the ground returned to stone. He'd get out of there soon enough, but it would be a good distraction. I turned to Callie. "We're heading in. It's time to hit the town, we need to be one of those winners. Tell everyone else to keep up the good work, but turn this into a moving battle. Stay within Murmur."


I started us forward, but I used one of the corrupted to pass a message to Bethy, who I asked to pass it on to the others so they would know to open us a path.


Sure enough, within seconds, a bloody fist smashed through the chaotic lines, opening up a passage, and the space warped slightly as Abel did his thing, lubricating the space between use and the gate.


I grinned, stepping forward, and we entered the altered space, shooting through the battle at high speeds, so fast that I almost dropped Murmur. The vines disconnected, sadly, once I was too far away to use them, and our plant team was unable to reconnect because of the move, but that didn't matter. Gabe had joined us for the approach, and I was thrilled to see his lance come out as we emerged from the spatial tunnel, smashing into the gate with all of his Adamant power.


There was a thunderous BOOM as we struck the gate, and I sighed, dropping Murmur. Between the destruction of the entryway and the noise, I hadn't been able to cover that. No reason to waste the power, because they were all going to know what was up now.


Luckily I'd given the order to retreat after we made it in, so my forces outside were already headed back. To cover them, I had the archers start up a volley, then turned to my other D-rankers. "Anyone with a shield or main defensive Skill, front and center!" I pulled out some more scrolls. I had used ten so far, and I triggered three more for a clever bit of wishcrafting.


First up, I wish for every one of the defensive warriors to be connected, specifically to focus all of their accrued damage on the largest and most durable of them, a man wearing C-rank armor a lot like mine. Then I wished for HIS incoming damage to be shared across all of them as a group. Then I wished for a fifty percent reduction in any damage applied to him for the rest of the battle.


Three more D-ranked chits gone (I was running low at twenty nine) and the scrolls triggered. Just as I'd planned, any incoming damage to anyone in the group was redirected to the big guy, halved, and then applied evenly across the entire force. Each person was only taking a fraction of the damage from attacks, which they were easily able to deal with. Abel and the others made it back seconds later, and I triggered Behemoth, erecting a series of fortifications to help our people hold the area.


We weren't the only ones inside, some opportunists had slipped inside ahead of us, ignoring the battle, but they weren't worried about us, given there was a horde of other candidates and retainers incoming.


There was a chime of a bell, and a series of golden gates slammed down outside the perimeter. I turned to look and found another candidate standing on the wall, her red hair in a long braid and her green eyes severe. She saw me looking and nodded casually, before turning and heading back into the city.


The gates held. I wasn't sure how strong she was, but I was guessing she was pretty Might focused, given the physical power of those gates.


Sighing, I turned to my wife. "Alright, let's go find somewhere to sleep. This is going to last a while. Nat can supply the others with scrolls if needed, but I think the main thrust of the battle is done with." I put and arm over her shoulder and we headed into Schvitz. My first battle of the succession war was over. I had a feeling this was nothing compared to what was coming.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The rest of the battle was fairly clean. There wasn't much time left on the event, and before long, it ended, granting me a pretty decent windfall of points. I was up to twenty five points total now for the succession war, though I had no clue if that was good or bad. Still, it couldn't hurt to have them, so I was in a pretty good mood when I finally arrived at the nicest inn I'd been able to find in Schvitz.


Much to my surprise, Callie and I weren't alone. A familiar red haired woman was there, checking in when we arrived, and when she saw us, she gave me a friendly nod. "So. Tall and scary with a blank wooden mask? I bet I can guess who you are."


"Yes," I said dramatically. "It is I, Harold Binderman, from apartment 34D. Tremble before my great name."


Callie rolled her eyes. "Ignore him," she said with exasperation. "He thinks he's funny. This is Solomon, or you can just call him Shane. I'm Calliope. It's nice to meet you…?" She was polite and friendly, clearly interested in making friends with this relative of mine. I could get behind that.


The redhead chuckled. "Belara. Belara Wyndham. And it's fine. My brothers are the same way. You're from the Malachai Branch. I saw you talking to the branch head."


"Yup," I said cheerfully. "You gonna swear eternal vengeance on me now, or wait until my back is turned for dramatic effect?" I made sure my tone stayed teasing, but my eyes were locked on her face. I could smell lies, and I would absolutely attack if I caught so much as a whiff of bad intent from her.


It might be hypocritical, but I didn't trust the WCP (or my dad's relatives for that matter) at all. The environment they grew up in was brutal and ruthless, and while I had plenty of friends from there, I had been warned too many times about their coldness not to keep an eye out for possible treachery, even from the seemingly friendly.


Belara just laughed. "Peace, little cousin. I've got no bad intentions. I was impressed by your forces." She grinned widely. "Of course, it's early days, and I didn't bring much in the way of D-rank power. The next zone is when we start separating the wheat from the chaff. But I'm not against teaming up temporarily to get through a tough spot. Early game alliances are hardly unheard of."


"You aren't secretly planning to kill me to prevent the rise of a second Aiden?" I asked wryly. She hadn't lied yet, but that wasn't the same as telling the truth. Just coming out and asking seemed like the easiest move.


She shrugged. "Not yet at least," she grinned. "But in all seriousness, I'm from an orphan branch. Our branch leaders are a bit more progressive than the old fuddy duddies at the top of the heap. New blood isn't something we have issues with. You're certainly competent, and even if you do make it through, we've seen from Aiden that branches affiliated heavily with the boss can still benefit. Your relationship with Malachai and his people doesn't seem to be entirely harmonious, and your father is a notorious renegade. We were given instructions to evaluate you and see if there was room for cooperation."


Callie nodded in satisfaction. "I figured that might happen. The WCP seems way too factional for any sort of large group censure to be effective."


"Good read," Belsara complimented. "Yeah, despite the sweeping condemnation from on high, benefits are the name of the game. You're impressive, so people are going to want to ally with you. Don't forget that while the prize is a big motivator, there are other benefits to be had. Even if you don't take the top spot, the points you earn can be exchanged for resources, manpower, or directly used to free powerful Ascendants who you can swear to your service.


"The outside world might not know it," she continued excitedly. "But the succession war is the biggest shake up for the WCP. Not just because we choose a new leader, but because performance can dramatically alter the landscape of competition between the branches. Earning the fealty of a few A-rankers and having the points to bring them out can cause a qualitative shift in the power balance of an entire branch."


Which I knew, in the abstract, but I hadn't really considered it from that angle. "So people are going to be making deals to get ahead and improve their scores early on even they don't think they can win." I mused. "Because any bit of gain might reflect on their whole branch."


"Which begs the question," my wife said slowly. "What kind of alliance are you looking for, and what does it entail?"


Belsara gestured us forward, letting us start checking in, and once we finished, waved us over to a couch on the side of the lobby. The inn we'd found was less "inn" and more hotel, a tall stone building with a gorgeous spacious lobby. The whole place was padded with plush carpet, soft earth tone lights casting the warm brown walls in shadow, and several ponds containing golden fish were scattered along the length of the room, the fish catching the lights as they swam by, reflecting streaks of gold, red, and orange light.


"This town," Belsara said once we sat down. "Is something of a safezone now. Temporarily. It's not official, but once the event ended, it was decided that the internal forces would keep the peace to recover before the next mission. This isn't uncommon, because town defense usually implies a sort of claim that tends to be rigorously enforced. But the truce only lasts until we leave. Once we step foot outside it's a free for all."


I nodded in understanding. "And you're worried you'll be targeted? I take it your D-rankers aren't specced for combat?"


She shrugged. "I've always been more a fan of utility. My higher end combat power isn't bad, but all my best retainers are in the other zones. So yeah, I'm hoping to piggy back off your forces to make it further in. But you know as well as I do that having another candidate along is a net benefit. You can leave the offset for the wishes to me and my people. We have training for this kind of thing. As far as I can tell, you were planning to rely on a combination of overwhelming force and surprise for your counterwishes?"


"Something like that," I admitted. "You can do better?"


As much as I wanted to deny it, my education in counterwish tactics was pretty lacking. If I could get someone onboard who had a solid grasp on that process, it would take a lot of stress off my plate, not to mention I would save up a ton of scrolls I could use for other things. I was sure we'd have to supply some too, more people meant more scrolls needed, but it would at least let us save MY scrolls for emergencies. Being at seven hundred and fifty thousand points made me a top tier combatant in D-rank, and that meant my wishes were valuable in this zone.


"I can," she confirmed. "And beyond that, I have connections in the city. Or rather, lines of connection further into the zone and into the next."


I cocked my head. "You're willing to introduce us to your connections?"


"Look," she said with a sigh. "I'm not one of the elite. I don't have a huge secondary faction or clan backing me. I don't have a brilliant genius as a retainer to carry my banner. I'm not winning this. I'm not even the favorite in my own branch. But you? You've got a shot. Your father is here, in the war, supporting you. Elijah Wyndham is a name people remember. He's SCARY, and jumping ship didn't make anyone forget that. Your mother and his retainer Ezekial were both part of his original team. Not to mention Lark's second."


"So your whole thing about wanting to see how I did was-" I started wryly.


She held up a hand. "True. We have a long way to go before we hit the core zone and reach the A-rankers for support. If you weren't up to it, I'd have dropped the whole thing. But your people are good. YOU'RE good. I don't know how you were doing half the shit you did out there, but I was impressed."


Reaching into my ring, I pulled out a piece of paper. I scribbled out a contract, stopping to adjust a few bits when Callie or Belsara noticed something that needed changing, and once I finished, I passed it to her along with a scroll. "Here's my terms. You'll give me a term of service service adhering to the letter of that contract for the next year. As for the actual wish, not my business, just figure out what you want."


She chuckled. "Not a bad way to do things. Contracts can be useful. I should have figured Elijah Wyndham's kid would be a stickler for the letter of the law." She read it over, then unrolled the scroll. I saw the terms of her wish pop up, and I laughed. She was asking for a contracts Skill. I granted it, Beginner just below Intermediate, and the contract burst into flames as the wish codified it into a payment, making it iron clad.


Belsara beamed. "Fantastic! It's a short term contract, so I'm not getting pinned down to anything big, and I get to build out this Skill how I like it." She hopped to her feet. "Anyway, seems like my work here is done. We've all had a long day, and I want a nap. Meet you both down here in five hours for dinner?"


My other retainers were currently spreading through the city on my orders, finding places to stay and mixing with the locals looking for information, but my inner circle would be here soon enough, and I would need to introduce her. "Sure," I laughed. "Go get some rest. We'll check out our room."


We'd gotten a suite because Callie was insistent we treat this like a partial honeymoon. I think she mostly just wanted to sleep on a big fancy bed, but I wasn't going to argue with her on this.


Once Belsara left we took the elevator up to the top floor. "Man, it's nice to be somewhere the tech level is normal." I said with a sigh. "Magic is great, but something about machinery just makes me more at ease, you know?"


My wife laughed. "I feel that. I never really thought about how convenient technology was until I had to start substituting magic."


I put an arm around her shoulder. "Hopefully the amenities in this place are nice as the lobby. I can't wait to get a nice hot shower. It feels like its been ages." It hadn't been, just a few hours, but something about hotel showers always made me happy. Like an adventure.


Maybe I should have been more worried, more on edge, but I couldn't muster that right now. I felt…at home. This succession war was my home ground, and I was kicking ass. I wasn't out of the weeds yet, obviously, but I was going to stay balanced and at ease. Like Zeke had told me so long ago. Why worry?


I felt Callie squeeze my arm as she caught that, warning me through the bond not to get cocky, but I sent back reassurance. I wasn't under the impression I was invincible, but I knew my worth. And besides, I had a good feeling about this. I could feel the winds of fate blowing across me even as we rose through the hotel. Things were already changing, and all I needed to do was keep up.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

After my shower, I was about to try to take a nap, but I was cut off by a call from Belsara. I answered with an annoyed grunt. "What?" I asked with exasperation. "I thought we were meeting in a few hours for dinner?"


She grinned sheepishly. "We were," she admitted. "But I got a call from one of my local contacts. A friend of a friend heard that I knew you, and decided to use me to send an invitation from a local bigshot. Turns out one of the big bosses for this region lives in town, and he was so impressed by word of your entrance that he wanted to speak in person. He's not exactly easy to get in touch with, though, and he insists that the meeting has to happen immediately if you want it to happen at all."


I groaned as I rolled out of bed. Callie, who had already collapsed in a nightgown to sleep, whined as I moved the blanket aside, letting in cold air and light. "Wuzzat?" She mumbled groggily.


"Going to take over the world," I told her with a chuckle. "Go back to sleep."


She cocked her head, eyes never opening, then let it drop back onto the pillow. "S'good," she slurred. "Bring me a p'tato."


"Yes dear," I laughed. I stepped outside, spinning up my ring to make a pair of calls. Within moments, Bethy and Abel arrived outside my door, taking the stairs up to meet me as I'd asked. When they arrived, I filled them in on what was happening. "So I need you to go with me to meet this local crime boss or whatever."


"Isn't this a prison planet?" Bethy asked skeptically. "Wouldn't all the bosses be crime bosses?"


I shrugged. "Or maybe none of them are, who knows. You guys coming or not? Because I'll send a clone to meet him if I need to."


"Please," Abel snorted. "There's no way I'm missing this. I'm definitely-"


"Going to WHAT?" Said an annoyed voice. We all turned to find Mel standing in the hall, an irritated tilt to her head and her arms crossed. "Run off without me on a hostile prison planet. Again. We did have the talk about you TELLING me before running off to get yourself stabbed or shot or whatever fresh torment you're inflicting on your body today, right?"


To my utter astonishment, Abel actually paled. "I…that is, well, that's to say…hi honey?"


She didn't look amused, even with the mask on. "I don't care if you want to go help, Abel, I'm just getting sick of being left behind. You said you'd let me know next time."


"It's his fault," he said, mercilessly throwing me under the bus as he literally pointed to me like a small child. "I didn't even know what this was until just now. I was totally going to go tell you before we left. Be mad at Shane not me."


"What, no?" I sputtered. "Nobody told me about a check in. If I'd known I'd have just called Mel too. I think its clear that your conversation was so unimportant that he didn't feel the need to keep his employer informed."


He glared at me. "Oh you rat bastard," he hissed in disbelief.


"Enough," Mel said with an eye roll. "Callie is right, you ARE annoying when you think you're being funny. I'm coming along, get over it and move on."


Shrugging, I gestured for her to fall in. We headed down to the lobby, meeting up with Belsara, and were picked up by a shuttle heading away from the hotel. "Alright, so tell me about this crime lord. Who is he? Where are we meeting him? What should I expect."


"They call him the Animal," she said with a shrug. "I don't know a ton about him. I know he remains locked up almost all the time, and has to be restrained when he has visitors. He still runs things though, somehow. They come to consult him on all decisions, despite his confinement."


I raised an eyebrow. "They keep their boss in prison?" I asked. "Because that seems…weird."


She shrugged again. "No idea. That's all I was told. My general takeaway is that he CAN leave whenever he wants, he just chooses not to. Why that is, I couldn't say." We drove for about twenty minutes before pulling up outside of an old building. It was made of bricks and cement and had heavy metal doors. Outside of the front was a sign that said "detention".


We climbed out, and were met at the entrance by a cadre of armed men, some with swords, some with knives, some with guns. The one at the front of the group was a small man with dark skin and short cropped hair. He had a long hooked knife on his belt. "Mr. Wyndham?" He asked me in a flat voice.


I nodded, and he gestured me inside. "The boss will see you. But just you. Your friends need to wait outside."


That brought me up short, but rather than being a dealbreaker, it almost made me trust them more. This was far too overt to be any decent kind of trap. Bethy, Abel, and Mel could arrive to back me up in moments, so I wasn't too worried about being alone with their boss. Of course, that didn't mean I cared much about their rules. I made a quick gesture to Bethy, and as soon as we were out of sight, she pulled the others into her Domain and vanished into stealth.


After preparing a scroll from Nat just in case, I followed them inside, descending a large staircase to the basement level where a man was waiting to speak to me. Once I reached the bottom of the steps, the rest of them retreated, leaving me alone with just one other person.


He looked…fragile. Thin and emaciated and trapped inside a glass box. His arms and legs had large metal rings filled with padding clamped around them, and as we descended, the knife guy called out our approach. We stopped at the bottom of the steps as "the Animal" was shepherded to the back of his cell, where he placed the metal bands against two hanging metal plates descending from the ceiling. There was a clank as the plates magnetized, snapping them directly to the metal and holding him there. Bethy and the others appeared beside me, but he didn't seem to care very much, his calm eyes focused on me.


The glass box was mostly empty aside from the two hanging plates and a small cot, but surprisingly luxurious apart from that. The cot was plush and covered with soft looking sheets, and there were boxes of books pushed under it. The Animal, meanwhile, was unusually well groomed for someone who lived in a box, his hair long but well cared for and his face shaved to a fine stubble.


He smiled as we approached. "Friends," he said gregariously. "Welcome. I apologize for the poor reception, my room is a mess. I'm something of a pack rat." He shot a winning smile at us, eyes flicking across the room to highlight the very few personal belongings.


"Um, thanks," I said. "And no problem. Are you really in charge here? Because no offense, but you sleep in a box."


He barked out a laugh. "That I do. It's a complex situation. My confinement is one of the conditions of my leadership. I'm considered too dangerous to allow free, so they submit to my rule in exchange for my willing imprisonment. They're incapable of holding me against my will, so my authority is treated as an inducement towards my incarceration."


"They're so scared of you escaping they made you their KING?" I asked in disbelief. "Because no offense, but why not just kill you?"


His grin became wolfish. "It's been tried. Poison, fire, electrocution, my abilities make me something of a conundrum for potential assassins. Of course, overwhelming force could most likely do the deed, but any attempt at that kind of direct conflict would breach our deal, and I would no longer be obliged to play nice."


Bethy gave him a strange look, then sniffed. "You smell like a bear. Also a dog. And sometimes a fox. It's pretty weird."


The hanging prisoner beamed at her. "Excellent Perception, as expected, Miss. Lark. My ability allows me to internalize physical characteristics from the consumption of flesh. They call me the Animal, because I am not simply AN animal, but all animals, or at least as many as I wish to be. Of course, this is my unaltered state. I choose to remain in this form so as to appease my friends behind the glass. I appear less threatening like this."


"That's dumb," Bethy said bluntly. "You're way too dangerous to be locked up in that box. I can feel a threat from you right now. It wouldn't even take you a second to bust out and attack us."


"A fact they are well aware of," he admitted. "Intellectually. Emotionally, it is a bit more difficult for them to accept. I allow them their little flights of fancy, because it smoothes our working relationship."


I stared at him hard. "So my question becomes, why are you still here at all? Why not move to the next zone? You shouldn't be too far away from C-rank."


"I am not," he acknowledged. "But therein lies the issue. I'm too strong. None of the C-rank forces want to see me rank up. I've been suppressed here for quite some time, and it has been made clear to me that should I Ascend, I will face fatal opposition. Hence my desire to approach you."


I saw his end game. "You want us to bring you along," I said with a sigh. "You'd be able to rank up safely, reach the next zone, and establish yourself based on the protection of my forces. Even if we fail out early, you'd be in a better position and one step closer to the top of the heap. Plenty of time to grow into your new C-rank power relying on whatever inroads you can make with the local forces under my banner."


"I do so love talking to people with a brain," he chuckled. "My position is unique within the D-rank zone. I am a terrifying threat, and one none of the local powers want to see rise, but that's only in normal circumstances. Working WITH me…well quite a few D-rank forces would be swayed by such a possibility. Forces with branches in the higher zones, ones that could be quite useful to you in the later stages of the succession war."


That made sense. "If you weren't strong enough to hold your own among the D-rankers you'd be dead rather than imprisoned. And we definitely need peak D-rank combatants. We have maybe five or six, but you can't have too many."


Until we reached the C-rank territory, we were going to be relying entirely on me, Bethy, Callie, and Abel. Gabe and the angels were strong, as was my sister, but they weren't universe level combatants. We were up against people from the peak of the five factions. Honestly the C-rankers were going to be a big problem when we got there, but I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.


I reached into my ring, withdrawing a contract, and started writing. I wasn't willing to TRUST this guy, but that didn't mean he wouldn't be useful. I just had to make sure my contract with him was airtight to prevent any betrayal. The ability to smell lies and semi predict the future should help me keep him from turning on us, and I wasn't worried even if he did, because while he might be tough even for the heirworld, he wasn't BETHY tough, because literally no one was as far as I could tell.


Still, I went out of my way to make the contract as accurate as possible, then I drew out a scroll, and tossed the two of them into the glass box with a relatively clever use of Double Trouble. I left them on the box, then smiled up at the Animal. "Alright. Here's the deal. That contract is your payment for your wish. What you might wish for I can't say, but somehow I have a feeling you'll think of something. We're going to go wait outside for you to make your wish and somehow escape, and you can meet us out there."


Since I was sure that he wouldn't be able to access the scroll until we were gone and he was released, that felt like the safest path. So we left, heading out to wait for our new teammate. Sure enough, minutes later, I felt a wish complete, and the contract slotted into place. Shortly after, the Animal arrived next to us. With a brand new guide in tow, we headed back to the hotel to meet up with everyone else. Maybe we could do dinner early. I was starving.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We DID end up having dinner early. Callie was awake when we got back, and she raised an eyebrow at our new friend, but didn't say anything else. Belsara was practically glowing with smugness over how quickly I'd gotten the Animal (he tried to get us to call him Mal, but Abel informed him it would be too confusing given Mel's name, and told him it was Animal or 'Annie") on our side.


She mentioned having a few other connections nearby, but the Animal was a better source, and he informed us that we should leave for one of the spoke cities as soon as possible.


Apparently, the layout of the D-rank zone was a lot like the outside of a wheel, with spoke cities about halfway through set at equidistant intervals along the central belt. There were actually spoke cities in both directions from the equator, all of them the primary locations of the major forces in the D-rank zone, and the nearest one was Yettin.


We were all sitting at dinner as Animal filled us in on this, amazed by exactly how much the man could eat. Apparently they hadn't been feeding him much, because he was demolishing several hug tubs of pork between sentences, and everyone looked a little sick at the sight.


"Can you chew and THEN speak?" Demanded my sister with a queasy look. "Or chew at all. I swear you just unhinged your jaw like a snake for that last one."


Animal swallowed hard, then belched. "Apologies, friends," he said with an apologetic smile. "My mass is quite a bit more formidable than it appears. They minimized my caloric intake in order to weaken my combat power. I was able to conserve energy by remaining mostly sedentary, but simply holding this form consumes a sizable amount of energy. I'm afraid I'm quite famished."


Bethy clicked her tongue sympathetically. But she was clearly excited about this information. "Being hungry sucks. I get hungry all the time. Then I eat stuff. That totally checks out. You're eating stuff cuz you're hungry, but are you going to turn into that stuff? You ate a bunch of pork. Are you a pig now? How do you turn back into a people? Do you have to eat a people? Do you have to do that every time you turn into something else? Do you keep people parts on you to snack? Are they fingers? Is that where finger sandwiches come from?"


Her tirade was all spat out in a single breath, but it was cut off by Chelsea putting a hand over her mouth. My sister shot Animal an apologetic look. "Sorry. Bethy doesn't really have a filter. You don't have to answer any of that."


"Um, yes he does," I cut in. "Specifically the cannibalism thing. Because if you eat people, that's going to need to stop immediately."


I hadn't even considered that. Trust Bethy to come up with the most disturbing possible explanation for any given ability. It was a good question though, even if I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.


He chuckled. "No, I don't eat people. I do have SOME standards. They taste terrible."


None of us laughed at that, except Bethy, who dissolved into some very worrying giggles. Rolling my eyes at what I was ninety percent sure was theatrics, I raised an eyebrow at Animal. "So, we're probably going to be getting a task soon, a way to earn more points, and if you want off this hellhole when we leave, we're going to need to maximize those gains. If you were going to have a big contest near here, where would it be?"


"Probably the abyss," he said after a moment of thought. "It's on the way to Yettin, and it would definitely make things difficult."


I felt my stomach tighten at the term. "The Abyss?" I asked worriedly. "Like…something to do with the Void?" The last thing we needed was to deal with those interdimensional bastards right now.


"Not like that," he assured me. "The Abyss is just a giant canyon. It's a few miles wide and so deep you can't see the bottom. It's crisscrossed with strands of web that form paths between the two sides. No one is sure what MADE the webs, but there are caves honeycombing the cliffs on either side, and the webs run between the entrances."


I frowned. That sounded like EXACTLY the kind of place the WCP would plan a trial for. "What's in the caves? Is it giant spiders?"


"Surprisingly no," he said with a laugh. "No one has ever seen a giant spider in the abyss. Which is good, because to make webs the size of those walkways, it would need to be the size of a small town. And the town wouldn't be that small. Whatever made those, it isn't D-rank, so we THINK it got pushed further inland when the zones were being formed. Or it was S-rank, in which case it's dead."


"Well, that's both good and bad," I said brightly. "No spiders, is great, but what's in the caves then? It's probably like goblins or something, right?"


He shook his head. "Kobolds," he corrected.


"Of course," I sighed. "I don't suppose THEY have moral objections to eating human flesh?"


"Not to my knowledge," he grimaced. "In fact, as far as I know they're quite enamored with the stuff. The natural barrier is one of the reasons Yettin is so impossible to attack. The city is on the other side of the cliffs, and the abyss itself is more crescent shaped than a straight gash in the ground. It provides Yettin a defensive line on three sides. The city is built in a wedge shape too, so any attack has to split around a point directly opposite the midpoint of the abyss wall."


I nodded along. I didn't know what the event would be, but any information was helpful. I hoped we wouldn't need to do another siege, but it WAS possible. I suspected not though. If I had to guess it would be something more like a maze. My relatives valued novelty quite a bit. Repeating the same trial twice in a row seemed beneath them.


Benny sighed from where he sat nearby with Celine. "Giant spiders, kobolds, why is all the unpleasant shit only showing up when we arrive on the scene. I bet you didn't run into anything like this on Rackham."


"Just an evil horned demon ghost that ate people and wore their skins," I said dryly. "Really, the whole place was pretty much the ideal vacation. I almost bought a commemorative hat."


Bella shuddered. "Ugh, that thing was terrible," she hissed. "And super gross. I hope I never seen anything like that temple again. Easily the scariest place I've ever been. And the monster itself almost killed us."


"It did not almost kill us," I told my apprentice exasperatedly. "We were in almost no danger. I wasn't going to let you get murdered for no reason. It would make me look terrible. I'm a GOOD mentor, unlike some people who shall not be named. Because Bethy keeps forgetting what their name is and coming up with random pseudonyms that start with the letter A."


Abel glared at me. "I get no respect," he complained. "My training has kept you alive AND got you married. You think you'd be good enough for that one if you didn't have your soul bond? You should be thanking me."


That drew a laugh from Belsara, and when we turned to look at her, she smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, it's just…I like the way you interact with your people. My mom always said, you can tell a lot about what kind of leader someone is by how they treat their subordinates. Most candidates are smug little shits who bow and scrape to their betters. Even the elites are usually just high and mighty pricks who barely acknowledge their people. I feel better about this particular alliance after seeing you all interact."


I shrugged. "I never got the smugness. Being a candidate isn't some kind of ticket to fame and power. If anything, it's a pain in the ass. Pure support, with no real way to impact the situation? If I didn't have a second ability I'd be fucked. No way I'd have gotten this far. And same goes for my friends. If they didn't have my back, I never would have made it here."


"It's true," Abel admitted. "He'd be lost without us, but more importantly, he's not a total ass. I wouldn't have joined up if he was, no matter how many wishes he offered. Real powerhouses don't need to barter for power. They TAKE it."


Benny snorted. "Speak for yourself old man, I personally LOVE the wish power. I'd be here either way, but I won't pretend it's not convenient. I wouldn't have grown this fast without it."


We chatted like that for the rest of the meal (we had Beef Wellington) and then retired to our rooms to sleep. We put out a message to everyone else on the team, letting them know to gather at the city wall at the crack of noon. Then we all headed to sleep.


When Callie and I got back up to the room, I crashed onto the bed with a groan. "I should have napped like you," I groaned. "Curse me and my proactive approach to faction growth."


"Yes," she said dryly. "Because that's what you're known for. Forward thinking growth strategies and exciting investment opportunities in the field of faction development. I'm surprised you don't have any recursion for that yet."


"Your sarcasm is noted," I sniffed. "And not appreciated. How do you know I don't have recruitment recursion. I was able to recruit Animal easily enough. Everyone loves to work with me."


She giggled, flopping down onto the bed next to me. "Yes dear," she said through a wide grin. "You're an excellent employer and everyone knows it. But seriously, thanks for letting me sleep."


"Always," I told her with a smile. She sat up, scooting up the bed, and lifted my head, setting it in her lap as she removed my mask. Her fingers skimmed down to rub my temples, working away the tension that had built up over the course of the day. The shower had helped, but this was so much better.


As if hearing my desire to unwind, Callie started chatting. Nothing serious or important, just little things. Stuff she'd seen at the shops when she was training, things she'd seen and done while we were apart. She just rubbed my temples and talked, the low hum of her voice soothing me as I drifted off to sleep.


In the morning I woke up refreshed and energetic, and Callie was snuggled against me happily. I slipped out of bed, going to find her some breakfast, and then brought her a plate of eggs and bacon with a jam covered breakfast muffin and a cup of coffee. She moaned happily as she woke up, devouring the meal in silence as we sat together. We'd slept in, so by the time we finished it was time to head out.


We met up with everyone else at the city walls as agreed, and we did a quick headcount to make sure we didn't leave anyone behind. Then, once that was done, we all set out from Schvitz in the direction Animal had indicated.


Sure enough, about halfway there, we received another message from the competition supervisors.


"Announcement: The next task begins. Cross the abyss by any means necessary. Beware the dwellers in the dark, as well as your other competitors. Before crossing, acquire the golden spheres from within the cliffside caves. One sphere equals one point. Spheres will be collected on arrival in Yettin."


I grimaced, staring at the slowly massing army of people gathering in small groups at the edge of the giant chasm I could see in the distance. Great. There were way more than had been involved in the last trial. This was going to suck.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"So, this is going to be a bit tougher than expected," I told my friends as we came to a stop in the middle of the plains. I had us under Murmur, so we weren't exposed, and it was safe enough to stop to plan our approach. There were a LOT of people ahead of us. "Belsara, any information on who we're dealing with?"


My new ally frowned, squinting into the distance. Her aide, Jessa, a tall blonde woman with strong features and piercing blue eyes, reached into a pouch, passing her a small brass telescope. It was pretty old school, but I could see the enchantment script flowing across the side. Not a variation that I'd come across before, but very dense. Whatever that thing did, it was more than just make things look bigger.


Belsara put it to her eye, watching carefully for a minute or two, then sighed. "I don't recognize a lot of them. I'm guessing there are a few groups from the C-rank candidate factions, maybe even one or two from a B-ranker's retinue. I DO recognize Andros, Veslia, and Best. Two from the Orphan branches, though not the same as me, and one from Percival's branch."


Animal hummed with interest. "This trial isn't as simple as it looks. The spheres are in the caves. Most of the newcomers will probably drop down and head for Yettin through the lower cave entrances, but there are caves on both sides. The ones on this side will probably be skipped. If we can access them from out here, we can bypass the crowd, benefit from the free space, and then make it to the other side in time to sweep up the tired remnants of anyone who is still down there."


"Damn it," Benny sighed. "We're going underground again? I hate when we have to go underground. Remember that creepy underground lich castle in the scavenger hunt back home? I still have nightmares about that place."


"You didn't even have to go IN," I protested. "If anyone should have nightmares it should be me or Callie."


After bickering for a minute, I sent Archie out to scout. My companion trilled cheerfully as he swept off into the air, but I watched him carefully in case someone took a shot at him after he left the Murmur Domain. Once he was up and out far enough, I connected our vision. After a minute or two, I found a small valley not far away.


The valley was in the middle of a small copse of trees (there were several of them spattering the plains) and the shrubbery camouflaged the entrance so thoroughly even Archie's amazing vision barely caught it.


He returned quickly, swooping down to perch on my upraised arm. "Found a small valley nearby. We can look for an entrance to the cave system there, and if there isn't one, we can make it."


"Make it?" Animal said curiously. "I realize there isn't much rock out here, but this is still a higher planet. Even if you have some kind of digging ability, it'll burn through your energy faster than normal to get through even loose dirt."


I grinned at him. "I can handle a little dirt. Don't worry about that. Though it would be better if there's a natural entrance there. I'll scope everything out when we arrive." We made good time to the valley, and I was surprised how deep and spacious it was. The thing was barely visible from the surface, with only an aerial view giving me a small glimpse, but once we entered the copse of trees and pushed through the thick underbrush, we exited into a totally hidden crevasse, a nearly horizontal shaft of space leading down and in, with a canopy of plantlife interspersed with tree roots cutting it off from the sky.


Once we got inside, I let Murmur drop, focusing instead on using my staff to push Dantalion to C-rank so I could scan the nearby surroundings. Dantalion had all my Perception skills worked into it. Song of the Soil was included in the form, and being pushed to C-rank let me penetrate the ground with that subskill easily enough.


My Perception spread into the ground, sinking through the dirt like water as it extended around us. I turned, walking through the crevasse until I reached the far edge. Callie followed me over. "There an entrance there?" She asked quietly.


I shook my head. "Not exactly. There's an offshoot of a longer distance cave system running beneath the valley, but it's not connected. About fifty feet down. I can make a tunnel. Just back everyone off.


She did, and I cracked my neck as I prepared to do some excavation. Triggering Agares, I pressed my staff against the ground, channeling my Dust Construction based form into the dirt. It took me a minute to permeate the high level ground, but it WAS just loose soil. With a grunt of effort, I dissolved it all into dust, and then started the process of compacting and condensing the dust into a fifty foot tunnel complete with staircase.


It took about ten minutes, but I got it finished, and then gestured for the others to follow me down. "Not bad," Animal said as he joined Callie, Abel, Bethy, and my sister at the front with me. "That must come in handy."


"You have no idea," I confirmed. Our shoes hissed slightly as we walked across the hard black stone, green acidic veins running through it to strengthen the material. "Now, anyone here have scouting abilities? Because I don't have time to scan every tunnel one by one, and Beelzebub would take too long."


My wife snorted. "It's like you completely forget what I can," she bumped me to the side with a playful swing of her hip, strutting forward to kneel down and touch the shadows at the corner of a nearby wall.


Her hand sinks in and I see her eyes fade to black as it does. I blink in surprise, because I didn't remember if that had happened before. Was it a side effect of her new Solid Path? I sent a quick pulse through the bond, and just to make sure I was comfortable, she tapped into her heretic flame. Her eyes, previously pitch black orbs, flared to life with a ring of blue fire, creating a flaming iris within the darkness out of nowhere.


Before I could ask, I felt a surge through the bond, and a parallel was created through Piece of Mind. She connected it to the bond directly, and I was suddenly looking through the shadows in a dozen places, eyes scanning the area from a point of view beyond human limitations, even MY human limitations.


Sure enough, we found one, two…nine golden spheres. Unfortunately, we also found several other parties of people and…other things. "Fuck," I spat softly. "Kobolds. They're the dragon ones."


Kobolds, as I knew from earlier research, came in two flavors. Draconic kobolds were a humanoid lizard people similar to goblins. As Animal had mentioned, they ate humans, and each other, and small rocks or piles of dirt. Kobolds were omnivorous, but they had a special affinity for anything shiny. I glanced back at my group, most of whom wore some kind of armor and many of whom glowed in some fashion from some kind of power expression when active. I sighed.


Callie looked distracted but distressed, her face a mask of distant discomfort. "Warbands. And several of them. There's probably a city down here somewhere. Must be deep if Yettin hasn't run into them. Wonder why that didn't come up in the recon?" I held up a hand, kneeling to push Dantalion into the earth. Rather than spread out, I pushed my sphere of perception into more of a cone, the point starting at my hand, and extended it as deep as I could searching for any kind of settlement. I came up with nothing. Shaking my head, I stood back up.


"If I had to guess, it's the spheres," I said sourly. "The organizers must have known. Why else use gold as a points marker. And make us carry them across the chasm personally. We're basically walking bait. No way to estimate population either, because I didn't pick anything up with Dantalion, so the city is LOW down."


Sighing, I just shook off the concerns that were now slowly bubbling up. "Doesn't matter, we ignore it. Nearest sphere is about two miles that way," I pointed to the southeast. "And probably a mile down. Bethy, do me a favor and find us a route."


She brightened. "Wait, really?" At my nod, she squealed with excitement and then exploded into a cloud of bats. The bats scattered, chittering happily, and we all waited in the tunnel for about two minutes. After that, the bats came roaring back, condensing into Bethy's excitable form as they gathered. "Ok, I got it, this way!"


With a flash of movement, she blurred off down the tunnel, and we followed after her as best we could. She wasn't exactly slow, but with Dantalion it was easy enough to track her passage, so we made decent time behind her.


We emerged into a massive chamber covered in complicated symbols, all of us stopping at the edge of what appeared to be a perfectly clear moat. In the center of the moat was a pedestal, and on the other side, staring at us hungrily, were a large crowd of very small lizard people salivating as they stared at our group.


Between my faction and Belsaras we were up to three hundred and fifty people, and they had easily five times that number. Some of them carried strange weapons or wore bones or body parts pinned to their clothing. Their armor was meticulously crafted and incredibly delicate, which made both the adornments and the creepy scenes of screaming victims engraved on them very disturbing to look at.


'Warband," I commented to my wife lightly. "Now I get it. Any chance they're NOT going to try to murder us to get that thing?"


"Nope," she said without taking her eyes off the leader, a tiny purple kobold in luxurious silk robes wearing a scarf of what I was unfortunately sure were human intestines. Lungs hung from the neckwear, and they inflated and deflated in time with someone's breath, though disturbingly NOT the breath of the kobold wearing them.


I paused for a second, then shrugged. "Archers!" I called loudly. "Take them out! Defenders, split up and take up positions on the bank of the moats." Before I even finished talking, my people deployed, getting into position, and I turned to Bethy. "Get me that sphere," I told her bluntly.


Nodding excitedly, Bethy exploded into a cloud of mist, even as arrows began to rain down on the huge army adjacent to us. To escape, they split up, and as expected, hugged the shore of the circular moat in two waves as they flooded toward us. They slammed into the two shield battalions and stopped cold, but after we stalled the initial wave, the rest of them just kept coming, trampling their comrades and climbing over them to get into the middle of my people.


Cursing, I triggered Agares, creating a thin film of dust over the hard ground that I could use to move my people easily. I pulled us all together, then lifted, creating a platform that allowed our shield legion to fully encircle our force. With the ability to stand shoulder to shoulder and reinforce, we stalled them again, but I saw even more of them spill into the cavern from the cave mouth on the other side.


Snarling, I threw out a hand, tapped into my staff, and ignoring the pain from forcing it to do this twice, used the elevation function to push Wrath to C-rank. A lake of burning toxic dust expanded beneath the army and they started to fall in, screaming and scrambling atop each other to get away. I thought things were turning around, until a deep voice boomed. "FOOLS!"


The purple kobold in the robes had hung back, and it lifted its staff, calling to some sort of…spirit. A massive draconic skull image manifested in the air above it, and a crushing force slammed down across the entire cavern. Wrath was forcibly cancelled, and I glared at the wizard kobold. Apparently this wasn't going to be as easy as I'd hoped. Oh well, game on.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The kobold wizard was staring intently at me from across the cavern. Not smug, or mocking, but focused. The lungs hanging around his neck pumped like bellows, glowing as the dragon skull manifestation became clearer. Behind him, the skull began to expand. A spine appeared, and then a pair of skeletal wings, and from the spine grew six skeletal arms.


As the thing expanded, I saw some of the other kobolds freeze, their eyes glowing with the same unearthly purple light that shone in the eyes of the skull. Slowly, they started to thin, flesh contracting and dessicating, and as they did, draconic scales and muscle began to flow over the skeleton. Ten kobolds dropped, then twenty, then a hundred. More flowed in through the cave entrance as they died, replacing their numbers, an endless tide of the damned things.


Above us all, the six armed dragon roared, the cavern shuddering from the force of its booming shout.


Glaring, I focused on the platform we were standing on. It was mine, made with Agares, and I was still in control. The platform melted away, turning to tar, and then reformed into a massive stone arm. Mountain stance flowed through it as I triggered Behemoth, and the hand whipped us back, depositing us safely out of the reach of the attacking army before whipping back towards the dragon with a brutal chop.


The monster roared, its arms swinging out, two of them intercepting mine, and the other four spearing toward us, talons extended. I heard a derisive snort, and then a pair of blood red fists manifested above us, blurring forward in a quadret of strikes. Each punch smashed into a weak spot on the dragon limbs, deflecting the force perfectly, and Abel's followup strike aimed right at the wizard.


From behind the little lizard, another figure emerged. Another kobold, but this one was MUCH bigger. The lizard wizard was like four feet tall, and scrawny, but this thing was easily eight feet and covered in thick plate armor. It swung a colossal axe, the heads each as big as my sternum, and designed to look like spreading wings, the draconic center of the weapon wrapped around the wooden haft in a way that was both artistic and functional.


Abel flashed forward, appearing in front of the axeman, spinning off his back foot and sending his leg scything up in the tightest, most vicious roundhouse I'd ever seen. The giant fists above had faded as he manifested the condensed Ragam Blood Body, but it had been all the time needed for the others to spring into action.


Mel raised her hands, Chelsea joining her, and Callie manifested her own heretic fire. Serah and Holly joined in, adding to the mix. My sister's yin yang diagram manifested in the air, and all five of their flames blended together into a strange, misty grey fire.


While my sister and Callie had raw power Mel didn't, our red masked mentor had years of experience shaping and controlling flame. With the yin yang diagram combining their power, she had access to the shared strength of all three, and she put it to expert use. Her hands flew, shaping the fire into a sleek fiery sword in the air, and with a flick of her wrists, she grabbed the air in front of her and began wielding it.


The dragon roared,all six limbs whirling as it tried to counter, but it was quickly driven back by the flames cutting into it. The lizard wizard cursed, roaring in a booming voice much like the dragon's, and more kobolds died. The dragon manifestation grew, thicker scales and plates of bone expanding its already formidable body.


Snorting, I stomped my foot, dissolving the arm I'd made with Behemoth and sending a wave of tar washing over the army of kobolds. The wizard was using them as fuel, which meant I needed to thin the herd.


I triggered Wrath, infusing the wave of tar from Agares with the destructive corrosion of the lake of fire. Hundreds of kobolds died, screaming, but about one out of every three managed to avoid it. I stomped again, and the film of burning tar condensed into a field of razor sharp needles, killing another hundred or so kobolds.


My forces were still grouped up in a circle, defenders protecting the archers, who were sniping the incoming kobold forces as well as they could. "Dayna!" I roared to the elf. "You and Whisper held Abel with the axeman. And where the hell is Bethy?"


I glanced over toward the sphere, and immediately noticed a wall of mist swirling around it. The mist was whipping and churning, and there seemed to be a specter wrapped around it, a draconic ghost. I cursed. "Someone figure out where the fucking necromancer is and KILL IT please!" I bellowed, turning to focus on the wizard.


Triggering Double Trouble, I appeared behind the magic used, my staff whirling as I struck out at his head. To my utter shock, the kobold's staff flicked out expertly, deflecting my force as it offloaded the strike into the ground.


"Interloper," it boomed in a surprisingly deep voice. "Today will be your day of death!"


Snorting, I launched a blurring series of probing strikes. My wings spread behind me, the strength of Sammael flooding through me. I wanted to use Limbo or something, but I'd been doing too much. I couldn't muster another form right now. That was fine. I didn't need to.


The wizard's confidence started to fade as he was pushed back. His staff work was decent for a mage, but he was clearly not as experienced in single combat as I was. His deflections were clean, but his attempts to return attacks were sloppy and slow. He'd trained in defensive staff work, but he didn't have the offensive skill to hang with me.


Screaming with outrage, the kobold leapt back, then slammed his staff into the ground. The thing was huge and bronze, with a big sweeping head ornament that looked like, you guessed it, a dragon. The thing was coiled around a sapphire the size of a fist, and as he slammed it down, the gem exploded in a cascade of purple light.


From the field of kobold corpses, shades rose. Ghosts of kobolds, screaming for release and mercy. They got none. The giant dragon manifestation's head snapped down and it sucked them up like it was drinking milk through a straw. The wizard ginned nastily at me and then… he impaled himself on the staff.


I stared at him, not sure what the fuck had just happened. His corpse was sucked dry in seconds, and I saw his own shade sucked into the gem on the staff. The dragon on the staff shifted, coming alive as it animated, and it threw back its head and roared before taking flight, still carrying the sapphire. It flew up towards the giant six armed manifestation. As it approached, the dragon ghost thing fighting Bethy disengaged, flying towards the little statue, and dove into the gem even as the big manifestation snapped it up.


There was a pulse of energy, and the six armed dragon thing kind of…solidified. It stomped the ground with a pair of legs that hadn't been there a second ago, looking awfully physical. Its eyes blazed blue purple, the same shade as the glowing sapphire. "INTERLOPER!" it roared. "YOUR DEATH IS PROMISED!"


"What the fuck did you DO?" Abel asked as he stepped up next to me. I glanced back to see that all the kobolds were dead. We hadn't killed them, or at least not most of them. They'd been sucked dry by the wizard manifesting…whatever the fuck that monstrosity was.


I shrugged. "Fuck if I know. Chelsea!" I called to my sister. "I don't suppose you can hold it with that sword?"


She shook her head. "Not a chance. At least, not the way it's going right now. The flames aren't even getting through. I assume you're hoping we can repurpose that into something a little more versatile?" Bethy condensed from mist nearby, looking surprisingly haggard but clutching a golden sphere rightly.


"Yup," I said with a grimace. "Abel, Bethy, I could use your help on this." Behemoth could create a giant avatar, but it took a LOT of energy. Using Abel's infinite blood sea and Bethy's domain as a structural support alleviated some of the burden. Plus with Chelsea helping, it was doable. I focused on the sea of tar, still under my control via Agares, and pulled it all together, manifesting a titanic version of myself from magmatic stone.


My sister waved her hands, her diagram spinning again, and the misty sword melted away, the grey flames flowing into the cracks in the magma giant. I whipped my staff up, triggering the growth effect, and the magma giant's hand snapped out to wrap around the shaft. The monstrous simulacrum stepped forward, staff flashing out in an Extinction Event.


Gabe shouted, and I felt his Adamant nature pour through us as Chelsea added him to the diagram. The sphere of black grey energy smashed into the dragon monster and then expanded, consuming the creature's chest. It threw back its head and roared, purple energy pouring from the eyes. Hundreds of souls erupted from its snout, screaming kobolds exploding into the ether, desperate to escape.


The soul of the wizard was the last to leave, and it floated in the air, glaring down at me menacingly. "You will pay!" It boomed, then dissolved into a cloud of ashes, blowing away in nonexistent wind.


We all stared at the destroyed cavern, still in shock from all the insanity that had just taken place. "Man," I said slowly. "Fuck this planet."


Benny stepped up next to me. "Yeah, no shit. But hey, at least I got a soul to work with." I turned to find him cheerfully hefting the big dragon axe, its blade glowing with a dull red light. He nodded to Abel. "Thanks for the assist, big man."


My mentor shrugged. "No big. We lose anyone?"


I glanced around. Belsara was heading over, looking unhappy. "No deaths," she confirmed. "But we got a LOT of wounded. The defensive fighters were solid, but they took a beating."


"Jessie," I called out to our healer.


She'd been talking with Alyssa, Daysia, and Celine, examining a root system they'd found. When she heard my call she headed over. "Yeah, I'm on it. We're looking into possibly using the root systems to expand our foothold. Bypass the usual tunnels and we can avoid the enemy, maybe grab the orbs without even needing to appear in the chambers."


I nodded. "Alyssa and Daysia can work on that. You get started on healing our people. We didn't lose anyone this time, which is ideal, if we can get them all fixed up before we run into anything else that would be best."


Not to mention I'd be going back into Dantalion to scout, and working with Callie. I wasn't fighting any more fucking kobolds if I could help it. That whole battle had been a ridiculous mess. I'd underestimated the D-rank zone. I'd assumed that given our power nothing at D-rank was a threat, but it was clear that even the locals on the heirworld were legitimately dangerous even here.


Jessie headed off to start healing, and Callie joined me as we watched everyone recover from the battle. Bethy appeared next to me, tossing me the gold sphere. "Wow," she said cheerfully. "That was crazy. I love when we do the big murder doll."


"It's not a doll," I corrected her tiredly.


She nodded solemnly. "Right. Action figure."


"What? No, that's not what I mean-" then I just sighed. It wasn't worth arguing about. I weighed the sphere in my palm, staring at the gold device. "Alright. Everyone take this time to rest a bit. We'll need to move out as soon as we can. We're going to get as many of these as we can in a straight line to the cliffs and that's it. No going deeper. I think if we hit that kobold city even we might die down there." What was worse, I got the feeling things were only just getting started. The succession war was already living up to the hype. I just hoped we would all manage the same.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We avoided the kobolds in the next few chambers. Between Dantalion and Callie's Path, we were able to safely navigate the other groups. We DID hear several violent confrontations through the caves. Or rather, we felt them. Those kobolds were WAY more dangerous than they looked, and I wanted no part of it.


Sadly, we didn't even get any loot from that dragon thing. It had dissolved as soon as we got rid of the wizard. The only upside was that we had gotten the axe for Benny, and my best friend was enthusiastically planning what to do with the soul inside as we walked.


"I could turn it into armor," he said consideringly. "Or maybe some kind of utility item? There are so many options."


Bethy squeaked with excitement. "Oh, why don't you replace your eyeballs. People always talk about sharp glances. You could make it so your eyes can cut people. Like 'hey what did you just say to me punk'? Schwoom eye slash!"


Her hands blurred out as she stepped into a complicated series of chopping and kicking motions that had nothing to do with eyes at all. Benny just hummed with interest. "I mean…I don't hate that."


Celine cleared her throat. "You will NOT gouge out your own EYES so you can cut things. I like your eyes, and I would prefer you be able to look into mine without blinding me."


Benny laughed guiltily, scratching the back of his head. "Right…yeah. Probably turning my eyeballs into weapons is a bad idea. You know, outside of battle." He hummed to himself. "I've been thinking about creating a secondary vessel. Like a puppet corpse body I can use in battle. Sebastian mentioned that as an option to prevent screwing up my foundation like he did. But honestly, I don't know if I have the materials for that."


"I say use your leg," I cut in. "Assuming the axe is going to be part of the invention, axe kicks are a notable thing. Infusing your kicks with severing force would be cool, and it wouldn't affect your leg outside combat probably. I assume you can control this new form of crafting well enough to arrange that?"


He beamed at me as we walked through the tunnel. "I can! Souls are beyond the grasp of most Skills. Necromantic crafting like mine uses spiritual essence to enforce structure on the usually unpredictable mechanisms of mad science. It's a genius discipline. Sebastian is a grade A monster in his own right, he just took some wrong turns early on. With the benefit of his wisdom I won't have that problem."


I hadn't considered that aspect of thing. Part of me wanted to try to learn a bit of it, to see if it might help me with me own soul manipulation, creating better forms or even Skills. But ultimately, I didn't have the time to try to explore MORE bullshit. I already had about two dozen combat abilities I had to keep track of and improve.


We stopped at the entrance to a cavern. "Bethy?" I asked my Vampire friend. She nodded and dissolved into mist, flowing into the chamber.


It looked empty, as they all had so far, but we did our best not to be sloppy about it. I stared into the center of the chamber, trying to spot the golden sphere. This one was a bit different than the first. We'd been through two more since then, and they were all a little different. This one was a dense jungle in the center of a large cave, like an indoor oasis. To my surprise, once Bethy made it in, there was a second of pause before the mist flowed back out of the trees.


She appeared in the middle of the cave floor looking confused. Shane?" She called out across the cavern."I…I don't know what happened. I went in and then came out at like the same time." She spun in a full circle, like a dog trying to catch its tail, but didn't seem to find anything.


I frowned, stepping forward slowly, Dantalion flaring to encompass the area. I rolled my Perception over the nearby cavern like a small wave rolling over the beach, taking in everything I could about the place.


What I discovered was…nothing. I frowned as I tried to focus harder, but I could tell that I would need to spend a lot of time here to dig up anything pertinent.


Not that I was drawing a blank exactly, more that I was getting really vague surface data that was completely useless to me. Plant types, growth patterns, seasonal distribution of nutrients in the soil…a whole lot of nothing.


Turning, I searched the crowd for some familiar faces. Daysia, Celine, and Alyssa were all over with Jessie and Randall. I waved them over, and when they arrived, I gestured to the oasis. "So…any of you have any ideas on what the hell that is? Bethy went in an came back out immediately with no delay. I figure trees might be to blame since…you know, trees are all that's there."


Daysia raised an eyebrow. "Seems a little unfair to assume the trees are doing it. Most trees don't bother with mischief. They're too busy growing and living their lives."


"True," I shrugged. "But they also don't grow into solid stone in an underground cavern with no sunlight." I pointed at the oasis, and she hesitated. "Look, no disrespect to trees here, can you just check?"


"Sorry, reflex," she said apologetically. "I'm used to defending trees. It's rare for them to have any real malice."


Alyssa grimaced. "Except Wisteria trees. Fuck Wisteria trees. They're all monsters."


"Well, obviously" the yellow haired dryad allowed. "But everyone knows that. I mean like…most trees. It doesn't matter. That oasis isn't all trees. There are some shrubs there too. Luckily Celine is here. Her forest magic is less tree specific. Cel, can you help us out with this? For recon your ability will be way more effective."


The elf girl nodded solemnly. "I can try to map it, but it'll be easier for us with a point of contact. We should call Sable over. Her root golems are perfect for this kind of thing. If the oasis has a built in defensive system, it's probably a formation, Chelsea might be able to help too. I heard she's not bad at those."


So we called over Sable and my sister. Chelsea hurried to join us, looking intrigued, and I smiled. She was always so interested in formations. I wasn't sure what rank her formation Skill was at, but I suspected it wasn't bad, even if she wasn't at the level of being able to do things like explore Grandmaster formations on her own, as I'd seen in the dungeon. Reaching into my ring, I withdrew one of Nats scrolls, then handed it to my sister. She shot me a grateful smile, then withdrew a coin and made a wish.


A scroll appeared, and she knelt down, unrolling it to study the layout of the formation. She hummed with interest. "Fascinating. This is a natural labyrinth formation. It's…hard to explain. Imagine you have a wheel, and there are a hundred spokes. You step into one side but you emerge from one specific spoke. All the spokes teleport you to that one exit spoke, except for one, which leads inside. The trees are like that. The spaces between them are all recursive interlinked paths. Step into any of them and walk right back out like you didn't pass through."


Bethy pouted. "I knew it, the trees are broken. It totally wasn't my fault."


"Sable," I said to the witch. "How many of those root golems can you make, exactly? It sounds like my sister might need some trial and error to get us through."


Chelsea nodded. "Yeah, that's a good strategy. I have a few ideas for possible life gates, a term for safe entry points on formations like this, but I don't have the skillset to dissect this quickly. Brute force is the smarter play."


That got a brilliant smile from Daysia. "THAT we can help with. Am I to understand the root golems work better with more powerful roots?"


"The more life energy is dormant in the roots the stronger the golem," Sable agreed. "The seeds I use sometimes are condensed from special vital plants soaked in blood. Usually my own, don't worry, but the energy soaks into the fibers and strengthens the roots, not to mention my own connection to them. Witchcraft works through symbolic connections, and having an actual blood tie to the golems makes them easier to control."


"Jessie can help with life energy," I mused. "And if you can use your tree singing to help control the golems, you might be able to make them feasible without the blood tie, right?"


Alyssa beamed. "That would definitely work," she said excitedly. "And once we find the path in, Celine can use the signature to map the rest of it, which will let us maneuver the trees out of the way, opening the entrance wider and making it easier to get in. We can all go in force, which would be a lot safer."


The dryads gathered together, approaching the edges of the oasis. Kneeling down, they began to hum. Tree singing was something I didn't know nearly enough about, but it was definitely interesting. Under their consistent inducement, the roots of the outermost trees began to churn and break through the stone, slithering out towards them. When they got close, Sable cut herself on a sharp athame she pulled from her ring, then flicked her fingers at the snarled net of roots.


"I don't need lots of blood," she explained. "Because they're helping, but each drop can still be used as a control node. The roots integrate the blood, and then I can form a connection between the system of roots and my circulatory system. Then I treat the roots like my own body and manipulate them. It's a foundational precept of witchcraft."


I got what she meant. The less native energy in the roots the more of her own power would be needed. She'd have needed a LOT more blood for this without the dryads.


Once the bloody glow spread over the root surface (slowly, mind) Jessie stepped forward and held up her hands. Green energy exploded out, soaking into the roots which all began to writhe and buck like agitated snakes.


Sable began to murmur, reaching into her pocket to pull out a small wooden doll she'd clearly carved herself. The doll was her, and it was very lifelike. She pulled a few strands of red hair and wrapped it around the doll. As soon as she got it secured, the ends of the hair caught fire, burning away to leave only a collar of blackened strands around its neck. She raised the doll, and before our eyes, about a dozen wooden figures formed from the root system.


These weren't the rudimentary golems I'd seen before. They each looked like the doll. At my glance, Sable shrugged. "Using a focus makes it easier to control a lot of them. Chelsea, where are they going?"


My sister had been scribbling on the diagram she'd wished for, and when Sable asked, she gestured down at it. "Fifteenth from the left, tenth, ninth, seventh, third from the right, eighteenth, twenty fifth. We'll continue from there." She pointed across the cavern at the spots as she mentioned them.


Sable nodded. "Sounds good, let's get started." She flicked her fingers and the forming golems stood and began to shuffle towards the forest. Once they arrived, they split up, entering the indicated sections. Most of them reappeared from random spots on the outside…but one didn't.


"Third from the right," Chelsea said with a smirk. "Now we have to start on the next one. Girls, if you could open up a path for me to work?" She glanced at the dryads and Celine, who grinned and began humming again. It was always so nice to work with competent people.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

After a few repetitions of the technique, my sister and the dryads had opened up an idyllic path for us to follow. To my surprise, rather than reveal the golden sphere we'd been waiting for, the path led further into the oasis. The small copse of trees, like everything else on this planet, was bigger on the inside. Staring off into the jungle, all we could see was a winding path, open and dappled with light shimmering off the cave ceiling from spiky white crystals.


"Looks like there IS enough of a path for us to bring a group," I said cheerfully, but as I stepped forward, Callie's hand lashed out and clamped down on my arm with terrified force.


"Wait," she said harshly. I frowned, glancing back to see if she was angry about something, but her eyes weren't on me. In fact, I didn't think there were on anything, or at least not anything in sight. Her blue black gaze was fixed on the path into the forest, but it was more looking THROUGH the space between the trees than at it.


I put a hand on hers. "Cal, what is it?" I could feel a cold wisp of dread worming its way through the bond, and blue black flames danced nervously along her fingertips as she swallowed thickly.


"Void," she said after a minute. "That oasis. It's not…it's been infected. They used the spatial warping as a carrier to create a shallowing. It's a small one, but it's there. Something is waiting for us. It's watching."


My blood went cold. "That's…that shouldn't be happening. This is the wishmaster succession war. Direct intervention is the one surefire way to breach the old man's neutrality. Like he's IN the war, but he never acts directly. He's just support. Attacking his descendants during the war would be a direct violation of his authority. He would HAVE to retaliate."


"The Void doesn't care," she said in a small, hollow voice. "The Void doesn't know fear, or doubt, or hesitation. The Void is hunger. All consuming and all encompassing. The wishes and desires of the mayflies of the mortal plane are but a whisper of wind in the ears of the great titans that dwell within the outer darkness. Behemoths of such colossal size and profundity that their very silhouette would shatter the minds of feebl-" she was swaying, her eyes filling with black, the pupil consuming her entire sclera, and I didn't even hesitate.


I grabbed her by the face, crushed my lips against hers, and breathed heretic fire right down her throat. She stiffened in my grip, eyes fluttering, but I held her there. After a second she relaxed. Leaning against me, and I let her go, pulling my mouth off hers and resting my chin on her head.


My mask had receded like it did when I ate, subconsciously activated in my moment of need. Callie just…stood there. The black in her eyes receded, and she was shaking as her glazed stare fixed blankly on the middle distance. I grimaced, squeezing her tightly in a reassuring hug. "What was THAT?" I asked worriedly.


"I…I let my guard down," she said shakily. "I thought under guard of the whole WCP we were safe. I wasn't circulating my heretic fire. It…it's a bit taxing. Not much, but keeping it up all the time is like walking around with your gut sucked in. I thought I didn't need to bother, so I let my guard down and-"


I put a finger to her lips. "Hey, none of that," I said firmly. "We all assumed this was safe. I didn't expect the void would dare to stretch their hands into this place."


"I feel like an idiot," she hissed angrily. "I know better than to get lazy. Complacency is death."


"No," I responded bluntly. "It isn't. That's why I'm here. We're a team. If you slip, I catch you, and if I slip, you're there to help. That's how we work. You've pulled my ass out of more than a few fires. Don't go getting greedy on me now. I'm perfectly entitled to save you once in a while. I'm not just a pretty face, you know."


She snorted, giggling roughly. "You're a dumbass. But you're my dumbass." She leaned up to peck me on the lips again. "Thanks."


"Well, sometimes I like to use my head for something other than as a place to hang my mask," I said modestly. "Mostly in those instances I use it as a blunt instrument, but the occasional thought is fun too."


That got another giggle, but we were cut off by a loud throat clear. "Hey, lovebirds, maybe have your moment some other time? Not to step on your vibe, but having a near seizure from perceiving a terrifying Void invasion and then getting distracted with cuddling is almost definitely considered bad form. Especially in a graded leadership exercise."


"That's…" I trailed off. "Actually probably a really good point. But Callie is more important than an optional task to gain a couple points." I glanced down at my wife again. "You alright?"


She nodded solemnly. "Yeah, don't worry about me. Now that I know to be on guard they can't touch me. You gave me all the tools I needed. It's just been months and we're in such a unique place I let myself slip. Won't happen again."


Jessie stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder, flooding her with green energy. Callie shot her a grateful smile and out healer shrugged. "Thought maybe a pick me up might help you stay focused. Let me know if you need another, ok?" She gave my wife a warm smile and then pulled her away from me for a heartfelt hug.


"So, I take it Callie won't be going in?" Chelsea said worriedly. "If she's in danger-"


"She is," I confirmed. "We all are. All the time. But we're safer in a Void Shallow with Callie running point. THe heretic fire protects her, but she still has the Path of the Abyssal Priestess. She hears their call, and can discern things from their workings that we can't. Plus she's safer here with all of us. And I'm absolutely bringing our heaviest hitters inside."


Benny gaped at me. "We're going IN?" He sounded aghast. "Why not just avoid it? We don't need the sphere bad enough to take the risk."


"We need to see how deep the infection goes," I sighed. "I can't see it all, but Callie's bond with me lets me pick some things up. The severity of the infestation will tell us how much the Void has permeated the dimensional structure of this world." I glanced at my wife. "Right? Because if that's not accurate tell me and our asses will be gone in a flash."


She winced. "I can't. You're right. The Void Shallow back in the dungeon was old and entrenched. Getting out of it was the only real priority. This one is new, and aside from finding out how deeply they've embedded themselves, we can and should try to dissolve it. We can sever the connection before it has a chance to become established. Otherwise we're just leaving it to fester and possibly trigger a Void Break down the line."


Inside our heads, through the bond, we shared another reason. A reason we didn't dare say out loud here where we might be being observed. For the Void to stretch its claws into the heirworld, it would most likely need help. Any external attempts to penetrate would have been noticed and stopped. Someone within the formation that suppressed this planet had to have helped. And since everyone in here was a WCP criminal…


We might have a traitor. Hell, they might not JUST be inside. The incident with my uncle was rattling around in my head. Outside forces were making inroads into the WCP, using the war as cover to slip by undetected, and not all of those forces were necessarily friendly even outside of their plans for conquest.


The others weren't privy to that line of thought though, so they mostly looked dubious. The idea of charging into an obvious trap to potentially disarm it over a prison planet we'd be leaving not long from now was apparently a bit counterintuitive to them.


To my surprise though, no one argued. I wasn't sure if it was the various tasks or just the normal bonding of subordinates supplemented by my contracts, but my people trusted me. Not just the ones I knew well, but others. Dayna and Whisper, the archers, didn't bat an eye at the decision, nor did Animal. They just accepted that what I said was what we'd do.


"I want the defensive specialists up front," I said after a moment of thought. "Line of interlocking shields. I'll be right behind them with Abel and Bethy. Callie, Jessie, Chelsea, Mel, Serah, and Holly, you all have that crazy flame combo thing. If we get attacked, the rest of us will hold the line and you burn…everything. Just everything you can see. Burn the trees to ash. Then burn the ash. Hell, burn the fire if you get the chance. Once the forest is going up we retreat. We CAN retreat, right?"


Callie nodded. "The entrance is going to be the most stable thing in there. It also shouldn't have any rules. No way they've had enough time to establish a power structure in there that can support that. There MIGHT be a problem though. The formation above us enforces the zones. The Shallow is NOT in that formation."


"It's fine," I assured her. "If anyone broke through it would be recent, and we have the forces to beat a C-ranker or two." With my staff more than up to the task of ending a higher ranked threat, not to mention an army of friends, I couldn't bring myself to sweat a beginner C-rank enemy at this point, not after the dungeon.


Chelsea cut in. "Destroying the trees, especially with Callie's flames and mine combined, should demolish the formation. Should we do that now? Would that prevent the Shallow from establishing?"


"It might," my wife said consideringly. "Like Shane said, if we hit a snag that's plan A, but until then, we should check to see how far along it is. It might be important later, so it's better to take a look when the situation is under control than to wait until our backs are against the wall later." Her voice was firm and confident, even though I could tell through the bond she didn't feel it at all. I let my hand fall to my side, subtly entwining my fingers with hers to let her know I was with her. I felt a pulse of gratitude and love through the bond and returned it, but we had other things to worry about.


We all got into position, taking up the formation I'd laid out, and then we headed toward the expanded path. The defensive line formed a half circle in front of the rest of us, keeping their shields locked while getting the most coverage. We arrived at the entrance to the oasis quickly enough, and we all stopped to stare over the line where the grass just popped into existence on the cave floor.


I triggered Dantalion and Mornax, defending as well as scanning ahead. I waited for a minute or two for it all to sink in so I would get the best info, but sadly it wasn't enough. I shook my head, and everyone sighed, then we began our journey inside.


We stepped over the line of grass and everything shifted subtly. The air became lighter, the light a bit brighter, and I could smell fresh air on the breeze, which hadn't even been there a minute ago. Slowly, we made our way along the path, getting deeper and deeper. I couldn't help but note that despite a lack of Danger Sense feedback, I could FEEL myself being watched. I tightened my grip on my staff, planting it firmly as I walked like a walking stick. I'd be ready whatever happened. I just hoped it would be enough.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The first hint that something was wrong wasn't an attack. We were waiting for that, but it never came. We walked for about ten minutes, taking turns along the path, and we passed a small pond with a bright orange fish in it. We avoided it, continuing our trek, and ten minutes later…we passed a small pond with a bright orange fish in it.


We passed it again ten minutes later, and the THIRD time, we finally stopped and stared at the thing in aggravation. "So…this is the same pond." I said after a minute of uncomfortable shuffling.


Callie nodded. "Yup, we're in some kind of recursive loop. Now that I'm looking for it, I can feel the shadows. They're all the same."


I hadn't known she could do that. Which worried me. Because while I might have missed it, it was equally likely she COULDN'T do it before now. Which meant her Path was getting stronger. That was not encouraging, considering what had just happened with it.


She noticed my worried gaze, probably through the bond, and shot me a reassuring smile. Her eyes flared once, a wave of blue black fire rolling out from her pupils, and I relaxed a bit. She was on guard now, and she knew to be careful. If she needed help, she could pull on me through the bond, and I had Leviathan ready to supercharge her soul defense.


"So," I asked my sister with a sigh. "I don't suppose this was on the formation palms?"


She shook her head. "Nope. Which means either someone in here is adjusting it on the fly, or much WORSE, we accidentally did it when we changed the layout."


"Why is that worse?" I asked skeptically.


"Because formations are not mad science," she said in a somber tone. "If we adjusted this one by accident, we could have accidentally induced ANY kind of effect. And formations aren't made to function like that. It's like rewiring a device with the wrong wires. It might work for a bit, but the wires will wear out, maybe wear through, and possibly catch fire. If we accidentally jailbroke this formation, it could be a ticking time bomb."


Cursing, I closed my eyes, focusing on Dantalion, and tried my best to pick up information. While I did that, I triggered a parallel to continue the conversation. "So, what are the chances that's what's happened here?"


"Not good," she assured me. "Formations are very specific types of structures. Accidentally jailbreaking one would be like knocking over a sculpture made of dominos and accidentally having them all bounce off the ground and land perfectly in position to construct a DIFFERENT sculpture right next to it. Possible but VERY unlikely."


I sighed. "Great, so we're probably just trapped in here with a hostile maniac who can alter the formation while we're still inside it. Joy."


"To an extent," she said with a waggle of her hand. "The formation is the Shallowing. Any serious alterations risk destabilizing the whole thing and shunting us all into the Void. Which would shunt THEM into the Void. Which means while they CAN mess with the structure, they have to do it within fault tolerance." She grinned at me. "I've sent the last five months doing research on formations, and I've learned quite a bit."


"Convenient," I laughed. "You happen to learn how we get through this?"


She nodded. "Like I said. Fault tolerances. Think of formations like circuits. The circuit is set up ahead of time, then energy is run through it. Naturally formed, handmade, it doesn't matter. Once the energy is flowing through the formation, it has to stay close enough to its original form that the circulation doesn't break, otherwise the whole thing can collapse.


"You can build in redundancies that will allow more alterations later, but those don't show up in natural formations almost ever." She looked around with a frown. "This might not BE natural, mind, hard to tell. But regardless, based on the layout I saw there weren't many redundancies. Which means a change like this has to be small and subtle. More importantly, it means they had to PULL that energy from somewhere to funnel it here."


I grinned at her, finally getting the idea. "You think they made a weak spot. Rerouted the energy from the formation to trap us and left a hole we can use."


That got a smug grin from my sister. "Yup. Think you can help find it?"


"I can," I said cheerfully. "But sitting here waiting for Dantalion sounds like a waste. Bethy, help me out here. I need to check for distortions. Help me check how this whole loop is working, will you?"


The Vampire beamed. "Yes! I can do that! Check it out, I'm super fast." Then she blurred, vanishing off into the trees.


"You think she knew you meant you needed to test ALL the possible passages?" Callie said with a chuckle. "Because honestly, I give even odds she was just so excited she didn't care and ran off anyway."


Bethy came barrelling through the trees, appearing in front of us. "Oh my gods!" She gasped. "Guys, you're here! Did you know there are clones of you back there? They were pretending to be trapped in a space loop, but I saw through it and escaped!" She looked over her shoulder quickly, seeming to relax when she saw nothing.


I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Bethy, just…tell me what you saw."


"Trees," she said immediately. "And then a pond. And then you. And then trees again."


Rolling my eyes, I gestured around us. "I'm trying to use Dantalion to scan this place. In order to do that I need points of contact. I want you to turn into mist and permeate the area, which will give me a better chance at picking something up."


She nodded slowly. "Ooooh, ok. That sounds like it might work. You sure I can't be cats again? That was fun."


"You can be cats later," I assured her. "For now I need fog, and preferably a lot of it."


She gave me a serious nod, then transformed into a torrent of mist, spreading out over the nearby area, rolling across the pond surface and around the base of the trees. Closing my eyes, I focused. Dantalion scanned everything, every inch of the nearby area. It was actually kind of painful once I pushed it a bit, because when it hit the edges of the loop the scan folded up over itself and I started getting spots where the overlap caused weird feedback.


I ignored the pain, but focused on the feedback. Bethy, in her fog form, provided a sort of neutral backdrop. She was WAY too complex for me to scan easily, and it would have taken weeks of constant study to make any progress understanding her, so I was able to just ignore that information and focus on what I needed to know.


Slowly, I traced the feedback spots, finding small patterns in the formation's energy flows. I couldn't do much with them, but I was able to transmit them to Callie, who manifested them out of shadow for Chelsea to study.


Within five minutes my sister hopped up from where she was sitting with a cheer. She stalked across the clearing, stopped in front of some random tree, and then kicked it in the base of the trunk sharply. There was a sort of groaning wheeze and the forest around us flickered, literally blinked out of existence, replaced by a very similar but slightly different forest with a pleasant looking path leading further into the woods.


Bethy was staring at my sister in awe. "Wow, you just hit it and it broke. Do you think they can fix it by turning it off and back on again?"


"That's a high level engineering skill," Benny said solemnly. "It shouldn't be used recklessly. But if it doesn't work you can always try cleaning it out with an air compressor. That fixes almost any problem. Pretty sure I saw Sebastian cleanse a possessed zombie that way."


"Can we go," I huffed. "Before they manage to do something ELSE to stop us?"


Benny snickered, and we all lined up behind the defensive perimeter, taking up our positions in the formation. I was standing behind a towering man with bronze skin and copper eyes, his hair twisted into long braids and a neatly trimmed goatee. He was wearing blood red plate armor that shone like quicksilver and carrying a door shaped shield with a handle on top that disappeared into the body of the weapon and was revealed in two places midway down, one for a grip halfway and the other a quarter of the way down to see through.


"Kellan," I greeted him as we resumed our trek. "Sorry you got stuck babysitting me."


My wife had insisted that the strongest member of the defensive team be in position to defend me as we moved forward. Which would have been fine, except she also insisted I be on the left wing of the formation instead of front an center. Kellan was our tankiest fighter and should have realistically been the tip of the spear, so I felt a bit bad for the bigger man (a full seven feet tall).


He just shrugged, not turning around. "Happens," he said in a surprisingly soft voice for such a big man. "You're the boss, so keeping you alive is only natural. My brother told me to watch out for you anyway. Drayce never would have gotten out of that dungeon without your scroll, at least not without lots of fighting with those voidspawn. You did us a big favor."


I just shrugged. They were working for me, so it wasn't like I hadn't been paid. Kellan and his brother Drayce were followers of the Lady. The Lady's people had the most durable defensive warriors among all the vanished god factions, which wasn't a surprise. I tended to get along with the Lady's followers better than any of the others, given my own training with her people, and I was more than comfortable trusting Kellan with my back. Or, in this case, my front, since he was taking the lead.


We chatted for a while, distracting ourselves from the trip, but I maintained Dantalion, ready and waiting for anything to change. So when my Danger Sense triggered, I knew exactly what had caused it almost immediately, and I called out quickly for everyone to stop.


In front of us, along the path, was a long strip of high wheat stalks, swaying gently in the breeze. It was peaceful and serene, but I could sense something moving through the stalks, something low to the ground and fast, skittering back and forth among the wheat. I squinted into the field, which looked off bookended by rows of trees. The dryads had moved them out of the way of this path, and hadn't mentioned the wheat, which meant it was probably new.


I considered who to send up to fix this…but then I realized I didn't need to send anyone. I pushed through my people, Kellan the only one ranging ahead to cover me, and stood in front of the wheat. I rapped my staff on the ground and triggered Wrath.


A wave of burning ash spread from in front of me, consuming the wheat. There was a scream of outrage and a series of black shapes flew up and back, retreating from the what field and landing on tree branches nearby, glaring down at us.


Praying mantises. Mantii? Stabby bugs. They were big black stabby bugs covered in obsidian chitin. Their eyes glowed an eerie grey blue, and I could feel a sense of despair come off them that reminded me of the mist back in the dungeon. Void creatures. They hissed menacingly, and at the sound, a series of chittering screeches came from around us. Leaves rustled as about a hundred of the things skittered out of cover, revealing themselves as the emerged onto the branches in malicious expectation. Fuck. I hated bugs.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The stabby bugs didn't attack right away, to my surprise. Instead, their creepy eyes pulsed in time with each other, and an otherworldly cascade of overlapping voices rang out. "Halt, intruders. You enter the territory of the Anatta Mantis Clan. Retreat if you value your lives." They had no mouths, so the speech just kind of appeared from midair, and as it did, they smashed their bladed scythe hands against each other menacingly as if to punctuate the threat.


"Oh hey," Benny said in a faux cheerful voice. "The giant murder bugs talk. That's not nightmarish at all. And look, they even have a freaky hive mind thing going on so they talk in unison."


Bethy cooed in sympathy, patting his shoulder. "Aww, don't be scared, I'll protect you from the big bad bugs. If they mess with you, I'll banish them to the caverns of eternal winter!"


"No!' I turned to glare at her. "Damn it, what did we say about making up planes of torment? I'm pretty sure you convinced so many of the godchildren that the "pit of cheddary doom" was a real thing that you almost manifested it. I'm STILL not sure one of them isn't going to end up making it into a Domain!"


She gave me a somber nod. "The pit as as real as it is delicious. May your cheddar be sharp and your gouda be smokey."


"Can you talk to them?" I asked Callie as I turned away from the crazy Vampire I associated with.


My wife shrugged. "I mean, if they believe in cheese hell I doubt they'll listen to any logical rebuttal. I guess I could try, but ultimately I think we're just going to have to let that play itself out."


I threw both hands in the air. "Am I the ONLY serious person here? The mantises! Mantii! Whatever the plural is."


"I think it's Mantee," Benny added helpfully.


Bethy shook her head. "No that's a sea creature. Or the student of a mentor?"


"Yes," Callie said with a giggle. "I can talk to them. My Path will make it easy." She smiled at our friends. "And thank," she added. "For trying to take some of the tension out of this situation. I appreciate it."


Bethy shrugged. "It's ok, I could tell it was…bugging you." She turned and looked over her shoulder. "Hey Serah, did I do that right?"


A hand raised from the crowd, showing a thumbs up. "Yes," called the bronze angel. "That was an excellent joke." We all groaned, worried and afraid that our resident deadpan punster was influencing Bethy. Because that was all we needed.


Callie turned to regard the mantis army. "Greetings," she said calmly. I am Calliope Wyndham."


"Priestess," intoned the army. "Deepchild. You seek a parley? An alliance? You wish to cleanse the filth that infests our domain?"


Callie flinched. I think more at Deepchild because it reminded her of that creepy priest than anything else. "No," she said firmly. "To the latter two. A parlay maybe, if you're willing to retreat and abandon this Shallow."


"Why?" they asked in unison, a cascade of voices echoing across the wooded area. "Why would we surrender? Why would we flee?"


"Because you'll die," she said calmly, and in the coldest tone I'd ever heard from her. Her eyes pulsed an unnatural blue as she spoke. "There is no other outcome, no other result. We will roll over you like death made manifest, and when we're done, we'll still destroy this place. THat's wasteful, you're important tools of the Void. You should preserve yourselves."


They cocked their heads. All of them. It was creepy. "We are tools," the said in confusion. "You spoke this truth. What good are tools if not used?"


"Use implies purpose," she said mildly. "To die for no purpose is waste. It's a sin against the Void. Your best use would be to retreat, to conserve yourselves for a useful function. Otherwise, you're simply casting away the resources of the Void on worthless trifles. This is a failure of your mission."


The mantises froze, waiting. The eyes blazed, then dimmed, then strobed in a strange, uneven flickering pattern.


"This is…your words…purpose…function-" The voice started to babble, its volume and pitch wobbling up and down as it spoke. "You are strange. You speak with the voice of the void, but your words are poison. False prophet. Unclean thing. Heretic. Heretic. HERETIC!"


Their eyes shifted from blue to blood red, blazing to life as they threw back their heads and SCREAMED the last word. I guess they did have mouths.


Callie cursed, spreading her wings, and flames leapt to her hands. She clapped them together and there was an explosion of heretic fire, rippling out in waves. I didn't understand what she was doing until I looked closely and saw the invisible warping in the air as their screech met the flames. They had used some kind of sonic Void attack.


"Kellan," I roared. "Position!" I stepped back as our defenders surged forward, erecting their shieldwall in front of us. We retreated and they formed a circle around us, with the second wave making a line directly behind them. "Dayna, Whisper, arrow barrage."


Our archers drew, firing like rainfall as the mantis army poured out of the trees around us. We were in the center of the circle of defenders. I grimaced, then turned to my sister. "Chelsea, think you could use your diagram to buff our archers?" I pointed at the mantises nearby, who had arrows sticking out of them, but only vaguely. They weren't penetrating deep.


She nodded grimly. "I got it." She closed her eyes, and her yin yang diagram appeared above us rotating slowly. I reached for Mephistopheles, emitting my destructive flame as Callie poured out her own. Gabe unleashed the Adamant, and Abewl's infinite blood sea poured up into the spinning symbol. The forces all began to meld and condense, like they were being slowly ground together into a purer form of strength.


As the diagram expanded, the archers fell under its influence, and as we watched, their eyes began to burn with a strange greyish misty flame.


A lot of people underestimated my sister. Given my nonsense and Bethy's craziness and Abel's talent, Chelsea wasn't always the standout in our group. But there was a REASON my parents had split up to protect us when she manifested her abilities. My grandfather was a demigod, a disciple of the Revenant himself, and Enshrining Darkness spoke for itself.


Her abilities were naturally antithetical, but both absurdly powerful, and the artistic conception of her current Path didn't just SOLVE those problems, it capitalized on them. Rather than an explosion, her diagram created a strange force that consumed and coopted. The corruption of Enshrining Darkness and the purification of her flame allowed her to overtake and then cleanse any any energy, perfectly supplementing the concept of the diagram.


Chelsea wasn't the first person to use that symbol, I'd checked, but she WAS the first person to form it with both a divine and semi divine inherited ability. It wasn't even POSSIBLE to attain that level of complex ability at our level without being born with it, and Chelsea had been born with TWO.


Her grasp on combat had never been particularly high, but my sister's potential surpassed every single person in our group, even Bethy. Chelsea was, unequivocally, a natural born monster, and she was finally showing the world what that meant.


With a half dozen twangs, bow strings snapped, and grey flamed arrows exploded out into the crowd of mantis warriors, tearing into their chitinous bodies like boiling water poured on cotton candy. Chelsea wasn't done though. She growled darkly and the diagram churned out further, covering our entire circle. Kellan and his defenders had been taking a hell of a beating, but suddenly, they were infused with the powers of our core group. Bethy's domain spilled out, augmenting Abel's blood sea, and it infused their bodies, boosting them even more.


Whirling his door sword up to catch the hilt, Kellan roared, sweeping it before him like a wheat thresher, cutting down multiple mantises in a masterful melee of machine like massacre mentality.


The mantises, seeing the way the wind was blowing, leapt back up onto the branches, their numbers thinned to no more than a dozen. "HERETIC!" They shrieked in unison. "You will know no peace. No succor. You will be hunted and butchered like an animal. You are an affront to the sacred silence. An abomination against the Void. Your existence will not be tolerated! You wil-"


A head exploded under my staff. In fact. A dozen heads exploded under a dozen staves. All mine, all merciless. Twelve clones stood on twelve branches, staring coldly down at the toppling bodies of the mantis things.


"Nobody," I said as I let Beelzebub fade and stepped lightly off the branch I had appeared on through Double Trouble. "Threatens my wife."


I turned to my friends. "Now, understanding that we might have been able to question them to discover more details about what we might face moving forward, does anyone have any problems with how that was handled?" No one said anything. I stepped over the corpse that had landed just in front of where I'd stepped down. "Lovely, then why don't we move on."


I strolled back over, taking my place in the formation as it spread back out into its previous arrow shape. I put an arm around Callie's shoulder, and she leaned her head against me. I could feel her relief, her fear, her gratitude, and even a little bit of annoyance all mixed together. I smiled. Callie wasn't a shrinking violet. Part of her was irritated I'd stepped forward. But she also knew that was petty, because this was a big deal, and accepting help from family when you're in trouble isn't exactly shameful.


Sending my amusement and smugness, she pouted up at me, poking me in the ribs lightly with an elbow, just enough to be noticeable and let me know she wasn't amused.


Benny stepped up next to us, whistling. "Damn, Shane. You just fucking crushed their heads like watermelons. How'd you know that would work?"


I blinked at him. "How did I know decapitation would kill them? I kills most things."


"I mean, they're bugs," he pointed out. "Not to mention a hivemind. Honestly you had no reason to assume- OW!" He yelped, his ankle turning as he "accidentally" stepped in a randow sinkhole the size of a dinner plate full of nearly frictionless dust. He glared at me as Celine stepped up to help him out of it.


She gave him a reproachful shake of the head. "Honestly, do you have to ruin their moment? Serves you right."


"How is this MY fault?" he whined as he pretended to limp forward on his bum anjle (it was fine, he was a D-ranker). "I was just pointing out the assumptions he made-" he tripped, sprawling face forward as ANOTHER mysterious pothole opened up under his foot.


My wife giggled, and I saw Benny wink at me surreptitiously, forcing me to smother a laugh. I knew my friend wasn't a complete idiot.


Sadly, the amusement was short lived. "With them dead, will the Void know about you?" I asked worriedly. "Because I didn't think this was going to turn into a target on your back. The heretic flame-"


"Is made to consume and nullify the Void," she said gently. "Once it merges with my Path, it shouldn't be as overtly offensive to them. But until I hit the peak of D-rank, it's going to be a potential problem. That particular swarm appears to be gone, but whoever is managing this Shallow will probably notice if I use my flame in front of them. We need to be prepared."


I grimaced, but I knew she was right. Unfortunately, that was probably going to be an issue of sooner rather than later, because the trees around us had changed, shifting to a much more ominous looking treeline of twisted black trunks without leaves. Whatever was coming, it wasn't going to be pleasant. I tightened my arm around Callie, subconsciously putting myself in front of her as much as possible. We had no time to prep, and I was betting whoever we were heading for would notice my wife. If they did, they'd meet the same fate as those mantises. I wouldn't even hesitate.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We walked for quite a while, but we weren't attacked again. Everyone was tense, ready for battle, but despite our sharpened senses and focus, we didn't end up stumbling on anything for the next few miles. As we walked, the black trees became sparser, the air became colder, and the ground beneath our feet became hard and cracked. It felt like this place was dying, slowly losing vitality the further we got.


Finally, after about twenty minutes, we came to across something different. A house. Or, a shack really. A small cottage made of bluish grey boards that looked like they were barely holding together, with a V shaped thatched roof plopped right on top.


In front of the cottage sat a girl, maybe a bit younger than we were, at least physically. She was sitting in a rocking chair with a pair of needles, knitting…something. It looked like a muscle suit. But it was made of actual muscles. Like she was constructing the underlayer of a human body to slip between skin and bone.


On either side of her sat a pair of pitch black hounds, each sporting three large glowing grey blue eyes and strange fins on either side of their heads. They watched us approach silently.


The girl, with strawberry blonde hair swept up into a pair of braids under a large floppy hat, smiled at us. "Oh, guests! Hello. Sorry I can't get up, I'm a bit busy." Her eyes flicked to Callie, and the bottle green irises flashed copper, her pupils narrowing to slits as she sniffed the air. "And a distant relative, far from home. Welcome little sister. What brings you to my door?"


Callie stepped forward. "I'm here to find out who is turning this place into a Void Shallow."


"To what end?" The girl asked cheerfully. "Are you planning to stop me?"


"I'd prefer you stop yourself," my wife said wryly. "I don't know who you are, but this can't be a healthy thing to do. The WCP won't look kindly on people interfering with their affairs. The Void might be beyond their reach, but you aren't. You're a priestess, right?"


The girl shrugged. "Whatever word you like. The Void Children are a force of nature. We, their servants, go by many names. I see you're a relatively new addition to our family. Most of us have been enlightened to the Void from a young age. I can forgive a bit of ignorance from a new convert." She smiled wickedly. "Rebellious children often make the most loyal converts."


My stomach tightened. "She's not converting to anything," I cut in. "And you aren't welcome here. Get lost."


Her eyes flashed back to that copper snake state as she glanced at me dismissively. "The Void overlays all of reality. Welcome or unwelcome makes no difference to us. I've come to save this wicked place. The noise and violence of this fragile world are an affront to the peaceful silence of the void. I won't be lectured by parasites like you, sucking the resources of the universe dry to feed your pathetic hunger for progress."


Callie stared at her for a moment, then her eyes widened. "That's why the Void is so hostile. Renown. Legends echo through the fabric of the universe, Ascendants acting like receivers and transmitters all in one. Renown is weighted, so the high rankers would be even louder in the ether. The Void Children can hear it."


The girl actually teared up. "Our poor masters. Listening to the howling of you attention seeking children. Their peaceful sleep disturbed by a cacophony of senseless prattle. It's no wonder they seek your deaths."


"Well you don't exactly seem like the quiet type," I said archly. "You're D-rank. You don't get there without renown."


She bowed her head reverently, an almost drunken smile on her face. "We are the blade of the silent, the hand of the unheard. We seek to silence the screams of the unworthy for our masters. Once our holy mission is accomplished, we too will close our eyes and sleep, descending forever into silence, becoming one with the void."


"Oh, suicide cultists," I grimaced. "Fantastic. Because that always goes well for us."


"Shut your mouth," she snapped, eyes flashing as she flowed to her feet. She was FAST. Like, so fast I barely tracked it. "You speak of our masters like you are worthy to cast judgement." She stepped forward off the porch, the two hounds rising silently and spreading out around her, each circling in a different direction. "This is the company you choose to keep, little sister? Perhaps not even the will of the masters can enlighten you."


I snorted. "Sounds like an excuse to kill her off because you're intimidated. I get that, she's pretty amazing."


"Aww, thanks hon'," my wife said warmly. "But I'm good with her finding me unworthy. I don't want to work for those slithering fucks anyway. Besides, we don't have the option of ignoring her." She glanced past the girl. "Or rather, we're not even talking to a person. Are you going to keep pretending?"


There was a shift, and the two windows of the house lit up. It happened from the bottom up, like eyelids opening, and the windows glowed with copper light, a pair of black lines through the center reminding me strongly of the eyes staring out of the girl's head.


"She's a fucking BUILDING?" I asked incredulously. "That's a thing?"


Callie shrugged. "We've seen powerful Ascendant buildings, we've seen artifacts with consciousness, or at least golems. Why not a living building? Some sort of gatehouse I'm guessing."


"I hold open the tears between this world and the world that is between," said the girl with a smug grin. "You can't close it unless you remove me. And I assure you, little sister, that will not be an easy task."


As she spoke, the two hounds began to change. They grew larger, more indistinct. Their black hides became dimmer, to the point where they seemed to CONSUME the light around them rather than just fail to reflect it. They shifted from quadrupeds to hunched bipeds, paws becoming clawed hands and they hunched menacingly behind the girl, eyes blazing with hungry malice.


Callie grimaced at her. "I'm not your sister, and I don't mind a little hard work." She spread her wings behind her, the massive appendages billowing her cloak as her hands caught fire. The girl's face shifted from malicious amusement to horrified outrage, but she didn't have time to react before I reached out with Wrath, stomping my foot and creating a lake of burning ash under the shack that was her real body. Ash infused with heretic fire.


The blue green sea of burning dust that opened up under the house quickly began to swallow the wooden structure, and the girl's face twisted in agony. "WHAT?" She screamed. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" She turned to glare at the dogs as she gripped her abdomen. "What are you waiting for, KILL THEM!"


Heretic fire. I still didn't understand it. I designed the stuff to protect Callie's soul from the Void. It even had soul defense elements in it. But somehow, the interaction between all the various elements had created something…else. Something the Void KNEW about already and was apparently actively afraid of.


The house creaked and shifted as the heretic fire flooded the cracks and spilled out of it, consuming the building from the inside. The girl hacked up some blue flaming blood, screaming in rage, and then blurred forward to hit us head on.


With a swirl of mist, Bethy appeared between our group and the girl, clawed fingers slashing out to clatter against the needles the girl was using to attack. Their arms blurred, a thousand echoing clangs smashed so thoroughly together that they sounded like a continuous tone. The girl's eyes filled with panicked hatred. "Who are you? How dare you defy the Void! Remove yourself from my path or suffer the consequences!"


Flecks of blood bubbled out from her lips as she spoke, blue black fire infusing it. Her speed was slowing, her body swaying and unbalanced. Abel had moved along with Bethy, smashing into one of the hounds, and Callie poured her flames out in a wave in front of the other one, driving it back with a hissing growl that did NOT sound canine.


With a scream, the house shuddered, exploding up out of the ash as it literally LEAPT on a pair of giant chicken legs. The girl glared hatefully at us as she flickered, appearing on the roof of the house as it crouched behind the lake of burning ash.


"Heretic!" she hissed at my wife. "You DARE? You show yourself to me? How do you have that flame? How have you acquired that power? The Heretic God is dead. To serve a rotting corpse after being chosen by my lords. Abomination! Unclean thing!"


My eyes widened. Because I finally realized something that I hadn't actually considered until now. Callie was a Heretic Angel. While Angels could be a species with random abilities, historically, they were messengers and avatars of the GODS. I'd never considered the implications of what that racial trait might mean.


I'd thought I created that trait from whole cloth, but apparently I'd underestimated the depth of the waters I was swimming in. I'd somehow lucked into creating a catalyst for what had to be an EXISTING racial trait, and one that no one I was aware of had ever heard about.


This little encountered had shed a lot of light on a lot of things. A cult of specially raised Void servants existed, and they weren't just people. Buildings at least, probably beasts, golems, artifacts. Regardless, we needed to kill this thing immediately. Callie's current nature couldn't be exposed, not if she was related to some ancient mortal enemy of the Void. My face hardened.


Kneeling down, I put a hand in the ash, then I triggered Behemoth. From the lake of burning dust, a colossal figure rose. Chelsea, knowing what I was doing, manifested her diagram. I felt power flow into me from the others, reinforcing and infusing me as I created the giant simulacrum. I threw my staff, and the hand of the construct snapped out to catch the expanding weapon.


Before the house girl could even reorient, I drew on the heretic fire again, infusing it into an Extinction event. As I did, I triggered the ability of my staff, elevating the blow itself to C-rank as I drove the butt of the weapon straight through the door.


There was a sort of ripple from within the house as the explosive force contracted in the center so hard it disrupted the air, then a sphere of dark blue fire expanded out at a rate too fast to follow, consuming the entire place in a ball of hyper destructive flaming energy. As it faded away, I swept the staff on a blurring slash, infusing it with as much power as I could draw. The two hounds, reeling from the death of their master, took the heretic fire infused hits head on and exploded into ash.


I flicked a finger, letting the construct dissolve, dust blowing away in the wind as I dismissed the staff back to its place in my soul. I turned to glance at my wife. "So, did that take care of the Void Shallow, or is there something else you need to do?"


She stared at me, eyes wide with shock. I got that. I didn't usually do the overwhelming force thing. I honestly needed to develop a stronger attack form. All my biggest hits were cooperative. Which was great most of the time, but in an emergency I wanted to have some way to throw down some real damage.


"I need to work on the connection point," she said after a second. "It's under the dust. The house was on top of it. Can you…" I nodded, waving a hand and triggering Agares to dissolve and shift the ash. She beamed at me, leaning up to give me a peck on the cheek before she hurried away. I just frowned at the spot where the house had been. This situation was getting more complicated by the minute. I just hoped I could keep up with the changing circumstances well enough to protect Callie from the consequences of my own damned actions.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Reversing the process of converting the formation into a void shallow was time consuming and complicated. Back in the dungeon, the thing had been old and established, which was what made it stable enough to use the mist as a carrier to spread across the entirety of the screeching shoals. This one was much more recent and much less solid, so it COULD be reversed, but doing so required Callie to play with the Void in a way I really didn't like.


Void was…complicated. The way Callie explained it, it was a spiritual as well as a physical contagion. The void wasn't just an underlayer of reality, it was kind of an inversion. The Void Children and their corruption was similar to renown, but kind of the opposite. They were gods, and they harvested the spread of that contagion like normal gods did renown.


At its core, renown was faith, belief, it was the force that codified the universe, sheer force of will shaping reality. The void was the opposite. Despair, hopelessness, that was why the mist had worked the way it had.


This was a problem for humanity, because like the house thing had said, it meant renown was incompatible with void beings. Namely, it was LOUD. The Void was silent and empty, despairing and deathly still. The Void's despair and hopelessness was entropic, degrading all things positive, and the Void itself was the same way. It was, in a sense, anti-space, and when it intruded into REAL space, the actual positive spatial energy it came into contact with sort of…decomposed.


Callie, interestingly, could reverse this process. The Heretic Flame protected the soul, and space seemed to involve spiritual aspects of the actual universe. She tried to explain that part, but I had absolutely no clue what she was talking about, so i just smiled and nodded. My own research and understanding of things like mythology and skill construction was complicated enough, Callie could have the Void stuff.


Regardless, the issue we were running into here was that while the heretic fire could repair void damage (and therefore seriously disrupt void CREATURES, since the Void corruption was what they were made of) the corruption of the spatial energy was an order of magnitude higher than the kind of stuff that happened to living or even Void beings. This was a natural mechanism of reality, with the Void and the universe being DESIGNED to work in tandem.


Which meant in order to cleanse the Void energy from this shallow, she needed to take command of it and guide it back into the Void itself before she could begin using the heretic fire to repair this place.


Naturally, we didn't want to deal with a bunch of people underfoot while she did it, so we sent the majority of our forces off to keep finding golden spheres. Despite this major problem, I wasn't expecting special treatment from the elders. They didn't like me, and if I gave them an excuse to suppress me they would do it. Wasting potential points to work on this was going to be a net loss for me, no matter how you sliced it.


Beyond that, our suspicion that someone in the WCP was working with the Void made it dicey to rely on anyone up in the station. I doubted those high and mighty figures were sitting around watching us walk across forests or stop to rest. Chances were there was someone in charge of monitoring, and they were cutting together a highlight reel or something. That kind of position would be a key failure point for a mole to exploit, and my luck was bad enough that it was safer to assume that was the case than not. If it wasn't we didn't lose anything, but expect the worst and you'd never be disappointed.


Which was why Callie and I were now standing, alone, in front of a strange rift in the air. It looked…sick. Like the world had an infection. It was hard to see, really, strange ripples that twisted the air in unhealthy and disgusting ways, but only if you looked close enough.


If I used Dantalion, I could feel SOMETHING seeping out of it. It wasn't exactly the same as the mist, it was more ephemeral. It was the sensory equivalent of catching a dark form out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned to look nothing was there. Only it was out of all the corners of my eyes, and it was making me feel suffocated.


Subconsciously, i called the heretic fire through the bond, coating myself in the stuff. The sensation faded, but didn't disappear. Callie smiled at me sadly. "It's uncomfortable, I know."


"Not to you," I pointed out. I could feel that. I didn't love it.


She shrugged. "It's…soothing. It makes me feel like resting. Like white noise or rain sounds. It's my Path. of course, I also think the fact that it can't hurt me helps. I have the heretic fire coursing through me constantly, like I promised. I'm only susceptible to the positive aspects. And YES, there are positives. The Void is a natural counterweight to existence. It's not NICE, but it's necessary, not to mention useful. Void travel is one of the key reasons the vanished gods have managed to keep up with the six."


I knew that. I'd experienced it myself. In retrospect, that first transport on Rackham had been the initial clue that the vanished gods were colluding with the void.


"So, how do you…get rid of it?" I asked after a moment of thoughtful silence.


She reached out, and her pupils expanded, filling her whole eye until it was just a pool of black, shot through with brief, disturbing flickers of blue grey. Her fingers twined in the sickening spatial currents, and she started to pull them. Not all at once, a bit here, a bit there, it reminded me of someone trying to untangle a big pile of chords. Slowly, she freed up a…strand? Then another, then she started to weave them together.


Her expression was strained as she slowly untangled and then reworked the strands. Callie had sensed the Void many times, and had communed with CREATURES, but actual Void Manipulation was not something she'd done before. In realty, she was cheating, using hwe Shadow Manipulation and her Path at the same time. Callie had been Manipulating shadows for years now, and had used her Abyssal Path through those for a long time. She told me that in some ways, the Void was like reality's shadow, and that using that imagery, combined with her Path, made it feasible, if difficult, to capture and adjust it.


Seeing how exhausting it was for her though, I decided to help her out. I put a hand on her shoulder, then reached through the bond and used Dantalion through her. I made sure Leviathan was active before starting, because I wasn't sure what a deep analysis of the Void would do to me, but I focused on letting my information gathering form slowly churn away, the analyzing power slowly sinking deeper and deeper.


Through Callie's senses, I saw able to get a foothold into analyzing the Void. In some ways, it was the same as analyzing reality, but backwards. Still, it was exhausting and difficult, and it kind of hurt.


With the additional feedback though, Callie's ability to manage the void became smoother. She could have done something like that herself, but it would have meant lowering her guard and accepting in the Void influence, which neither of us were willing to let her do. I'd rather take a little pain than put my wife at risk of being turned into a psychotic Void puppet.


Finally, she triggered several parallels with Piece of Mind, stacking them together to help offset the load of freeing up and maneuvering the strands.


Rather than tie it in a ball or something, Callie used the Void stuff to create a simulacrum of a person. Specifically, of the house girl. Her shadow clone ability could be used on others, though it was less effective without a ton of very specific data. But this didn't need to be combat ready. She was just hoping the form would buy us a few seconds of confusion once she pushed it back through the tear that the influence had been seeping from.


It took about four hours to do it. She had to individually weave the muscle fibers, which we based on the muscle suit the girl had been knitting, in order to make it dense enough to fit all the influence into that one form. Once she finished, she commanded it back through, and the construct turned and walked casually into the tear.


Once it was gone, she took a deep breath, then held out her hands and focused. Blue black flame flared off her as her wings spread, and she focused her intent though the fire, sending a torrent of the stuff into the tear. It hit the strange crack in the world (which I'd been able to kind of reverse echolocate through the corruption I'd been helping her sense) and clung, coating the tear.


It started to close, but slowly. I had an idea. This stuff was partly made of Leviathan, which was made of Zagan, for the purposes of soul repair and protection. It was good at protection, and apparently the repair was a unique ability, but my own soul repair ability was faster if more specialized. I triggered Zagan, then offered her my own fire through the bond. I felt her draw it, and there was a flash of green among the blue and black.


It was like pouring hot oil onto an open flame. The green flames caught and were consumed by the blue, burning away but speeding up the process. It took less than ten minutes for the rift to be burned away, sealed completely, and Callie collapsed backwards in exhaustion when it was done. I caught her, obviously.


I lowered her to the ground, setting her head in my lap, using her cloak as a pillow since I was in armor. "You ok?"


"Yeah," she panted. "Sorry, that was a lot."


I smiled softly. "Worth it though. Take a look." I gestured to the forest around us, which had changed. As she'd removed the void taint and then healed the breach, the healing had radiated out in a strange inversion of the way the corruption spread. All around us, leaves bloomed on previously black trees, grass grew where they had only been barren earth, within a minute or two, the clearing turned from a blasted wasteland to a picturesque forest clearing.


I'd condensed all the ash from that lake into a hard casing to get it out of the way, and when it was purified and reversed, the poison fire had somehow inverted too. Something about the Zagan purification power had erased the toxicity AND the flame, and purifying water had sprung up from the cracks in the rock filling the lake within moments.


"I…I didn't even know I could DO that," I said as I stared at it. "Did you know I could do that? Or maybe I can't. Purification plus Void is inversion? But like…good inversion? I wonder if that'll be what you can do once you combine your ability with the trait?"


She hummed absently, and I looked down to find that she's drifted off to sleep. I laughed, lifting her head to adjust my legs. I'd been sitting on my feet and if I was going to be here a while I didn't want my legs to go numb, I crossed them, then set her head back down and just settled in to enjoy the view.


While this didn't solve any of our major problem right in this moment, the fact that the two of us managed to do this, something probably no one else on this planet could have done, made me pretty hopeful about managing Callie's condition. As for the Heretic God…well, I'd have to contact my grandparents to look into that. I had a feeling that was going to be a new and y complicated factor, but it was better than the alternative. We were safe (for some value of that word), we were together, and we could handle anything. Things could definitely be worse.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We waited for the others to report back before getting up. Bethy and Abel had divided the group in two, and with them running things I wasn't too worried. Bethy could scout pretty well when she needed to, given her mist form, and I'd her running point on recon. She might mess around sometimes but she'd never put our people in unnecessary danger when I was trusting her to run things.


They came back with seven orbs total, counting the ones we'd already gotten. After a brief consideration, I decided that was enough. Thirty two points after turn in wasn't too bad. I still had no clue what anything cost, but based on the speed of collection, I doubted we'd need to drop hundreds of them per person or anything.


We headed for the exit at speed, and with Callie's ability, we managed to avoid running into either people or kobolds until we reached the closest web bridge.


Arriving at the exit cave, we all stopped before we stepped onto the web. "Let me examine this stuff for a minute," I told my people, holding up a hand. I knelt down, triggering Dantalion as I focused hard on the strands.


Aside from wanting to make sure the collection of thin semi translucent ropes my army of hundreds was about to walk across could hold up our weight, I was also making sure there were no traps here. The Kobolds had been in charge of this area for generations, and it wouldn't be a surprise for them to have trapped some of the entrance and exit paths.


My senses permeated the strands, and I focused on them, waiting and watching as more and more data was accrued. After a minute or two, I realized a few things. Firstly, these threads weren't exactly silk. They were more like a sort of semi silk crystalline structure. Veins of latticed structures bloomed inside the strands, laid out in special patterns to create formations. Beyond that, the strands THEMSELVES were woven in a specific way, creating a second layer.


Which gave me a sneaking suspicion, so I called Chelsea up, pointed out the construction, and then mentioned my hypothesis. She glanced around, studying the layout of the silk bridges, and eventually nodded. "Yup. This whole thing is one big formation. The caves, cliffs, and bridges are all specially laid out. Three layer formation structure like this is…I don't know what the fuck made this, but it definitely wasn't D-rank. A, at least. Maybe higher."


"What does it do?" I asked cautiously. "Like no one mentioned dying from walking on it, so I assume it's not offensive. No way the structure is only for durability. Can you figure out what the purpose is?"


"Gods no," she said with a laugh. "This is for beyond my level it's comical. It's like asking a beginner blacksmith apprentice to take apart an S-rank artifact. The scale of knowledge separating us is so wide they might as well be engaged in a completely different profession."


I cursed. "Fine, then I guess we stick with the old "if it wanted to hurt me, I'd be dead by now" standby. I declare this bridge safe to walk on. Now move your asses people, I'd rather not get sniped on the walk over." I glanced around, studying the other bridges for groups of travelers. Luckily I didn't see any right now.


Still, I let Kellan take the lead, Callie and I taking up positions behind the armored man as He held up his door sword. We made it about fifty feet before my Danger Sense went off. I triggered Mornax and Sammael, my wings spreading so I could pull strength from the air for the Mountain Stance portion. I pushed Callie behind me, ready to tank the blow, but I was shocked when nothing actually hit me.


Instead, there was a low whump of air being broken, and a wickedly sharp glowing arrow blurred across the intervening distance between us and where I'd finally spotted the attack. I was able to see it in the light of the glowing shot right before impact, and was surprised to see that it was ALSO an arrow, one made of a thorny black iron, with lots of cruel looking hooks along the shaft.


The glowing arrow, fired by Dayna, split the other down the middle before arcing off into the distance. Almost before the sound from the collision had faded, there was a twang of a bowstring and another arrow flow past me, heading along the same angle the attack her come from.


Beyond that, another dozen arrows left bow strings as my archers engaged in a direct confrontation with the small party of darkly dressed figures two bridges over and three above us. We changed our formation quickly, using the wave of shots as cover to get our defenders to the side of the bridge, and then crouched behind them, the archers using small openings to aim and shoot without compromising our defenses.


"Thanks." I told Dayna with a nod of gratitude. "You noticed that thing even faster than I did."


She shrugged. "I'm a hunter. It's my job to see vulnerabilities. It made sense for them try a sneak attack as soon as we stepped onto the bridge. Easy to relax once you've checked and confirmed there's no danger."


"Big weakness in my detection," I admitted. "It's based on proximity. Excellent for casing an area or finding gaps in defenses, but ranged attacks are a problem."


Bethy crawled over to us. "Ahoy Cap'n! These scurvy bilgerats be three sheets to southwesterly. Our cannons are manned and ready, and these landlubbers are all but asking for a visit to watery deeps!"


I sighed. "Damn it, which one of you mentioned pirates? You know they're on the list of banned topics. Check your list people! We update them daily." The vampire pouted, and I just chuckled, ruffling her hair to let her know I was kidding. "Only joking skipper, at ease. Can you fly up there without being noticed? Easiest way to deal with them would be if they "accidentally" fell off the bridge."


"No can do," she grimaced. "Something about this chasm prevents flying, I can feel it. Even as a bat or mist, I'd drop as soon as I went over."


I considered having Chelsea reinforce the archers with her diagram, but I didn't want to tip our hand on that too early. We'd used the technique in the caves, sure, but we'd killed all those Kobolds and the Void Mantises. If we used it in the middle of this chasm everyone and their mother could see, and that particular ability could pull our ass out of the fire later at a key moment if we saved it.


Turning to Whisper and Dayna, I asked them if there was anything we could do. They seemed kind of unsure, but to my surprise, Abel spoke up. "I have an idea," He said after a moment. "If I can create a path for the arrows, not only can I possibly help our people attack from an angle they won't expect, it should speed them up a LOT. Spatial lubrication was originally meant for speed, after all."


"That's a great idea," I said enthusiastically. "What kind of angle are you talking? And how far out can you get it?"


He grinned at me. "Here, let me show you. Do me a favor and cover me with Murmur? This needs to be a surprise, and being invisible will help me set it up. Assuming Murmur can cover my pathway."


"Should work if you go slow," I nodded. "Long distances aren't really doable, but if you have a stable structure for me to use as a bridge I should be able to manage for a short time."


I worried briefly that the chasm's attractive force might cause a problem there, but luckily, you didn't get sucked in unless you left the bridge. That was why the arrows had worked, oddly enough, they were considered part of the archer until impact, for some weird reason.


Sure enough, I expanded my Murmur domain easily. We took a few more shots, our defenders easily tanking the arrows they were shooting at us based on our last positions. They couldn't see us so while they were able to aim in our general direction, hitting us was a no go. Once that died down, Abel slipped out in front, knelt down, and manifested a giant arm.


He maneuvered his hand into a point with all five fingers pressed together, and after waiting to make sure I had it covered, looped it out and around to hook his arm up behind the other archers like a scorpion sting. It took about ten minutes to get into position because I had to make him stop to make sure it was covered, but when he had it set up, he nodded to the others and the massive blood red limb rippled, becoming more transparent like his old spatial lubrication.


The archers all stepped forward, the end of the arm (which cut off below the shoulder, acting as a giant funnel, and then just…started firing.


Arrows burst forward, hitting the structure and rocketing down the length of the arm to punch out the fingers. All five were pressed together and aimed the same way so they basically became barrels in a giant arrow gun.


The rain of the arrows came down on the crowd of archers like a meteor shower, and there were screams of pain and outrage, as well as at least one person falling off the bridge. Luckily, as I'd suspected, they'd prepared, and the one who fell vanished in a flash of purple electricity as an escape scroll kicked in. The rest of them survived, but there were multiple bad injuries from what we could see.


I dropped my domain and Abel dissolved his arm, and we waved to them cheerfully as we resumed our trek across the bridge. Aside from some very unfriendly looks, they didn't bother us again. Most of the others were either too far or too busy to bother with us. A few attacked each other, but for the most part only a couple of groups had taken our path, with most of them being in the caves ahead, so they mostly just focused on crossing.


When we reached the caves on the other edge, we all breathed a sigh of relief. Animal stepped forward to tell us what to do. "Alright, so we need to follow these caves further inland. They'll go up and our, and we'll come out with our backs to Yettin. There's no direct cave access to the city proper, it's considered a security threat."


Which made sense. Kobolds lived down here, and we'd already seen how nasty those little bastards could be. Still, with Callie and I to scout the way, we made good time extricating ourself from the cave systems.


When we emerged, there was a man waiting for us. He had on a black shirt and pants with some armor over it, and he held up and unfurled a scroll. In front of our eyes, an identical scroll unfurled, purple flame filling our vision as we were instructed to turn over our spheres. We did, and he made a note. Internally, I could feel my points tick up, letting me know I now had thirty two points in the competition.


I didn't mention the shallow. We'd gotten rid of it, which we shouldn't have been able to do. I did, however, ask if there was a way to contact outside forces.


He informed me massages could be sent but not received, to prevent interference, and said I could buy message scrolls in Yettin or use my own if I so chose. I thanked him, then we moved aside as more teams flooded out of the caves. After we finished the turn in, we all rounded on the city, eager for our first glimpse of one of the great cities of D-rank zone. And we were NOT disappointed.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Yettin was…big. We'd come up from out of the ground on top of a hill. The trek over had been on a slight incline, but we'd traveled so far I hadn't realized how high we were until we emerged from the caves. Turning to look though, I was able to see the city from above, and looking at it was astonishing.


First of all, the "city" of Yettin wasn't just one town. Or rather, it wasn't just one layer. The city was, as Animal had mentioned, built in a sort of arc, bridging from one cliff to the other, meaning there was only a single exposed expanse of curved wall facing this side of the chasm.


That initial wall, at the base, was huge. Hundreds of feet high. Behind it, instead of the city though, was a ring of land. There were buildings along the inner rim of that ring, against the NEXT wall, but even after you got over the first wall, you had a big open space to get through before reaching the second wall.


Which ALSO contained a ring of empty land, with a city area built against the NEXT wall. The whole thing was seven layers, and the rings of land were shockingly wide, some with villages interspersed between them.


On the top layer, flush with the top of the cliff, was the city proper, an extremely large collection of tall towers connected by dense bridges and walkways. Behind THAT was another wall built along the edges of the cliff, high enough to make it difficult to see Yettin from the other side, with various towers and battlements that could be manned in case of an emergency.


"No wonder the caves don't come out inside the city," I said incredulously. "We have to go through seven layers of those ring shaped subcities to reach it. That must be rough to attack."


"I wouldn't know," said Animal with a chuckle. "It's never been managed. Those large empty plains between the walls are basically kill boxes, and they're lined with formations that can be detonated in times of war. As far as I know, no one has ever made it through the first later of the Yettin gauntlet with bad intentions. Several armies have tried, but they were killed almost to a man. It's considered the most defensible location in the outer ring."


I whistled, staring down at the massive layered emplacement with new eyes. Described like that, I could see how each layer would be suicide to try to get past. Assuming you could breach the first wall (which based on the height and the DOZENS of large scale ballistic weapons, wouldn't be easy) you'd have to run unprotected through what was apparently a magical minefield, toward a fortified collection of what looked like military buildings backed by ANOTHER wall, with another minefield on the other side if you got past that. Seven times.


"What kind of paranoid lunatic DESIGNED this place?" I asked in awed respect. "It's like looking at the inside of Zeke's brain." I turned to Animal. "Can you get us in? You said you have connections here, right? Because entry looks…like a lengthy process."


He chuckled. "There's a smaller gate for VIPs at the far end of the gate. We'll have to butt up against the cliffside, but because of the curvature of each successive wall, that's the shortest distance."


We set off down the hill, heading for the far end of the massive wall, and I couldn't help but ask. "Doesn't that compromise security? Having a secret entrance or whatever?"


"Not really," he said with a shrug. "The hidden gate is made of high quality metal. It's actually sturdier than the rest of the wall around it, and even more durable than the main gates. The only way you can get in is if you have someone to open it from inside. Since each successive wall later has their own separate guard force, the chances of someone managing to bribe or blackmail their way through all seven gates are even worse than the odds of someone invading.


"Each guard force also works on completely unrelated randomized schedules, so even if someone DID manage to get seven people arranged who could let them in, the chances of them all being on duty at the same time during a potential invasion are almost zero." He chuckled as he shot the city a respectful look. "Yettin is impenetrable without a fucking B-ranker to brute force entry. And even they might have some trouble with some of of the defenses. Some of the siege bows on the inner walls are loaded with high ranking ammunition. They've never been fired so they just kind of sit there as a standing threat."


I whistled. "Whoever designed this place was a paranoid maniac. I love it. I imagine space inside is at a premium though. How does this city measure up to the other D-rank spoke hubs?"


"Favorably," he laughed. "Your instincts are right on the money. Some of the strongest members of any of the local factions live here. Some are independents from the D-rank zone, some are lower level members of larger factions. The latter tend to be a bit more willing to come in context with me, though the less powerful of those are the ones who maneuvered me into my position here. If I hit C-rank, some of the weaker C-rank factions might have trouble dealing with me."


He'd mentioned that. "Your people can get us into the city?" I asked skeptically. He'd made such a big deal about security, I wasn't sure how we'd bypass it.


"They can," he assured me. "The wall guards have communication to the main city. It IS a VIP gate, so there needs to be a way to verifiably confirm someone's status. They call up, and we go through seven individual verifications, but it's still faster than taking the long way through the front gate. Don't worry, I've got this."


The walk around the wall was…tense. As we came close, I saw the massive ballistae on the battlements turn of their own accord and track us as we walked. Benny whistled. "Wow, auto targeting. Not bad. Kind of unfriendly, but given the magazines I can see on the bottom of those things, the ability to self aim would be a nightmare. I bet they're spatially expanded too. Who knows how many of those things are in there."


Animal nodded. "Yeah, they're D-rank bolts. While the crossbows on the inner walls are too far in to have ever been reached, there have been several attempts at incursion down here. These don't just cover out here either. They have three hundred and sixty degree coverage. Between them and the ones on the next wall, the entire ring is covered, and there's a decent band in the center where they overlap. Don't worry about them too much though. They cover out to the cave entrance, so if we were in danger we would know about it."


I whistled. That cave entrance was fairly narrow. Imagining all these bows along the wall focusing fire on that small passage was terrifying. Anything that stepped out would be drowning in giant arrows."


Dayna looked intrigued by the objects. "I don't believe they're able to musted the technique or damage output of a true archer, but there's something to be said about heavy artillery. I can manifest a shot at that size easily enough, but I can only fire so fast and from so many angles. I'm undecided on how much I approve of such devices."


Bethy nodded solemnly. "I understand completely. The first time I saw someone have their blood drawn with a needle I felt the same way. It's like they're trying to replace us!" She winked at the archer, who couldn't help but crack a smile, but her face became serious as she turned to me. "This place is unsettling though, boss. I can feel the eyes on me all the time. Are you sure it's safe to go in?"


"Not even slightly," I said with a shrug. "But I trust that our people can protect themselves. Worst case everyone files into your domain and we use scrolls to leave." I paused, considering the problem. "Actually, maybe them waiting inside would be a better idea. Not everyone, but most of them. We can keep our heavy hitters out here."


She nodded. "That's a good idea. It'll be easier to protect a smaller number of people." She closed her eyes, turning slightly, and her Domain flickered, covering the nearby army and sweeping them inside. When she opened them, only about twenty people remained outside, namely our twenty strongest warriors, plus a few key figures like Chelsea, Jessie, and Daysia.


The walk was tense, given the armed overwatch, but not nearly as tense and reaching our destination. We approached the small gate slowly, careful not to get too close to the cliff face. There was no bridge here, if we went over, we would NOT have a good time.


We arrived in front of the gate, and Animal stepped forward. "We seek sanctuary from this weary world," he intoned gravely.


There was a small click as a hatch opened in the door, and a pair of eyes peeked out of a thin slot. "State your provenance!" Boomed the guy on the other side in a majestic baritone. "Or be not welcome!" I heard a snicker from the other side, and the eyes cut to the left. "Did I say something FUNNY, Clarence?"


"No, no, nothing like that," came an amused voice. "Just…be not welcome?"


"It's on the script," the first guy said defensively. "Don't blame me, blame the sergeant. He's the one who wants this whole thing to be all formal and stuffy. Now do you MIND? I'm trying to get through this."


The other man shut up, and the eyes turned back to Animal, who smiled sheepishly. "I'm here to see Devlan Waycraft."


Hazel eyes narrowed suspiciously. "The Candle Man? We weren't warned about any visitors."


"He wasn't expecting me," Animal said with a shrug. "Tell him The Animal is here to visit, he should pass us through."


The hatch slammed shut, and I heard muttering about entitled shits and criminal scum (which seemed ironic given our current location), then the sound faded. We waited ten minutes and then the man came back, popped the door open, and gestured us inside."


We hurried in, and I was absolutely thrilled to see that the wedge shaped perimeter of the city had WALLS along the cliffiside once you entered the first ring. The guard, a short barrel chested man with a thick beard a shaved head, gestured us onto a long path that ran along the outer wall. "Be welcome, travelers, to the city of Yettin, jewel of the north. Be wary of your safety, for mysteries and wonders alike lie around every corner."


I shot him a surprised look. "Really? Can you warn us about some of them?" It was rare to find someone willing to give out information for free, and it might be useful."


"Of course," he said solemnly. "There are many places of both danger and opportunity inside the walls. For instance, the mystery garden of Amun-Sul, in which one may pick a flower, and any bloom might hold immeasurable riches. Only twenty chits per pick, with a ten percent finders fee before exiting. Or the market of a thousand faces, where any salesperson could be an expert passing on their legacy. Professional guides are available for hire for a small fee."


I stared at him blankly. "You're…you're just trying to sell us stuff, aren't you."


"Perhaps," he said mysteriously. "To know the true intentions of my dire warning, one must naturally pay the price. A small consideration and I could reveal the TRUE secrets of this majestic city." I stared at him for a moment, then turned and walked away down the path. "No, wait! I'll give you a discount! Three D-rank chits for a city map! It's annotated! Please buy something, I have KIDS to feed!" I had a strong feeling this was going to be a theme in Yettin. Fantastic.