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

[Malcolm Tent]

I had Bernadette drop me at a clearing a few dozen miles away from the Heart, close to a nearby town. I wasn't willing to lead anyone else to the place, and the trip passed pretty unremarkably. I was exhausted, but not injured. My soul ached a bit, which wasn't fun, but Archie was able to cleanse me when I got back. Soul poison that wasn't damaging was pretty much tailor made for Zagan.

After I finished that, I decided to check on my apprentice, who was in a nearby clearing practicing her martial arts.

Flashing forward in a burst of flame, her staff struck out at a tree with a brutal thrust, and black flame burst from the butt where it struck the wood, searing a chunk out of the tree. One crazy thing about being on a B-ranked planet was that the foliage here was C-ranked. The trees and plants were all more powerful than we were, albeit not sentient so not really a danger.

For instance, I could incinerate plants with most of my forms if I put my back into it. Aside from the lack of consciousness, fire had a natural advantage over plantlife. Not to mention older plants like the trees were higher ranked than say, grass. Not EVERYTHING was C-rank, obviously.

Still, Bella being able to damage the bark of the tree with Mephistopheles was a good sign, it meant she was improving, catching up to where I was at. She'd been working on her manifestation since she hit Intermediate, but hadn't made much more progress past that. I wasn't surprised. Being so far ahead in stats made catching up to that point easier, but Expert and Master were a whole different ballgame when it came to Skills.

'Hearing a branch crack under my boot, she spun, staff coming up in a defensive posture I recognized as Mornax, ready to tank a hit. I just snickered. "Scary. You turning on your master already? Think you're good enough to kick my ass and take over our discipline?"

She squeaked, dropping her guard. "NO! Sorry master, I didn't know it was you."

Laughing, I withdrew my staff, twirling it in circles. I was still a bit stiff, but my apprentice wasn't on a level where that would matter. "It's not a big deal, Bella. Good to know you're on your guard. How about a spar? I have some new stances to teach you. Made some new forms and I've been working on adapting them."

I'd been thinking long and hard about both Agares and Dantalion. I had ideas for both of them in terms of stances.

Bella was practically bouncing with excitement at the idea of new powers. "Hell yes! I want to learn more. My manifestation is awesome, I can't wait to show you. Do you want to fight here?" She gestured to the fairly roughed up but still sizable clearing, and I grinned.

"Spar, not fight," I corrected. "But sure, we can train here. Nice reflexes earlier by the way. Mornax as a default when you're in danger. Smart. Here, before we get too deep into it, I'll teach you a new stance that might help."

Beckoning her further into the center of the clearing, I held up my staff, letting it balance on the butt in front of me. Then I just…relaxed. Not just releasing tension in my muscles, but in a sort of active way. I let down all my defenses, opening myself to the world, letting the atmosphere around me fill with possibilities.

"The trick to this one," I said slowly, making sure not to get too overexcited. Slow and steady. Dantalion was about reaching into the world. "Is to extend your awareness. Feel the ground beneath your feet, the wind in your ears and on your skin. Taste the pollen in the air, and inhale the scent of your opponent."

I focused hard on my staff. This wasn't just doing nothing. It WAS a staff form. I was opening myself as a martial artist, priming my staff to act as a conduit for my will when I learned what I wanted. "The world around you is a domain of possibility. Futures swirl through the space within your reach, mixing with data, with information, and you can even feel THOSE somewhat with your fate sense. Your staff is your instrument, ready to enact your will on reality."

My hands blurred, staff licking out to smack down on her skull (gently, of course) her own staff, planted in front of her as mine had been, blurred up from a neutral position…and missed by about five inches. The metal cap of my staff smacked her on top of the head, and she yowled in pain.

"OUCH! Master! What the hell?" She rubbed her head gingerly, shooting me an annoyed glare.

I rolled my eyes. "We're SPARRING, Bella. Live staves. You know to always expect an attack in combat. You moved pretty close to when I did though, did you pick something up?"

She frowned thoughtfully. "I…think so? It felt like a pulse of energy rolled over the clearing and told me about all the stuff here. It only lasted a second, but I felt your body shifting against the ground, saw your muscles tensing and pushing the air…honestly it was kind of a lot to take in. It took a second to process all that, and I only got a split second pulse."

"It might take some practice," I admitted. "It did for me. But still, if you can perfect this stance, it'll massively increase your survivability. Can you tell me why?"

Mulling it over, she closed her eyes. If I'd been a complete asshole I'd have smacked her on the head again, but even training has limits. She was thinking, and I let her keep at it. "Because of my Path," she decided. "Escape requires a route. I have my technique for actually moving, but it's useless if I don't know where to go. This new stance could help me map my movements in battle."

"Exactly," I said approvingly. "Knowledge is power. But… y'know, power is also power, so sometimes the best knowledge is being sure you know how and when to get the hell out of dodge."

After that, I showed her the stance I'd worked up for Agares, which involved lots of ground strikes, trips, and throwing dirt up in people's faces (they couldn't all be winners). She had more trouble with that one, but promised to work on it, and then we got back to basics.

I tried to limit myself to pure martial combat for the moment, both because of exhaustion and to test my foundations. Teaching Bella had shored up my staff art a lot, and brought back a bunch of the stuff Willow had taught me all the way back in the Moonsong Glade. I wondered briefly how my temporary staff mentor was doing, then forced my brain to switch topics because the instinctive shudder after what she'd done to me was rough.

Mornax for defense, straight thrust from Mephistopheles, Belial deflects, slip into the blindspot to attack with Bael, a series of feints for Beelzebub. I mixed up my assault, shifting between stances like water flowing downhill, rotating through my forms to trip her up, seeing exactly how much she'd learned.

Every form had a pretty decent counter among the others. Dantalion countered Beelzebub, Mornax countered Mephistopheles. Belial actually took me a little bit to figure out, but it became clear quickly that coming in from the blind spots made deflection impossible, making Bael the perfect counter for that. I knew eventually the whole perfect counter thing wouldn't work, mostly because there were going to be at least nine forms and nine was an odd number.

Still, it was kind of fun, like a game of rock paper scissors, finding the perfect response to every move, with her doing the same. Her actual physical skillset was improving, even if her grasp on the forms was still shallow, so it was a better fight than one might expect.

Eventually, I used Agares to trip her up, leaving her open for a hard strike from Mephistopheles and she took a spill, falling over herself. She rolled out of it, and seeing she had no choice, she whirled her staff and manifested a massive copy above her head, striking down with a Beelzebub flurry from above.

It was fascinating to see the 'feints' become real as the stance tapped into my duplication form, creating a split second rain of staff strikes. With her using her manifestation, I decided to hold back a bit less, and stepped into a Waltz, blurring between the blows as I used Danger Sense to guide me out of harm's way.

Closing in, I used a flurry of straight thrusts to put her off balance, tripping her up with ground strikes and deflecting her responses with Belial. My last blow stopped JUST short of her throat, the butt of my staff poised above her windpipe.

Laughing, I stowed my staff, holding out a hand. "Not bad," I complimented. "Your movements are getting more natural. Lots of drilling to commit that to muscle memory. I was worried you might be skimping on your training when I was busy."

She shook her head firmly. "Never. I know how strong this staff art is. I know I'm lucky you decided to teach me." She hesitated. "Master…who are you? This kind of martial art can't be a normal thing, even in more powerful factions. I should have heard of something like this. Plus you're dominating these trials, and the people who showed up are pretty scary. Where did you come from?"

I stared at her for a moment, then sighed. "I can't say right now. Your instincts are good, but it's not a convenient time to talk about it. Suffice to say I'll be leaving soon. Whether I succeed or fail the trial I have things to do elsewhere. If you want to continue your training, I'll have some friends of mine pick you up and you'll wait until I get back. If not…that'll be goodbye."

She looked down. "I didn't even think about doing the trials, you know. I knew I couldn't manage it. I'm just…Bella. I got to D-rank entirely because of my dad. I've never been special. Or important. But you picked me to teach. Picked me to help. You're…amazing. And you thought I was worth something. Not just a bored rich girl playing bandit. Special. Worth taking a chance on. I want to go with you when you leave. I don't have any reason to stay. I think…I think going with you is my chance to do something great."

"It might be," I nodded. "I admit, I tend to play for high stakes. But you need to know that a world like that isn't safe. It isn't always fun. I showed you that before, remember? Are you sure you want to put a target on your back?"

I hoped she would come with me. I liked my apprentice. She was hard working and amusing, if frustrating. And she had a good heart. She could do great things, but she had to be willing to suffer to make them happen. If these trials had taught me anything it was that agony was the fuel for progress.

"I know, and I don't care," she said boldly. "I can do this. I can make you proud. You took a chance on me, and I'm going to prove you right. I'll come with. Even if I have to wait for you to finish your business."

Laughing, I stepped back, withdrawing my staff again. "You might regret that, but fair enough. No more holding back then. I'm going to start taking your training seriously. Need to make sure you're in a good place for self study while I'm gone. Reset and let's take it from the top. We still have a lot of practice ahead of us."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

After I finished training with Bella, I headed into the Heart and got some sleep. Specifically, I hit the hot tub, and I deeply enjoyed the effects of the soak, especially when I realized Chess had filled the tub with a high end rejuvenation potion of some sort. Even without Archie pumping extra green into me I felt relaxed and completely at peace as I finished my soak and headed to bed, and I woke up completely refreshed.

Sitting up, I looked out the window, noting that the sun wasn't even up yet. I almost fell out of my bed when I noticed a shadowy form mostly hidden by the gloom, and let out a relieved laugh when I realized it was a form of ACTUAL shadows.

My wife rolled over in annoyance, raising an eyebrow at me as she sat up with a yawn. "Must you ruin the best sleep I've had in months?"

"Well excuse me for being freaked out that a person was in my bed who wasn't there when I fell asleep. In almost any other circumstances I'm sure you'd prefer I be upset about that." My tone was bland as I slumped back down next to her, letting her cuddle up to my side. "To what do I owe this visit? Not that I don't love waking up next to you in the morning."

She pointed out the window. "I'm not sure what the hell THIS is, but I don't think I'd call it morning. Anyway, I have the day off, and so do you."

"I do?" I asked in amusement. "I wasn't aware."

"Well, you can be a little dim," she said sympathetically. "I've come to accept it. But yes, you'll have the day off. Specifically, you'll be taking me out for a day on the town. I have a spare mask and a full body outfit to wear so people don't realize I'm a shadow clone. Unless you have something better to do?"

I smiled at her softly. "Better than spend the day with you? I can't think of anything that fits the bill. I assume you know where you want to go?"

Callie was someone I knew better than anyone. She loved to make plans, do research, and generally prepare for any eventuality. There was no way she'd proposed a date around here without finding a dozen places she wanted to see.

"I was thinking we could visit Dosketsk," she said enthusiastically. "It's a former temple complex from a defunct religion that predates the terraforming of this planet. The historical society excavated it a few centuries ago and after they'd checked everything out, they sold it off to a local Marquis. It's been repurposed into a spa and resort town."

I hummed with interest. "That…actually does sound kind of cool. Where exactly IS Dosketsk?"

"North pole," she said bluntly. "They found it under a glacier. Why? Is the big bad Mephistopheles afraid of a little cold weather?"
I just laughed. She knew I preferred the cold. I usually kept my room at about sixty. Giving her a quick kiss, I got out of bed, changing into my armor and slipping my mask on. "So, we heading out, or what?"

Laughing, she bounced out of bed, retrieving a mask and a well fitted black outfit from my paired ring and slipping them on. Sure enough, with gloves, a long shirt, pants, and a mask on it was pretty much impossible to tell that she was a shadow clone. Even her hair wasn't a giveaway, given the variety of colors you could find in Ascendant styling.

Callie, of course, insisted on stopping to speak to Elena, say hi to Simon, talk to Bella, and just generally pump everyone involved in my current day to day for information. I had to basically drag her away, though she made plans with Elena for later in the week.

After that it took us about an hour to reach Dosketsk, and we ran the entire way, just enjoying each other's company. Being able to speak mentally at top speed was pretty convenient for a brisk run. Finally, we crested over a particularly large snow covered hill and emerged over a huge valley.

"It's…beautiful," Callie said in a hushed voice. I agreed with her too, it WAS beautiful. We'd made it here just as the sun was rising, and the light coming over the snow fields had struck the crystal walls of the buildings that made up Dosketsk.

The light bounced around inside the faceted surfaces of all the structures, redoubling and warping and shifting in a way that was almost alive. Inside the shimmering rainbows of color I could see the silhouettes of animals dancing and celebrating, people building villages, angels descending from on high.

A million scenes of historical and mythological significance rioted through the crystal too fast to even really capture, creating an almost subconscious feeling of historical awe as they engraved themselves into the depths of my consciousness.

"Milady," I said, offering her my elbow. "Shall we?"

"Race you down, there," she chirped, then stuck a foot in front of me and shoved. I yelped as I went tail over teakettle down the snowy hill, barely noticing Callie blurring past me. I scrambled to try to regain my feet and managed, coming to a stumbling stop at the bottom where my wife was waiting smugly. "I win, now you have to do whatever I say."

I growled at her as I tried to shake snow from my armor. "First of all," I said waspishly. "I didn't agree to a race. Second of all I didn't BET anything, and third of all I ALREADY do basically whatever you say."

"That's true," she said with a nod. "You are kind of a pushover. Now, why don't we head in and start our date." She offered me her elbow cheekily. "Milord."
Laughing, I looped my arm in hers, letting her drag me into the city. It felt…nice. Being with her like this for the first time since I'd come to Rackham. "So, you get a chance to test out the new forms yet?" I asked her as we walked.

"Yeah, the mud thing is really neat," she chuckled. "I couldn't make a crazy lifespring earth magic hideout like you did, but I did put together a pretty nice little cabin behind your grandmother's winter palace."

"Winter palace?" I asked incredulously. "Where the hell ARE you guys? I assumed you'd be on the Necromedes."

She waggled a hand. "We've been traveling a lot. If I didn't know better, I'd think your grandmother is giving us a tour of potential allied forces for after your mission is over. We've made some inroads with the pavilion on several planets, and once you get finished I wouldn't be shocked if she had you do followup trips to try to collect a few more allies before the start of the competition."

"That's pretty sneaky, and I like it," I laughed. "It'll certainly help with our recruitment tour on the way to the candidate selection. So, you liked Agares, how about Dantalion? Pretty fucking amazing, right?"

"Honestly…it's annoying," she said with a shrug. "I tested it out. Anything above C-rank I can't get much out of, and the stuff I could required lots of time and attention to gather anything meaningful. IN combat it's kind of useful in that it lets me predict people's movements to an extent, but honestly it's a lot of very detailed nonsense I have to sift through."

That was fair. "I didn't love it to start either. It's amazing for casing an area though, or for finding things out about people. Hell, probably interrogation too, considering it lets me detect lies and decipher body language."

I actually hadn't considered using it for interrogating people, but thinking about it like that gave me a bunch more ideas.

"What about your last form?" she asked with interest. "You have any ideas?"

I did have a few, but before I could mention then, I felt a slight buzz in my head. A familiar buzz. Danger Sense. I came to a stop, careful not to look around. Shifting myself in Dantalion briefly, I extended my senses around us before shutting it down. "I don't," I said lightly. "I was thinking of taking a page out of our old friend Spencer's books. This situation reminds me a lot of the one we were in when we first met him."

Callie, to her credit, didn't freeze. She took that in stride, acknowledging the hint about Camden's insane cousin and moving on.

I could have mentally messaged her through the bond, but my pause had necessitated some kind of outward reason, so I'd made an offhand comment. While I'd been talking though, I'd flexed my will, activating Beelzebub and Bael. It took some doing to manifest my copies in stealth, but I managed, and then sent them off to circle around the people following us.

Reaching for Callie, I pushed Bael around us both, the two of us vanishing from the sight of the people following. A quick use of Double Trouble was enough to get us clear before the attack that had been launched as we vanished actually hit us.

"Well, that seems excessive," I said in disapproval. "Since when is attempted murder an appropriate response to stealth?"

She glanced uneasily at the purple ghost fire flickering on the ground. "Not sure, any idea what they want with you? They certainly seem a bit upset."

I grimaced. I did know what they wanted. Dantalion aggregated data, and the longer you spent on a target the deeper I could dig. Some of these guys had been exposed to Dantalion before, and I recognized their profiles in my head. "Hypothetically I might have helped a friend steal a necklace from them. Not sure how the hell they caught me though, my heist was flawless."

Ray wouldn't turn on me, and if this was a bunch of high rankers chasing me down I was screwed with no way out, so my only real option was that I'd made a mistake. I wasn't sure how or when, but it was over and done with now. At this point I just needed to manage things. I triggered Piece of Mind, inserting the parallel into one of the stealthed clones.

Dropping Bael with that particular duplicate, I stepped out in the street. "Excuse me," I called pleasantly. "I was hoping to speak to whoever is in charge here."

There was a brief delay, and then a man appeared. Rangy and sallow, he had a tricorn hat on over a bandanna and a thick leather coat with way too many buckles. "Return the stone," he said bluntly.

"Don't have it," I responded just as candidly. "A client hired me to steal it. The priesthood of Raxus has it now. Sorry." Which was true, technically, it just left any hint of connection to Ray in the abstract.

He glowered at me. "You will pay," he said after a brief pause.

"Like literally or like-" there was a roar as some kind of explosive charge swallowed the clone and the ground within about a hundred feet of it. By the time it vanished, there was a smouldering crater in the ground where the other me had been standing.

I winced. "Guess it was a figurative payment structure," I told Callie wryly. "I'll be honest, I'm relieved. Most of my funds are NOT liquid."
"Honey," said my wife sweetly. "Shut up. And after we finish taking care of these we're going to have a discussion about breaking and entering, since it clearly isn't something that bothers you. Stealing is wrong."

"If it helps, it was more of a trade," I pointed out. "But yeah, we can deal with that later. Until then, we can take care of all these assholes. Hope you brought your A game love, because they came out here in force. It's gonna be a hell of a fight."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

It always amazed me how stratified the Ascendant world was. I'd stolen from a Count, but a wealthy one. He should have been able to hire some C-rankers to send after me, but the custom of separation between ranks was so thoroughly ingrained in Ascendant culture it probably hadn't even crossed his mind.

The only force I'd run into that used a C-ranker since I arrived was Bad Millie's criminal organization, and their C-ranker was honestly pretty mediocre.

That said, the D-rankers that had been sent to apprehend me were even worse. A bunch of rookies who were barely at Master level. Two dozen of the bastards. And they didn't stand a chance. Limbo billowed out from me, fog filling the street and coiling around the nearby buildings. I could see the forms of the enemy through the mist, blindsided by my domain, and I grinned as I sent my clones forward.

I couldn't trigger a second form, sadly, nevermind a third. Trying to process potential futures through a dozen extra heads meant I needed a substantial number of parallels running, more than I probably could have managed without help from Callie.

A dozen staves swinging at breakneck speed destroyed future after future, corralling all of the enemy combatants into a small area without them even realizing. Before long, they started bumping into each other, and as soon as one of them shoved another they turned on each other, thinking they were feeling one of us.

It took less than five minutes for them all to put each other down, and a series of Belial hits from my clones in between their brawl helped make sure they wouldn't be getting back up, all of them twitching on the ground devastated by poison that ate away at them enough to prevent them from healing.

I managed it just in time to drop Limbo, and once it was gone, I was left standing in the street in front of the guy in the tricorn. To my surprise, he hadn't been part of the mess that had felled his friends, and he was just standing there, staring down at them dispassionately before he looked up at us. "I'll admit," he said calmly. "Most talented thieves aren't that good in a straight fight. That was moderately impressive. I hope you don't think it'll be so easy to defeat me."

Normally, I'd have shrugged him off…but I could feel my Danger Sense screaming at me still, and it hadn't gotten quieter since we dropped the others. It had gotten louder.

"Mind if I ask something?" I said quietly. "How exactly did you find me? Where did I fuck up?"

He shrugged. "It wasn't anything particularly damning. We simply took precautions. The stone emanates a very particular type of energy. Rather than build in defenses that might be detected, we simply built a device to detect the emanations from the stone itself. It sidesteps most of the countermeasures the majority of Ascendants think to use."

I blinked. That was…brilliant. A tracking ability or enchantment might have been detected, but designing something that could detect a specific energy signature most people wouldn't even be aware of would be nearly impossible to counter. Except… "I don't have the stone," I repeated. "So how the hell did you find me?"

"Because you carried it with you out of the manor. Your stealth dropped a few streets over. We were able to cobble together a description from nearby witnesses. Luckily incredibly tall armored figures with horrific obsidian masks aren't particularly common." His voice was bland, as if he did this sort of thing every day, but my Danger Sense was still screaming.

"Well, like I said, I don't have the stone, which you must KNOW, so why are you really here?" I gestured at the pile of twitching bodies. "Because you didn't bring that pack of half-wits here expecting to take me out, combat specialist or not. No one who could breach your security would be so easy to take down. So this was almost definitely some kind of test."

For the first time since I saw him, the man in the tricorn smiled. "Well, it seems you're not just a horrifying face. Yes, this was a test. We wanted to see if you would be worth employing. If not…well the Count's Griffon Guard is about five times this number of combatants and all much more skilled. Even you have to have limits."

"So, what? You think I owe you now, and if I don't give in you'll send all your people after me?" I asked waspishly. "Because that would depend what you want. If you expect me to get you that stone back you're out of luck. I told you the Raxus priesthood has it."

"We aren't," he said placidly. "Steps have been taken in that direction independent of your involvement. We've actually approached you about something a bit more relevant to you. Specifically, we've approached you to do what you've already done to us, just to someone else. Someone involved in your trials for Felicity."

Callie cocked her head. "We're not…NOT interested. We'd need some guarantees first. We don't want any innocent people getting hurt because we stole some kind of doomsday device."

"If there were a doomsday device on this planet," he said dryly. "It wouldn't be anywhere that he would be able to reach for us. And if it was and we knew about it, we'd tell someone more powerful in exchange for considerations and THEY would take it. But we're willing to share the target with you, of course. You'll need to know what it is to steal it."

"And how does stealing something from someone involved in the trials actually help me win?" I asked skeptically.

"Jacob Skelgren," said the tricorn man. "Part of the Skelgren family, known for being the sole possessors of the secrets of the Royal Slime racial trait. Contrary to the impression you may have gotten, Mr. Skelgren is one of the favorites for winning the position you're aiming for. He's quiet about it, but his results have been outstanding."
I remembered Jacob, and his slime body. I didn't know what a Royal Slime was, but it was clear it was effective. "And you want me to what? Steal his lunch money? What could I take that would require him to drop out?"

Reaching into his pocket, tricorn guy ignored my tension as he withdrew a small golden hourglass. He flipped it in midair, and it pulsed with golden light as he withdrew his hand and left it sitting there hanging in space, slowly running down.

"We have five minutes," he said in a slightly more urgent tone. "I need you to accept before I tell you what you'll be stealing."

I weighed the pros and cons here. I liked Jacob, but I had to win this to make my family safe. Not to mention that I might die if I didn't do it, or at least they might get underfoot enough to fuck my chances of passing the trial. I didn't know how the point system worked, and for all I knew the last task was weighted extra heavily, or failing it would put me down enough points to miss the mark.

Contrary to what Callie had said, I didn't think she cared TOO much about me playing thief. She'd mostly just been riffing. If I'd stolen food from a poor family or something she'd have been appalled, but taking a magic diamond necklace from some rich guy's manor wasn't a huge deal, and this probably wouldn't be either.

Not to mention I wanted to get out of this and warn Ray, just in case they came after him directly. Finally, I sighed, nodding slowly. "Alright. I'll do it. Now what exactly am I stealing here?"

"The Skelgren family are in possession of the sole instance of the catalyst to make the Royal Slime racial trait. The exact specifications of this trait are complex, and suffice to say you've barely scratched the surface. But we know HOW they make it. A very rare and coveted species of bee in their possession. We want you to steal the bee."

I blinked at him. "The bee that their whole family bases their abilities on? The one that gives them the racial trait that is the source of their power? Because that sounds…complicated. Not just to pull off, but in the aftermath. It sounds like that would cause them extreme vulnerability."

"Not in the short term," he said, waving me off. "The process takes decades. Fermentation, enchantments, it's an involved production method. Which means they have quite a few stockpiles of it saved up, currently processing, not to mention plenty in storage. The catalyst they have on hand is enough to last for generations. After that…well, that's not your concern. The point is, if that bee goes missing, all family members will be recalled to search for it. So unless you get caught, you'll be drawing off your competition."

Sighing, I gave him a grudging nod. "Alright, fine. I'll need their location and it'll take me a few days. I have a week until my last trial, and I can commit to five days of prep before pulling this job for you. Agreed?"
"Acceptable. We look forward to working with you Mr. Mephistopheles. You'll be contacted with a delivery address before the preparation period expires, so you'll know where to deliver the bee." His tone was businesslike. "Is that acceptable?"

"It is," I said cheerfully. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm on a date. So why don't you scoop up your cannon fodder and take them with you when you go." I snapped my fingers, letting the poison fade from their bodies even as I dismissed my twelve clones. "They should heal up fine, but it might take them a while."

I'd avoided killing anyone, and redirected any lethal shots from them as well. I didn't need to put down rookies like that, and they were here in retaliation for something I did, so it hadn't seemed right to butcher them for no reason. Tricorn looked amused, and he reached out, pulling some kind of coach from his ring, opening the door and starting to load bodies in.

"Wait, one more thing," I said, interrupting his movements. "I want to know your name. You never mentioned it."

He turned to regard me with interest. "Aloysius Brendel," he said after a slight delay. "I act in the Count's stead on matters of a discrete nature. I'm pleased to be working with you, Mr. Mephistopheles." Then he turned and finished loading the twitching bodies into the coach. "Apologies for interrupting your day out. I hope you enjoy your visit. I recommend the singing pillars, they're lovely."

Then he climbed in after them and shut the door, the coach taking off down the street at a fast clip despite not being pulled by anything or seeming to have a motor. "Well," I said in amusement. "That was certainly dramatic. I like him."

Callie turned to me with a scoff. "You would. Now, why don't we find a cafe or something where we can sit and eat as we talk about everything that just happened."

I smiled, knowing that she wasn't going to yell at me. She was going to try to help. It was what she always did. One of the things I loved most about her was that she always had my back. When she wasn't around she could pretend I didn't need the help, but now that she was here and had seen that whole mess, there was no way she wouldn't try to get involved.

Offering her my elbow, I sent a pulse of affection through the bond as I escorted her down the street, looking for some kind of restaurant for us to eat and plan at. I wasn't turning down any help I could get. I wanted this over with fast so I could focus on my last trial. I had a feeling it would be a doozy.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next five days did NOT go by quickly. They dragged on. And on. And on. My head was splitting from the constant information overload. Dantalion was rough over a long period of time, and the increased Focus didn't really help so much as make it worse. More processing power meant more data, which meant more to sift through. Using my mask to offset the soul weight and stack multiple parallels was the easiest way to relieve some of the pain.


Along the way, I stockpiled my wishes as usual, forty of them in between bursts of Dantalion as I scanned the Skelgren manor. I had fifty six on hand with five separated out still for emergencies that my friends could use.


The place was shockingly different to the last target. The Skelgrens didn't go in for the big bulky mansion look, their manor was spread out in more of a compounds style, lots of individual ranch houses connected by hallways and some underground corridors. I was increasingly grateful I'd included Song of the Soil in Dantalion, because without it, I'd have been screwed.


It was truly staggering how much underground there was to the place, and I wouldn't have had a chance at finding that bee without all the information gathering, because the honeycomb of chambers under the compound was as extensive as it was labyrinthine.


Still, mapping each chamber and marking off the contents, purpose, patrol routes, entrances, and a dozen other things was boiling my brain. "I hate this," I groaned, rubbing my temples. "Remind me to get some kind of…brain booster to help with Dantalion. Something like my crown was for Eye of Revelation."


Callie, who was laying with her head in my lap, snorted. "Oh, I'm sorry, do you learn from pain now? Was the months of prolonged repeated god torture the straw that finally broke the camel's back? Nice to know you can be taught with LITERAL divine intervention."


"Says the girl who has made herself sick eating Devil's Tongue Horseradish ELEVEN times," I said dryly. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, right?"


"Pretty sure that's called practice," she said loftily. "And I was able to mostly keep that stuff down last time."


I snickered at her. "Thus making my point for me, I win."


"Don't be ridiculous," she sniffed. "You never win arguments with me. Even when you do win you still lose. Everyone knows I wear the pants in this relationship."


Snorting, I reached down to tickle her, ignoring her squawk as she fell out of my lap. "You have literally NEVER worn pants since I've known you. Leotards, dresses, weirdly tall boots, but never pants."


"What do you mean WEIRDLY tall?" she demanded. "You love my boots. And you're the last person who gets to say shit about being weirdly tall."


"I'm a perfectly normal height," I said. "It's not my fault you're so tiny. Anyway, how's the plan going? I can use Agares to get in but it'll leave a trail behind. Your ability is tailor made for this kind of work, can you get us inside?"


She grimaced. "I can, but it'll take me longer than I'd like. These people aren't messing around. They DID something to the shadows down there. It's like trying to swim through molasses. I'll need to make a few jumps. Not to mention the shadows here are higher rank than I am, and don't ask me to explain that, it's complicated."


I shrugged. "I'm hardly going to throw stones at you about not being able to quantify arcane power bullshit. Even I forget how some of my skills work sometimes."


"It's really not much to remember," she said sweetly. "You mostly just hit people with a big stick in a bunch of increasingly complicated ways. Honestly, I don't know why don't switch to a spear, the staff is way less dangerous."


"Yeah, to me," I joked. "I spend half my time delirious with pain. I'd probably cut my own toes off."


She giggled at my nonsense, then stood, pecking me on the mask. "Anyway, I'll sketch out my projections, and you can add them to your plan. You think you can get us in and out without notice?"


"Sure, the question is how long we STAY unnoticed," I mused. "I need to hit them at the absolute earliest opportunity, to buy us as much time as possible. I want the bee at the dropoff before they notice it's gone. That way I'm completely out of this. I learned my lesson from stealing that fucking necklace. Too many ways to track an item like that even through Stealth."


Callie blew out a breath. "That's fair. Probably want to calculate the delivery time into our window then."


Nodding my agreement, I snagged a stack of papers and started mapping out our route. This particular heist was a bit more complicated than the last one. The compound was laid out with redundancy in mind. The tunnels frequently doubled back, had multiple passages between them, and were spread out enough despite that to have multiple overlapping patrol rotations.


I could get around them, but to maximize our lead I needed the best possible timing. Callie's jump calculations made that easier, giving me the necessary lead time and travel delays. But despite that, I needed to find a route that matched up properly with her jumps, making sure each overlap with the patrols was managed in the most efficient way possible.


Unlike my last foray, I wasn't dealing with a single group of guards. The Skelgren family had been active for generations, and had been tightening security for just as long. They had multiple barracks of trained guardians with overlapping areas of responsibilities who had spent their whole lives learning and perfecting their routes. The only reason I even had a chance at this was because Dantalion was incredibly broken against stable defensive emplacements at the same rank.


Finally, after about an hour, I finished my draft. "What do you think of this route?" I asked my wife, passing her the stack of papers.


She flipped through them. "It should be fine. I'd probably budget an extra half second on the fifth jump though. I was being optimistic there, the shadows are especially dense, and I might need a slight breather when I come out."


"Won't work at all then," I admitted. "How about this? Northwest through the secondary tunnels on the third sublevel, then drop down into the fifth through the access shaft into the honey chamber. Speaking of which…"


Rolling her eyes, she shook her head. "No. It's a pointless risk."


"But it's MAGIC HONEY!" I whined. "It sounds so delicious. What kind of lunatic passes up a stockpile of magic honey?"


"The kind trying not to get noticed," she said bluntly. "It's too close. Trust me I want to try it as bad as you do. But it's an unnecessary detour and a big risk for almost no profit. It gives us more time to get noticed, more points of failure, and it screws with our jump timeline."


Grumbling, I nodded, knowing all that but also knowing she was worried about this. Being allowed to shut down a dumb idea from me would distract her from what we were about to risk, and that seemed like a good deal to me. She knew it too, if the little smile she was trying to hide told me anything, but she knew it would make me happy and went with it anyway.


Once we finished everything up, we prepared for our raid. It took us about an hour and a half to get the right mix of patrols to start. "Alright," I told her when the time came. My hand closed over hers, and I triggered Bael. "Let's go."


Pulling me forward, she stepped into the shadows, dragging me along with her into the dark. Our bond made it easier for her to bring me along, but in shadows this deep and thick it was much more difficult than I expected. I could feel the resistance as I was dragged after her into the depths of the abyss.


I felt the flicker of dark wings behind us, and I realized she was using a technique, a variation of her "Dance of the Abyssal Fairy". When we emerged from the dark, we both landed silently, and I let her catch her breath before we bolted across the chamber we'd found ourselves in, dropping into a different shadow.


A crystal veined cavern, an underground spring, a shrine, a lab, we passed through so many different places on our way down, blinking in and out. It took minutes for some of the trips, and we had to stop and dodge several guards that were out of position, but Bael covered the minute gaps.


When we emerged into the last room, it took me a second to recognize where we were. The whole place was…light. A million strands of woven light in a panoply of colors, strung with a thousand petals from a thousand flowers. Some made of gemstone and glittering metallic dust, some made of fire or wind.


A tapestry of supernature, the world as seen by the clouds at sunrise over an ocean of diamond. It was staggeringly beautiful. I'd mapped this chamber, and even sketched it out, but it hadn't done it justice. Nothing could have prepared me for THIS.


It really brought home that Dantalion, as amazing and useful as it was, couldn't do everything. It wasn't perfect.


"This part is on you," Callie said grimly. "Not a shadow to be found in here."


I nodded, then activated Dantalion again. It might not show me the depth of the beauty, but the actual path was something else. I Waltzed forward, slipping effortlessly between strands and dipping under petals. As I got deeper, the light condensed into combs like a bee hive, and I slipped through all that, using Double Trouble on some of the bees I could see, but who couldn't see me.


It took me about ten minutes to get to the center. When i got there, I found a tiny, mostly unassuming bee. It was made of what looked like wrought metal with topaz splashed of yellow. I reached out and scooped it into the prepared box that I'd been given, closing it and making sure not to put it in my ring.


Making my way out, I met back up with Callie, holding the box up as I grabbed her hand, Bael covering her again. "Alright, we're good to go. Get us out of here, as fast as you can."


She pulled, dragging me into the shadows, and as we fell into the dakr the flutter of wings increased. We burst from the abyss even faster this time, racing back the way we'd come, jumping between banks of shadow as we made our way out.


When we hit the lawn, I scooped her up in a princess carry and triggered my Waltz, bursting forward out of the grounds as I headed for the rendezvous point.


When I arrived, I passed off the box to Aloysius with relief, and Callie and I headed back to the heart. The heist was just as smooth as the first, but it felt…unfinished. Like it was just step one of the last trial, where I would have faced Jacob.


He might have been gone, but there were still plenty of candidates to go up against, and only two days until it was time do it. I still didn't know what the last trial would be. I would be undergoing rebirth after I finished, so as not to weight the last trial, but I was less worried about that than the final test. Something about it just screamed danger.


Callie, seeming to have noticed my reticence, smirked and shoved me over as we entered the room, flopping into bed lazily. "So…you want to watch a bad horror movie?"


I laughed as I joined her. My wife knew me better than anyone. Trust her to know when I needed someone to help me relax before a big test. I just hoped relaxing was going to be enough to help me come out ahead this time.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I waited the extra two days to finally have my friends use their wishes (minus the five emergency scrolls). Seventy two wishes at twenty five points apiece gave me eighteen hundred up front, not to mention a substantial gain of another sixty two hundred or so from the renown of doing as well as I did in the trial.

I put the eighteen hundred into Fantasy, and twelve hundred of the rest joined it, while three of the other five thousand all ended up in Might, and two ended up in Vitality.

With all that out of the way, I forced myself to take a deep breath, readying my mind for the trial ahead. The last trial. Today was the day, the day I proved myself, finished the last hurdle and took my place working for Felicity.

Not only was it important for my growth to pass this with flying colors, but chances were good the amount of points I accrued would enable me to more reasonably affect where I would go and what I could do. I'd begun to suspect, based on the fact that points were still being accrued despite so many conclusive victors, that they might serve a purpose besides just keeping track of us.

Regardless, I'd worry about that after this was all over. Today I had one more test to get through. One more trial to undergo.

Mnemosyne, Harper, and Bernadette met me at a clearing outside the town where I was staying for the last time, picking me up in a shuttle to take me to the final location. "So," I asked as we took off. "What's the last trial? Can we know about it yet?"

Bernadette just shook her head. "Now where is the fun in that? Every new trial is a spiritual experience. The anticipation is part of the test."

"The tests are torture," I said bluntly. "You're saying this is EXTRA torture on top of the torture?"

She gave a sad sigh. "Torture is such an ugly word. I wish you would think of it in a different way. You could call it self actualization."

"You're saying it isn't torture?" I asked her skeptically.

"No, I'm saying that calling it that isn't very nice." She beamed at me happily. "But fear not new brother. It's almost time for you to reach your truest self and be accepted into the loving embrace of our Lady."

I shook my head. "Why do I feel like that embrace will break some of my ribs?" She ignored me, humming happily as she turned back to where she was… "Are you knitting a sweater out of barbed wire?" I asked in disbelief. "Who would even wear that?"

"I'll have you know that this is a birthday present for my brother in law," she said loftily. "He's very fashion forward."

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath and deciding to ignore her for the rest of the ride. It didn't take long, because within a few minutes the shuttle came over a rise and I saw… "Ok, I call bullshit," I snapped. "There's no way that's been here for any length of time. That thing was clearly transported down to Rackham from somewhere else. No way would something like that form naturally here."

My hand shot out, finger pointing accusingly at the massive caldera into which poured a literal waterfall of crystalline lava. Molten glass, glowing and clear in different places poured over the edge of a basalt cliff, plummeting into a lake of liquid with a single platform floating in the center. The platform was connected to the sides of the lake with a series of walkways that served to hold it up, anchoring it to three sides of the shore.

She just shrugged. "I never said it did. We brought it with us. No one said the last test was a native feature, and installing the Falls of Lamentation, while complex, is hardly impossible. We've been working on them since we arrived, and they were only completed recently. We won't be landing this time. Don't want to damage the shuttle."

Nodding, I headed to the edge of the shuttle, staring out over the edge. After a quick gauge of the trajectory, I checked to make sure any shielding was down, then hopped out.

I flexed my State of Grace as I fell. Not enough to be noticeable but enough to offset the extra weight of my armor. I wouldn't be injured, but hitting the ground in C-ranked plate at high speed might get me stuck in the rock, and I didn't feel like having to dig my way out.

Landing lightly on the edge of the caldera undoubtedly looked more impressive than slamming into the ground at high speed too, but that was just an added benefit.

Once I was on the ground, I slid down the slope, feet skidding on volcanic glass and dirt, until I reached one of the bridges and followed it to the platform. It extended out from the center, coming close enough to actually breach the falls, though there were holes in the platform to prevent the streaming liquid from collecting on top.

Mnemosyne appeared next to me. "Well, that's certainly dramatic."

"Haven't all of them been dramatic?" I asked with a laugh. "It's to be expected that the last one would be the craziest. You can feel it, right?"

She nodded. "The heat from that lava…it's hurting my soul. My skin too, at least a bit, but it's more than physical. This test is going to hurt in ways we can't even imagine." She didn't sound worried about it, just a bit grim.

"I expected that," I said again. "They were always going to want us to go out with a bang."

I stared up the falls, taking in the sheer height of the basalt cliff. I had a sneaking suspicion what we would be doing, and I was REALLY hoping I was wrong, because I really didn't want to climb up a fucking lava waterfall.

The more I looked though, the more sure I was. Through the crystalline lava I could see small notches along the cliff, and the holes in the platform lined up in a way that made them seem like individual starting spots.

To no one's surprise, Darian joined us on the platform, excitable as ever. "Greetings everyone!" he chirped. "Are you ready to start your final journey?"

As ominous as that sounded, we all agreed gladly. This had been a rough few months, and I was glad to finally be through the ordeal. Just this one last trial. To my surprise, Mnemosyne was the one to broach the subject I assume more than a few of us were wondering about. "Now that we're here, can you tell us what the points are all about?"

His face lit up. "Ah yes," he announced grandly. "My tantalizing comment several trials ago, meant to leave you desperately searching for more information."

"You mean when you screwed up and told us too much?" I asked blandly.

"No! I didn't! It was on purpose!" he said petulantly. "But it doesn't matter because now its time. You will learn the truth of the power of…points!"

A groan of annoyance bounced off the walls of the caldera. "Oh for the love of the gods, just TELL them already. I swear, you could turn taking a bite of a sandwich into a production. Not everything needs to be a show."

"Shut UP Chad!" shrieked the kitsune. "I'll tell them how I want! Oh forget it, you ruined the reveal. Fine, the points are to spend on stuff when you enter the faction. Assignments, gear, even Skills. You need a certain amount to actually make it in, but past that threshold it all depends on your positions in the trials. There, I explained it in the most boring way possible, happy?"

I homed in on one particular phrase. Assignments. I had been told I'd have some way of affecting my arrival at the pocket world from here, and it appeared this would be it. Which meant I needed as many points as possible, just in case the pocket world was a sought after assignment.

In fact, I was sure it would be. Harvesting rare stuff from a mostly empty pocket dimension full of expensive plants and minerals (assuming it was the way I'd imagined it) sounded pretty cushy. I'd most likely need to spend a lot on it.

Which was fine, because the alternative was that I'd have had to manipulate an actual goddess into assigning me where I wanted to go. Still, that meant I needed another win. I needed to maximize my points. If I had leftovers maybe I could buy a new weapon or something, I'd have to look at their list, but first I needed to make sure my mission succeeded.

"Now, as I'm sure you've noticed, behind me is the Falls of Lamentation," continued Darian. "The waters, and I use that term loosely, of the Falls lay bare the agonies suffered by the soul inflicting your moments of greatest torment on your spirit even as they sear your flesh. The Falls can't kill you. It's impossible. But they can make you wish you were dead. There won't be a convenient escape button here. You climb until you can't and then when you reach your limit, you'll jump off."

I winced. That wouldn't be fun. Hitting the ground would suck after being so severely weakened, even if it wouldn't kill anyone here.

He gestured us towards the falls. "If I were you, I'd take the opportunity to test the waters before we start."

We all glanced at each other, only twenty five of us left, and approached the edge of the platform. When I reached my section, I stopped, thinking about how to do this. It would be a way longer climb than five minutes, so Gluttony was out at least until the home stretch. For now I just triggered Mornax, then, after a slight pause, I held out my hand.

The liquid glass seemed to flow through the cracks in my armor like water rushing downhill, magnetically drawn to any weaknesses as it seeped into my defenses and coated my skin. It felt…awful. Indescribably terrible in a way I had never experienced. I'd known they would save the worst for last, but this was next level.

It reminded me of the fear fire I'd been under for the second trial, but so much worse. This wasn't burning my courage, it was burning ALL my emotions, stripping away every part of my sense of self to leave me a motionless hunk of rock without even the will to move.

I pushed back, forcing my willpower to dominate my body, and I was forced to experience the physical burn so much more while I pushed my consciousness deeper into my flesh, manually controlling every individual muscle in a way I couldn't really describe. I had to purposefully force each tendon and ligament to move, puppeting my body like I had myself on strings, and each muscle I acknowledged and controlled made the pain worse.

In the background, I barely heard them call a start, and I almost didn't have the presence of mind to push myself forward. Almost. I took a step, then another, the liquid poured over more of me, and I needed more strength of will to dominate myself.

My soul was doing the work, I realized, that was why I was experiencing more pain as I went deeper. Mind over body. This was a technique. I was bolstered by that. It should take the others longer to realize how it worked in that case. I pushed forward, one step after another, until I reached the cliff, my fumbling hands gripping a couple of basalt spikes as I pulled, lifting myself up.

The first pull was rough, it took me a minute to process the increased pain. Apparently the lava lost efficacy the further it got from the source. Fun. Taking a long, slow breath, I adjusted my mental state, prepared myself, and then began to climb. I had to be first to the top.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The first step up the cliff was a whole new dimension of agony. The trials had me redefining that word every day now, but this was definitely my new benchmark for pain. More than that though, it took me back. I'd come to terms with my loneliness in the temple, but that didn't magically make all the pain I'd ever been in go away. I still remembered my suffering when I was younger.


My first step brought me back to some of my earliest memories, seeing my dad on one of his rare visits, not being able to measure up to what he wanted, and then blaming myself when he left. Zeke tried his best, taking me out for ice cream, telling me not to take it personally, but that was pointless. He'd left me. Personally. How could that be anyone else's fault?


The next time it was both worse and better. Better because I knew it was coming, and worse because I still blamed myself. Still thought I could do something to make him stay. Do better. Be better.


On his third visit I ran away from home. I was seven years old, and I was alone and scared in the city. I didn't want to go anywhere they might find me, so I struck out on my own. I ended up falling asleep in an alley, and Zeke came and found me the next day, telling me he'd left and I could come home.


In retrospect, I know I wasn't in any actual danger. Zeke could see the whole planet if he wanted to, and he was there to protect me. But at the time I was terrified, small and empty and broken hearted. He carried me home, and after that my dad only sent emails.


Once I got past that, I remembered my first crush, the first time I lied to a friend, the first time I said something mean in anger. One by one, all the little pains, the little agonies, that made me who I was, they all got dug up and shoved into the limelight, placed front and center in my mind. Like I was watching my personality get built one crack at a time.


Because Bernadette had been right the first time we met. Pain makes us who we are. We start as blank slates, empty canvases, stone statues yet to be carved. Then the first pains hit us, chip away at the stone, and bit by bit they carve us from relief. Sure, there are good things as well as bad, but you cant have the hills without that valleys. Pain gave us nuance, gave our souls texture. Made us who we were.


I still felt the physical pain through all this too. Every nerve in my body exploding with the white hot intensity of a thousand dying stars. I didn't reach for the bond. I didn't want Callie to go through this. This was…worse. Than any other pain I'd experienced. The combination of physical agony and mental anguish was unique and awful in its own special way.


And honestly, I was ashamed. My petty little hurts and most tragic stupidities being laid bare like that made me feel small. Pathetic. I was reminded of all my most human failures, and it made me feel weak.


I stopped about halfway up, having mostly been so lost in my progress that I'd failed to notice where I was until I took a break. I was crying, and my voice was hoarse from screaming. I wasn't the only one. The Falls of Lamentation lived up to their name, and I was still using my soul to force my body to move as everything I was got stipped bare. I'd puzzled out why too, it kept me from using my soul to resist what the falls were doing to my mind.


But then…why should I resist it? Part of the Lady's thing was using your pain to understand. Using it to grow.


So I started cataloguing my scars again from the beginning. It wasn't hard, I'd just relived most of them. In my mind, I was back in my younger body, looking up at myself. I was scary, a big man in big armor and a terrifying mask. But the smaller me wasn't afraid. He knew I wouldn't hurt him.


I knelt down in front of myself and put my arms around him, pulling him close and giving him a gentle hug. I told him it wasn't his fault. That he hadn't done anything wrong. Sometimes people hurt us and we didn't deserve it, and all we could do was accept it and move on.


My next self got the same treatment, the one after I found in the alley and led home before it got dark. I put him to bed, making sure he didn't have to see our dad. I forgave myself for the mean things I said, for the lies I told, for the petty cruelties I was ashamed of. I accepted them, and I let them go.


I hadn't been dwelling on all these things, of course. I didn't spend my time reminiscing about stealing a piece of candy when I was eleven. But they were always there. Always part of me. Little cracks in my spirit too fine to even notice. Not my soul, but my self, my mind or ego or whatever you wanted to call it.


Because in thinking about my humanity I'd remembered something Zeke had once told me, about what Ascendants really were. We weren't people, not really. We looked like people, and we felt like people, but we were only stories. Walking tales of tragedy. That was the whole purpose of Authoring your Chronicle. Now, I obviously couldn't do that right now, I wasn't even close to A-rank.


But I was pretty sure this process was important. Seeing what I was in all it's ragged glory. Accepting myself for my flaws. This was something I needed to do before forming my Chronicle, I was sure of it.


I didn't rewrite my story, but I did reframe it. I read over the old chapters and put them in context. I picked out the ways they'd shaped who I was now. The ways each incident affected me, how it informed who I was as a whole. How a lie I told made me more reticent to trust, how a betrayal made me quick to anger in certain situations.


Each new truth took me higher, further, one hand up to the next ledge, one foot on another spike of stone. I was three quarters of the way up now. The tears were gone, all cried out, and my screams had died down. I was quiet now, only the sound of the pouring lava and the his of burning flesh and air on superheated metal. It wasn't a super pleasant combo, so I got back to my climb.


I knew I was on the right track, though. In all the other trials, the pain had worn me down, had broken and eroded me. But this time I felt…reforged. Remade in a new image. I felt more whole the higher I went. I didn't know if all the trials were supposed to work like this or if this last one was special, but I suspected it was the latter.


All the suffering up to this point, the agony I'd gone through, it had been preparing me, had been readying me to push through this indescribable torment and see this for what it really was. A chance to patch the cracks.


At about eighty percent of the way I finished. Or rather, I got to my current self. I reached the end of my pain, catching the agony of a split second before as I finally finished picking myself apart and cleaning out the muck. Once that happened, the pain become all encompassing, it consumed me, the pain of the mind meshing with the physical to create a resonance. Now that I wasn't distracted anymore the two joined together into a tapestry of torture greater than the sum of its parts.


I considered using Gluttony, but it felt…wrong. Like I'd be missing the point. In fact, stopping ten percent short, I considered what I'd done up to this point, and made a possibly stupid decision. I let Mornax drop.


The wave of terrible suffering that crashed over me was worse than anything up to that point, almost enough to break me…but it also felt right. Cleansing. Purifying. Like working out really hard. The pain you feel sucks but its a good pain. It means you're growing. I put one hand in front of the other, gritting my teeth because the screams were bubbling back up, and I climbed.


Each pull was lost in a sea of misery, devoured by anguish and wrecked by woe. They took no time at all, and in the same way took ten times longer than I could have ever imagined. Eternity in an eyeblink. Until finally, before I could even process it, it was over.


I was lying on my side, on top of the basalt cliff. I'd pulled myself up and crawled out of the river of molten crystal, which had drained away when I removed myself, leaving me raw but unharmed.


Or at least, uninjured. I'd been harmed plenty. My entire body was raw, like an exposed nerve, ever brush of skin against the inside of the armor was like being flayed and lit on fire. I considered healing it, but it felt like I needed to let it fade on its own. So I sat there, breathing hard through clenched teeth, and as I did, the pain faded.


Eventually, I was able to think again, to see and hear and feel, and I rolled over to get up onto my knees before staggering to my feet. Limping to the edge of the cliff, I looked out and down. I saw a few people getting close, but none actually up here. This had been the last test and I'd come out on top. I was officially the winner, and whatever points existed here were all mine.


And that hit me like a speeding shuttle. I was done. My mission was over. There was a theoretical chance I couldn't afford a trip to the world I needed, but it was unlikely. I'd won most of the trials, so my points had to be high. I'd accomplished what I needed to. Soon I'd be leaving Rackham behind.


Which felt weird, honestly. This place wasn't my home. I'd met some fun people here, done some crazy things. But it wasn't…part of me. Except it was. That was part of what the Falls taught me. Everything we are is everything we were. Every experience, every place, we carry it with us. And we can put down part of the burden, accept it and render it weightless, but it's still there.


That, I was convinced, was why we had Chronicles. To remind us where we came from. Because we might not be human anymore, but parts of us always would be. People like Zeke forgot that, cast off those parts of themselves. Which was fine for them. But I made myself a promise that I never would. That no matter what I'd remember.


The little kid crying in his room because he disappointed his dad was gone, but never forgotten. He was still here, still growing, and he would be a god someday. I was the beginning of my story as much as the end. And I would make sure to put some of those experiences down in my Chronicle when I condensed it. So they would always be part of me.


Once I accepted all that, it was like the clouds parted. Sunlight washed over the dark places in my mind, and the last of the pain faded. Sunlight was the best disinfectant, and I felt clean, reborn. I just stood there, watching the horizon as the others climbed, smiling as I gazed out over the caldera of molten glass. It really was a beautiful view.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The end of the trials marked the end of my time on Rackham, but not exactly how I expected. I'd figured there would be a few days downtime and then I'd be put on a ship to somewhere. I'd also figured that we would be selecting our prizes for our trial points either in private or once we got wherever we were going.


To my surprise, that both did and didn't happen. After the trial Bernadette had picked me up, and rather than take me to a shuttle or to some selection room, she'd escorted me across the planet to a small, dark stone temple in a secluded valley.


Once we landed, she stood back, gesturing me inside, and when I was sure I wasn't under threat, I eventually headed inside, pushing open the double doors cautiously and stepping into a sea of endless dark. Once I was in, the doors closed, and the dark around started to shift. Small lights began to accumulate around me, and it took me a second to realize I was looking at stars.


I didn't exactly know constellations, and even less so the ones around here, but based on the way they started to move, I kind of assumed that Rackham was the starting point of this little journey.


As I stood there, motionless in space, my consciousness rocketed through the galaxy, eventually reaching a dark spot in the sky that I recognized as a black hole. Without even slowing down, I plummeted into the depths of the tear in space, and I had the uncomfortable sensation of standing in moving darkness for a split second until the dark receded, and I found myself plummeting through a broken red sky.


Instants later I crashed into the ground, slamming down onto a circular platform with enough force that, had I been here in real life, I'd probably have died.


Since I wasn't here (though based on the shining purple of my current avatar, I was pretty sure my soul was), I climbed to my feet unharmed as I glanced around the area to see exactly where the hell I had ended up.


I stood on a mountain peak. Or rather, above one. The dark temple I'd ended up on was sparse, just a ring of columns surrounding a flawless circular mosaic platform. The mosaic itself was spotless, as if the red dust storms whipping the desert landscape around us couldn't touch it. As if they wouldn't dare.


Off in the distance behind us was a colossal fortress of jagged dark glass. I had no idea why so many Ascendants favored dark and spooky imagery, though I imagined it had to do with humans being more willing to focus on the negative. Still, even among Ascendant buildings, this place was next level creepy.


"What the hell?" Asked a surprised voice. I turned to see that the other ten platforms (pillars, I was pretty sure) surrounding the central platform, were all filled with figures. Interestingly, they were normal human colors, not purple like me, so presumably the soul shade thing was only visible to the owner of the soul. I appreciated the minimal amount of privacy, at least.


The nine other residents of the platforms were…eclectic. A shirtless, wild looking guy with ragged brown hair to his back and a five o'clock shadow hunched in an animalistic crouch, golden wolf eyes scanning the area hungrily, a small girl a bit younger than me with intricately plaited red hair and bright blue eyes that reminded me of Callie's wore an old fashioned green and gold gown and a black velvet cloak, a wicker basket hanging from one arm.


A dark skinned man with kind eyes in a robe, holding a staff of gnarled wood, stood across from a doll like, caramel skinned girl in pig tails wearing a set of functional chain mail. One of the platforms just had an actual dog on it, a small furry white animal with unusually intelligent eyes, and one had a nondescript brown haired guy in a brown leather jacket and informal brown boots over blue jeans.


A regal woman wearing a silver ball gown and a dark metal tiara stood near a hunched looking imp with mottled grey skin and small, stubby wings, and the one nearest to me, to my left, was a hooded figure I couldn't even make out under the darkness of their voluminous robes.


The big attention suck though, was the figure in the center of platform, seated on a massive black glass throne made of jagged pieces that were almost definitely digging into flesh, sat a figure covered almost entirely in bandages, with the only exception being a tarnished silver mask reminiscent of a burial mask, and long dark hair twisted into dozens of braids, black glass hanging from the strands.


"Welcome," said a flat, surprisingly airy voice that rose around us like the climbing gales of a slowly arriving hurricane. "To Mourne Kayze. Welcome to my realm." The voice made me feel cold. Not physical cold, but spiritually chilled, like I was stuck in a dark world all alone. "You have been brought before me to claim the spoils of your victory. Pain may be eternal, but once endured, it makes way for new growth."


The wolf eyed guy sneered. "Who are these losers? I figured we would get one on one time with you. I didn't crush everyone else in my trials to share the spotlight with a bunch of wannabes."


Tarnished silver shifted in the dim red light, turning to face him, and then…misery. Agony. Torment. Woe. And that was just what I caught of the runoff. She didn't attack him, didn't punish him. She just stopped doing him the courtesy of hiding what she was. It was worse.


Wolf boy didn't scream, he was in too much pain for that. He just went pale and dropped to a knee, slamming his forehead to the mosaic of his platform hard enough to split skin. "Forgiveness," he gritted out. "Mercy."


The feeling vanished, leaving me feeling a little sick. Black Sorrow hadn't been seriously trying to hurt me back on Callus. If she had been…I didn't know what it would have done to me, but it would have been worse than a little scare. That hadn't even been malicious or directed and I felt like my soul might have cracked if it went on much longer.


"You have been chosen," continued the Lady of Lamentation. "You have been judged and recognized. Your pain has been endured, and you will choose your rewards. I will not bond with you. Will not coddle you. Pain has no favorites. Torment knows no preference. Agony is, above all, fair."


Without moving at all, she did…something. A scroll appeared in front of me, unrolling in my face as it hung in the air. At the top was the name Mephistopheles, and beside it was a number, 18,347.


Below that was about a hundred tidily written options, laid out in a neat list with the name on one side and a number on the other.


As I scanned the list, I used my peripheral vision to look at the other selectees. A few things became clear. First, I didn't know any of them. And I would have. Some of them felt dangerous. In fact, almost all of them did. I was pretty sure Rackham hasn't been the only trial planet. These were the winners from the others.


Second, they all looked tense, and suspicious as hell. Which was fair, because we were gods knew where completely at the mercy of a deity who could snuff out our souls like birthday candles with a casual thought.


Weirdly, this helped me feel better about my mission. This wasn't some kind of deep bond, I wasn't becoming her personal messiah. I was a random lackey she was dealing with for a second and didn't care about. I got the weird impression that even if she found out I turned on her, she wouldn't care.


It wasn't perfect, but I could at least try to ask my grandfather to try to intercede with the Revenant, see if there was a way to like…confine her back to her pocket dimension instead of shattering her soul and tossing it to the cosmic winds.


My conscience momentarily salved, I focused on the list. It was extensive. And the hundred entries seemed to be more like subheadings, because if I focused on one the list changed. I found one for missions, then jumped over to harvesting jobs (I'd be able to keep a percentage of my haul) and scrolled through until I found a name I recognized.


Fields of Strakkenthar. Six spaces open. That had to be it. It wasn't the most expensive job to pick, but apparently there were some very valuable items in there, so it wasn't cheap. Thirteen thousand points to take on the job. I'd be harvesting there for one month, and there was a warning about hostile natives. Great.


I selected it, and the total at the top shifted down to five thousand and change. I searched for anything else I might be able to use, and there were some interesting things. Weapons, armor, elixirs. I didn't want any of those though, not when I saw a particular item listed.


Abyssal Rose. A cutting of a bush from the darkness below, grown in the blood of a dead god. It was listed as a Path supplement, and alchemy ingredient, and a possible weapon material. The thorns excreted an abyssal poison that could infect shadows.


It was five thousand. I didn't even hesitate, I just grabbed it. I knew without checking that it would be helpful to Callie, both to help her form her Solid Path and as a possible weapon.


My last few hundred points I spent on a trio of Master grade skill shards. Empty ones I could try to infuse with my Goetia Staff art when I finished my last form. My friends were all pretty set in their ways combat wise, but I might be able to give them to some of the pavilion kids or something.


I had forty seven left, and I didn't want to waste them. I bought myself a single use, C-grade dowsing rod that could locate anything I'd been in contact before, as long as it wasn't too far away or too high rank. That cost 40, and I spent the last 7 on food, ordering a few abyssal wyvern steaks that I thought Callie and I could share.


When I finished, I looked up to find the Lady staring at me. "You are owed yet more pain," her airy voice whispered in my ear like a cold cemetery wind. "You will stay behind when they depart. You will undergo Rebirth."


I nodded, knowing for sure that the others couldn't hear me. I'd been wondering about that. It seemed that I'd be heading straight for the fields when I was done on Rackham. It was honestly kind of a relief I wouldn't have to face her in person. I wasn't entirely convinced the mask would actually have helped.


The rest of them finished choosing,vanishing one by one. As they did, I glanced at the scroll again, still hanging there, and I blinked in surprise. All but two of the spaces allotted had been filled. Four of the others had chosen the fields as well. I wasn't going to be alone down there.


I didn't have time to think about it much, because the scroll turned to black dust and blew away on the wind as others vanished. Suddenly I wasn't on the same platform anymore, now I was standing on the central platform, right in front of the lady.


"Prepare yourself," she advised coldly. Then she snapped her fingers. Tiles from the mosaic fell away, plummeting out into a bottomless void, only for the space to suddenly fill with what looked like liquid quicksilver. Before I could ask what she meant, something hit me from the side, sending me plummeting into the pit, and my mind was consumed with agony. Well, here we went again.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I fell into my bed with a thump, twitching and groaning. The rebirth had been mostly just more of the same. The Falls had prepared me perfectly, albeit to a MUCH smaller scale. It was agonizing, drawn out, and now that I was finished, I hurt in ways I'd never even conceived of before. It felt like I had a sunburn on the surface of my soul.


Which, with a bit of flexing of my Eye of Revelation, I could see after having detached it in that temple. The experience showed me exactly where to look, and I could now view my pristinely clear and shiny Amethyst Soul, perfectly pristine and remade, if still very tender to even the slightest use.


Sadly, Archie's Life Nova was functionally useless here, since the pain was FROM purification, and therefore impossible to cleanse, but I considered it a net win.


While I couldn't use any abilities or do anything too strenuous, I could still make Skills, forms, or stances, and I decided that with my down time, I was going to work on an important project I'd been mulling over. Specifically, I was going to try to create my final form, the ninth form of the Goetia Staff art, after which I'd be stable enough to condense my Chronicle.


I was in a bit of a hurry, because I felt like I was getting close to doing it accidentally. I kept stumbling into enlightenment and nearly starting the condensation by mistake. I'd tried looking into if this happened normally, but hadn't come up with any instances, and when I asked Zeke about it, he told me to go to hell and hung up. Regardless, I was on a clock, which meant I needed to finish my last form.


So I'd begun my search for what I needed. I considered more offense, more defense, other kinds of utility, but I decided the biggest benefit would be a higher base. All my forms worked multiplicatively, but they multiplied ME. That might seem like common sense, but thinking of it that way had given me a brilliant idea.


Forms, in a general sense, were partially inspired by some of the powerful multipliers I'd seen from people like Bethy. So what if I created a form that WAS a racial trait. Something completely new and unique to me. A form I could stack all my other forms on top of for a qualitative boost to their effect.


This project, I knew, would be incredibly complex. I'd need access to the details of a racial trait to use as a base, powerful modifiers, and a basic outline of what I wanted it to do.


So I went through my options. Vampire. Vampires were absurdly overpowered, but any vampire outside of the Lark family was due for a sudden and violent death, and since I didn't fancy my chances against the strongest mortal in creation, I decided to let Bethy's racial trait pass as a baseline. Unfortunate but necessary.


Next I considered Devils. That one was more plausible, but aside from the fact that it was a little obvious, it also felt…expected. My dad was a Devil, and even ignoring their increased say over my actions if I took that route, I'd be implying I wanted to be more like him, which I definitely didn't.


That said, I wanted to stay on theme. I considered a few others. Djinn, werewolves, but they all felt too off brand. Then I stumbled on exactly what I wanted. Angels. Or rather, fallen angels. If I could get access to Serah and Holly's racial trait, I could create my own version of it with a different alignment. Fallen angels were hellish, but also unique to me as far as I knew, at least in modern times.


I did some digging, and asked Callie to do a bit more (she was positively delirious after I gave her the rose) but neither of us heard anything about fallen angels, which was good enough for me.


I had eight wishes left for today, and having Callie give them to the twins was easy enough. It took a few tries for them to figure out how to store a charge of a racial trait, but they managed it through some clever wording, and each of them paid me four for some very valuable Skills they'd apparently been after for a while.


Which left me sitting on my bed, staring at my arm where a series of eight marks denoted the stored form changes.


I wanted to start immediately, but to maximize my usage I needed Dantalion, which meant my soul needed to recover. So I took a nap. The ambient life energy a the Heart didn't fix my soul soreness, but it did rejuvenate my body and improve my sleep, so I woke up feeling refreshed and ready to take on the world.


Thinking about it, I hadn't been damaged really, and it didn't make sense for purification to have any long term negative effects. Once I was feeling up to it, I closed my eyes, triggering Serah's stored form, and Dantalion at the same time.


Aiming that power inward was harder than expected, but it was doable. I pushed hard, focusing all my deductive and analytical ability into my body. Some of it didn't do much, but the enhanced Eye of Revelation abilities definitely helped. I could SEE the makeup of the racial trait, the construction of an entity.


It was staggering. The only thing I'd seen that was similarly complex was the wish power, though that was an order of magnitude more advanced. Bloodlines seemed to have a similar component to racial traits that made them inheritable, though I wasn't even CLOSE to being able to replicate it.


The fact that it might be possible to BUILD inheritable Skills had never occurred to me. I suspected it had definitely occurred to my ancestor, but the wish power was his life's work, and he most likely saw no need to recreate more inferior bloodlines after completing his magnum opus. Still, despite the complexity, the stored charge didn't get me much. Only a single minute or so in that form.


Racial traits were advanced and powerful, and being able to store one at all was impressive. Still, a minute wasn't much, and it would make this much harder. Taking out some paper, I flipped open my book, finding a table in a section near the back that had a series of complicated diagrams.


Much like blueprints for electronic devices contained shorthand physical symbols that let you sketch out a device in an understandable way, Skills also had a diagram language. It was incomplete and honestly more of a shorthand than anything, but it gave me SOME chance to record what I'd seen in a way that I could remind myself as I worked on the project.


It was my first time using the shorthand, and I wasn't used to it. It took me about twenty minutes of rewriting and adjusting to get something vaguely resembling what I'd seen, and even that was pretty full of holes.


So I did it again. Another minute, but this time I started sketching DURING the observation, maximizing my time to copy things down.


After I wrung all of it out, I did it again, and then a fourth time. The second to last one I spent an hour adjusting and double checking before I did the final pass, and by the time I finished, I quickly realized…I didn't know shit.


This was a massively complex and absurdly intricate project. My diagram didn't include everything because I didn't understand everything. I got maybe twenty percent of the entire trait, and even that I was shaky on. Like I'd copied the first layer of a multi layered concept, and without the rest of it there I didn't have a shot at getting more.


But I didn't stop, because I'd managed to gather SOMETHING. I had a stable, if diminished trait design, one that could, theoretically, make me stronger in certain ways, though the mechanism to actually induce a change escaped me.


In order for this to work, that was what I needed. I needed a base form to use as a foundation for all my others. Eventually, I was going to have to find a way to build it into my Skill itself, making the new changes permanent and leaving me in that form as a true baseline. But given the complexity of even making a temporary version, I was lightyears away from that.


Still, I had ideas. I started on Holly's trait, doing the same thing as before. Learning more about Serah's let me maximize my second diagram, getting more of what I needed out of it, and when I was finished, I compared the two.


While both Angels, Holly and Serah were not the same KIND of Angel. One had golden flames, and one had bronze. This implied racial traits could be customized, which I knew was true, but it also meant that the two traits had a common baseline. A shared foundation that appeared in both of them that showed me which parts were 'Angel' and which parts were more uniquely theirs.


That was what I'd been looking for. The thread that connected them, one I could copy wholesale (once I'd gotten the first scan done on Holly's powers, I'd known where to focus Dantalion). I essentially just cut out an entire section of the two abilities to use as a base, and then started tinkering with grafting on new things.


It didn't work. Making someone a new thing was fucking complicated. It wasn't just "be this thing", it was "be this thing at rest, this thing in motion, under these circumstances be this instead, or be this if that doesn't work". Racial traits were essentially complete redefinition of a being, and I was eons from managing that. I started stripping shit out, honestly leaning into my instincts to try to help.


Dantalion helped me explore, but I had to start over about a thousand times. Finally, after MUCH trial and error, I managed to create a sort of barebones starter, which essentially broke down to "be stronger, be faster, have wings, being definition: angel". I noted that after I managed that, I was still looking at a house of cards.


Angels, as it turned out, needed some sort of core force, a baseline energy type to work from that defined what they were. Contacting Callie, I had her pass one of the reserve scrolls to my sister, and got a charge of something a little stronger.


Enshrining Darkness. The real one. The version that was inherited and not the Skill based knock off that Bishops used. To my surprise, it slotted right in without any trouble, and once it was there, the entire structure of the trait subtly shifted. An angel of conceptual rot and destruction.


Everything became a bit more streamlined, a bit more robust. I'd never seen that outside of a rank up, but something about Enshrining Darkness FIXED my form. In fact, it fixed things I didn't even realize were wrong until I paid more attention.


Ignoring the weird phenomena surrounding godly abilities (thinking back Zagan had been way too overpowered) I tried for the finishing touch. Afterburner should have given me what I needed to make this a truly invincible form. Except… it didn't work. Afterburner wouldn't fit. I couldn't get it into my ninth form anywhere. Maybe it was the lack of fire, or maybe Enshrining Darkness was just too powerful. I tried Touch of Tears, Consecration of Flame. Nothing.


Knowing I'd succeeded, possibly more than I could have possibly dreamed of, I finalized the form. I felt something change, a click as the Goetia Staff art shifted and became whole, something unbalanced inside me righting itself for the first time.


I stood up, walking into the bathroom, and stood in front of the mirror. "Goetia Staff Art Ninth Form:" I said calmly. "Sammael." And then I changed. Wings unfurled from my back, massive and dark, made of feathers so black they seemed to consume the light. My eyes and hair both turned pitch black, and I felt strength fill me in a way I never had.


And unique among all my forms, I realized something else. This form didn't strain my soul. Not any more than a normal Skill. This felt…natural. I wasn't going to start on my Chronicle now, I'd wait until my next epiphany, but when it did, I'd be ready. I was finally complete.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The first thing I did when I finished Sammael was head out into the woods to test it out. First, I started with my strength. It was hard to check out the specs on it without equipment, but the easiest was was to use the trees. Since the older, larger trees were all C-rank, it was tough to put a dent in the damned things, which made them the perfect metric for my field test.


I didn't use my staff this time, since I needed to verify what I could do. I took up a position in front of a tree, set my feet, and brought my fists to my hips, chambering them. I didn't do much in the way of unarmed combat, but you don't learn from someone like Abel for a few years without picking up a trick or two. After a long, slow breath, I unleash a punch, my gauntleted hand smashing into the C-ranked tree like a battering ram.


The tree shook slightly, leaves drifting down, but was otherwise mostly undamaged. That was fine, I wasn't starting full tilt. I needed to work up to it, get a good baseline for my normal strength and exactly how much damage I could do at each basic level of effort.


Which was why I activated Dantalion, triggering my information gathering form as I threw my second punch, making sure that my plant senses through Rhythm of the Wild were active as I used it as a metric to figure out a benchmark for that first punch. I didn't know how to calculate force or what formulas or units of or measurement to use, so I just decided to call a single, forceful but casual punch "a Shane".


Repeating the action, I ramped up, and was able to establish that my maximum force output was nineteen Shanes. With that confirmed, I triggered Sammael, and almost fell over on my ass as the absolutely colossal upswing in processed information made me nearly black out from shock.


Wheezing, I lay on the ground, trying to pull back on Dantalion, muffling my access to the form as best I could.


That was the really scary thing about Sammael. It was a base form. It amplified my stats at a flat rate, pushing me closer to middle of D-rank than the first quarter. Dantalion worked through Focus, and the massive upsurge in the stat pretty much knocked me on my ass.


Once I was able to quiet some of that information (by essentially shutting down Dantalion to a trickle) I stood back up, flexing and testing out my power. I didn't feel unleashed, like I would on a lower rank world, but I did feel less inhibited. I'd gotten used to the suppression here by now, so I hadn't even noticed how stifled I was until I could feel it melting away.


Taking a deep breath, I beat my wings, grinning as I felt myself lift into the air. Flight. Theoretically I'd been capable of flight for ages now. D-rankers could fly in lower ranked worlds, where their personal Impact was equal to or greater to the planet and could allow them to overpower the suppression of gravity to a higher degree than just not being affected.


Sadly, Rackham was a B-ranked world, so flight was far from possible for someone at my level. At least…that had used to be the case. My face split in a massive grin as my wings beat the air, carrying me straight up into the sky with a powerful burst of wind. I triggered Bael as I lifted, not wanting to be noticed flying around, but once I got up above the clouds…I stopped caring.


Flying as a person was far different than flying in a shuttle, the feeling of rising up over the world with my own power, carrying myself into the sky as the ground fell away below me…it reminded of the flight all those months ago off the mountain in the Moonsong Glade, when my friends and I had glided out over the dungeon. The thought reminded me of Benny, Jessie, Abel, and most of all Callie.


Which stopped me dead in my tracks (figuratively speaking, I was mid flight, if I'd actually stopped I'd have fallen several miles and hit C or D-ranked ground). Sammael was a form. Callie could use my forms, and it provided a strong baseline for other abilities to work off of. She would be able to use it to boost the power of her Dance of the Abyssal Fairy, and hopefully some of her other techniques. Excitedly, I reached out to her, sending a quick message about the new form and the possibilities.


She seemed to be busy right now, probably training, but she agreed to check it out later, and I was in an excellent mood as I sung around, plummeting to the earth below only to pull up at the last second.


I still had tests to run. So I returned to my tree, and got back into position. I started with my original punch of one Shane. My fist slammed into the tree with three shanes of force, the bark groaning. My face split into a vicious grin and I started chambering and throwing more punches, trying to work up to my full force blow.


Sadly, I'd apparently just been using more raw power than I meant to early on, because my max seemed to be twenty five Shanes, but still, that was more than double my baseline fist force. I'd amplified all my base stats at a resting rate of nearly two and a quarter. I'd have had to do math to calculate it, which wasn't my thing, but as a base? It was…fantastic.


I flipped through my forms, seeing what they could do. Rather than just a basic stat boost, I'd designed this form to enhance the usage of my other forms. It was the firm foundation of my entire staff art, and it showed.


Mornax was twice as hard, Belial twice as corrosive, Mephistopheles could output double the flame, and the flame itself had mixed with the Enshrining Darkness to become…something else. Something worse. I'd even tried the mix of Belial and Mephistopheles that made the super corrosive destruction flame, and mixed with Enshrining Darkness, it was pretty absurd.


I needed to focus on it, using Cosmic Collapse to condense the power, but once I'd built up a strong enough blast…I burned the tree. A fist sized chunk of bark and the tree flesh under it was seared away. I could hurt C-rankers. Granted, probably not for long, because the tree started to recover visibly pretty much immediately, but at less than a quarter of D-rank, I had a blow that could harm C-rankers, people who were multiple times more powerful than me in raw stats. If they stood still. And were facing the other direction. And looked back just in time to get hit directly in their unprotected face and eye holes. But still. It was something. I could work with something.


And the more I grew the less of a gap there would be. At peak D-rank I would be able to fight C-rankers directly, even with their large gap in Impact. I'd be capable of ACTUALLY punching up a rank.


The other forms had boosts too. Zagan healed better, Agares did more dust stuff, the only one that didn't benefit was Beelzebub. Sadly I still only got twelve clones, though they were Sammael clones, which was nice.


It just felt…good. Being so free, so powerful. I felt like I was really capable of holding my own against anyone in D-rank. I wasn't, some of the stronger peak D-rankers would still kick my ass from the sheer stat difference, but I loved the sensation. I wanted to stay like this all the time, but I was pretty sure suddenly having black hair and wings would be noticeable so I was forced to resume my normal shape.


The difference was apparent, if not overwhelming. I felt like I was moving through water. Nothing debilitating but enough to be inconvenient. It barely took me the time to walk back to the Heart to readjust, but it was something I'd have to work on.


My next task, and the most important one, was to create my one final stance. I wanted to make sure that Bella had a full system of martial arts to work on when I was gone. She'd be safe on the Acheron, but probably either bored or very sore after being beaten by the equally bored crew. I could probably avoid that…but they were good training, so I'd leave it be.


This part was hard. Reactive defense had taken some doing to come up with, but trying to create a new foundation art was…complex. It required a systematic breakdown of all my other stances, learning what they had in common, how they worked and what element they all needed to function as a system.


It took most of an hour, but I finally managed to come up with an idea. Adjusting my base footwork and my grip, I shifted through about a hundred different permutations, using Dantalion to study the way my feet impact the ground, the way my staff cut the air, and to check how it worked with each of my other stances.


Sammael, I'd decided, was going to be an underlying stance that threaded together all of my forms. Bella would be using Sammael all the time when using the Skill, which would do for her a less impressive version of what it did for me, enhance every other stance.


While she couldn't use the full forms, and wouldn't have access to a temporary racial trait like me, it would bring her closer to being able to properly mimic my forms for a longer period of time. Presumably. When I found one that worked, I was thrilled to feel something else shift in the Goetia Staff Art, as it solidified even more, finally becoming whole not just for me, but as a complete and established Skill.


I was pretty sure that someone could train Goetia to S-rank now, even if I didn't get there first. This was a real, full, completely legitimate Skill now, in a way it really hadn't been up to now. Which made Bella my real first successor, and it made the three Skill shards I'd picked up even more valuable to me.


So, I was in a good mood when I got back to the heart, ready to take on the world. What I was NOT ready for was…a surprise party. I stared in shock as I walked into the secret base to find a dozen familiar faces. Simon, Elena, her daughter, her husband, Mnemosyne, Harper, Chester, Bernadette, and basically everyone I'd met since I got here.


"SURPRISE!" yelled no one except for Bella and Ray. They both sulked as everyone else chimed in late or not at all, but my apprentice quickly blew past it and raced forward, appearing in front of me with a bright smile. "Happy leaving day, Master! Now you get to get away from all these nutjobs and never come back."


Ray gasped, hand to his chest in exaggerated offense. "Hey! I resent that. He'll never get away from me. I'll haunt his nightmares." He paused for a second. "I think we both will."


"False, I'll never sleep well enough to have dreams again worrying about you idiots," I said fondly. "Now, since this is my last day here, I was planning to call you all together and treat you to a meal…but since you were the ones who planned this I don't have to pay for food, so I hope you guys got me a cake. I'm starving."


With a laugh, Bella and Ray both grabbed me and dragged me inside. I shot Chester a grateful smile, knowing he had given a bunch of people his secret base location so I could have this party. I guess we were even for me making it in the first place. Before I focused on the festivities though, I focused on the cake, and took a big bite, sending the sensation across the bond to my wife. Then I cut the connection, reveling in the split second of outrage. Had to keep things interesting for her while I was away.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Saying my goodbyes was pretty sad. I'd grown fond of a lot of the people around here. Still, before I left, I made one last executive decision. I passed out a series of scrolls. Ray, Elena, Bella, Vesper, Chester, Desria, and Cavallo. Eight scrolls, my entire work load for the day.


I'd waffled on giving them over, even called Zeke to check what he thought, but in the end, I decided to do it for a few reasons. First, it would be a way for them to get in contact with me later. Second, apparently Wish scrolls don't actually show up as anything until you use them. Zeke said as long as they waited until I wasn't around it was unlikely to matter. The scrolls were in a dormant state until opened, and once I was gone, no one would be looking in on them.


The only thing I made sure to emphasize was that they should keep them hidden and only use them once I was gone.


Elena, who I knew was going to use hers to heal SImon completely without the difficult recovery, threw herself at me, squeezing the life out of me with one of the tightest hugs I'd ever had. "You come back sometime," she said fiercely. "Don't let this be the last time we see you. Simon is pretty young, so it might not occur to him now, but when he's all grown I know he's going to want to meet the man who saved his life, to thank you for this."


I hugged her back with a smile. "I will. Might be a while, but I'll be back. The rest of you…I'll see you when I see you. Good luck. Bella, you know where your pickup point is?" I turned to give my apprentice a stern look.


"Don't worry about me, Master. Just focus on making it through this next challenge and coming back safe." Her voice was tight, and it occurred to me that I was sending her off to room with total strangers on a ship far away from the only planet she'd ever known. I put a hand on her shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze to let her know I was proud of her, then turned to Bernadette.


"So, how do we do this?" I asked calmly. "We taking a ship?"


She shook her head. "Teleporting. One of the main benefits of Void Realms is that they're IN the void. Teleportation is exponentially simpler when you don't have to breach the dimensional barrier on the other side. Or at least, not THIS dimensional barrier." She beamed at me. "I'm so happy you decided to choose the Fields of Strakkenthar as your first assignment, it shows real commitment to our precepts."


I felt my blood run cold. "Oh gods, why? You never sound that happy about anything unless someone is in horrible pain."


"Now, now," she chirped. "That would be ruining the surprise. But I just know you're going to become a more empathetic person for the experience. Also, probably don't eat anything that you don't have to kill and cook. The plants there are violently poisonous."


"Fantastic," I drawled sarcastically. "Because that description isn't at all alarming coming from a women who ACTUALLY poisoned me." We turned and headed off, waving goodbye to the others. Bernadette hadn't been around for the scroll gifting, so everyone kept theirs tucked away during the sendoff, and I was a bit relieved for her to be away from them. "So, I had some questions. Think you could give me a bit of extra info?"


She shrugged. "It depends on the information of course, why, what did you want to know?"


"I noticed on Mourne Kayze that a few other people picked the Fields. Do you know who? And do you know why?" There were multiple different 'local specialties' of the Fields of Strakkenthar, and I hadn't heard of any of them. If I was going to be up against other top initiates, I'd prefer to know what we were competing over, so I could avoid going near it. I had the stone Callie had passed to me, and it would lead me to whatever I was looking for, I didn't need extra work.


Pursing her lips, Bernadette hummed pensively. "I can't tell you all of them. I don't know and didn't care enough to check. But I do know at least one. My best friend Amelia was an emissary on a planet called Veldosta. Her initiate won her selection. A girl named Sable. Red hair, fancy dress. You might have seen her. She picked the Fields to try to find Asphodel Flowers."


I'd noticed those on the list of specialties. "Ok, I know the word, but not the plant. What do they do? You said all the plants there are poisonous, so I assume people don't eat them."


"Of course not," she laughed. "They inhale them. Burning them in an incense pot with a series of other herbs puts you into a dream trance. It amplifies certain types of Dream based abilities. Divination, dream walking, nightmare sorcery. They're extremely rare, because the land they grow on has to be horrifically blighted in a very specific way. They're part of the reason the Fields are such an important resource for our Lady."


Hiding my grimace behind a mask, I nodded. "You said part of the reason. What's the rest of it? Is there another major export?"


"Mournehollow Toads," she chuckled. "They eat curses. Bigger curses mean more toads are needed to get rid of them, but it's one of the least complicated curse reverse methods. They bypass any redundancies or security traps. Just lick the curse right up. They live in the marshlands off the Deathknell Mesa, but I'd be careful if you want to try to grab some of those. If you think the normal plants are poisonous, the marsh plants are a thousand times worse. Walking through those marshes can be fatal if you aren't prepared."


I nodded along, asking more questions as we walked, until we finally came to a clearing where a small, unassuming man with mousy brown hair in a dirty brown suit stood next to a door. Not a building, mind, just a door in a frame sitting in the middle of the forest, seemingly with nothing on the other side. Interesting.


"Marmont," said Bernadette with a smile. "You're on time for once. I didn't think you knew how to tell time. I remember on Blavast-"


The unassuming man glared at her. "On Blavast," he cut her off scathingly. "I got kidnapped by a flesh wizard, and none of you even bothered to try to find me. I had to escape on my own, and I got FINED for missing work because none of you reported my absence until two months after I vanished."


"I know," she said cheerfully. "And think how much closer we all feel to you, knowing what you've been through. We even took you out to dinner to celebrate."


"YOU MADE ME PAY!" he shrieked. "And Chad bought eleven bottles of wine and took ten of them home! Expensive bottles. I'm STILL paying off that bar tab. And they keep sending me really disturbing reminders about my debt. The last one was a dead fish. My front door still stinks."


Bernadette turned to give me a happy smile. "This is Marmont," she chirped. "He's our Lady's best teleporter. No one can get you where you're going faster or more smoothly. And he's so funny. He makes the best jokes about how much he hates all of us."


I sighed, turning a sympathetic wince on the other man. "I'm so sorry that this is your life."


To my surprise, he smiled. "It's ok, they mean well. Besides, I stole Chad's house the next time he went on assignment. He still doesn't know where I put it. They can be obnoxious but they're not so bad." His face fell. "If you meet the Lady's OTHER servants though, you should run. THe Order of Mercy tend to be where the more level headed of us wind up. The Order of Punishment though…" He shuddered.


Knowing what kind of goddess The Lady of Lamentation was, I'd know that she must have moire…offensively inclined servants. Putting a name to them strangely did NOT help make them less intimidating.


"Noted," I said with a nod. "Now, how do we do this?"


He gestured to the door. "Knock three times, and picture your destination in your mind. The Void Door is a fairly specific ability, made specifically for Void Realm travel, but as I'm sure you know, there can be great power found in specialization. I do quite well for myself with my niche ability."


Nodding quietly, I stepped up to the door, taking a deep breath. Raising my gauntleted hand, I rapped on the door three times, focusing on the concept of the Fields of Strakkenthar. I'd never been there, but they knew that, so I assumed it wasn't an issue. As my knuckles struck the wood, I felt a pulse of…something, emanate from the door, rustling the leaves of all the nearby trees.


It took me a second to notice the changes, because they were so gradual, but after the burst of energy, the world seemed to shift. Winds began to pick up, shadows lengthened, the air became a bit more chill. It was gradual, but everything seemed to almost…fade. Like this section of the world was having all the color leeched out.


From the other side of the door, three booms echoed, as if something unimaginably large and powerful had struck a door a thousand times the size of this one. It trembled in its frame, and I saw Marmont wince, but he recovered quickly, then withdrew a large, ugly brass key hanging on a brown strap from under his suit.


It was warped and lopsided, partially melted and rusted in places. He slid it into the lock beneath the knob of the door and turned it three times. Then he reached down, turned the knob, and stepped back as he threw the door open, as if waiting to be attacked.


To my complete shock, the space on the other side of the door was…another world. I mean, I'd known he was a teleporter, but having met one when we made our trek to the Glade, I knew that this wasn't how they worked. Apparently being Void specific made things easier to work with. This broke most of the laws of teleportation I'd heard of.


Bernadette put a hand on my shoulder, her face falling to become uncharacteristically serious. "Mephistopheles…be careful there. Not only are there creatures who might hurt you…some of the other initiates are new. They haven't learned to embrace the connections between us all. And some of them ARE from The Order of Punishment. They don't value our brothers and sisters the same way we do."


"I don't mean to speak ill of our Lady's servants," she said slowly, as if fighting herself on what to give voice to. "But their pain is a selfish pain. To be taken from others to sate their own dark urges. It heals no one, provides no understanding. Forms no bonds. They inflict pain for the sake of pain. Do not fall prey to them. You will not have a good end."


That was the closest to a negative thing Bernadette had ever said about anyone who worshipped the Lady in my presence, so I took it to heart. "Thank you," I said sincerely. "I'll be careful."


I'd also talk to my mom. These were good people. I didn't want to see them swept up in god war bullshit because their goddess was making a thoughtless choice. If there was some way to save them, I would. With a final nod, I stepped over the threshold to the door. As soon as my foot crunched down into the dark grass on the other side, there was a thump as the door slammed shut, and when I turned, it was gone. Well then, I guessed I was on my own.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Stepping through the door was an odd sensation. My senses, imbued with Impact as they were, and bolstered by my Perception, were always working in some capacity, even if I offset most of the conscious ones with Focus so I wasn't listening to flies in another hemisphere every second of the day.


So even though I wasn't actively trying to sense what was going on around me yet, my subconscious lit up with a tide of completely different stimuli over the course of a single step. Humidity, temperature, ground elasticity, wind chill, once I stopped and actually reached out to check the situation, all those subconscious warning bells became very obvious changes I had to catalogue.


Firstly, I felt Death here. Capital D Death in a way I hadn't known was even possible. It took me a second to recognize what it was actually, but I quickly connected it to the way Archie made me feel, but backwards. This was a Path energy.


Strakkenthar's inner world was absolutely polluted with his Path, even after he'd been dead for so long, and I could feel it almost clinging to my own. I grimaced, activating Zagan, and sighing in relief as the flames of purification washed away the clinging taint of that horrible Path like good soap taking off a coat of grease.


I was starting to understand the one month timeline of this harvesting mission. This oily energy would be nearly impossible for most people to dispel, and it was almost definitely going to cause damage to the Paths of the people who showed up here.


Within a month, I imagined it would be simple enough to push off the effects when you left, but if you stayed too long, the native Path in this world would most likely subvert the Paths of those visiting. I hadn't really heard of that happening to anyone, but I knew that seeing or experiencing certain things could alter your understanding of a Path. It made sense that you could taint a Path with another, stronger Path.


Unfortunately, I couldn't keep Zagan active my whole stay. It was too attention grabbing, unless I used Mornax on top of it to contain the signs, but that would be two of my three forms down.


So I dropped it, and shifted to something that shouldn't cause almost any strain. Sammael.


In the blink of an eye, the world…changed. The wind felt warmer, the sky a bit lighter, and the air had a welcome, peaceful vibe instead of the foreboding claw of lingering death. I blinked in shock. I'd expected it to help given Black Sorrow's connection to Strakkenthar, but not THIS much. This place felt like my backyard now.


With a shrug, I withdrew the stone that Callie had mentioned. The one that was supposed to help me find the path to…whatever I was here for. Unlike the shadow replica, the real stone was a translucent gold color, and as soon as I took it out, it seemed to suck something from the air, condensing some kind of ambient aura into a small black cloud. Before my eyes, the cloud started shifting, changing shapes and forms until it settled on being an arrow, pointed directly north.


"Well," I said to myself aloud. "At least they're not being vague about it. Whoever made this knew what they were doing." I set off following the arrow, heading toward…I stopped. Grimacing, I stared ahead of me toward the changing landscape. I'd landed in a forest (because of course I had), but it was slowly shifting to something more wetland in appearance. Sinking trees, watery ground, lots of mud…almost marshy.


Groaning, I rubbed my temples. "Obviously. Why didn't I just assume that. 'Don't go to Marsh Shane, it's ten times worse than everywhere else and will probably kill you', where else was I expecting this mysterious thing to be?"


"Are you talking to yourself?" asked a familiar and very amused voice. I almost jumped out of my skin, whirling to find my smirking wife in all her shadowy glowy. "They say that's the first sign of insanity. Or the second. I'm not really sure, I never listen when people talk." She put a hand on my arm worriedly, despite the flippant tone. She'd heard what I said.


"I'd noticed that," I replied with a chuckle. "Did I flood the bond with annoyance or something? I'm surprised you're here."


She frowned, glancing around worriedly. "No. Not exactly. There was…some kind of interference. It went away after a second, but I came to check on you. Did something happen a few minutes ago?" I explained to her about the Path corruption floating around here, and she grimaced. "Well that's not a great sign. But at least it doesn't effect you in your Sammael form. I was testing that one out by the way, VERY cool. I look amazing with wings."


"You would look amazing with antenna on your head wearing a poncho made of lime green plastic wrap," I said with a laugh. "But I was interested to see what it did for you. Any boost to your abilities aside the obvious ones?"


"My range is expanded," she said happily. "And it's easier to shadow jump. Plus the harder punching. I don't think it's quite as big a boost as it is for you, but still, the extra strength is nice."


That was interesting. All my other forms seemed to work more or less the same for Callie as they did for me. Sammael being diminished was odd. I wondered if it had something to do with the racial trait aspect of it. I knew they weren't really supposed to work like that, being able to just grab one and make it function like that.


I suspected that had to do with a lot of different factors, my access to racial trait charges, Dantalion, my ancestor's book, and the weird nature of DS Mastery itself, which had become, through the constant mashing together of random skills and imagery and techniques, something incredibly complicated.


I'd reworked my forms to make them more stable, eliminating weaknesses and shoring Skills up, but it was still an extremely complex and nuanced ability. I could make it function and repair it, but honestly it was kind of beyond me as a whole. I learned new ways of thinking about it every time I picked up the book.


"Shane!" Callie said sharply, snapping her fingers in front of my face. "You're letting your Focus outpace your Perception again, aren't you?"


I froze, thinking about that. I had been pushing Focus for a while in order to maximize Dantalion. I'd kind of stopped because it almost made things worse, but with a Focus of twenty two thousand and a Perception of sixteen thousand, I had definitely let the numbers fluctuate. It wasn't unmanageable, plenty of Ascendants had bigger stat gaps, I'd just gotten used to keeping them mostly in lockstep.


"Yeah, I'll work on that," I reassured her. "For now I'm good, thanks for reminding me. Now, I need to get into that marsh, which is apparently horrifically dangerous, to get the…whatever I'm here for. I think I'll go around for now, see if I can find a pass through where I don't need to go into the death swamp."


She shrugged. "Seems like a decent plan. Is Archie around here? He might come in handy."


I shook my head. "I left him on the Acheron with Bella. I considered bringing him, he's definitely useful to have around, but…I just got a bad feeling. It might have been my Fatewalker instincts acting up, or maybe paranoia, but I felt certain that it wouldn't be safe to bring Archie."


"Fantastic," she said in an unamused tone. "Your vague future telling powers think this place is too dangerous for your purification based phoenix. That makes me feel great about your chances. Promise me you'll be careful? You said there's natives around here, right? How strong are they supposed to be?"


"D-rank," I told her firmly. "Everything here is. I didn't get why until I showed up, but now I do. It's this Path. The corrosive nature of it warps other Paths nearby. Solid Paths are more vulnerable, because they're concrete. They're stable, so they can't be warped as easily, and instead get worn down. This is energy from a dead god too. I bet it's worse the stronger you are."


That actually seemed counterintuitive at first glance, but thinking about it, it made sense. This energy wasn't aware, but it was more than just a field of power. I'd felt that much in the creeping way it tried to pervade me. The more solid a Path was the more of a challenge this stuff would find it.


Whispering to illusory Paths would be screaming at Solid Paths. It was why I'd been so immediately thrown when I arrived. In fact, thinking back to my reaction, without Sammael or Zagan, I was pretty sure I wouldn't have lasted the whole month. Maybe not even a week.


"This whole thing reminds me not a small amount of the Moonsong Glade," she said worriedly. "Do you think Strakkenthar…"


"No," I cut her off. "Felicity, the goddess not my cousin, really didn't like her dad. He was an abusive dick, and she has control of this place. The Glade was basically lost out of the way of people's notice. It was left unattended for too long, there's no way the Lady would allow that."


She nodded, relieved. "Good, I don't like the thought of you taking on a god on your own. Though adding a godslayer title might help you catch up," she winked at me and I laughed.


"I'm doing ok on my own," I told her amusedly. "Don't worry about that. In fact, I'm expecting a big bump in renown after this trial end." With the victory, plus my introduction to the other finalists, I was betting there was no small amount of digging into me going on. Mephistopheles was new and mysterious, word was bound to get out.


I was looking forward to seeing what kind of stats I got off this windfall, because between my victory and all the others interested in learning more (especially higher ranked people) I was betting it would be a sizable boost, and one I sorely needed. I wondered I'd have enough to make it to a hundred and fifty thousand, or maybe even more. Maybe I'd be able to push past twenty five points per wish.


We circled around the edges of the marsh, making sure not to stray onto the wet ground as we followed the periphery of the arrow, making sure to keep it aimed to our outside. By checking the heading we were able to get a small idea of how big the marsh was, the amount of distance travelled and the angle of the arrow giving us a baseline.


Dantalion was able to intuit the rest, combined with the plant life and ground condition and a dozen other things I couldn't even consciously process. We stopped after about a half hour.


"Fifty miles," I said with a grimace. "That's nothing at top speed, even if this place is weirdly heavy for a B-rank world. Still, rushing means we might miss a threat, or distrub some predator or poison or a dozen other things. Sighing, I shook my head. "I need Zagan for this. You should go. Zagan and Mornax on top of Sammael should be plenty to both ward off the poison and defend me, but I won't be able to concentrate worrying about your clone."


She scowled at me. "You're lucky you had the presence of mind to say the word clone just then. Fine. Be safe, and call me when you can talk. I don't want you getting too isolated here on your own." She put a hand to my cheek, staring fondly up into my eyes, then vanished.


Smiling at her now absent form, I triggered Mornax and Zagan, the stony form concealing the signs of my amplified purification form. Then, I turned toward the direction of the arrow. I considered walking, but remembered what form I was in. I grinned, spreading my wings grandly before beating them a few times for altitude, then I settled into a leisurely glide. Best form ever.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

My peaceful flight didn't last long. While earthbound predators couldn't catch me, there were a lot of very dangerous aerial monsters around. Flying too high risked catching the attention of the bigger and more powerful beasts, leviathan shapes with wings that surged above me in the dense clouds.


Obviously I avoided those, but staying low kept bringing me into the territory of annoying local small fries that ruled surprisingly well delineated areas along my path. I was attacked by several kinds of bird, a cockatrice, three pegasi, and somehow, a shark that swam through air.


Luckily, between Mornax and Zagan I was safe as houses. Mornax, which normally required my feet to be on the ground, received an unexpected benefit from Sammael, which was that since angels were winged and the air was their natural environment, my new form allowed me to pull strength from the sky as well as the ground, granting me access to my defensive form in flight.


As I circled around the marshes though, I realized I was approaching some kind of natural barrier. To one side of the marshland there was a truly colossal spire of mountain, one of the steepest I'd ever seen. Landing and accessing Dantalion to scope it out revealed that a staggering amount of air based predators were nesting on that thing, and the higher up you went the scarier they became.


Because of this, I had to land and make my way on foot, choosing to enter the marshes at the intersection of the two territories. It was odd, the mountain was made of some sort of crystalline rock that warped Perception, so I hadn't picked it up until I got closer, but once I noticed it I had trouble NOT looking at it.


The nearer I got, the more entranced I became, and it wasn't until I flared Zagan that I realized there was a trace of corruptive power being woven into the visible spectrum by the light coming through the cliff.


After that point, I tried to avoid direct eye contact, and when I finally reached the intersecting strip of land between the two that I wanted to use to advance deeper into the marshland, I made sure to set me back to the mountain as firmly as possible. It helped me avoid the most immediate effects, but looking close I could still see hypnotic patterns on the ground, and I had to so my best to ignore them.


The strip of land between the marsh and mountain was surprisingly pleasant when I reached it. A wide aisle of grassy meadow untouched by trees or swamp, the flowers dotted over the dark grass were beautiful and calming. Naturally, my danger sense started screaming at me the second I looked at them.


Closing my eyes, I triggered Dantalion again, shaken by the overwhelming tide of information. I'd improved at parsing it, but Sammael boosted the form enormously, and it had taken me a while to get the trick of not just dialing down the intensity, but focusing it.


Rhythm of the Wild was a component part of the Dantalion form, and focused exclusively on plantlife. It was made for finding valuable herbs, but it had other uses too. It could help me analyze the composition of a plant, and combined with Dantalion's other divinatory abilities could even help me uncover the history of these flowers.


So I focused, I breathed, and I fell into my senses, letting my consciousness plummet into the unknown depths of the flowers. At first it was overwhelming. This kind of hyper focus turned up Dantalion quite a bit, and mixed with Sammael's boost it was almost too much. Still, I made myself stick it out, and as I got deeper, I understood more about what the flowers were and why.


Dantalion was an odd form. It deduced things that should probably be impossible to figure out by accessing levels of reality that most Skills couldn't touch, compiling information from sources that might be unique to me, at least in combination.


One of those sources, Eye of Revelation, could let me peer into my soul, or with the permission and help of another Ascendant, into the soul of another, helping identify the stat makeup of the Skills they used. In this particular instance, it let me study the stats that made up the flowers, a veritable blueprint of their functions, and added in brief sparks of insight as to why they were like that.


These flowers had been growing here for about a thousand years. They were actually relatively young in terms of the flora in this place, and they had developed as a natural defense by this strip of land.


Though the marshland was highly poisonous, the meadow here was shockingly free of dangerous chemicals. As such the flowers that used to grow here were a favorite snack of the animals that nested in the lower levels of the cliff. Over time, the exposure to the psychedelic light that shone through the cliff face had altered the composition of the flowers, giving them their own hypnotic aspects, and creating a visual display that lulled unsuspecting creatures into a sense of complacency to be picked off.


Over time, the knowledge of the dangerous flowers permeated, and recursion began to alter their nature, making them not just reflective of the distortion, but actively dangerous in their own right. The plants had developed a rudimentary consciousness (more of a hivemind than any sapience), and their roots had become laced with paralytics and psychedelics.


If a being came into the meadow and let down their guard, the flowers would entice them to lie down, and then the roots would grow into the flesh of the creature, permeating their nervous system and growing into their brain stems, essentially turning the animal into a puppet.


After being enslaved, they would be pulled under the ground to live inside the root system, lying in wait for anyone who might stumble into the meadow who was too strong to hypnotize. At which point every one of the root zombies would rise up and tear them apart. The zombies weren't strong, but they WERE numerous.


Lucky for me, I had a perfect counter for this. Leaving Sammael active, I dropped Mornax and, with a grimace, Zagan. My new base form was able to resist the Path corruption outside the marsh, but Zagan was much better at it. That wasn't important though, I didn't have long to handle this. Reaching into myself, I tapped into my mask, pulling forth my most recent domain. Wrath.


To my surprise, the domain ran into some resistance as it tried to unfold, converting the dirt was easy, but the roots were a living creature, and they disrupted the conversion. I only had to push my attention down a bit to burrow beneath them though, and the massive sea of dirt was freely shifted into corrosive, annihilating ash.


There was a scream from in front of me and the flowers writhed, almost looking like they were dancing, I pushed the lake of burning ash up, consuming them from below, and the last sight of them I glimpsed was the dark ash swallowing up the stems as the dancing multicolored buds sank below the surface. When I released the domain, the lake returned to being a sea of normal dirt, though I suspected plants would grow much more easily in that area for a while.


I was about ready to move on, following the land strip, when my Danger Sense screamed at me again. I triggered Mornax on reflex, along with Mephistopheles, and I spun on my heel, throwing a fist at whatever was approaching.


A massive tanned fist smashed against mine, and the explosion of black flame combined with the sturdiness of my form shoved the enemy back, but his hand was completely unscathed from the punch. Flying backwards, he flipped twice in the air, dragging his hands across the ground as he went end over end, and came up in an animalistic crouch, grinning toothily at me.


"It's you," he growled triumphantly. "I was hoping to run into you. You looked like the most fun to throw down with."


The huge tanned guy with the wild brown hair bared his teeth at me. I recognized him as one of the other winners from Mourne Kayze, he'd made an impression. "Nice of you to say," I rumbled. "But I have shit to do, so if you could go nip at someone else's heels, I'd really appreciate it."


I had zero inclination to be nice to this guy. He'd attacked me out of nowhere just to see how strong I was. It wasn't a killing offense or anything, but I was comfortable just labeling him a huge dick and treating him as such. I was pretty sure I knew what he was too, the gold wolf eyes kind of gave it away.


Sure enough, his not grin became a definite snarl as he processed my words. "Was that a dog joke?"


"Whose a smart meathead? You are! Yes you are!" I cooed at him in my best 'pet voice'.


He glared at me hotly for a second, then closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and cracking his neck. "I'm going to butcher you," he said matter of factly. "And pick my teeth with your bones."


"Fair enough," I replied cheerfully. "Just do me a favor and don't bury them after? It ruins the lawn. Although, I don't think I'm really down to play your little game." I pretended to think about it for a second, then I snapped my fingers. "Oh, I know, how about we play something else. You should be real familiar with this one." With a mighty flap, my wings cracked the air as I channeled my Waltz through my flight, vanishing in a burst of black flame and appearing about a hundred feet up, a mile or two away. "FETCH!"


He snarled, bolting after me, and I had just enough time to flap again, vanishing in another burst, before I noticed the horde of razor beaked (not a euphemism) sparrows came peeling out of the trees, followed closely by a massive buzzard that took off from a low nest on the cliff. Cursing, I beat my wings again, building up speed as I escaped from the monsters.


The sparrows streaked after me, so fast they almost caught up before my next flap, and I cursed, kicking my movements into high gear to try to escape. Wolf guy was trying to catch up, but a few of the sparrows pulled off to surround him. He started snatching them from the air, but I lost sight of him as I vanished further along the path.


Despite the speed I was moving at, I wasn't able to shake the sparrows, and they kept getting closer. Snarling in annoyance, I dropped Mephistopheles, triggering Zagan, and then, closing my eyes tightly, I whirled in mid air and shot downwards at an angle, gliding out of the meadow and into the marsh before diving into the bubbling grey muck of the swamp.


I hissed internally as the poisonous water started to corrode my hard stone shell, but Zagan purified it as it touched me, never letting the corrosion get past the superficial level. Instead of dying of horrible poison, I mostly just felt like I had a bad sunburn that was being slapped all over my body.


Swimming through the marsh, I picked a direction, using Dantalion to feel out the situation to try to escape from the birds. When I finally got away, I picked the nearest landmass and climbed up onto it, groaning as I flopped out onto the marsh grass, letting Zagan finish purifying the last of the burning muck. Then I sat up, opening my eyes…and coming face to face with a collection of tiny, shark like humanoids with beady black eyes wearing wooden armor and holding tiny, sharp spears. Shit. Guess I'd found the locals.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The shark people were not friendly. This was clear pretty quickly when they started stabbing me with their spears, which thankfully were very shoddily made and broke pretty much on contact with Mornax. They were all D-rank (I was reasonably sure these were some kind of subspecies of master rank shark that had taken on partially human form on breakthrough) but the materials were shoddy for the rank, and they were inexpertly put together.


Since I was already more Impact heavy than usual and also using Mornax and Sammael in combination, they snapped like dry twigs on my skin and armor. The sharklings didn't like that, and when I got up off the ground they hissed and backed away, the few with unbroken spears waving them in an attempt at menace. It was honestly kind of cute.


"So…this is awkward," I said wryly. "But I'm kind of lost. Can you give me directions to…anywhere else? Like I don't care where at this point. Not here is my only requirement."


I noted their teeth baring at me, black and shiny, and realized that being dwellers of a poison marsh these things were probably highly venomous. Joy. The biggest one, though admittedly still only about four feet tall (albeit very stout) stepped forward. "Man-thing," they hissed menacingly. "You seek to steal from us?"


Glancing around slowly, I cocked my head in confusion. "Steal…what? You live in a swamp." They snarled, snapping their teeth, and I held up my hands. "It's a very nice swamp. I'm sure it's the nicest swamp around. But I don't need rocks and loose mud. I got lost running away from a big group of sparrows."


"Blade beaks," they nodded. "They are a nuisance. They do not come here. They do not dare."


"Yeah…that's pretty much why I'm here now." I paused, thinking of something. "I actually have something I'm looking for." I pulled out the stone, showing it to him. "You ever seen anything like this?"


The sharkling (I was pretty sure he was male) stared at it intently. "It is rock. Like this," he said with certainty. Reaching down, he picked up a stone off the ground, handing it to me.


I closed my eyes, letting out a long sigh as I took the rock. "Ok, different question, do you know what's in that direction?" I pointed where the stone was indicating. "I'm trying to find…something important. I don't know what it is exactly, but it should be over there."


They all gasped (which was weird to see sharks do) and the big one stepped back. "You seek the black temple?"


"You know what? Yes, that. Almost definitely that. Because of course it is. Why would I have assumed anything else?" Gods loved their temples. Whatever the core of this world was (and I assumed I was looking for something like that) it was absolutely going to be in a temple.


Silently cursing my great grandmother, I prayed to anyone who would listen that Strakkenthar really WAS gone for good and that his daughter had taken precautions against his return. Because the last thing we needed was MORE fucking gods running around. Big shark looked uneasy (for a shark). "I can lead you," he said finally. "But you must pay. You give us meat. Meat from outside."


That was fair. Payment seemed like a solid demand, and I imagined the animals in the marsh tasted like ass. I hadn't cooked in a while, and I found it relaxing. So I agreed. "Alright fine, I'm going to set up a grill here. You alright if the meat is cooked?"


He cocked his head. "You will burn the meat?"


Right. Sharks. Raw meat was probably standard. "Not exactly. It's a special way to prepare food where I'm from. I'll eat it with you so you know it's safe. Is that ok?" I was curious why they asked for meat from me though. Maybe they just assumed outsiders had outsider food.


Hesitating for a second, he finally nodded. "You give us meat. I take you to the temple. If the burned meat is bad, you give us more meat."


"Deal," I said cheerfully, taking a grill out of my ring. I started grilling some steaks I had on hand, nothing fancy, just some E-rank Hydra meat I'd picked up somewhere at some point. Given all the poison I decided to go with a spicier seasoning, and the smell was fantastic as I slowly cooked through my supply, plating out about a hundred steaks for the sharklings.


They seemed a little wary, with Big Shark being the first to try, and to my surprise, when he decided he liked it, he tore off half of it and walked out of sight. A quick flash of Dantalion revealed where he was going.


A pool behind the nearest grove of trees. It was full of baby sharks, all much lower rank, the pool itself one of those deferred Impact areas people use to raise kids (albeit smaller than most). It was clear this was some kind of nursery or spawning pool where they kept the sub D-rank sharks before they evolved into…these.


It was a fascinating thing to see. Not only had I never seen humanoid beasts like this before (most beasts stayed beasts because it felt more natural, though D-rank gave them a chance to change as they Ascended into a new state of being) but I was seeing their young too. I wished Jessie was here, she would definitely love to meet these little guys.


Soon enough, the steaks were gone, about half shared with the baby sharks, and Big Shark was back, looking pleased. "You burn meat well," he said solemnly.


"Thanks," I chuckled. "Now, do you think you can show me the way to the temple?"


Nodding, he turned and walked off. It was so abrupt it took me a minute to figure out what was happening, and I followed him hurriedly after I realized we were leaving already.


The trip to the 'Black Temple' wasn't too far, even by mortal standards. We only had to walk for about twenty minutes to reach it. When we arrived, I was a little shocked to see it, because it was perfectly disguised by the landscape. A short, dark building, it was pretty much invisible until you were right in front of it, not because of color or magic, but just because of the way it was situated in the marsh.


Just to double check, I withdrew my stone, walking a circle around it to check on the direction the arrow was pointing. Sure enough, this was the place. I turned to the sharkling. "Alright, you held up your end. Any advice on getting in?"


"Don't," he said with a shrug. I waited for him to elaborate, but when he didn't I just rolled my eyes.


"Ok, operating on the assumption I'm going to do it anyway, if I need to get in, do you have any advice on how I might go about it?" I was staring at the surface of the dark temple, scanning the walls for any access points or ventilation and coming up pretty much empty.


Big Shark paused, seeming to mull it over, then walked up to the building. Looking down, he squinted his beady black eyes at the edge, then walked along the wall until he found a specific spot. He pointed at the ground, and I saw that the moss there was a little less dense. Pulling back a foot covered in a wood and vine make boot, he kicked the wall.


A small plate indented, and I heard a grinding sound. Five identical doors opened on the outside of the temple. He pointed. "Many entrances," he said simply.


"Ok, which one should I pick?" He opened his mouth and I cut him off, holding up a hand. "Yeah none, I get it, but I'm using one so which one would you pick if you were me and were definitely going to go inside."


He paced along the wall, sniffing them one by one. Pointing to them in turn. "Smells like Jimweed, bad poison. Smells like crake fish, eat bodies. Smells like swampfire, bad stuff. He stopped at the fourth one. "Smells like oil. Not bad oil. Moving oil. This one." He stared into the dark for a second before nodding to himself, then turned and walked away, not looking back for a second.


Chuckling, I turned to the building. It was surprisingly ominous for such a squat building, like it was much bigger than it should be for its size. Not in an Ascendant way exactly, just in the sense that it was incredibly foreboding.


Not wanting to go in unprepared, I closed my eyes, triggering Dantalion. My awareness expanded, exploding out of me in a wave as all my senses were heightened. I didn't focus on just one this time, I let Sammeal boost me to the max and tried to ride all that data, working my form for all it was worth…and got nothing.


Literally, there didn't seem to be any building here. I could sense trees, animals, plants, even the air. I could quote the toxicity of the water, the tensile strength of the vines, and a dozen facts about slight plant species variants…but I couldn't sense hide nor hair of the big ass black stone building.


Which I guessed made sense. This was a god's temple. I couldn't get proper readings on anything above my rank, and this was probably as above my rank as you could possibly get. Still, I didn't love the idea of going into this place blind. I'd been planning to case every inch of the entrance and the area past it to give myself the best chance to advance unharmed. Sadly that didn't seem to be possible.


Still, I kept Dantalion active. The building might be black boxing me but maybe something inside would be perceptible. With that, I took a step inside, expecting some sort of swinging blade or wall of spikes to drop on me.


Nothing came. Making sure I was balanced to be able to avoid any surprises, I took another step, and then a third…and then the fucking tunnel slammed shut, leaving me alone in complete darkness. Fantastic.


I could still see. Or rather, I had all my senses working through Dantalion. I was able to perceive the air in here still, and the dust, and all the non divine parts of the structure.


With that still going for me, I headed deeper in. As I walked, I was floored to notice that I had lost access to at least one sense. Namely, the sense of my wife that came from our bond. It had been a while since anything had blocked it, and it was jarring to be alone in the dark for real. It wasn't as bad as the Ruined Soul Temple, but it definitely wasn't going on my list of vacation destinations.


On the upside, the creeping uncertainty was very distracting, so I was able to ignore the unease of losing my most solid connection as I slowly made my way down the corridor. I kept expecting an attack, but nothing came. I was perfectly fine, and by the time I made it to the end of the tunnel there was even a light for me to see with.


Stepping inside, I glanced around the room and my shoulders sank. The room was fairly large, and mostly full of water. There were a series of platforms, each one with a level, and in the walls I could see carious closed off pipes. I groaned in annoyance. "You've got to be fucking kidding me," I spat.


Just to make sure I wasn't misreading the situation, I walked up to the level on my platform, taking hold of it and jerking it toward me. There was a grinding sound and one of the closed pipes higher up the wall opened, more water spilling into the chamber, raising the level of the liquid until it was right up to the edge of the platform. This was going to SUCK.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I was pretty annoyed. I was officially on my own. No bond, no Dantalion, and I sucked at puzzles. Annoyed, I triggered Beelzebub and had my clones spread out around the room, taking up positions near all the visible levers they could easily reach. I even triggered Piece of Mind a few times so the clones would have other parallels in them for me to talk over my options with.


"Alright," I shouted to myself. "I'm going to flip this lever, we're going to watch what happens, and then one of you is going to try."


The me on the lefthand side highest up cocked his head. "You realize you don't need to tell us the plan? We're literally you. We know the plan. And by the way, it isn't actually very good. Which you know. Because we know it. Because again, we're you."


I glared at him. "Shut up, it's too quiet in here. Which you ALSO know. I need someone to bounce ideas off of. And talking to myself feels less crazy than…talking to myself."


"That thought kind of fell apart before the end huh?" asked the lower right hand version of me.


"Are we sure he's the original?" asked on about halfway into the room. "Maybe he's just a bad copy. I bet I'm the original. What do you guys think?"


I rolled my eyes. "Shut up morons!" I snapped at all the me's. You're supposed to be helping, not making useless quips. Damn, no wonder I never use you guys for conversation. I'd get better feedback from that rock."


My parallels could talk, but they were just me. I'd never felt the need to have a conversation with myself so I'd never bothered using them as a sounding board. Still, in this instance having multiple points of view and minds working on the problem COULD help, and I was basically looking for any port in a storm.


Upper-left Me snorted. "Spoilsport. Fine, pull the lever."


I gave a quick yank, and the water level dropped, receding back down about a foot. "Ok, so what are we looking for here anyway?" Called Lower-right Me. "An exit? Because we can cross the water pretty easily as it is, so I don't see what the test is-" there was a thump as Upper-right Me pulled his level and then a surge of corrosive green energy that blossomed through the water.


Glaring at Lower-right Me, I walked over to the edge and put my hand out. I withdrew it with a hiss as my armor reached scalding temperatures. Radiation of some kind I was pretty sure. Which would mean not only did we not uncover an exit, transportation between the platforms would be difficult verging on impossible. I gestured emphatically to the water. "You see what happens when you tempt fate?"


He shrugged. "Whatever, we prepared for that. It was why you had each of the clones take a platform. You knew once the puzzle started they might be blocked off."


"Don't tell me what I know," I said waspishly. "It's petty. Now pull that one back, I want to see what happens." I nodded to Upper-left Me (who I decided to mentally refer to as ULM for convenience) who chunked his lever back into place. There was a sizzle and the toxic green faded, back to being totally normal water.


I nodded to LRM (Lower-right Me) and he threw his level, and the water filled with a black sludge.


I had him flip it back, then tested them in order. There was a blue glowing jelly, a red sparking plasma, what appeared to be liquid fire, some kind of euphoric cloud vapor, a black mist that made you want to jump off a building, and a few others. Mine alone affected water level, though it became clear that the effect varied based on the substance, and flipping the switches in different orders altered the amount of water drained or returned.


"Alright, I think I got something," said ULM. "When I flip mine, theres a big pipe that opens up under the water. Mine also appears to be the most overtly destructive. Let me check something." He flipped the lever again, but after the green came, he had LRM flip his, and the black sludge flooded the chamber, mixing with the green stuff.


The green dimmed, and I held out a hand. It still burned me quick, but it took longer. I got it. "Combination lock," I said with dawning understanding. "Different combinations cancel each other out, and the resulting matter can cancel out others. We need to swim in through the pipe, but that means we need the exact right combination of level flips for the matter to line up to perfectly counter the green stuff, which I assume is the final step."


ULM nodded. "Bingo. One second." He flipped his, and nothing happened, so he had to flip it back and then have LRM flip his back. The water turned clear. It occurred to me that the first one would undoubtedly be the sludge. It was the closest, and without having twelve of me, the procedure here would probably be to swim for the next platform. I'd tried flying, but I couldn't stay aloft, there was some sort of pressure that forced me down into the liquid.


This toom was meant to be endured, not conquered. Fucking Strakkenthar, no wonder his daughter turned into a pain goddess. I flipped my lever first, getting the most water I could into the chamber. Then LRM. After the sludge, we had to experiment a bit. The blue glow set the sludge on fire, the plasma became a gas that made us all pass out. Finally, we figured out that it was the gas that countered the sludge, the two creating a chain reaction that became a sort of honey type substance.


The honey mixed with the blue glowing jelly to create a thick red sap that when exposed to the fire congealed into a solid resin, which was melted by the fire and became an almost paste like muck.


Each time, I tested the substance with one of the clones, not being willing to put my hand into anything that could cause radiation burns through C-rank armor from several feet up. I was pretty sure the platforms were enchanted, but once you left them you were on your own. Despite the partial neutralization, the substances grew in acidity and effect as we went along, just by virtue of each one being substantially more deadly than the last.


Finally, we reached the end and ULM flipped the switch again. The green stuff poured into the water, and as soon as it touched, the entire room became awash in crystal clear radiance. The water left over by all the neutralized toxins was the clearest, cleanest water I'd ever seen, and after having one of my clones taste it to make sure it was safe, I stored a few barrels of it.


The stuff was imbued with some sort of ambient energy that had remained after the toxins neutralized each other, and was pretty delicious too. I had a few ideas for some recipes I could make with it.


Once that was done, I dove in, letting Beelzebub vanish as I swam through the pipe, following it to the next chamber. When I climbed out, I took a deep breath of fresh air, enjoying the sensation of being above water again, and then glanced around the room, cautiously optimistic about the next puzzle.


This room was almost all stone, the only water access being a small pool serving as the entrance, the end of the shaft I'd swum up to reach this place. Past the pool was what looked like the floor of a ballroom. Unlike the last room, which had been very empty, this one was full to bursting…with bones.


Out among the square floor tiles making up a grid pattern between me and the next door, a series of dead bodies sat mouldering. Skeletons in armor, skeletons in robes, a few bare skeletons whose clothes seemed to have dissolved. Looking closer I could see signs of nicks and cracks on the bones, sometimes burns. The different methods of death seemed to be localized to the squares.


Sighing, I called up Beelzebub again, though I throttled it back to just a single version of me. I didn't bother with Piece of Mind this time, I just sent the clone forward. When he stepped onto the first square, nothing happened. But when he reached the second, a series of sharp spikes pierced upwards from the ground, impaling him brutally.


"Right," I muttered to myself. "Because of COURSE the floor is trapped." I glared at the ceiling, knowing that it didn't do anything but wanting to vent anyway. "This is a TEMPLE you lunatic!" I bellowed. "People come here to worship you! Fuck, no wonder your daughter went crazy and declared a blood feud with you."


As expected, there was no response because Strakkenthar was fortunately very dead. However, apparently I wasn't the only person around. In the distance, I heard a surprised yelp, and I turned my head to look toward one of the side doors in the chamber as a familiar redheaded form stepped through.


Sable, one of the other winners, stepped through one of the two side doors, and from the other stepped…I closed my eyes, sighing in annoyance. Wolf Boy. I glared at him. "I don't have any bones for you today." I pointed at him lazily. "Sit. Now, stay. Good boy."


His lips peeled back, teeth baring in a snarl. "It's you," he said through gritted teeth. "Wonderful, I'll enjoy this. You're here for the Peacebloom Mourning Wreath too?"


"I have no idea what that is," I said truthfully. "But if you're both here for it, then the chances are pretty good. I was just asked to pick something up for a friend. But hey, maybe I'm looking for something totally different. If not, might I interest you in a nice juicy ribeye?" I pulled one of the Abyssal Wyvern Steaks I'd gotten for Callie from my ring.


His eyes narrowed, but he seemed genuinely tempted. I relaxed my tone a bit. "Look, man. I don't know you. You rubbed me the wrong way with your sneak attack, but we don't have to be enemies. Jokes aside, we can sit down, share a meal, and pool our resources to get…whatever it is that's in here. Maybe I'm looking for something besides what you are. I have some sort of tracking device for it, so why don't we delay our scuffle until the end. I don't know shit about puzzles."


That got a chuckle. "Me neither," he admitted sheepishly. "I guess I did start the fight. Fine. I'm Dominic Ventria. I'm from the bloodline of the Ventrian Wolf King, though I'm a VERY distant descendant."


"Mephistopheles," I said with a nod. "But I go by Fist."


He grinned. "An admirable name. Perhaps after we finish up here I can see how accurate it is." He clenched his hands, cracking his knuckles in anticipation.


"You know what, sure," I said with a sigh. "You help me get this done and I'll fight you, either because of the final prize or because I owe you a battle. But be warned. It won't be an easy battle." I couldn't wait to test Sammael in a real duel. Mornax and Mephistopheles in combination with my new base form would be monstrously effective in single combat.


Sable, who had been watching stoically, sighed. "And now that you've formed a truce, if I attack I'll end up fighting both of you. Wonderful. Do you have room for a third in your merry band?"


"I'm good with it if Dominic is," I shrugged. "Never hurts to have more hands." I neglected to mention I could have twenty six by myself if I wanted, of course. Alliances were fine, but I wasn't going to give away any of my secrets until I figured out if these two could be trusted.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Surprisingly, the other two were able to cross to my side of the floor pretty easily. The…formation? I didn't know what it was, but the trap floor seemed to sense directions, and it didn't take us long to notice that crossing AWAY from the exterior door was perfectly fine, and the other two decided to take me up on my offer.


I made one of the Abyss Wyvern steaks, making sure I still had plenty for Callie and I, and cut it into strips, grilling it in a slightly sweet sauce and serving it over a high quality cloud rice. Callie had been eating well with my grandmother, and insisted on snagging ingredients to stash in the companion rings.


"Anyone want a drink?" I asked as I fished out some recent beverage options. "I have a few types of soda, some high quality juices, and this stuff is called VOLT!!, it's an energy drink. I haven't tried it, but it's supposed to work pretty well. Apparently it's like lightning in a can."


I was wary of this stuff. Callie had passed it on from Benny, and my best friend had a nasty sense of humor. Dominic seemed like a tough guy though, so he should be fine.


He seemed intrigued, then popped the top and fell over backwards with a yelp as electricity surged into his face. "Shit!" he snapped. "What was that?" He looked into the can, but apparently saw nothing, searching the room for his 'drink'.


"It was lightning," I said helpfully. "In a can." I took the empty canister from him, checking the front. "Oh, my bad. That doesn't say like." I paused apologetically before asking. "So, how was it?"


He glared at me for a second, then shrugged. "Kind of spicy. I didn't hate it. I feel a little energized."


"So, since we're on the same team, what ARE you guys looking for?" I did my best to seem as calm and approachable as possible, which was admittedly tough when you're a giant in edgy black armor with a horrifying demonic visage. "And have you seen any of the others around here?"


Sable shrugged. "I thought I saw someone using birds to scout nearby. Might have just been local fauna. You?"


"Just this guy." I jerked a thumb at Dominic. "But good to know. But you didn't answer. What is the Peaceful Mourning Wreath?" These people couldn't be much more versed in Felicity's lore than I was, so they must have either been tipped off or done some specific research to find her dad's temple info.


"It was the wreath the goddess gave her father when her mother died," said Sable solemnly. "It has a number of abilities, not the least of which is the ability to draw emotional pain out of a person, healing deep emotional wounds that otherwise might never go away. These wounds are on a layer of the soul so deep most never even notice them, but they DO effect condensing a Saga. The Wreath provides a similar service to the rebirth that was offered in the selection, but for A-rankers."


Dominic nodded. "Which mean's it's fucking PRICELESS. Anything that can help an A-ranker condense a Saga is worth more than most star clusters. Power at the level tips the balance of whole factions. Most of the five faction alliance don't have more than ten or fifteen S-rankers."


I was well aware. The WCP were able to stand equal with the alliance because we had more S-rankers than any of the other factions. While the Wish power had almost no effectiveness at making Path or soul difficulties go away, it lowered the standard for accruing renown by a laughable amount. At the end of the day, the Path and soul were things you could only really deal with yourself, but there were fixes for them, the biggest barrier to ranking up had always been stat acquisition.


It was one of the reasons I focused so hard on stat points with my wishes. Especially now, when I had such a monumental amount of them to gather. I could get through D-rank faster than anyone else could come close to, and if I managed to become the next Wishmaster, that amount would expand exponentially.


Shaking off that tangent, I forced myself to focus. My worries about my progression speed had been substantial recently, but it wasn't the point here.


This wreath was powerful, and admittedly very useful, but it didn't seem like it was what I was here for. Whatever Black Sorrow wanted, it wasn't a trinket that the Lady had made for her father when she was younger. It had to be something related to Strakkenthar himself.


"Is there anything else here?" I asked them cautiously. "Some other artifacts that might be important?"


Sable nodded. "Three total. But the wreath is the only one we can touch. The other two are infused with Strakkenthar's power. It's highly corrosive and will kill anyone who comes near it. The Frightlord Scythe and the Disquietude Inkstone were two of his items of power." I hadn't heard of those before, so I cocked my head in confusion, indicating she should continue.


Sable shrugged. "The Saga can only take an S-ranker to five hundred Impact. Once you hit that level, the soul can't handle the strain anymore. Four other artifacts are needed to achieve godhood. Of course, the Saga is the sum total of an S-ranker's soul and body. If it's not strong enough to reach five hundred, godhood is impossible, but past that, more artifacts are needed to withstand the weight."


Fascinated, I asked her to elaborate. "How does that work? And how do you know this? I've never heard anything concrete about the process of achieving godhood, aside from needing a thousand Impact."


"My great grandmother was a priestess for Verdyn back when he was still alive," she said with a shrug. "It's why I'm here. I'm a legacy. But Verdyn was never really my kind of deity. As for the objects, basically when you reach five hundred Impact you condense your Saga into a Domain. Any flaws or imperfections in your power and your Saga can't hold it all." Her tone was casual, like she wasn't literally telling me the secrets of the universe.


"Once that's done, you create a Domain seed and imbue it into an artifact, then water it with Impact. The more perfect your Domain, the more Impact each artifact can hold. Four is considered perfect, with five artifacts being a perfectly balanced Ascension to godhood. Once divinity is reached, all five parts of the Domain combine, and the objects of power become divine alongside their god."


I considered that. "Wouldn't less objects mean more power per object? What if you only made three objects? Or even two? A total of three domain bases would be more stable than five right? Assuming that less is more here."


She shook her head. "The strength of the original Domain is what establishes the seed. Your initial Saga would need to be exponentially stronger than anyone else's. The body and soul can't handle more than five hundred points of Impact regardless, but your Domain itself would need to be MUCH stronger than anyone has ever managed, and the Saga is the third part of that triad. It would need to bear a much larger burden, which means the deeds in it would need to be MUCH more impressive.."


My mind flashed back to a black fortress under a blood red sky. Was that why Lark had spent such a long time building and reinforcing his Domain? Why he'd destroyed all the other Vampires. He'd been able to contain a hundred S-rankers. Was the Vampire trying to Ascend with fewer than four objects of power?


While fascinating, this was something for future Shane to worry about. "Sorry, distracted. Really want to hear more later if there's more to hear, but can you tell me about the two objects that are here?"


"I don't know much," she shrugged. "Strakkenthar himself died a long time ago. I was able to get some information from my family library in some old books about the Lady. She and Verdyn were peers, so she's mentioned. Her father was before Verdyn's time though. All I know is that those two objects contain part of his power. I'm not sure what they actually do."


"What about Strakkenthar himself?" I asked hopefully. "I don't know much about him."


That seemed to perk her up. "I know a bit about him. Strakkenthar was the god of Endless Night. His Domain was based around the inevitably of darkness swallowing the world after the sun passed. His whole creation myth was about the unstoppable tide of darkness that would someday swallow all the stars in creation."


"Charming," I said with a grimace. But my mind wasn't on Strakkenthar anymore. Black Sorrow's Enshrining Darkness sounded eerily similar to that. Did the Domain seed have that much influence on her power?


Come to think of it, was that how she'd gotten the seed? Taken it from one of his artifacts? I could see how using someone else's seed as one of your four might help you Ascend, though the exact mechanics were a bit hazy to me. I just didn't know enough about the process. But what would she do with another? I didn't have nearly enough information about what was going on right now, and I didn't like it.


I didn't even know which artifact I was supposed to take. And what about the corrosive energy? Would the stone counter it? There was no reason to send me all the way out here to die, if she wanted to kill me she could have just done it. Which meant this really was a chance to get free of the sword hanging over my head, even if it was a casual and dangerous one that I didn't think she cared if I survived.


More and more I was seeing how little I understood about the world at large and my own situation in specific. Being D-ranked had seemed so huge and important before I got here, but now I just felt helpless and ignorant. Mastery really was where the real world of Ascendants began, and I was in the deep end.


In the end though, it didn't matter. I was sent to do a job, to help keep my family safe. I'd get it done, and worry about consequences later. Black Sorrow being slightly more powerful wasn't going to effect me in the short term, and in the long run…well, I'd learned quite a few things today, and I had a new goal. I wanted to create the strongest Saga I could, create a foundation for a colossal and powerful Domain, and outdo every other god who had ever Ascended.


I had a unique opportunity to create and lay the foundation for a powerful Domain by perfecting all thirteen of my pseudo Domains and merging them together into something truly terrifying. If I did it right, I might be able to do what I suspected Morgan was doing. Ascend with only three artifacts of power, a four part Domain, or even better, with only two, creating a three part Domain that my instincts told me would be the perfect configuration.


But I was getting ahead of myself. I only had three pseudo Domains finished, and I had a long way to go until my Saga. I'd need to focus on perfecting every aspect of myself before I reached that point.


For now, getting one of those artifacts and getting it Black Sorrow would give me room to grow. So I finished my food and stood up, brushing myself off. "Alright, well, I don't think the wreath is what I'm here for, so that's good for our agreement. You two can work out who gets it once we're through this. Until then, we work together." I gestured to the grid of floor squares. "Now, either of you know how the hell to get past this? Because trial and error is going to take forever."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"I have a few tricks that might help," Sable admitted as we stood at the edge of the grid. "I practice nature witchcraft. I'm sure you're familiar with the concept?" Her tone was businesslike and she didn't even bother glancing our way, as if she was sure we would be up to speed. Which…I kind of wasn't.


I glanced over at Dominic, who shrugged back, and then tentatively informed her. "I mean, not really. I know Witchcraft is an ability that lets you affect things through links. Thaumaturgical links make things that happen on a small scale happen on a large one. It's really versatile, and one of my mentors growing up practiced Cosmic Witchcraft, but I never really got the details of how it worked."


"Basically like you just said. Small scale changes bring about large ones. It's a flexible ability that can mix well with most things." Reaching into a pouch, she pulled out a handful of seeds, scattering them on the floor in front of us. As I watched, the seeds started to crack open, buds extending out and intertwine, winding together as they grew to create some sort of root golem.


I wasn't sure how that was witchcraft, but clearly she'd done something. She gestured her golem, a humanoid figure made of densely packed wooden roots, onto the grid, and it stepped forward, taking two steps…and bursting into flames.


"Was it supposed to do that?" I asked cheerfully. "Because I feel like maybe you had other plans."


Dominic snickered, averting his eyes and actually whistling when Sable turned to glare at him. She sent another root golem forward, this one taking a different path. This one got impaled. Then one got cut up by wind blades. The next one got struck by lightning. One of them turned into a ghost and just sort of…faded away.


By the time she ran out, she was panting and glaring at the grid. We'd identified a path about halfway across (some of them needed to be jumped) but Sable had been spending her own energy on growing the plants, and it seemed like her power was reaching a limit.


I considered my options. I was keeping a low profile, but even on top of my mask, this temple was a divine structure that blocked at least my own senses. Chances were good scrying into here was a no-go, and I was so close to the end. With a sigh, I reached over, put a hand on her shoulder, and called Zagan.


A wave of bright green life fire washed over her, drawing a shocked gasp from the other Ascendant, but I ignored it channeling the power through her. Her haggard appearance receded, shoulder straightening and skin flushing with vigor. "That's…" she gasped. "I feel so alive. How did you do that?" Her eyes snapped to me, confusion evident on her face. "I thought you were a brawler?"


"What, was it the name?" I asked jokingly. "I'm a complicated person. I contain multitudes. Will that help, or not?"


She laughed breathlessly. "I feel like I could fly just by flapping my arms right now. So yeah, that'll help." She cracked her neck, glaring at the floor. "Round two. Let's see who gives out first."


She reached into the pouch, casting more handfuls of seeds. Great heaps of the things this time, splitting and intermingling and creating a fucking thicket of roots, from which sprang more and more golems. She rushed them forward, eyes blazing green, cackling madly as they hit the squares. One after another they were destroyed, wrecked by the defenses, and one by one they showed the way through the trap, giving us the squares we needed to proceed.


We started doing so, slowly following the path laid out, and Sable would throw her seeds onto the next empty square. Luckily the black and white marble squares of the floor weren't small, and all three of us could stand inside them easily enough (though I had to fold my wings). Seeing the endless wave of root golems spawning because of a few casual bursts of Zagan was kind of intimidating.


My healing and purification form, for all its limitations, was easily one of my most powerful forms, and having it boosted by Sammael made it even more terrifying. Working with an Ascendant who drained their own life force (I was pretty sure) to create plant golems, I could essentially fuel her army forever.


Of course, everything had limits. While her energy reserves were able to be topped up indefinitely, as I'd recognized with Jessie's power when I was starting out, mental strain wasn't something life force could treat. After about forty minutes, I noticed Sable swaying on her feet precariously, and we decided to stop in a middle square and sit down to recover a bit.


This was made even easier by Dominic taking out some kind of bowl and setting it on the ground, then just…stepping into it. Sable and I shrugged at each other and followed him in, finding the inside to be some kind of cave dwelling.


"Welcome to my Den," said Dom proudly. "D-rank portable dwellings are hard to find, because they have to be incredibly stable to hold multiple Ascendants of that rank, not to mention the material requirements for supporting that foundation. I got this one from the family when I reached Master."


I whistled as I looked around. "This is cool. What happens if the bowl breaks?"


"We get ejected," he shrugged. "It won't though. I told you, the material requirements to support this much Impact are crazy. It's still technically D-rank, but higher up the ladder. We're fine in here for now. The rest we can worry about later. For now, Sable, why don't you get some rest. You're stumbling around like a drunken bumblebee."


She snorted, but nodded. "Fine. But I don't know either of you, so forgive me if I don't trust you with my safety. Last thing I need is to get knifed in my sleep because I thought you big meatheads were too stupid to betray me and didn't take precautions."


"You're mean when you're exhausted," I said in a faux hurt tone.


She rolled her eyes, then took out more seeds, scattering them around. She winced a bit at the effort, but soon enough a big dome of roots wrapped her up, completely shielding her from sight. The layers kept stacking too, interweaving to create and extremely dense shield. I didn't take it personally, I didn't trust either of them that much either. I still had my C-rank plate to keep me safe though.


Dominic, to my surprise, didn't seem to worry about it either way, just flopping down on his back and going to sleep. With a shrug, I sat down, crossed my legs, and trigger Piece of Mind so a parallel could monitor my body while I took a nap. The parallel could hear and react, so it would be able to wake me up if anything suspicious happened, and at my rank, having my eyes shut wasn't exactly an impediment anymore.


Unsurprisingly, I was awoken what seemed like minutes later by Dom letting out a loud booming yawn. My eyes shot open, my parallel alerting me immediately, and my head snapped over to track him, but he just gave me a lazy wave.


He reminded me of kind of a weird combination of Abel and Punchin' Carl. Just a big simple battle maniac who wanted to fight. He wasn't as crafty as my mentor though, though he might be as ruthless. He HAD tried to sneak attack me when we met. Still, I was a little bit biased towards liking him because of the similarities.


Sable, meanwhile, didn't remind me of any of my friends. She'd been mostly pretty aloof and semi-formal until her power boost, then she'd been a lot more blunt. I didn't really mind either, but I had to admit her power was impressive.


I was also sure she wasn't showing me even a tenth of what it could do, because making plant golems wasn't Witchcraft as far as I knew. Chances were good she had some kind of doll or puppet she'd made that she was connecting to them. Maybe the seeds were from the same tree as the doll.


I'd tried doing some research into Witchcraft back in the day after we met that witch at the Conclave, but the fact was, it was so vague and versatile that it could do basically anything. Witches could heal, control, curse, enhance. Any connection two people or even a person and a thing could have could be amplified or subverted. At higher levels witches could be fucking SCARY, but it was a resource heavy ability set. You needed special materials that could withstand the linking and be used for symbolic avatars.


Because of that, and because Ascendants were glory hounds and Witchcraft tended to express itself more subtly and from a distance, it had fallen out of favor in the mainstream. My mom had been surprised to see it for that exact reason.


With our nap out of the way, we all emerged rested and ready, and resumed our journey through the grid shaped room. With some rest, Sable was able to withstand the boost from Zagan much more easily, and it wasn't long until we made it across the room, emerging on the other side of the grid none the worse for wear, though presumably minus a LOT of seeds.


"Finally!" groaned Dom as we stepped off the grid. "That was fucking tense. I kept worrying one of them would have a delayed trigger and blow us up or something."


I'd actually worried about that too, but I'd decided to trust my instincts, Fatewalker might not be perfect but it was better than going in blind. I hadn't gotten a particularly bad feeling, though my Danger Sense had obviously been screaming the whole time, given the pervasive risk of just being in this fucking place.


On the other side of the room, there was only a single thing. A door. Or rather a set of large double doors, carved from the same stone as the temple. Unlike the smooth glassy walls, the stone had been etched with intricate designs, a story actually, and a quick glance told me that it was about Strakkenthar.


It was also almost definitely propaganda, based on the very optimistic tone, portraying the psychotic night god as a benevolent savior arrived to save the universe from war and sorrow (I was paraphrasing, because it was all images, but the last thought made me chuckle at the irony).


So we ignored the doors, placing our hands against the dark stone and pushing as hard as we could, revealing the room behind.


Inside was another water chamber, and I braced myself for another puzzle, but to my surprise, it didn't seem like there was one. The chamber was full of peaceful, tranquil liquid, and in the center, equidistant from each other and the walls, were three islands.


One island held a massive two handed scythe. It was jagged and menacing, and floated in a beam of light, rotating slowly as if displaying itself to the world. In the center was a pedestal on which sat a single night black stone, and opposite the scythe was a black plant wreath covered in white flowers.


Even from here, I could feel some sort of heaviness in the air. Not Impact, that was being restrained, or we'd probably have been crushed, but just a sense of weight and meaning beyond normal objects.


Taking out my stone, I held it up, and to my complete lack of surprise, the arrow spun and stopped on the central pedestal, where the ink stone sat. "Well," I said wryly. "Good news. I can definitely confirm we aren't after the same thing." The question was would Strakkenthar's corrosive energy make it impossible for me to accomplish my mission. I supposed we'd have to find out.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"So…I heard there was supposed to be some kind of energy poison or something?" I said, gesturing to the islands in front of us. "You guys see anything?" I'd triggered Dantalion, but there was no trace of defenses, or at least not ones I could actually detect. This whole place was pretty much a dead zone to me though, so it would be stupid to ignore any potential hidden traps.


Sable nodded. "Of course. I wouldn't have come here without something that could help." Reaching into her ring, she withdrew a small lamp. It had a porcelain white base with intricate blue traceries on it showing scenes of hills and valleys with lifelike trees. The top was a curved glass cylinder, widened at the base with a much smaller lip, and the inside of it burned with a white flame that seemed to purify the air…a very FAMILIAR white flame.


"I got this from a black market dealer, who stole a sample from the Promethean Library. This is an S-rank "Flame of Purification" refined by a Pope of the Red Revenant Church." Sable sounded smug. "It's the best possible counter to corrosive dark powers. Granted, this is god ranked corrosive dark, but the god it came from has been dead a long time."


I just stared at her, moth ajar behind my mask…and then a whole bunch of shit finally clicked into place.


Why Black Sorrow had given me that pass for my family if I did this, why she'd picked me out of all the possible D-rankers. A whole bunch of little things started adding up, and they added up to one and one and I got two. This fucking place was caked with Enshrining Darkness. Nothing active, or the lamp wouldn't do shit, just a sort of lingering presence. And I was betting that being Black Sorrow's bloodline descendant, even if that bloodline was inactive, made me a legacy practitioner and immune to the passive field.


I cursed internally. I'd had leverage over Black Sorrow. She'd needed me to do this, or she'd have had to send Chelsea, and Chelsea was valuable to her. But on second though, wiping out a blood debt with my family members was a pretty ideal payment. I was satisfied with what I got.


"Do you know if it works?" I asked levelly, pretending I hadn't just realized that I could stroll over and take all three of those things without a problem.


She snorted, stepping forward, and set the lamp…in midair. It just hung there as she took out a handful of seeds and dropped them on the ground. They grew quickly, twining together, and she took out something I hadn't seen. A puppet. Like an actual wooden marionette on strings. As I watched, she pulled the strings taught, letting it hang, and controlled the hands to reach forward.


The newly formed golem followed the movements, taking the lamp, and then she walked it to the stone path through the water corresponding to the wreath, and then across to the island.


As it walked, the lamp flared, the purification flame casting a wild light. Flickers of white drove back the dark, and tiny whisps of shadow hissed and steamed around the puppet. Finally, the golem reached the island, and she walked it up to the wreath, setting the lamp on the air beside it as the wooden hands reached down to lift the object.


When they came within about a foot, the lamp flared so bright it was hard to see, and then exploded. The golem, which had crossed unharmed, was immediately consumed in a swirling cloud of corroding darkness, wasting away to dust in moments.


We all just kind of stared at the empty spot where it had been, and Sable swayed, her face white with pain. Apparently the destruction of that golem had hurt her. I wasn't sure why the others hadn't, but my guess was that connecting directly to it to puppet the construct made it more effective but was also riskier. In her hands, the wooden puppet in the string had also been consumed, and her hands were withered and sick looking.


Stepping up next to her, I put a hand on her shoulder and flexed Zagan. The enhanced purifying flames of my healing form, especially under the influence of Sammael, were far too much for some unconscious residual darkness to deal with, and her hands quickly recovered, color returning to her face.


Despite that, I felt a serious drain on my reserves, my physical strength dipping as the purification sucked out a massive amount of my power. I'd never seen anything that required that much energy to purify or heal before.


I'd always kind of taken Zagan for granted for its supreme badassery. Made from my grandfathers fire, amplified by Jessie's life force, and empower by my own Afterburner technique, Zagan was the strongest form I had in terms of raw efficacy, even if it wasn't much good in combat outside a few specific circumstances.


It was clear now though that Zagan's absurd effectiveness was due to qualitative differences in energy level, and that wasn't going to cut it here. I'd have to overpower the taint of the enshrining darkness in a brute force contest if I wanted to cleanse it.


Which would have been a problem…if I needed to do that. As I cleansed the energy from Sable, I felt it try to flow into me, and I also felt it basically slide through me directly into the ground. Because of either my Sammael form or more likely, my unrealized Black Sorrow bloodline, the energy completely ignored me.


"I think I can get these for you," I said confidently, pretending to be unsure. "But I need you to do something for me. I have a faction of my own I want you to join. I need you to sign contracts to that effect. If you do I'll get you the wreath, though you'll need to figure out exactly what to do with it."


I kind of wanted it, truth be told, at least for Zeke or mom, but I also knew that getting my hands on it directly would be complicated. Disappearing with the ink stone would be hard enough. If I could get Dom or Sable to come under my banner though, I could use that connection to borrow it later, not to mention I'd have two powerful D-rankers with strong backgrounds that would be able to give me a direct introduction to possible strong Ascendants I could recruit.


Though it was anyone's guess if their ancestors were still around, I could still have Zeke or mom try to make contact. Convincing the Church to extend a welcome to A or S-rankers should be easy, especially once I was able to own up to my parentage, and even if the lines had declined, it sounded like Dom wasn't the strongest in his family.


Clearly, they understood from my comment that I'd purposefully been vague here. "Show us the contract," said Dom eventually. "If we don't see anything wrong with it I'll sign."


"Same," said Sable with determination. "If you can get me that wreath it'll be worth it." Her tone made it seem like that comment was more personal than ambitious, and I made a mental note to ask her what that was all about later. In the meantime I withdrew a standard employment contract, rewriting a few sections quickly to match the situation.


Obviously no one would sign a lifetime contract, even for that kind of artifact, but at D-rank, a hundred years wasn't too much lifespan, so I set the contract for a century. By then I'd either be too strong for it to matter or dead, so I didn't mind the wiggle room.


After a few minor alterations we settled on the wording, binding them to my service but leaving an out for them to refuse tasks that were morally reprehensible or literally impossible, as well as negotiating for time off. Finally, we finalized the contracts, and I manifested Zagan before approaching the wreath.


I didn't need the purification, but I didn't want to tip my hand about that, and it didn't actually require any energy to keep it going without using it. I flew over the water easily, landing on the island, and strode up to the wreath, barely hesitating before I snatched it up.


Then I flew to the next one to grab the inkstone. It was staggering how simple it was. I could feel the energy flowing through me, feel the concentration of enshrining darkness floating in the air above the water, but it did nothing to me. The Wreath itself didn't actually contain any, since it wasn't Strakkenthar's, but I was pretty sure anyone but me who had tried to move the scythe or inkstone would have died.


When I got to the scythe, I lifted it easily, spinning the weapon a bit. As a staff user, I had a bit of practice with long weapons, but this one felt unwieldy. Still I like the style, and decided I could give it to Callie. She could use it as a Domain seed when she formed her Domain, if she wanted to.


Turning to head back to the shore, I froze. Sable, who was watching eagerly, noticed my stillness while Dom mostly just ignored me, lying down to nap. And behind them…I saw birds.


Crows, actually, and ones I'd seen before. I remembered a comment they'd made before about someone scouting with birds. "Sable, on guard!" I snapped, bringing the girl to attention. She flicked out a few dozen seeds, all of which bound together into a large skeletal golem, or the top half of one, the ribcage acting as a defensive emplacement.


Dom, hearing my tone, snapped out of his lazing and whirled, eyes glowing gold as his body shifted into a more lupine form, though still bipedal. His fur was streaked with silver white, and his body got even bigger, hungry eyes searching.


A laugh carried across the room as the birds poured out of the openings, coming together in a swirling vortex of feathers. A figure coalesced from the whirlwind, a cloaked figure of a familiar stature, and my new companions whirled to face him, clearly waiting for an attack that never came.


"Echelon," I said in disgust. "I should have listened to Bella. Can't fucking trust birds. But then, you basically told me that when we first met. Such a stupid thing to lie about. But then, deception is just making shit up, right?"


He laughed happily. "I was wondering if you would get it. I wasn't going to TELL you, obviously. But clues and hints make the game fun. Impersonating a priest of my Lord's brother is always child's play. Just act as stuck up and condescending as possible and throw in a little mystery. It's what everyone expects."


Sable, clearly enraged, flicked her fingers, and the colossal wood golem torso attacked, woven root fists smashing down on the cloak, only for the birds to scatter, harmlessly avoiding the attack and coalesce again on the other side of the room.


I wanted to help, but was pretty sure he'd been waiting for me to leave the water portion of this room. He wanted one of the objects, probably the scythe, and if I left, he might get them.


While my new friends might need help, I couldn't let an enemy get his hands on one of these objects of power. Especially not an enemy god. I'd known something felt off about Raxus, and now I knew why. He'd been involved in this mess since I'd arrived, infiltrating the trials to keep tabs on me. Did he know who I was? He clearly knew something.


I gripped the scythe, wishing I had any clue how to USE the damned thing, but sadly it might as well be a big pointy stick for all the good it did me. What the hell did I do next?