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

[Malcolm Tent]

Three to two was not great odds. Well, it was more like fifteen to fifteen, but we only had two C-rankers, which was all that mattered here. I mentally contacted Callie, asking her to play support for the others. Meanwhile, I flexed my wings, preparing to go all out. Callie, using her stealth and shadow powers, started contacting the others, whispering in their ears to let them know their roles in the upcoming battle.


The C-rankers were all imposing in different ways, but the tall one in the cloak was obviously the linchpin of the group. He towered over the others, not only in stature but in raw force of presence. This was something beyond Impact, a sort of charisma that most of the Ascendants I'd met lacked. People like Abel and my grandfather had that same sense of presence, and I wondered if being the disciple of a god was enough to endow you with that kind of force of personality.


Luckily the other two didn't seem nearly as menacing. One short broad shouldered man with a mohawk and a handlebar mustache stood to cloak guy's right, his upper body mostly bare except an animal skin draped over his hairy shoulders. His eyes were deep set and swollen, like he'd been punched in them so many times they'd gotten stuck like that, and his nose was set crooked, having obviously been badly broken and healed wrong.


The one on the other side was a tall, thin woman with white hair and pale blue skin. Her eyes were red and her ears were pointed in a way that made me think elf, even if she didn't look like any elf I'd ever seen. She had a pair of delicate fangs peeking out from her top lip, and I could see her eyes fixated on Bethy with a frankly disturbing intensity.


Behind them, the twelve D-rankers looked to be mostly cultists. Based on the accent pieces on their armor, I was pretty sure the two non cloak C-rankers were servants of the abyssal lords. I could see some jagged symbols that looked a lot like the abyssal enchanting on the squares back in front of this place. Still, even with so many of them being local grunts, the odds here weren't ideal at all, and I would need to proceed carefully.


Our only shot here was to pin down one of the C-rankers while we waited for Dez and Carmichael to finish their fights. I had a decent chance of holding out if I could ramp up enough, so I trigger Gluttony and Abomination Engine while I waited for Abel and Bethy to get in position.


I had a plan for this, a combination attack I was pretty sure would clear the field and scatter the enemy. Before that though, we needed a distraction. It would take me a minute to properly set this up. Luckily I had just the thing. I focused on the ground beneath them and then triggered Wrath.


The sand here was EXTREMELY susceptible to my domain, and it took almost no time at all for the ground to shift into horrifying burning ash. The D-rankers all screamed, dropping into the lake of fire, but mustache guy and fang girl were unfortunately a bit more on the ball. They each snagged a pair of the D-rankers and tossed them clear, barely having enough time to grab another pair and push off to get away.


Eight of the twelve got out, four of them plummeting into Wrath and being submerged in the burning ash, screaming as the caustic substance burned away at their flesh, I grimaced and ignored it, focusing on step two of my plan.


Wrath had been limited to the area they were standing, and I had plenty of other sand and rocks to work with for my second move, triggering Behemoth. Between us and the C-rankers, a colossal golem rose, constructed from the waist up, a winged stone icon of terrible vengeance towering over them all.


Abel stepped forward, and his eyes flashed as he released his blood sea, the figure exploding out and then overlapping my stone titan, Bethy following up with her Domain, condensing it into the blood sea and merging the three abilities into one siege engine of awful destruction.


I pushed Gluttony and Abomination Engine through the connection I had with the domain, imbuing the titanic construct with the ability to absorb damage and convert it into strength, then I triggered Mephistopheles and Piece of Mind to give it remote controllability and then relinquished control of the whole thing to Abel through the blood sea.


The whole process, done at nearly the speed of thought, took me seconds, but I still barely managed to get the attack in place before the cloaked figure hit the construct like a speeding train, propelled forward by crackling black electricity. He smashed into the armored chest of the golem and I felt the blow as a physical strike, sending me stumbling backwards from the impact despite taking the hit to a giant manifested stone figure. I hadn't expected the feedback, but I suspected it might be because of the parallel and how closely I was connected to it.


I hissed in pain as I felt my armor buckle and my sternum groan, about to crack under the pressure, but Mornax was part of Behemoth and the defense was nearly impregnable, especially inside a Domain and imbued with Abel's power.



It was immensely satisfying to see the look of shock on the godchild's face when he bounced off the figure, having incorrectly assumed that being a C-ranker would let him punch through any D-rank ability regardless of stacking. It left him completely open in midair as Abel started hurling punches at top speed.


The massive fists exploded with black flame as they rained down, and I saw Gabe and Chelsea each split off to deal with one of the eight remaining D-rankers, with Serah and Holly, each taking one, Sable and Dom doing the same, and Dayna running splitting her attention between backup for Daysia and Bella and a solo fight as Callie manifested a sea of shadows to support.


Dez and Carmicheal had engaged the C-rankers, Dez conjuring a storm of swords to rain down on the mustachiod bruiser and her father engaging directly with the elfin woman who appeared to be some kind of ice wraith or something based on her powers.


After making sure everyone was alright I focused back on the main battle. My golem was hammering down blow after blow with Abel's signature brutal efficiency, and the power had multiplied exponentially after the chest strike it had soaked. With Gluttony funneling the strength directly back into the construct I hadn't even noticed it at first, but as I focused in I could feel the towering strength.


Gluttony was a powerful ability, but Abomination Engine was limited by the capability of the physical body. While the golem wasn't C-rank, it was a LOT of D-rank material reinforced by a complete Domain and Abel's absurd Solid Path ability. Combined with Behemoth's inherent durability, the cap on the physical power the thing could contain was massively boosted. Every second, stray shots and retaliatory blows from cloak guy were charging it even further, and I could feel the power approaching the limits of D-rank.


Abel's punches were shattering the air, the force creating winds across the cavern and kicking up sand. Cloak guy, body flickering with black lightning, finally got his head on straight and started trying to dodge, but unfortunately for him, when Bethy's Domain manifested into the blood sea, it was more than just additive. The power of the two overlapping effects was warping space around the golem, and the punches were pulling the C-ranker in like the construct had its own gravitational pull, warping the space to force a confrontation.


Unfortunately, no matter how hard we were hitting him, there were no serious injuries showing. Self-destructing my staff had given me a mistaken impression of exactly how big the gap was between D rank and C-rank. At over one hundred and fifty Impact, there was almost a fifty percent difference between the two levels, even all the stacking power we had at our disposal couldn't bridge the gap. We could MATCH the enemy, but we couldn't HURT him.


Luckily I didn't need to hurt him. I just needed to stall him. As I watched, Dezcarta finished overpowering mustache guy and put a sword right through his eye, dropping him where he stood and wheeling to help her father finish off the snow elf. As soon as she saw the tide turn though, she bolted. In an explosion of icy wind, she scattered throughout the cavern, vanishing who knew where as she escaped in the form of frozen air.


With those two neutralized, Dezcarta and Carmichael blazed forward, ready to team up with us against the godchild. He glared around, snarling in frustration. "Don't push me!" He roared. "I can take you all with me if I choose!"


I vaguely recognized the attitude, or at least the sense of superiority, and I couldn't help but ask. "Damian?"


He blinked at me in surprise. "I…yes. That is my name. Why do you as-" he was so distracted he completely missed the massive sword that appeared behind him, spearing him through the chest. He choked, glancing down in confusion, blood gurgling through his fruitlessly working lips. Abel's fists snapped up, smashing on either side of him in an explosion of black flame.


The sword was C-rank, and therefore capable of killing him, and the D-rank attack had softened him up enough to impede his regeneration.


He toppled from the air, slamming into the sand as I waved my hand, dismissing the golem now that my Danger Sense had gone silent. I strolled up to where he was laying, and shook my head sadly. "Shouldn't have gotten involved. What a waste, falling into Black Sorrow's trap just to die a pointless death."


"Who was Damian?" Callie said as she stepped up next to me. "I don't think we knew him."


"He's the C-ranker those dicks at the Ghost Bone Tower were waiting on," I said with a shrug. "Sucks for them. I hope there aren't a lot of these bastards. That was gruelling." I turned to check on Bethy and Abel. "We all alright?"


Abel nodded. "Sure. Make sure to grab the body. Even partial credit for a kill like that will give us a huge bump in renown."


I wasn't sure that would work, but we could at least give it back to his fellow initiates for burial. It wouldn't hurt anything, and if we scared the shit out of them by handing them their biggest backer dead, well, that was two birds with one stone.


Dom grabbed the body without asking too much about it, and we all approached the wound in the world. "Aright, stick close. We don't know what's on the other side. Just that it's supposed to be ocean. Take a deep breath." I took one myself, inhaling deeply before checking on everyone and then stepping through.


There was a flash of green light, and I found myself in a very similar place. Sand, coral, rocks, all there waiting. What was not waiting was the WATER. I paused, looking around. "Ok, weren't we supposed to be in the ocean?" I glanced at Callie. "Can we leave now? No water means the bangle will work, right?"


She shook her head grimly, pointing up. I realized when she did that I could feel tiny drops of water falling around me. I looked up, and above us, in the sky, was a giant ocean of dark clouds, raining dark water down across the entire visible horizon.


"That," said my wife. "Is where the ocean went. Apparently they've been stockpiling it for this exact purpose. Saturate the land with it and completely convert the dungeon into the Shallow. We won't be able to use the bangle to leave. We need to find someone who knows how to stop this, or every person in this dungeon is VERY screwed. Especially us." Huh, it never rained but it poured.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What? How?" I asked excitedly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The underside of the Ghost Bone Tower was surprisingly homey. I'd expected yet another huge chamber with a grand sweeping design aesthetic, but it was pretty cozy. The hallways were small but not cramped, painted in warm colors, and there was a thick cushy carpet along the length of the corridor.


Rather than the secret base of a powerful organization, it reminded me of a finished basement at someone's grandmother's house. I half expected to see finger painting artwork framed and hanging on the wall.


I didn't, obviously, though there was some nice vases with fresh cut flowers in them, sitting on worn but well cared for wooden tables. Paintings DID hang along the length of the hallways, watercolors and soothing landscapes, but they were clearly professional artwork, and I was impressed by the taste of the person who picked them out.


"This isn't what I expected," Dez said to her dad as we followed him deeper into the complex. I could understand her confusion, the design choices clashed heavily with the bleak aesthetic of the Shoals as we'd seen them, but that made sense. I hadn't been in anyone's house really, just creepy places. Not everyone was going to want to live in some kind of edgelord fantasy novel, and despite the base level of society following certain trends, this place wasn't too far behind the Empire tech wise.


Carmichael chuckled. "The tower master here is a bit eclectic in his tastes, at least assuming it's the same guy. The cloaks run the upstairs, but Silent Sorrow has its own case officers. Bonehook is Veldran's place, and he's not exactly your average Ascendant. He practices a type of formation ability mixed with interior decorating. This place might look pleasant, but it's basically a fortress."


I blinked at him. "I don't sense any of that, Chelsea?" My sister had a decent grasp on formations.


She frowned, looking around. "I…I think that warmth is a formation. But only a surface level one. Some kind of comfort and relaxation formation layered on top of whatever defensive formations are here, to disguise them. I wouldn't have even noticed it if you hadn't brought it up."


"Yup, this place is pretty secure," said Carmichael. "I've only been once or twice, since this isn't exactly my territory, but it's pretty memorable."


We continued down the corridor, and I studied the paintings, carpet, and decorations as we went, trying to find traces of the formation. I could spot some faint patterns in the layout, at least. Something was definitely deliberate about the placement, even if it didn't look like more than that to me. I even considered activating Dantalion, but I was worried there might be some kind of detection formation under the one we could see that would alert the guy in charge.


We took a few turns, eventually coming to an unassuming wooden door. Carmichael knocked, and there was a slight pause. "Come in?" said an uncertain voice.


Pushing the door open, the C-ranker walked into the room, the rest of us fanning out behind him. The new room was still just as homey. A small pit in the floor created a recessed surface in the center of the room, and inside of it a large couch, curved into a half circle, sat facing the door. A guy sat on it, young looking and wearing a short sleeved shirt and a pair of casual linen pants. His feet were covered in sandals, and he had a book in his hand, a well worn paperback.


It looked…weird. Not because there was anything abnormal, but because there WASN'T. This dungeon was so old fashioned and grim, seeing a normal guy in a t-shirt reading a paperback was strange. I knew they had connections to the outside, so it wasn't like I hadn't considered the possibility of seeing more modern items around, but it was still strange.


At the very least, they weren't MODERN modern. Whoever had been trading with them given them antiques or something. The video playback device sitting in the wooden cabinet off to one side of the room was a PHYSICAL screen, and I hadn't even ever seen one of those. It wasn't even the old fashioned glass faced holofilm displays some of the really old mortals on Callus still used. It was a glass screen set into a wide backed black box, connected to some sort of hole in the wall via wire.


The layout of the place was surprisingly roomy, given the design of the hallways. Aside from the main chamber with the recessed floor, there was a wood paneled side hall that led off to a bathroom and an office, and in the other direction, a second room with a built in bar. There were also doors set in multiple places, though I couldn't see where they went.


The guy on the couch, a red haired lanky looking man with freckles, loose curls, and a goatee, smiled at us all as we looked around. "Visitors! How wonderful. I don't recognize most of you, but you're carrying a GBS, so you'd be welcome either way. I do know at least one of you though. Carmichael, I thought you were dead."


"Yeah, that's going around," the older man said wryly. "The place still looks the same as ever, I see."


Veldran looked appalled. "It is NOT," he said firmly. "The carpet is a hundredth of an inch taller, a shade darker, and the ply is about ten percent thicker. I also painted the walls, replaced some of the paintings, and shifted everything about a quarter of a tenth of a half inch lower on the walls to account for slight fluctuations in the spatial warping. Combined with a few other tweaks, my power output on the defensive formations here is up forty percent."


Carmichael snickered. "Impressive. I'm guessing that you've made some progress with your ability?"


"Well, it's not like I can rank it up," Veldran said sourly. "Though my base formation Skill IS up to Grandmaster. Not much else to do down here except experiment and read. Well, and watch the occasional movie. I have a fascinating collection of these chips I bought through the Tower, you insert them into a small device that plugs into that viewing box."


I doubted I'd recognize any of the movies he had to watch, so I was momentarily tempted, but I shook it off quick. That relaxation formation was a bit more insidious than I had expected, because that definitely didn't seem like me.


"Where is everyone?" Carmichael asked, glancing around. "This place being empty is fine, but the tower was pretty much deserted."


Veldran shrugged. "There's people around, but mainly on higher floors. The cloak tries to discourage people from loitering in the entry chamber, just in case they notice the entrance to this place. So, since you're alive, what is it that you're looking for?"


"We're not looking for anything," said Carmichael with a grin. "Or at least, we're not looking to buy. We ARE interested in doing some trading. For instance, how would you like to get out of the Shoals?"


The red haired man's eyes snapped up to Carmichael's face. "What did you just say?" he demanded. "Because it sounds like you just offered to help me LEAVE this fucking place. Which we both know is impossible. We're C-rankers, the exit trip would kill us. And not gently either. Soul shattering, the kind you can't recover from. People have been trying for millennia. It's not possible."


I flicked my wrist, grabbing a scroll from my ring, and tossed it to him. He caught it, and when he saw what it was, his eyes widened in shock. "Where did you GET this?" His voice was shaking. "I've heard of these, but I've never seen one. They're supposed to be crazy famous in the outside world but one of the larger factions has a monopoly."


What I found interesting was that he knew what it was at all. Clearly the Ghost Bone Tranquility Tower's connections with the outside world were more extensive than I had anticipated. Still, that was nothing but a benefit to me.


"He got it from me," I said as I stepped forward. "If you know what it is, I assume you know how it works, so I'm not worried about you trying to coerce me. I can only grant wishes for fair compensation. I CAN take you out of the Shoals, and I WILL, if you agree to work for me for…" I paused, considering the value. "A hundred years. That shouldn't be too big a chunk of your lifespan."


C-rank lifespan was over fifteen thousand years as a base, so a century for what I assumed was several thousand years of freedom was a pretty solid deal. I honestly could have done less, but I felt like it might be useful to have a personal force of C-rankers WITH me when I went to the WCP. Assuming I won, but I was admittedly already counting those chickens pre-hatch. If I lost, I'd deal with it then, but making plans for victory seemed like the smartest move.


He looked conflicted. I could understand why. He wanted to leave, but he'd been with Silent Sorrow for a while, presumably. Based on what Carmichael said, getting to C-rank outside of Skartaris's inner circle was rare and difficult. An organization like Silent Sorrow would undoubtedly be a huge help for something like that. Reaching D-rank seemed to be simple enough here, given how many of them there were, but C-rankers were rare.


Finally, he glanced at Carmichael. "What do you think? You were always pretty ferocious about the cause. Should we really do this?"


"Have you seen the rain?" Carmichael asked gently. At his nod, he shrugged. "According to my friends here, that means this place is about to turn into hell. I for one don't want to be here when it happens. One of the things I plan to have you do if you join up is send someone to fetch my wife and daughter. I don't see it as abandoning the cause, only doing what we need to do to make sure there's a cause left when this is over."


That still rankled me. We had a plan, but the plan was to escape. There was no winning here. The Void Child had been preparing for a long time, and this plan WAS happening. We were just trying to get gone before things broke down.


Leaving so many people behind was unconscionable, but I knew my grandparents wouldn't ignore something like a void incursion. I had to trust them to try to help, because a whole void beachhead full of C-rank Void Children was so far out of my league we might as well be playing different games.


Veldran looked pensive, but finally, he nodded. "I'm in, assuming this offer will be extended to the rest of Silent Sorrowe?"


"The more the merrier," I nodded emphatically. "We're going to need as much firepower as we can to get out. I can give you the ability to leave, but actually using it will mean punching our way through the exit to the Shoals."


He winced. "Yeah, I was afraid you were going to say that. Sneaking a few of us out might be doable for the boss, but a large scale exodus will mean a fight."


"Exactly," Callie beamed, cutting. "And now we can count on you. Now, we need you to help me locate some people once you finish with that. Also, I wanted to talk to you about a potential decorating job after we finish up a few quick errands. I think you could really help make our future house into something special."


I grinned at her, not that the others could see it behind my mask. I'd had a similar thought, but I'd gotten distracted. My wife knew what she wanted, and she wasn't afraid to dive right in. I was a pretty lucky guy.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Veldran was able to find me the location of one of the C-rankers pretty quickly, mostly because they were already in Bonehook. After he gave us the name, I learned from Dayna that the C-ranker in question was a peak disciple of Verdyn named Argaunt, a master Archer who had perfected a technique that allowed him to charge up arrows basically as long as he wanted.


The technique scaled the shot for as long as he held out, but it also put a huge burden on the soul, so he had a ceiling on the peak explosive power of his shots. It was an interesting ability, and it sounded VERY familiar.


Namely, I was pretty sure that this was the archer who tried to snipe us back on the island. I was pretty positive he hadn't been C-rank when he shot at us, mostly because I was pretty sure one of us would be dead. I could only assume he'd been on the way to break through and had stopped for a potshot.


I wasn't too upset about it. He hadn't actually hit any of us, just killed a Pale Man. As an Ascendant, one of the first lessons I'd learned was that today's enemies are tomorrows allies. A backstabber like Travis was one thing, but Argaunt and I were established enemies, so what was a little attempted assassination?


It was something the mortal version of me would have been flabbergasted about, and it was odd to really think about how alien my current mindset was to the one I used to have. I was calm for most of the morning leading up to the meeting, stockpiling my scrolls after waking up and then spending time with my wife rather than worry about the upcoming talks.


Because Bonehook was an independent city, we were able to move around without too much worry, but due to the delicacy of the meeting, Argaunt refused to allow me to bring everyone along. Carmichael was allowed to come, as insurance, but other than him and Dayna, I was on my own for this little powwow.


We did not, however, meet at a bar as was usually the custom. Rather, we decided to meet at the Ghost Bone Tower. The tower was neutral ground, guaranteed by the boss of Silent Sorrow, and Veldran ws nearby if we needed to lie low. I could survive an attack from a C-ranker long enough to retreat, and Carmichael was adamant that trying to kill Veldran in his own house was basically impossible without a rank advantage.


Much like Callen's sword nurturing and Gabe's Adamant Path, Veldran practiced an incredibly limited form of cultivation, adding restrictions to his abilities to maximize the recursion and feedback to the areas he needed. I suspected now, with a better understanding of cultivation, that mythology had something to do with why this worked, but that was just a theory.


Veldran, however, wasn't as limited as Gabe was. He COULD move to a new place, he would just be scrapping a lot of accumulated power and effort. My friend, meanwhile, had needed to meet extremely strict conditions to reach his current rank.


Fortunately, Gabe had told us recently that he'd managed to create his Solid Path. Now that he'd crafted a stable Skill from it, he no longer needed to worry about losing and having his cultivation destroyed. It would still be a pretty bad backlash, but it wouldn't directly cripple him, just cause some painful injuries that would take a while to recover.


Argaunt arranged to meet us at around two in the afternoon the next day, alone. I was surprised that he chose not to bring someone, since 'd been allowed to bring Carmichael, but I guessed he had reason to be confident. Thinking back, I wasn't sure he had a Chronicle already before reaching C-rank, but he had SOMETHING. Maybe an item like the mask Zeke had made me to help withstand soul strain. There were a few possibilities.


Whatever the case though, at D-rank he'd been able to output one of the most devastating single target attacks I'd ever seen, and with a fifty percent bump in Impact going up to the next rank, I was pretty sure he could turn me into a greasy smudge on the wall without much effort.


We were meeting in a small conference room on the second floor of the tower, and we arrived first, getting a good seat with our backs to a wall. I wasn't sure it would do any good, but it couldn't hurt not to have our backs exposed.


Still, while we waited, I finally got a chance to talk to Dayna. "So…I've been meaning to ask. What's a Heaven Murder Elf?"


She turned to regard me solemnly. "About what it sounds like. Certain species of elf and spirit have natural inclinations towards certain types of power. Dryads are good with trees, high elves specialize in forest magic, which is different in that extends to all plants but is less powerful. Naiads are abnormally skilled at using water abilities and techniques, because of their nature and because of recursion.


"Heaven Murder Elves are naturally inclined toward violence. If you can kill someone by performing an action, we excel at it," her expression was blank, like she was talking about the weather. "We make exceptional assassins, but because of our penchant for deadly arts, our bloodline is considered something of a danger by most factions. Heaven Murder Elves are often killed on sight, and families have been known to be wiped out to prevent the trait spreading through natural reproduction."


I flinched. "They kill your KIDS? Just because you might be dangerous later? That's fucking heinous. What about the Fairieland? Surely the Queen doesn't approve of literal genocide, can't you go to her for help?"


"The Queen doesn't care what anyone below S-rank does," Dayna said flatly. "There are so many variants of elf she can't be bothered. The high elves are some of her closest supporters, but the minor offshoots like my people…gods don't become gods by being selfless and benevolent. They do it by being self obsessed narcissists who believe they have an inherent right to rule over everything, especially gods whose entire divine identity is based on authority."


That honestly tracked with what I'd seen from the gods so far. The determination and charisma needed to become a god seemed to be a far beyond what normal people could manage, even S-rankers. Knowing what I did about the process of advancing through the levels, that didn't surprise me.


Genius, drive, there were a lot of things that seemed necessary to become a deity, but almost any given S-ranker had to have those things to get as far as they did, and of the hundred or so active S-rankers in the five faction alliance, only a few of them had become gods.


It would be easy to look at the fact that there were six deities and a hundred S-rankers and assume there was a six percent chance of breaking through, but that was ignoring far too many factors. Age, for one thing. The three strongest gods, the Queen, the Emperor, and the Wishmaster, were all ANCIENT. Who knew how many generations of S-rankers had lived through their tenures as gods?


I wasn't sure how old Black Sorrow and the Red Revenant were, but they weren't considered baby gods like the Unity was, so I was guessing probably at least older than the current generation of S-rankers.


Anyone below Demigod was looking at a lifespan of less than fifty thousand years. As far as I could tell, once you passed the thousand point watershed, lifespan ceased to be an issue at all, or at least if it was it was a LOT less of one than it was for S-rankers. I'd never heard of a god dying from old age, not even in stories.


My train of thought was cut off by the door opening. I looked up sharply to find a tall man in a voluminous cloak entering, his narrow chin the only part of his face visible in the shadow of the hood. I hadn't even been able to see that much at a distance, so I assume he had some sort of disguise or camouflage technique, but if so, he wasn't using it to the same extent now. I stood, nodding to the archer. "Argaunt, I presume?"


His head turned, obviously focusing on Dayna. "Junior Sister," he rumbled. "You seem to have lost your way."


Dayna looked unruffled. "Lord Verdyn's path is the path of the hunter, and to hunt one must abide by the rules of the sport. To butcher with no thought to gamesmanship or honor isn't a hunt, but butchery. There is a place for such things in the Blood Wood, but those are the actions of a beast, and a beast will never rule where hunters dare to tread."


"Your words are wise," he admitted. "For the sake of the hunt, no methods are proscribed."


I didn't bother interrupting. Dayna clearly had somewhere she was going with this. "The hunt is sacred," she intoned. Then she paused. "And yet, it is in danger."


He cocked his head. "Danger? What could endanger the Wild Hunt?"


"Trickery," she said bluntly. "Deceit. Raxus misled us. We knew that entry might result in some of us being stranded. You, Senior Brother, made that sacrifice. But this was predicated on the purity of the hunt. Plans for chaos and disorder are immaterial, but the duration of the hunt is a sacred time. But our hunt will soon be interrupted. The collusion with the void is deeper than expected. You saw the rain?"


He nodded. "Otherwise? Would I treat with prey in such a manner had I not noticed a flaw in this world? But while frustrating, this news changes nothing. The choice has been made. I have already reached my apex, and will never again improve. In such a scenario, neverending Void Children as prey is hardly the most unfortunate outcome."


"But what if you could have more?" she asked intensely, eyes shining with fanaticism. "What if you could leave this place, join a NEW hunt. A better hunt. Where your prey would be the most powerful that the main universe has to offer. Would your honor as a hunter not demand you take up such a pursuit?"


He hummed with interest, then stepped forward and pulled out a chair. "It might," he conceded as he sat. "Is there such a hunt?"


"Um, sorry to interrupt," I said wryly. "But this seems like it's skipping a big issue. You'd have to betray your god. Not to shoot myself in the foot, but that seems like it would be a bigger decision than you're making it out to be?"


It was probably stupid to bring it up, but Verdyn and the Lady both struck me as not so bad as far as gods went. I had gotten a lot of help from the Lady, and I felt like I owed her…something. Verdyn wasn't her, but he was on the same side. Dayna, to my surprise, didn't seem bothered, more amused.


"Lord Verdyn doesn't indulge in base sentiment," she assured me. "As hunters, we are expected to use any means to subdue our prey. Do traps not use bait?: Even our fellow disciples are potential enticements for enemies. As I said, gods do not become gods by being benevolent. Lord Verdyn would sacrifice us without compunction to achieve his goals. Argaunt knows this, as he has experienced it first hand."


He nodded. "She's right, of course. Just as Lord Verdyn was willing to sacrifice me to this place, so too will I sever ties to pursue a greater hunt." His lips peeled back in a wolfish grin. "And if defection gives me a more fearsome reputation, all the better."


I paused. I'd forgotten about that. Switching sides was common for Ascendants, because defecting could seriously boost your profile. My dad had done something similar when becoming a devil. Blowing out a breath, I tried to ignore my discomfort with that idea. I'd just need to make the contract a bit more solid. "Well then, let's talk about your terms." I had a feeling this negotiation was far from over.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I got seventy five years of service out of Argaunt, as well as several clauses and addenda promising his action in very specific circumstances outside of the succession war and his capacity as a direct employee of the WCP assuming I didn't win. He'd been insistent on that second part, because the odds were pretty stacked against me, which I couldn't blame him for.


One of the biggest concessions though was that I got him to agree to approach some of the other C-rankers on my behalf. Especially the ones from Verdyn's faction. There were still two more of them (the one we killed was one of Raxus's apparently, which wasn't much of a loss) and they were more likely to listen to him than me. It also freed me up to begin some real work on my research for Callie's new racial trait.


Which brought me to our current activity. Namely, a deep dive into Serah and Holly's racial traits. "Alright," I told the two angels as we all sat in the side room of Veldran's complex. "In order to work on Callie's trait, I need to learn more about yours. You good with that?" Veldran had offered us a room while we were in Bonehook, and since this was probably the safest place in town according to Carmichael, it seemed like an ideal spot to begin work.


"I mean, sure," said Holly casually. "But didn't you already DO that?"


I shook my head. "Not even close. I got a brief look at them with Eye of Revelation, and then I basically copied part of the architecture directly and plugged in a new power source. I didn't learn the material on the test, I brought a cheat sheet."


"And this time you need to understand what you're looking at," she finished as understanding dawned. "Because you're going to be doing much more detailed work."


"Exactly," I agreed excitedly. "In order to create a racial trait that can adapt and balance out Callie's void corruption, I need to understand every bit of what I'm doing. That means a deep dive into how your powers work. Luckily, I had an advantage here, because unlike last time, I have access to Dantalion. With you two opening up your souls for me, I can study and deconstruct them, gathering as much data as I need. The longer I work, the more data I get."


Beyond that, the data that I didn't actually consciously pick up would still stockpile in the back of my brain. The more of it I could accrue, the more Wisdom of Solomon would have to work with when I finally started iterating the racial trait with it.


The only reason I was even remotely confident in doing this at all was that Callie could now come into the library with me at any time and interact with the tomes. Our bond would let me directly adjust the trait as I went, mapping out her reactions and how it worked with her current Solid Path.


Essentially, this was similar to my creation of Sammael, in that I was sure that I had no chance of actually mastering the complexities of a racial trait enough to make one from scratch. With all the unique advantages I had in the process though, the impossible became possible, and I was excited to see what I could make. Even if this wouldn't let me just create racial traits willy nilly, it should elevate my understanding of the construction of Skills to a much higher level, enough to allow me to thoroughly improve my forms with the Ten Demons Tree at a much faster rate.


"And what about us?" Chelsea asked. My sister, Bethy, Archie, and Dayna were all here with us, watching with fascination as I arranged everyone in specific but probably meaningless formations try to get the best spread of Dantalion without compromising physical comfort.


"Well, Bethy and Dayna are racial trait holders from birth." I informed her solemnly. "Bethy in particular has two of them merged together, which is priceless research value for what I'm trying to do here. It would be even better if I had Lark or another pure Vampire for reference, but even my luck has limits. Dayna's combat abilities might be helpful to integrate too, if I can narrow them down."


She rolled her eyes. "Yes, brother dear, I understand how LOGIC works. I'm asking why I'M here,"


"Purification," I said simply. "Archie has it integrated into his being. I'm not sure if I even CAN study how a beast integrates energy like that, but if I can, having yours to compare it to will be helpful. I won't be able to use Zagan here, because Dantalion will be taking up all my energy. So on top of providing reference material, you can help me purify and Abyssal influences I can't get myself, or rather, help Archie."


My companion trilled in irritation, and I grimaced. "I know you've been stuck in Bethy's Domain. I'm sorry, but this place is a shithole, and I'm worried you'll exhaust yourself to death by accident trying to passively purify all this void taint. The complex is a different story, because Veldran's defenses filter out the nasty stuff."


Formations were about energy, and Veldran's were even more sensitive. The flow of power down here was modified infinitesimally by literally every molecule and its placement, so the abyssal power had been thoroughly ground down as it entered, refined into a much purer and friendlier form of energy before being fed into the formations. Much like Dantalion, Veldran focused on deepening his understanding of this one location to an absurd degree, maximizing how well he could exploit the area.


Moravian, the Grandmaster back on Callus, had done the same, but his formation covered the whole planet. Veldran had focused even more deeply, and he'd been a Grandmaster much longer, as well as being a C-ranker. It was a different direction of study, but no less impressive.


Because of that, Archie could safely be out and about in here, and I'd wasted no time letting him out, even if his constant whining was starting to grate. I couldn't blame him after being cooped up for so long, especially stuck in there with the cats and my sister's psychopathic rabbit.


Having distracted myself more than enough, I sat down, closing my eyes as I focused on Dantalion. It didn't take much, my form unfolded without any real effort, and the field of deduction overlaid the area around me instantly, covering everyone without any trouble. Of course, knowing how these things worked, covering them all initially wasn't enough. To maximize my deduction ability, I needed Dantalion as dense as possible.


That was where the placements came in. They were as close as possible so I could condense Dantalion down to the smallest possible area, at least without everyone here being mashed against my side invading my personal space.


As Dantalion unfolded, I had Holly and Serah ignite their flames, gold and bronze respectively, as I allowed myself to sink into the deduction.


FIrst was the physical. Racial traits were a transformation at a base level, altering the physical properties of a being. While that wasn't exactly the AIM of the ability, it was a big part of the process, and so it needed to be managed carefully. With the two girls there, I had three angelic forms for reference, including my own (which I was obviously using to boost Dantalion).


While the forms were mainly standardized (I based mine on theirs) I did note a few small alterations I assumed to be caused by the energy types. It took me a while to find those, actually, because they were only evident on a cellular level. My Perception at this point was higher than Callie's so that kind of examination was doable for me, but it took time for Dantalion to slowly acclimate to the environment.


Which was another problem. The environment. Namely, Dantalion was trying to deduce the formations surrounding us, and it was slowing down my information gathering efforts in other areas.


Still, I maintained my efforts, I just triggered Piece of Mind, splitting off a bunch of parallels to support me in my deductions. Callie lent me her own soul for the task too, and between the two of us, I was able to split off SIX other versions of my mind to help catalogue and sort data. The more of it I understood, the less I'd need to rely on accumulation from my subconscious and the more I could guide the process when it came time to form the trait.


One of my minds studied the angelic forms, while two of them were applied to Bethy, studying both of her heritages and how they affected her, even as two more studied Archie, looking for similarities between him and the angels, studying possible ways to synergize energy with the physical form.


The more I studied, the more sure I was of something very interesting. Racial traits weren't natural, and more than that, they were BASED on beasts. Not specifically, like Jessie's was, but in the abstract. Someone had studied bestial integration of Paths and tried to recreate it in a human form. Presumably they had studied human form beasts themselves, hoping to create some sort of method to combine Paths with people.


I almost went down a rabbit hole there, but I forced myself to get back to the matter at hand. That was fascinating info and could be explored later, but I needed more specific information. My last two parallels, one of them studied Dayna and one of them processed extra data. I had briefly considered asking Daysia to sit in too, but I was concerned that Dryads were too removed from human after the tree bond, and I didn't want to go down a blind alley.


After about three hours, I finally managed to get past the physical examination stage. With souls open to my inspection, and my own experience interacting with the souls of people like Bella and Callie, I was able to catch sight of the internal workings of their powers.


My original glances at their racial traits had been…woefully inadequate. If this was trying to free hand trace a design so I could alter some details, the last attempt had been more like sketching it from memory. Ten years after the fact. While drunk. It was a genuine miracle that Sammael actually functioned, and I was pretty sure it wouldn't have if my soul hadn't been strong enough to bully it into behaving how I wanted it to.


The deeper I got into techniques and Skill creation, the more I realized how little I knew. I'd see the results of my training, become certain I was slowly perfecting my craft, then I'd trip into some new way of looking at things and realize my previous efforts only looked good while squinting at them in low light.


I spent eight hours down there, internalizing the power and the details as best I could, and letting Dantalion soak up anything I couldn't for later use. Even MY soul was becoming strained by the constant effort, and my brain was mush after hours of seven times maximum input from a form designed to essentially BE information overload. Finally, I let the field drop, thumping backwards into a sprawl as I groaned and gripped my head.


A pair of soft hands reached down, slim fingers pressing against my temples as they did their best to gently massage the tension out. My wife pulled my head into her lap as she massaged it, humming gently to soothe my pain as best she could.


In the end, I just let myself drift off to sleep. My parallels faded away as I fell into blissful unconsciousness. My brain could process the excess data in dreams and I would hopefully wake up feeling refreshed. Tomorrow, I could begin work on Callie's new racial trait, assuming the Wisdom of Solomon was ready, if not I would wait. Either way, this wasn't going to be a one day endeavor. I was planning to work on this one for a while.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I woke up feeling pretty good. I'd worked through a lot of the excess data, and I set a parallel to work on the form while I took a much needed break. I'd been overclocking myself non stop since we got to the dungeon, and with everyone safe and nearby, I finally felt comfortable taking a bit of a breather before we got involved in whatever horrible mess awaited us before we could get OUT of this place.


In that vein, I decided to do something I hadn't done in far too long. I decided to cook dinner for my wife. I stockpiled my scrolls when I woke up (three for emergencies and twenty eight on hand after subtracting the one I'd used to lock Argaunt into his contract) and then ordered a few things for the meal before telling Callie to clear her schedule. I was planning to spend all day getting ready.


The look on her face when I told her what we were doing warmed my heart. It wasn't hunger or anything as base as that. Callie loved my cooking, but more than that, i could feel through the bond that she missed me. We didn't spend as much time together since the wedding, and it was far from ideal. The last real date night we'd had like this was the night I proposed to her, and that had been months ago and seemed like even longer.


I changed out of my armor and into a nice suit (though I did put an apron over it so I didn't get anything on it while cooking) and got started on dinner. I decided I was going to make braised short ribs in a red wine sauce with mashed potatoes and asparagus.


It was nothing fancy, but I thought she would appreciate the effort. I also decided to make puff pastry for dessert, and I hand rolled the dough, layering it as many times as possible to create a buttery delight. Once everything was either cooked or in to cook, I got rid of my apron and set the table to prepare for Callie's arrival.


My mask was in my ring, and my face wouldn't stop smiling as I felt her nervousness at the thought of a night with just the two of us. Not bad nervousness, but the kind of excited, fluttery feeling I could feel echoed in my own gut, and one that I'd heard a lot of people lost after getting married. It felt…right. The two us together, enjoying an evening between the bombshells, it felt like how things were supposed to be.


It was funny, I'd thought the lack of time together would erode our relationship. It did with some people. But Callie and I were connected on a deeper level than most. We always felt what the other was feeling, caught every little instance every day where the other person was thinking of us. Those little reminders or flashes of fondness that most people never say aloud or draw attention to, we got in surround sound.


Neither of us were ever alone, ever absent from the other's life. So these moments we got to just BE together between the craziness, they were built on the foundation of a million little affectionate thoughts and reminders of how much we cared.


I finished setting out the plates, then retrieved the ribs from the kitchen and served them, setting the sauce to the side to be used as gravy for the potatoes if she felt like doing so. Then I served the asparagus and sat down across from the empty chair where her plate was waiting and took a few deep breaths.


This was where I found peace. No matter how insane things got, not matter how dangerous or painful or violent. This was where my heart lived. That single moment of stillness between beats where all the pain and hurt just melted away. It felt strange, letting go of all the stress and exhaustion I'd been carrying for so long. I'd gotten so used to it that the loss left me genuinely reeling and off balance, but in a good way.


Which left me completely unprepared for seeing my wife walk into the room in her new dress. It was long and black, clinging to her form while still giving her room to move. Her mask was gone, just like mine, and her wine red lips were quirked up in a smile, her bright blue eyes shimmering like sunlight through a mountain spring below cascading, gently curling hair the consistency of black silk.


She stared back at me, her eyes locked with mine, and I felt an echo of the unrelenting adoration that swirled inside my chest every day as I remembered how grateful I was to have found the love of my life so early on. She glided across the room, sitting across from me gracefully, and my mouth went dry, my tongue fumbling over itself just like it did when we were first starting out. All this time, all these adventures, and I was still poleaxed by how breathtaking she was.


"Love you too, handsome," she said warmly. "And you were right. I needed this. I didn't even realize how fucking exhausted I was. The changes we go through, the shifts in mindset, it's easy to forget we're still people at our core. At least for now."


I chuckled. "I want a refund. I was promised implacable inhuman resolve. My resolve is totally placable, and it's like…human plus, at best."


She giggled, cutting a piece of short rib and popping it in her mouth. Her face brightened even more. "Oh damn, that's really good. I mean, the meat is great, but where did you get the wine for the sauce?"


"It was some super old bottle I found in the wine cellar," I shrugged. "Want a glass? I think it's supposed to be really expensive or something. Veldran DID say I could use whatever I wanted."


I summoned the bottle, pouring a glass for each of us. I didn't drink much, but a glass of wine with my wife at dinner wasn't going to be enough to do much to me. She picked hers up, sniffed deeply, and then closed her eyes with a happy groan. "Oh wow, that smells amazing."


"It's the tannins," I said wisely. "It has…more of them. Or less. Or they're stronger. Or weaker. I don't know anything about wine. I just heard that word somewhere. I'd ask Veldran, but I'm like…90% sure that this is an absurdly expensive bottle of wine and I just used it to cook beef, so I'm kind of afraid to run into him right now."


She smiled, taking a sip, then set down her glass. "So…you're really not worried about all this? At all?"


"No shop talk," I groaned exaggeratedly. "And no. Don't forget, I still have that defensive token. You'll be fine, even if I have to burn a god level protection technique to make sure of it. I'm not going to let the void take you, and neither will my grandparents. You're family, and that might be a pain in the ass sometimes, but it comes with some security. Nobody messes with a Wyndham."


Her eyes moistened, but she blinked away the tears, sniffing loudly. "See, how do you always know what to say to make me feel better? That's half the reason I married you, you know."


She leaned over the table, going up on her tip toes to peck me on the lips lightly before sitting back down. I shrugged. "I figure given all the dumb shit I do, you deserve a guy who can at least be supportive."


"You've gotten a lot better about doing dumb shit," she reassured me. Then she paused, frowning slightly. "Or I've gotten a lot worse at noticing when you're doing dumb shit. I honestly can't tell at this point. It's highly possible that you've just got me so acclimated to your nonsense it seems normal now."


I shrugged. "Close enough. I trust you to know when something is TOO dumb."


"I used to worry about that, you know," she sighed. "How upset and worried I got. I was afraid you'd resent me for calling you on things I thought were a bad idea."


"Resented it?" I asked incredulously. "I counted on it. I can't tell which way is up most of the time through my recursion. You're my litmus test for when something is Shane crazy or just regular crazy. Besides, you're connected to me so deeply. Of course it would hurt you if my soul is injured or if my mind is about to collapse from pain. The last thing I want to do is hurt you."


She shrugged self-consciously. "I know that. But it's a hard line to walk. Knowing when to call you on something I think is dangerous and when that crosses the line into not being supportive enough. At least before I had the luxury of knowing I was stronger than you and could help protect you if things got bad. Now…well, let's just say I can't wait for this new racial trait. It's terrifying being married to you and feeling like you're leaving me behind."


I reached out and grabbed her hand across the table, squeezing it tightly. "Never," I told her emphatically. "I will NEVER leave you behind. Even if I became a god tomorrow, I would only be a little bit ahead. I'd make sure you caught up eventually, no matter what I had to do. We're going to see the top of the mountain, and we're going to do it together. I don't care if I have to carve domain seeds out of every Vanished God and stack them all up to help you reach divinity."


She scoffed, her lips twitching as she tried to hide a smile. "Please, everyone knows I'm the talent in this family. I'll definitely become a god first, and then I'll help YOU reach divinity."


I beamed at her, and we went back to our meal. We didn't speak anymore, just ate in comfortable silence. When you can feel someone in your soul, you don't need words to fill the moments. Just being together and enjoying each other's company was more than enough.


When we finished, I cleared the dishes and went to get the puff pastry, which had finished cooling. I'd piped apple filling inside and sprinkled it with small crystals of rock sugar, and Callie lit up like a supernova when she bit into it. She pulled me in for another kiss, this one tasting of apples, and we just smiled at each other for a moment before we returned to eating, savoring the soft, flaky pastry.


After dinner, we went for a walk outside. Without my mask or hers, we just looked like a regular couple. No one on this planet knew my real face beyond a very dead abyssal priest. But just in case, we walked under Bael, the stealth form hiding us from view as we strolled through Bonehook hand in hand.


It was late, and the city was gloomy, but the green flame lamps on the light poles released a warm and comforting light, giving everything a sad, otherworldly air rather than the morbidity one would expect from such a dark world.


Beyond that, people were just people. Walking the streets, talking, buying, selling, screaming, laughing. It was a riot of humanity, and it further solidified the feeling of relaxation and peace as I returned to my roots. I felt…whole. Like I was finally catching my breath after years of non stop running.


It wasn't exactly what I'd expected, but it was a small taste of the honeymoon we hadn't gotten, and would hopefully still make time for, and it was priceless to me. When we returned to the complex, we retired to our room, and the two of us curled up together, peaceful and happy, and drifted off to sleep. It had been an amazing day.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next day I decided it was time. It had been a while since my last points drop, and I was going to need them for what came next. We'd spread the news of me killing that C-ranker (I was getting the credit for the kill this time, since we decided having more wish capability was the best use of the renown). I stockpiled the days scrolls, bringing my personal stash to thirty six, which I then passed on to the others with specific stat requests for payment.


Because I was so low on the stat from my renown, I asked that they put those eighteen hundred stat points into Creation. While I couldn't tell people what to wish for usually because I needed fair compensation, stat swaps were a one to one exchange, so I could be a bit more direct there. On top of that, I was asking for payment not telling them where to spend the points they wished for, so I was in the clear.


Aside from that…I had a LOT of points incoming. Not nearly enough to rank up, obviously, but I'd gotten a little over a hundred thousand. Between stories about me having the artifacts, my great-grandmother talking me up as her most powerful descendant (an obvious way to feed into her trap, whatever it was) and killing that C-ranker, I'd been swimming in renown lately.


I understood how Callie felt after that godslayer incident now, because the sheer income here was staggering. It gave me a clear understanding of why the WCP participated in the Unlucky 13 and consistently changed the current Wishmaster. I was only vaguely famous for my level right now, and it was pushing me through D-rank at a pretty decent clip. If I won the succession war, the regular income from being the Wishmaster would help me sail through C, B, and even A-rank at this rate.


A majority of my points came in the form of Might, clocking in at twenty five thousand six hundred and nine. After that I got twenty two thousand five hundred Vitality, nineteen thousand forty six Focus, fourteen thousand five hundred and eight Perception, and sixteen thousand ninety seven Fantasy. On top of the nine thousand eight hundred Creation, counting the points from the scrolls) I was sitting at almost one hundred and ten thousand points of income since my last power boost.


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


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


Might-121,619


Impact-105


Fantasy-69,703


Vitality-62,854


Focus-66,766


Perception-67,014


Creation-28,122


Progress to next rank:416,180/1,000,000


Soul strength- Amethyst Soul Body


Chronicle: Ten Demons Tome


wish scrolls stockpiled: 36 (3 in the possession of friends to be used over time)


Bonded compantion: Archimedes (Life Nova Phoenix)


Weapon: Ten Demons Tree (reincarnation tree staff that lets him simulate alternate lives to perfect his forms, and when combined with the library lets him simulate and deduce techniques in a process called the "Wisdom of Solomon")


Stored:7 shadow attacks, 10 shadow jump (seven in reserve), 10 Stealth charges, 0 fire attacks, 10 triple strength tranq blows (ten in reserve), 0 triple strength density shifted attacks. 10 spider leg attacks (ten in reserve), 0 heal bursts (0 reserve), 3 gravity attacks, 1 shadow clone, 18 scan heals (I-rank ability so Shane can hold more)


Pet- Wolf named Jin


Financial resources: 42 D-ranked(worth 100 E-ranked, past master rank is a watershed)


I was blown away. Not just by the growth, but by the fact that I wasn't even halfway to C-rank yet. I'd been hoping to make it to C before I reached the competition, but at this rate I had no chance. I might make it there DURING the competition, depending on exactly what we were doing, but for now I decided to let go of the dream of ranking up before the succession war. It was better to focus on shoring up the abilities I already had and making them as deadly as possible.


Even if I couldn't BE a C-ranker, I could still fight one with enough prep. I needed someone else to land the final blow, but that was why I had friends. Despite that, I did have another possible avenue of power. A way to categorically raise my power and enable me to land the final blow on higher ranked enemies. Namely, my staff.


The Ten Demons Tree was a powerful peak C-rank item, and if I could rank it up to B-rank, I would still be able to use it (weapons could be used within two ranks, usually. Past D-rank that got tougher but with my Chronicle I was strong enough to make it work). Not to mention the secondary capabilities like Wisdom of Solomon and the life simulation that let me evolve my forms would both be strengthened, leading to a qualitative shift in my power.


So I decided to check in with the one person on this trip who would know how to go about that little rank up. Daysia.


My sunflower haired dryad friend was in the compound as well, though she'd retired to an indoor track I hadn't realized was there and was playing with Archie. My phoenix had been thrilled to finally get out of Bethy's Domain, and having someone to play with was even more exciting for him. When I found them, she was chucking acorns the length of the room and Archie was flying in specific patters to try to catch several of them in a row.


"Interesting game," I laughed as I sat down next to Daysia. She turned to look at me and almost jumped out of her skin. "S-Solomon?"


I raised an eyebrow…and then realized why she was so shocked. Namely, the fact that my face was exposed. I'd never put my mask back on since I was still in the complex, protected by Veldran's formations. I grinned sheepishly. "Ah yeah, sorry about that. Hope I didn't freak you out."


She shook her head, a little dazed. "Not at all. It's just…I thought you were older. Which saying it out loud is really dumb, because we're Ascendants, but you must have gotten high ranked FAST, because you look like eighteen. Most of the higher rankers I know look like they're in their early to mid twenties. The age thing doesn't kick in until you finish growing, but if you don't hit a decent rank before then you get a few years before it starts." She paused. "Maybe slow growth is a Dryad thing though, who can say. Still, you look young."


I shrugged. "I have a bit of a baby face for a guy my size, I think. Part of why I wear the mask. Gives me an air of legitimacy."


"It's also super intimidating," she noted bluntly, and I couldn't help but laugh.


"Yeah, that too," I agreed. "So, I came to ask you about something. My staff. I want to know how to help it rank up. It IS technically a tree, and even a living one, so I figured who better to ask about what to feed it than you. All I know about it is that it's a soul attribute tree. But that doesn't tell me much about helping it break through."


She lit up. "Oh, I can help with that! Here, take it out, and I can help you communicate. I know you're connected to it, but some things a tree will only say to a Tree Singer."


I shrugged, then called my staff out from my soul and placed it butt down on the ground in front of me. The sapsteel tracing the body glowed dimly in the low light, and Daysia knelt down, closing her eyes before she started to whistle. I'd seen her use her powers before, but not like this. This was more…visceral. The high pitched whine of her whistle reminded me of nothing so much as wind between leaves, and as soon as it started, the staff began to tremble.


As it shook, I heard a rustle I hadn't heard before. While I could communicate with the staff, it was more emotions and impressions than anything, but judging by her expression, Daysia could actually UNDERSTAND my weapon. I was damned glad we'd brought her along.


After a few minutes back and forth, she furrowed her brows and hummed contemplatively. "It's not sure. It says that it thinks 'the bitey one' can help."


I chuckled. "I probably should have figured that. Consuming life force is Bethy's whole thing." I glanced to Archie. "Go get Bethy for me?" He trilled back insolently and I rolled my eyes. "No, you don't have to get back in the Domain yet, I just need to talk to her."


To my surprise, my companion literally rolled his eyes (someone was teaching him bad habits) and then flashed off. He came back within five minutes alone, and I threw my hands up in exasperation. "Well, where is she?" He glared at me, chirped once, and then flew up into the air, spreading his wings in an explosion of green flame.


"BETHY!" Boomed a familiar voice as my vampire friend manifested from out of the flames. I was pretty sure she'd just been in stealth up to this point waiting, but I still laughed as she appeared from the fire, arms thrown out and head flung back in triumph.


I stared at her dryly. "Really? Fireworks entrance? That doesn't seem a little ironic to you?"


She pouted at me sulkily. "You guys are getting too used to my grand entrances. I need to start mixing it up. Bring a little pizzazz back to my hellos!"


"Bethy, I think of all the things I can imagine you needing more of, pizzazz is literally the last one," I told her with a laugh.


"That's so sweet," she said cheerfully. "But I think I can do better. Now, what's up, birdy said you needed to talk? He also complained a lot about my kitties, apparently they're mean to him inside the Domain, and he wants me to make them be nice next time he's in there." That explained why he'd helped with her entrance.


I held up my staff. "Daysia and I are trying to help my staff upgrade. It's at the peak of C-rank, so it should be close…ish. I just don't know what it needs. It's connected to my Chronicle, so it shouldn't be that, which means we need to like…water it. Or whatever. We need to feed it life force, or soul force, or whatever. Your Domain can do that right?"


"Probably," she said with a hum. "But it might become a vampire. Do you want a vampire tree?"


I shook my head. "I'm gonna say no. Is there a way to do it WITHOUT turning my tree into a bloodthirsty undead?"


"Hey," she said with a pout. "That's not nice. I'm not bloodthirsty! Actually, I'm feeling kind of peckish, I should find Dayna after this. Anyway, there is another way, but it's kind of dangerous. I could water it with wine. I can make really good wine, especially if there's blood in it. I don't do that often because it usually makes me go a little crazy, and until now, I was worried about tapping into my bloodline that deep. But with your purification we could cleanse the wine so it wouldn't drive the tree into a frenzy, plus Daysia could help us guide it!"


That sounded…interesting. "I…guess we could try that. What do we need to get started?" Bethy squealed in excitement, bouncing up and down and clapping her hands. Then she made a list of necessary ingredients for the wine she was going to make. It sounded like an involved process, but I was still pretty excited for the possible results. I couldn't wait to see what I could do with a B-ranked version of my staff.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"So, you can make wine that makes people stronger?" Chelsea asked Bethy with interest. "How come we haven't heard about this before?" Due to her purification powers, my sister had decided to join in the winemaking, along with me, Daysia, Dayna, Bethy, and Archie.


Behty shook her head. "Because it's not good for people to drink. Maenad wine is famously dangerous. My mom taught me how to brew it on one of my visits, but it drives people crazy. Turns them into cannibals, and MAKING it wakes up my Maenad blood, which is categorically bad. But since Shane helped calm down my bloodline, I should be able to manage a small batch without TOO many side effects."


"And trees don't go crazy," I pointed out with interest.


She shook her head. "No, the tree would absolutely go crazy. That's why you need to purify the wine. It'll take MORE of it to drive a tree crazy, but Maenad wine is conceptual madness. Anything that ingests it will go bat shit insane."


I'd rarely seen Bethy quite this serious. She had a solemn look on her face as she gestured to one side. "Did you get the grapes I asked for? Red grapes only, the darker the better. And seeds are fine." I nodded, and had Daysia deposit the grapes in the giant wooden tub we'd found. It was made of dark wood slats and was about ten feet around and two feet tall. Once we deposited it, Bethy made a pleased sound. "Excellent, now we smash the grapes. LUGGAGE! Hammer mode!"


She flicked her wrist and a stick appeared in her hand. With a flicker of her Domain, Luggage leapt from behind her hopping up and locking his teeth on the stick before curling his body around.


And…that was it. "Um…what is he doing?" I asked cautiously.


She beamed. "This is Lugagge's hammer mode! I invented it after you got your staff. Having a living weapon is super cool. Luggage is a hellhound, and he's super durable. He's the BEST hammer, aren't you good boy?"


The dog on the stick rumbled, and she cooed happily at him. "Bethy, that's not a hammer. He's just clinging to it."


"Nuh-uh!" she argued waspishly. "Watch." She raised the stick and slammed the dog down into the middle of the tub. Grapes splattered everywhere. Bethy cheered, swinging he "hammer" over and over again, faster and faster, with red juice and pulp flying everywhere.


Finally, after about five minutes, she set the dog down and he dropped the stick, shaking himself out violently, flinging juice all over the rest of the room.


We all glared at her, covered in grape, but before we could react, Bethy opened her mouth, exposing her fangs, and there was a ripple in the air. Much like the eyes that had manifested back when she hypnotized Dayna, a large MOUTH manifested in the air, delicate fangs exposed. Then the lips pursed, and there was a slurping sound, and all the grapes juice and pulp was sucked up into the illusory mouth, which then spit it all back into the tub.


Bethy ignored the odd looks, then walked over to the tub and bit her wrist deeply. I winced as I heard the teeth tear flesh, then she held out her wrist over the grape juice and blood began to drip in.


Where the blood made contact, the dark purple juice began to shift into a glowing ruby pool. The smell of grapes became overpowering, then started to shift, turning more alcoholic and dense. Almost like a vapor was flooding the room. I started feeling lightheaded, swaying a bit as a burning need to RAGE bubbled in my stomach.


I felt like my blood was on fire, like I was about to explode out of my skin and tear the walls down as my bones gave way under the sheer power of my shredding muscles.


Which…wasn't exactly a sane thought. I triggered Leviathan, the flames of my purification power and soul body washing away the impression. I sighed in relief as my blood stopped boiling. The others eyes all began to glow as they triggered their own Soul Bodies, reinforcing their consciousness to resist the fog of bloody wine.


Bethy took a deep sniff, then frowned. "It's too deep," she turned to Archie. "Birdy! Light the wine on fire!"


Archie trilled in excitement, then flung out his wings and cawed, exploding in a nova of green flame as he flapped once, sending a torrent of fire hurtling into the wine tub. There was an explosion of purple light as the red energy mixed with the flames. "Chelsea, you're up!" Bethy cheered, and my sister joined in, sending her own blast of purifying power.


As the power of the flames imbued the wine, red vapor exploded up above the tub like a cloud of smoke off a volcano. In the mist, crimson figures danced and leaped before falling on each other and tearing flesh with razor sharp teeth. In the background, I could hear the wine SCREAMING.


Finally, it was my turn. Extra energy from Archie, purification from Chelsea, and now I was going to be putting down a double helping of both with Leviathan. Stepping up, I triggered a burst of green flame in the form of an Extinction Event and infused it into the wine.


The previously red liquid began to shift again, taking on a brilliant swirling purple color, infused with flecks of green and white shimmer from the fire being mixed in. I kept that up until it had all swirled together into one big soup of complicated colors.


"Plant the tree!" Bethy announced portentously. I chuckled, then slammed the butt of the staff into the ground, punching it in and leaving it there. "Now, Daysia, begin the watering!"


Our Dryad friend, looking excited, scurried forward and lifted the tub easily. Being a D-ranker, that kind of weight was nothing to her. She stepped closer to the staff, and then tipped it, letting some of the swirling liquid spill out over the surface of the wood.


There was a hum of excitement and the traceries of metal on the staff began to blaze. The wood pulsed, color shifting to a darker hue as it drank down the wine. And drank. And drank. Daysia began to sing, her voice warping the air, and the sound and light of the wine was captured, wrapping itself around the staff like a blanket as it was woven into complex patterns.


I could feel it through my connection to the Ten Demons Tree. Feel the flex and groan. Inside my soul, I could see the staff floating above the tome despite seeing it right in front of me. As I watched, the illusory staff over the Chronicle began to sprout, growing branches and leaves as it grew.


This wasn't the physical tree. It was its SOUL, the same way my soul was inside the library. The more it grew, the heavier it became. I felt it pressing down on me, as if I was suffocating, but I ignored it. The majority of the weight was slowly offset by the Chronicle as it shifted into a position to bear the strain.


I knew why I'd never seen a D-ranker using a B-ranked weapon. Because without my Chronicle to bear the weight, this would have almost definitely killed me. More than that, I could feel the tree itself adjusting, changing to suit the tome better so it could soak up even more of the strain. My weapon was a living being, an organism and a partner, and it was actively helping me acclimate to the strain, or even with a Chronicle this would have been ROUGH.


Finally, it finished growing. The phantasm of a colossal tree loomed across my library, shading the tome and the rest of the shelves, and I could see the leaves glowing with a pulsing light that reminded me of the wine, the vessels carrying energy throughout the circulatory system of the tree itself.


From the branches, a shimmering mist drifted, and I recognized it as the energy that I'd been using for the Wisdom of Solomon. There was a lot more of it now, which was good, because I was going to need it.


Before I could start exploring that though, I felt something shift. My eyes flew open wide as I retreated to the real world, and I watched in awe as my staff started to change. The pulsing increased in tempo, becoming a rapid shaking. The surface began to shine as the wine started glowing, and steam poured off as half of it evaporated and half was absorbed.


Then there was a loud cracking as fractures began, running down the staff as the surface between the sapsteel started to flake and drop off, revealing white new tree heart underneath, all inscribed with symbols.


All the writing on the staff body glowed the sapsteel tracery tightened, biting into the flesh of the tree as it solidified again, the caps doing the same thing. There was a brief pause, a sort of lull in the air like the world was holding its breath, and then an explosion of force rippled over us, driving us all to our knees.


Impact. Pure and simple. B-ranked Impact driving the breath from our bodies as the staff was elevated, pushed up a rank to stand among the giants near the peak. I could feel the power inside, like my soul was a balloon stretched around a giant lead weight. But as I let it sink in, the excess weight slowly lessened, and that feeling receded as my Chronicle acclimated to its final state.


I let the staff blink back to my soul and then called it to my hand, grinning at the feel of the thing as I whirled it between mm palms. It felt…natural. Right.


There was no way I could just smite a C-ranker with this thing, obviously. There was still a sizable gap between us. But if I stockpiled enough power to put behind a blow, this would hold up under the strain and could POTENTIALLY do real damage. Combined with the utility for helping me complete Callie's project this staff was the only thing that could seriously turn the tables in the current situation for me.


I turned to Bethy, my smile fading when I saw how pale she looked. I glanced at Dayna, who nodded and stepped up next to Bethy, offering up a wrist. As a thrall, Dayne could feed Bethy without agonizing physical pain. Despite her obvious hunger, Bethy refused to eat in front of us, and Chelsea had to grab both of them and drag them away to find a private place for Bethy to get a bite.


After waving off my calls of thanks, they vanished down the hall, and I called Archie to my side. He swooped down, landing on my shoulder, and I scritched him on the back of his neck, which he loved.


Then I headed out to find my wife. I wanted to show her the new weapon, but more importantly, I wanted to get her help. It was time to finally complete her racial trait.


After that, I'd double down on gathering more C-rankers, and we'd spend a week or two preparing before finally making our trip to the capital. Skartaris the Weeper had the key to leaving this place, and it was about time we got a copy.


With my new B-rank staff, all the new stats, and a slew of powerful allies, I felt more prepared for what was to come than I had in a long time. This was just a pit stop on the road to the succession war. Once I got there, the real obstacles would appear. Whatever happened, we would get through it the same way we always had. Together. My friends and I would come out on top, and this time next year, I would be the Wishmaster of the Wish Curse Palace.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next day we headed to the capital. Veldran got in touch with the Ghost Bone Tower Boss and arranged for our passage. Across the Shoals, the call went out to all the C-rankers we could reach, as well as all the D-rank members of Silent Sorrow, all of us gathering for a conclave at the central Tower to prepare to make a break for the exit.


I was worried about being in the city where Skartaris was based, but I was assured that the Tower Master had the capability to keep us from being discovered. While Skartaris WAS in charge, the Ghost Bone Tower was basically a state within a state, and operated at a similar scale. Silent Sorrow had established themselves deeply within the capital and knew all the right palms to grease to get us in without notice.


I was a bit worried about the trip, but Veldran was insistent it was safe. "You won't run into any problems with Carmichael there," he assured me as he saw us off. "He's one of the Tower's strongest."


That brought me up short. "Wait…he is? But back in the shallow he pretty much broke even with that ice lady."


He blinked at me. "Ice…you mean DIRE FROST? One of the most terrifying servants of the Abyssal Lords? A peak C-ranker with a high level racial trait? Yeah, drawing with her is terrifying. She's almost impossible to pin down in a fight."


Come to think of it, that made a lot of sense. Racial traits were often OP. I'd gotten so used to being around Bethy I had started to think of them as normal. "Well, what makes him so strong?"


"He has a Legendary Boxing Skill," he said bluntly. "Makes him almost unstoppable."


That surprised me. I hadn't heard of anyone who focused enough on a secondary Skill to rank it up ahead past D-rank. It just wasn't a decent use of time when you could be raising a Skill that could become part of your Path or Chronicle. Thinking about it though, a place like the Shoals was EXACTLY the kind of place people would feel driven to do something like that.


Apparently it was difficult to manage though, if Carmichael was famous for being just one rank up.


The man in question arrived next to me. "Alright, I've gotten in touch with Chandra, and he's agreed to lend us one of his candle buggies. It should make the trip much smoother. Dawnrend is a bit of a trip." I noticed Dez was gone, joining her mother and Caldewen in Bonehook. Carmichael had insisted she stay behind to protect her family, and despite her obvious anger at being left back, she couldn't really argue with the necessity. Dez had a scroll with her still, from our earlier deal, so she was her mother and sister's ticket out if the void break happened early.


I glanced around, spotting one of those old fashioned looking cars with the anti mist candles on them. I'd seen a few candles since we got back, and they'd all been flaring up about five inches into the air, looking more like a torch than a candle flame. At the reminder, I glanced up at the slowly descending line of black water. The rain had dropped even closer, infecting the world as it approached. At this rate, we were looking at maybe a week. It seemed to have slowed down as it got lower, but not enough to be a hopeful sign.


We all filed into the car, the inside of which was a spatially expanded room with a bunch of cozy couches, the walls covered with red silk drapes. I turned to Argaunt. "So, how goes the recruiting? The other two Verdyn godchildren onboard?"


He sighed. "Darwen agreed, but Selvara is holding out. I think she wants to get you in a room to try to squeeze you for better terms. She's always been kind of cagey. Dayna would be a better choice to convince her, they grew up together."


Dayna sighed. "Vara is stubborn. Losing and swearing fealty to Lady Bethy would be unforgivable to her. Bringing me up will make you LESS likely to sway her. Not more."


"She's pigheaded, not stupid," Argaunt corrected. "And she was PISSED about being hung out to dry. She was supposed to be a seed for Temple Daughter. One of the strongest of all of us for her rank. Being forced to act as disposable cannon fodder on a mission like this was a massive insult to her. Delenda arranged it, I think."


Dayna grimaced, then noticed our blank expressions. "Peak D-rankers sent here were considered disposable. Too many things could go wrong and leave them stranded. It's why you have a chance to turn some of them. Some of them were sent because they're weak, but some were sent because of politics. The various godchildren all have different positions and duties. The Temple Children are considered the right hand of their god, the ones who pass on their divine decrees. It's an extremely relaxed position, and very sought after. Only the strongest can earn the right to commune with their deity regularly."


"Exactly," said Argaunt. "And Selvara was in the running for that position. But Selvara and Dayna are both orphans from rare species, while Delenda has a powerful family backing her. Delenda pulled some shady shit and got Selvara assigned to sacrificial duty. I don't think anyone expected the void break to come this soon. Raxus is double dealing behind everyone's back, which is admittedly no surprise."


From the look of it, I wasn't even sure Dayna had been warned about the void break at all, or maybe she just found the whole thing distasteful. I couldn't remember what she'd said about the whole thing, and my head was starting to hurt trying to keep track of all the labyrinthine plots.


I pushed it aside. I needed to focus on my OWN plots. What the gods were doing and why was too far above my level to bother with. I needed to stay alive and worry about that shit later.


Callie slumped down into the seat next to me, leaning over against my side. "You're overthinking everything again. Just take a breath and focus on the next step. We need to get to Dawnrend and head to the main Ghost Bone Tower. One thing at a time. Speaking of, it might be nice to know where we're going when we arrive. Do any of you have a map or anything? We've been flying blind for a while now."


Carmichael nodded. "Veldran assumed you'd want one. So I borrowed a mirror map."


Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a mirror. "I have to give this one back, so be careful." He set it down on a coffee table between the couches, and there was a low flash and then…a city was there. It was a hologram, projected from the mirror to float in front of us like a scale model of the gaudiest collection of buildings I'd ever laid eyes on.


Dawnrend was made of gold. All of it. The whole place looked like a normal city that someone had dumped molten metal across, coating the buildings with the stuff. No windows, few doors.


I whistled. "That's…pretty hideous. Did Skartaris build that?"


Carmichael waggled a hand. "Kind of? He took an existing ruin and plated it with the most durable metal he could find. Abyssal Gold. That's a C-rank metal mined from the depths of the ocean, and one of the sturdiest. Despite the ugly appearance, it's never been successfully sieged. And people have tried. We think that the agreement to supply that gold was one of the earliest cooperations between Skartaris and the Abyssal Lords."


He pointed to a spire on the left hand side of the projection, then to a gate beyond it. "This is the Ghost Bone Tower. We'll be entering the city through the undergate. For every entrance, there's a matching access point below ground. The boss had them installed to enable some of the smuggling operations that both sides benefit from, though we get more use out of them. The undergate will be guarded by Silent Sorrow personnel, so your entry will go unremarked."


"I don't think I'm going to be in TOO much danger," I said thoughtfully. "While the godchildren are looking for me, I think half the reason they moved up the void break was so they could just send some C-rankers in en masse to shake me down. I'm sure they'd still kill me if they could, but I doubt I'm a priority, even for them.


"Skartaris, meanwhile, has even less reason to care about me," I grimaced at how over my head I was, thinking about the local monarch. "My scrolls are valuable, so I'm not a non-entity, but I doubt I'm a focus with so much going on. Especially not if Silent Sorrow are making their move."


Carmichael nodded. "The boss has always been a problem for him. But the layers of secrecy and compartmentalization in place makes discovering which of his inner circle is in charge untenable, and peak C-rankers can't be so easily replaced. The council are the strongest Ascendants in the shoals, so just getting rid of them all is off the table. With the boss ready to come out of the shadows, even with backup inbound once the void break happens, he must be floundering."


I tried to decide if that was an ocean pun, but ignored it to focus on his comments. "That means the conclave itself will be a huge danger, doesn't it? Like what if they catch us and lay siege to the Tower?"


"Won't work," said Argaunt, cutting in. "You're thinking too logically. Skartaris is a despot. The whole reason the Tower Master managed to put together this force is because people are sick of his shit. If he brings the fight out into the open, he's immediately calling due every debt and contract, assuming that things will shake out on his side. Any of his people who were on the fence will be forced to pick a side, and they might not pick his."


Carmichael made a noise of agreement. "Exactly. As long as he lets it drag out, no one draws a line in the sand. Then, when the Void Children show up, all the hedgers will see the way the wind is blowing and fall in line. Lets him maintain his forces at maximum capacity when the Void Children arrive. He's not an idiot, so he doesn't TRUST them, and he'll want as many of his C-rankers as possible to try to smooth over the transition of power.


"After that, he'll probably just LEAVE, since C-rankers won't be sealed here, and as a peak C-ranker, he can break through as soon as he's out, as can many of his people," he grimaced at the mental image. "An army of B-rankers would be a welcome force in many factions, I would assume."


I nodded. "Definitely. The five faction alliance might raise a fuss about the void, but, the vanished gods won't. Hell they were INVOLVED. I'd be shocked if one or more of the godchildren isn't courting them in expectation of that breakthrough."


Which meant the connection between them might be deeper than expected. That was a scary thought.


We discussed our entrance, going over a few contingencies in case we were noticed. Just because I didn't expect trouble didn't mean I shouldn't prepare for it. After an hour, we had it all settled, and Carmichael put away the map, obviously relieved by the fact that it wasn't at risk anymore. I wondered if he also borrowed that from Chandra. If so, that guy must be pretty scary.


With the planning done, all that was left was to wait. I closed my eyes, entering my library to resume work on Callie's new racial trait. I still had a ways to go, but I was hoping to finish it before everything went wrong. I wanted her to be as safe as possible for what was coming.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I was pulled out of my work when the car stopped. Despite the interior dimension being mostly detached from the sensations of travel (thankfully), braking seemed to make an obvious impact on our trip. We emerged into a cavern of indeterminate size. The whole place was so massive I had trouble seeing the edges, although admittedly all the light came from crystals erupting from the ceiling in the center.


We'd stopped in the middle of a big open space, in front of a large spiral staircase leading up into the dark. Carmichael stared at it as we stopped. "Been a long time since I've been back here," he admitted heavily. "I'd forgotten how much presence the city has."


I recognized his complicated tone. "Are you from here?"


"I am," he nodded. "Dez was actually born here. We left shortly after her birth. That's how I ended up being recruited by the Tower. One of the members owns a boxing gym. Chandra and I used to go there when we were kids. I showed some talent, so Old Ramsey took me under his wing, and the rest, as they say, is history."


"Do you want to go see the gym?" I asked him after a minute. "Between Callie and I, we can walk you right up to the place without anyone noticing."


He shook his head. "I wouldn't count on that. Your stealth is good, but there are detection specialists in Dawnrend I would advise against underestimating. Safer to stick to the Tower and the surrounding areas. Nobody spies on the boss. Not if they want to live to tell about it."


My sister cut in. "Good. The surrounding area thing. We need a break. Not like, downtime in the complex, but an actual few days moving around in a normal town. We've been either hiding or reacting since we got here. You and Callie might be fine holing up underground for date night, brother mine, but the rest of us aren't lame old married people." She stopped, turning to glance at Mel and Abel. "Well, most of us."


Abel rolled his eyes. "Yes, because your social life is so rich and fulfilling."


Holly snorted, and Chelsea shot her a betrayed look. The angel shrugged. "What, he's not wrong. You're just as big a loner as your brother. You still have us though. And Gabe and Bethy. And I guess Dayna now, since she kind of comes as a package deal with Bethy."


"We could use some downtime too," Bella spoke up. "We've been on the run since we freed the others. Elena wants to call her son and check on him. That IS safe, right?"


"That might need to wait, unfortunately," I told her with a sigh. I turned to Elena, who was grouped up with Ray, Desria, Cavallo, Chess, and Daysia. They'd also sort of adopted Dom and Sable, from what I could tell, splitting the group into two separate camps. "How are you doing? I know you said you aren't mad about being sucked into this, but I know you haven't seen Simon in a while. How was he when you left?"


Despite the circumstances, she beamed at me. "He's doing great. Which is worth a bit of hassle. Don't worry about me. I'm gathering some souvenirs to bring him when I head home, and I have plenty of amazing stories. I don't need to call him right away."


"Yeah, our connection to the outside is pretty much nonexistent," I said apologetically. "Otherwise we'd be able to get in touch with my grandparents."


I turned to Argaunt, who was mostly keeping to himself. "Can you get in touch with some of the other godchildren? Not sure how you reached out to yours, but I'm sure some of them are in Dawnrend. You might be the best person to make the offer for me. Although I would avoid Raxus's remaining two. I just don't trust anything to do with that guy."


"Probably smart," he admitted. "Raxus worshippers are notoriously sadistic. His constant mind games tend to twist them pretty badly. That leaves us at fifteen total for the C-rankers, if we get all the others."


I nodded. "Forty five most likely, including the thirty from the tower. I might see id the Tower can use the scrolls to flip some of the others." I glanced at my wife. "Do you know how long it'll take for the C-rankers to be able to leave once the Shallow expands to the whole dungeon? Like is it going to be instant?"


She frowned, closing her eyes and concentrating. "I think…no. Once the Shallow is complete, the void break will start, but it won't be immediate. The dungeon will absorb the shielding around itself to fuel the conversion, and it'll take six months or so to settle. Of course, the void connection will become active immediately. C-rankers from the void will start filing in as soon as the water reaches the ground."


"Then we can probably turn some of them," I nodded. "We might even be able to snag some of the peak C-rankers for ourselves and let them break through after leaving. I'm awfully short on B-rankers going into the succession war."


Carmichael brightened. "That's a good idea. It won't be many. Condensing a Chronicle is HARD, and most C-rankers can't manage. I've got mine, I had to before I could rank up my boxing to Legendary, but it's not common. I can probably break through once I'm out, to be honest. And I'd be willing to work for you, assuming you can get my wife and daughters out when we leave."


That perked me right up. "I'd be happy to. We can talk to the Tower Master about bringing them here when we have a chance. Speaking of, when am I going to meet him, exactly?"


"Not soon," Carmichael grimaced. "The boss's position is a bit delicate. Most of the Tower's operations are supported by his anonymity. The inner circle has a wide range of duties and responsibilities, and the Tower intersects with most of them. By remaining in the shadows, the boss prevents Skartaris from acting directly against the Tower."


I cocked my head. "How so?"


"Basically, any serious attempt to uproot the tower would require the involvement of several inner circle members," he clarified. "Skartaris isn't a general. He doesn't DO leadership. He delegates. The boss's position didn't become clear until the system had been in place for a while, and Skartaris had already distributed his power too widely."


"Oh," I said as I figured out where he was going with that. "So he needs to use the inner council members to tap into the resources he would have to use to uproot the Tower. And if he picks the wrong one…"


He nodded. "And not just one. The boss has more than just himself on his side. Like I said before, if he forces them to pick a side and they don't pick his, all the masks come off. And he doesn't know what's behind those masks. He's a paranoid sadist, and while he DOES have people loyal to him, he doesn't REALLY trust them. The boss has turned his entire power structure into a trap that he can't get out of."


"But it only works if there are shadows for him to jump at," I nodded. "So the boss has to stay hidden until the last second, otherwise all the deterrence is gone. How is he going to leave with us then?"


"I assume he'll request one of your scrolls," he said with a shrug. "Do you get any sort of name or identity information when you grant wishes?"


I paused. "I…don't, actually. I never really noticed that. I know who makes a wish because I know who I gave the scrolls to. He could make a wish, and I would be able to grant it. But it would preclude negotiation if he wanted to remain hidden. I don't know who makes a wish, but I know the terms. He would need to arrange for several of his people to agree to identical terms to disguise who he was."


"I'm sure he'll figure something out," he assured me. "The boss is a genius, otherwise he couldn't have built this empire within Skartaris's corrupt system."


We had all mounted the spiral stairs and were heading up, talking as we walked. Callie seemed distracted, and I took her hand in mine, interlacing our fingers. She squeezed my hand, shooting me a warm smile as she felt the support I was pushing through the bond. "Speaking of the corrupt system, why don't you fill us in on who we're up against, especially the inner circle."


"That might be a decent idea," he said with a grimace. "You'll be running into them eventually. But this isn't the place. Too many ears. Wait until we get to the tower and I'll fill you in." We both nodded, and then focused more on our surroundings as we rose up from the ground.


The spiral staircase we'd ascended came out into a warehouse, but once we emerged, we were in for a pretty strange sight. Dawnrend looked weird from the outside, but from the inside it was actually surprisingly nice. While the gold plated buildings were still odd, the streets were set with shiny black tiles that had traceries of gold designs swirling through them. Up close, I could see that the plating had settled into complicated designs and engravings on the ruins underneath the gold.


The swirling designs in the street tiles blended seamlessly into the building patterns, creating a strange panoramic effect that blended the street and buildings into an almost two dimensional image. The resulting effect was basically the opposite of the gimmick in movies where someone paints a really realistic picture on a wall or on the ground and someone thinks it's a hole or tunnel.


Walking around in it was incredibly surreal, but we got used to it pretty fast, and Carmichael pointed out variations in the street patterns that he told us were designed to help you navigate. Different symbols showed us where we were and where we were going. It was pretty impressive to me that they'd managed to work that into the designs while also keeping them perfectly in balance with the ones on the buildings, which didn't seem to have the same features.


Finally, we arrived at the spire. "Alright, we'll all be staying here," Carmichael told us as we came to a stop. "Like I said, you're good to move around within range of the tower. Basically, make sure you don't leave the section of the city where the streets have this pattern on them." He pointed to a strange recursive loop that had worked itself into the street patterns about ten miles back.


"This is the pattern for the tower district, and nobody starts anything here," he assured us. "The tower guard patrol the streets, and causing issues isn't worth the trouble. Even Skartaris's people don't have that much time to waste." He reached into a pocket, pulling out a small cloth bag. "These are tower tokens. Bone coins aren't allowed in Dawnrend, which honestly should have been a red flag from the moment I heard it, but growing up it was just the way things were done.


"These should be enough spending money to amuse yourselves for the next few days while everyone gathers," he turned to Argaunt. "You can come with me. We need to check in with the cloak to get the information you need about your targets. The rest of you…enjoy your downtime. Oh, and here." He tossed me something, and I caught it reflexively, only noticing after I opened my hand that it was his ghost bone stone.


I furrowed my brow. "You sure I should have this?"


"I'll get another," he assured me. "This will let you access the tower and give you more say over where you stay. I'll take Argaunt up to check in. Get settled in and we can talk later." And with that, he turned and headed off through the tower door. Staring at the others, I shrugged and followed, though I turned off toward the front desk instead of following him up a set of stairs. Guess we needed to pick our rooms.