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

[Malcolm Tent]

The activation of Gluttony changed the game. Aside from torn muscles from the electrocution, I hadn't realized how much fucking FATIGUE had build up on my climb. Every step drove me deeper into pain and exhaustion, and I'd been staggering up the stairs the last for staircases. But all that changed as I fired up the Abomination Engine and let the electricity pour in.


It hurt, as usual, but this was a refreshing kind of pain. In the face of the wobbling stagger and shuddering exhaustion of before, the new pain was like a breath of fresh air, cleansing and propelling me forward.


Sadly, looking up, I found that the brief respite (for some value of that word) hadn't done me any favors. More people had caught up. To my complete surprise, I recognized one of them.


Jacob grinned at me cheekily. "I told you you'd let your guard down so I could pass you."


"Well, you've certainly surprised me," I gritted out through the pain. "Mostly by being…that. What actually are you, exactly?"


He was…jelly. Translucent gold jelly. Or something like it, the consistency was a little weird maybe. "I'm a honey slime." He announced proudly, and I nodded. Slime was pretty much exactly where my head had gone, and honey sounded right. I hadn't even know that was a thing.


"So why aren't you…you know, in pain?" I gestured at his apparent casual demeanor.


"Oh, I am," he admitted. "Excruciating pain. It's just easier to keep it off my face when I don't have any muscles to contract. Plus my slime conducts electricity more than holds it. Here, look." He casually reached out to his other side, where the bronze guy was passing, and poked him with a finger.


There was an explosion of lightning much like the coin earlier, and the bronze guy screamed as he was flung bodily off the stairs. I moved away from Jacob.


"Anyway, nice seeing you, I've got to get going." With a final wave he turned and moved on.


I noted that he stuck to the opposite side of the incredibly wide steps, letting me feel more comfortable, and I appreciated the effort as I remounted the stairs myself, letting Gluttony fade while keeping Abomination Engine going.


Sadly, contrary to the plot of of every movie, video game, comic, and book in history, pumping pure electricity into your body does not actually make you stronger, even with something like Abomination Engine. That might have been my fault for designing it this way, but in my defense, I hadn't expected this exact situation to happen.


Still, the electricity sapped the power from Gluttony, forcing me to expend it on empowering exhausted and damaged muscles. It gave me enough strength to get through the next staircase, though barely, and when I got to the top I triggered Gluttony again immediately, letting the new and much stronger energy flood my Abomination Engine and empower me.


I was able to keep up with the output because of the constantly climbing voltage, with each platform being a full double of the one before. Despite the ability though, this was wearing on even my mental state, because nearly a half hour (each staircase now took at least as long as the first five together) of unending torment followed by MORE torment that happened to be good for me…wasn't actually good for me.


What had started out as more bearable was slowly becoming WORSE than all the other trials. I wasn't just taking the damage. I was making the damage. This was my fault and every step was doing more to myself in a way that was becoming increasingly hard to justify regardless of the endgame prize.


I was breaking down. There was a limit to the amount of pure agony I could actually take, and I was approaching it. Which was unfortunate, but not shocking. Everyone has limits, and a can do attitude can only take you so far.


Luckily, I wasn't alone. I was never alone. A surge of belief and strength came through the bond as my wife flooded me with love and support, not needing to speak and knowing it wouldn't help, but being there for me all the same. Callie's willpower bolstered my own in a way I could never describe to someone else, but was as familiar to me as my own face in the mirror.


People like to say 'a burden shared is a burden halved', but that isn't true. Because support and faith isn't additive, it's multiplicative. Knowing my wife was here with me, knowing she could shoulder this at my side, made this whole thing INFINITELY more palatable. My resolve firmed as I pulled from a well of my own strength I hadn't even known was there, pushing forward until I set foot on the seventh platform.


Gluttony activated, and I let myself…well, not relax, but meditate a bit as the energy poured into my Abomination Engine. Jacob stepped up next to me, and I was surprised he'd kept up. His expression was strained now, and I could see flickers of electricity in the golden jelly of his translucent form.


Deciding to channel my inner Bethy, I cocked my head as I looked at him. "You ok? You look like you've had a terrible shock."


He snorted. "How long have you been waiting to use that one?"


I shrugged tightly. "Not too long. Few platforms. Thinking of jokes makes it easier to ignore the feeling of my eyeballs boiling. Well, at least it did until I brought it up. Now I'm kind of focused on it. At least they haven't exploded."


Boiling was actually the wrong word. Frying was better. Living stone didn't really boil, though I suppose it didn't fry either. And thinking about the exact type of electric torment being visited on my eyeballs at that moment wasn't helping. Once I finished my refuel, I nodded tightly, then remounted the steps, continuing my journey to the top.


I was so engrossed with my ascent that I almost didn't notice the scream of my Danger Sense. Weirdly, it hadn't been going off before this, apparently not counting self harm as danger? I guessed since I could leave whenever and was actively the one doing myself harm it just considered this a 'safe' situation.


Whatever the reason, when it triggered, I almost missed it, noticing it just in time to drop to a knee as a clawed hand slashed at the air above me. Turning, I saw a fairly dainty girl with long white hair and a pair of cat ears glaring at me.


Coming back to my feet, I cocked my head at her as I started to back up the stairs, talking as I went. "Do I know you?" I gritted through clenched teeth.


Her silvery nails crackled with power, and I noticed some stripes in her white hair, which seemed to be just really long fur. It took me a second to match her appearance with a possible source. I remembered reading about a white tiger beast that had an affinity for lightning. I don't think she was the same kind of beast, because that thing was supposed to be almost immune to electricity, and she looked she was having a tough time.


"You will not win this trial," she said coldly. "You have been allowed to progress too far. I will not lose to you again."


"Might help if I knew your name," I grunted as I continued my way up.


Sneering, she lashed out again with another attack. I didn't bother dodging now that I knew what it was attacking me. I held up an arm and the nails skittered off my plate, the metal creating sparks as it clanged off my suit. "I am Corinne Deveaux," she said venomously. "And I will be the one to serve the goddess."


I considered her for a second, then punched her in the mouth. She reeled backward in shock, holding her now bleeding nose. "Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna do this. Later"


I turned, resuming climb, and was slightly smug at the frustration in her voice as she screamed after me. My punch had shoved her back a few steps, and I pushed forward implacably, putting some distance between us as I took advantage of her brief lapse in concentration.


Reaching the eighth platform, I activated Gluttony again, refilling my tank as I looked around for any others who might be here. I'd passed almost everyone, Jacob and Corinne both left a bit behind. The platform was almost empty, the sole other occupant being a short man with shaggy brown hair and a relatively unassuming demeanor.


"Greetings," he said gently. I stared at him, trying to figure out his deal. Some kind of power was almost necessary to get up here, but the average looking man didn't seem to have one. He just looked like a normal guy.


"Nice to meet you," I said slowly. "I'm Mephistopheles."


He nodded in acknowledgement. "I am aware. You may call me Shrike." It became quickly noticeable that he had positioned himself between me and the steps. "I am afraid I will need to insist you stop here. You have already acquired the egg, allowing you to gain access to this token would be too big an advantage, I'm afraid."


I stared at him for a minute, deciding what to do. Then I did two things. I triggered Double Trouble, and I activated Bael.


Appearing behind him, I was shocked to realize the stairs didn't prevent the skill from working. Despite that, I was invisible and past my enemy, and I immediately began my climb. I had to leave Gluttony active the first few steps to hit my minute, but that was fine.


Behind me, I heard Shrike calmly speaking to the illusory double my skill left behind. By the time he noticed it fade I was already halfway to the ninth platform, and even through the pain I had to grin at his previously calm demeanor turning frustrated.


Reaching the ninth platform, I was relieved to not see anyone there. I'd pulled far enough ahead to finally outpace all the challengers, but when I activated Gluttony, I was quickly discouraged to find that this wasn't going to be enough. The damage had outpaced the power my domain was able to restore. I only had one more platform, so I decided to spend two minutes here, burning all my remaining time.


Once that was done, I gritted my teeth, and ascended the steps. My first step was like a blow directly to my mind. After so many doublings of the output, one percent of the final staircase was more than five times what the entire initial charge had been added with every step.


My teeth ground together, my muscles contracted and tore, I could smell burning and taste copper. My eyes actually WERE boiling now. Somehow. But I ignored it. One step, then another. One foot in front of the other. I'd dropped Bael and triggered Zagan. While I couldn't use my soul repairing techniques directly on myself, I'd made the form for its healing properties to begin with, and those worked on my just fine.


I flooded myself with green flame, healing my disintegrating form as I stepped, pushing myself further as my muscles contracted so hard my bones started to crack under the pressure. Even with Mornax active, I was barely functional, and only the healing kept me going. On the seventy fifth step I had to stop, forcing myself to return to pushing when I realized a 'break' would probably kill me if I let it go on.


At step eighty my eyes burst. It was agonizing, but honestly it almost helped, the lack of ocular nerves to fry seeming to relieve the pain somewhat. My teeth cracked at step ninety, and my eardrums burst somehow at ninety five. I pushed through, ignoring it all as I forced myself onwards.


When my feet hit the hundredth step, the final platform, I was rendered nearly insensate as the pain cut off. My body felt raw, off. Even as the green flames flooded me, the sheer rawness from the lack of agony was almost a new form of pain. I staggered across the platform, reaching a small black shrine that reminded me a bit of the one we'd found under that valet back on Stratholme.


Reaching out, I plucked the black token from the shrine and stored it in my ring before keeling over. Despite no longer being able to hear, I felt Archie approaching as I lay unresponsive on the ground, and I felt relief as my body shut down. I would most likely wake up healed. Thank the gods for my new companion.

 

[BJJPanda]

How is Bella a D ranker, it feels like she is a D ranker purely so he can be a teacher to someone of the same rank

 

[Malcolm Tent]

How is Bella a D ranker, it feels like she is a D ranker purely so he can be a teacher to someone of the same rank

Click to shrink...

It's a B-rank planet. Power distribution works different. People below F can't even survive there outside designated areas, and renown is weighted the higher you go. Also her dad is really rich, which helps. Good elixirs, good PR by association etc. Some of the TREES on Rackham are C-rank. Not special trees either. Just above average ones.

 

[BJJPanda]

It's a B-rank planet. Power distribution works different. People below F can't even survive there outside designated areas, and renown is weighted the higher you go.

Click to shrink...

I get that but she seems so under skilled for her level, either she is a prodigy who made it there really early or she is older than she seems

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I get that but she seems so under skilled for her level, either she is a prodigy who made it there really early or she is older than she seems

Click to shrink...

It's easier to hit higher ranks on higher ranked planets. She's not a prodigy, just rich with a powerful dad in a place where ranking up is easier. Even her Path is pretty generic.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I woke up with a headache. Again. I grimaced, massaging my head. This was becoming a fucking habit again, and I wasn't excited about it. I sat up with a groan, looking around…and noticed I could see. Which was objectively better than before I'd passed out, when my eyeballs had exploded in my skull from electrocution. On second thought, maybe just this once I was ok with falling unconscious.


Under other circumstances I'd have worried about getting attacked, but with Bernadette watching from the sidelines, not to mention the other examiners, plus Archie overhead, I was safe as houses passed out on top of that mountain.


No, my main concern now was where the hell I WAS. I looked around, spotting my companion perched in the rafters, watching me calmly. He let out a trilling cry, and I frowned at him. "Don't be sarcastic. I won a huge competition. I'm entitled to a brief rest." Another trill. "You could NOT have done better. How would you even walk up a thousand step flight of stairs? You're a bird. What, are you going to hop up one step at a time?"


A muffled giggle caught my attention, and I turned to find Bella sitting next to the bed, covering her mouth. "Sorry master. Didn't mean to disturb you."


"It's fine," I sighed. "He's just being difficult to distract me. He could tell I was freaking out a bit."


Archie and I were bonded. Maybe not the same way as me and Callie, but bonded all the same. My phoenix could tell when I was upset, at the very least. It was impressive he knew me well enough to know how to take my mind off things, but I did appreciate it.


I didn't see anyone else around, so I reached into my ring and withdrew the token I hadn't previously been able to look at much. The Torment Token was made of a shiny black material that I had initially mistaken for obsidian. One closer inspection, it didn't feel heavy enough to be volcanic glass, being nearly weightless, and besides that, the shine was wrong.


In fact, I had never seen anything exactly like it. It felt kind of like liquid darkness, but as a solid. The longer I looked at it, the further my gaze was pulled in. Rather than reflections or glints of light, it seemed like I was looking at almost the opposite. The shine seemed to be slight glints of light managing to escape from the dark as it swallowed most of the light around it. It was a deeply unsettling thing to look at, but I couldn't avert my gaze, because I could see…something.


The closer I looked, the clearer it became. Engravings, stories told in the absence of light, negative space in a way I'd never seen before. The story of a girl, raised by a cruel and distant father, who only knew how to communicate with pain. A girl whose entire existence was suffering from the day she was born, and who used her suffering as a way to understand others, to find common ground.


Felicity, the Lady of Lamentations, because pain and sorrow were her only companions, and the lenses through which she viewed the world. I saw her grow in power, making friends by taking their pain, making enemies and inflicting hers upon them.


If it were any other medium, any other story, I'd suspect her of manipulating me. With this though…it was so clinical, so detached. This was like math, the recounting of a life in the cold and brutal terms of emotionless fact. There was no bias, no attempt to reach out…at first. But the deeper I looked, the more I saw.


Pain. This story was written in emotional pain, in the absence of hope. And I could feel it more and more as I watched. Despite the emotions beginning to seep in, I could still see the truth of it. This was how she related to others, there was no deception, she didn't do that.


Which made it worse. I felt the tears trailing down my cheeks as I resonated with her loneliness, with her solitude and despair.


Except she wasn't despairing. Felicity, so ironically named, because the same thing had happened to her that had happened to my distant adopted cousin. Her only means of communication was pain, giving or receiving it, and slowly, she became numb, became cold. She wore away at her humanity in the same way OUR Felicity had, except she did it to herself.


The story continued, the girl left home, abandoning her father. She didn't run from him, simply turned her back on him, and in the singular act of kindness he ever showed her, he didn't follow. She travelled and learned, she built her legend. Sometimes as a saint, sometimes as a monster, and eventually as a goddess. During this time, her father died, but she did not mourn him, simply accepted the pain of his passing as a gift, the one time she was able to truly connect.


When she herself died, she'd thought it would be peaceful. It wasn't. Nothingness was its own pain. The pain of non existence, and then- the connection ended. I stared down at my empty hands through tear blurred eyes, and looked up to find Callie smiling sadly down at me.


"What are we going to do with?" she asked in fond exasperation. "Just picking up random god artifacts and having emotional exchanges with them. The Domain of a god isn't something you're ready to interact with. Didn't you give me a whole speech about this?" She bopped me on the head with the token. "Especially using your Eye of Revelation."


I shook my head, and then realized the mask was warm against my face. I cursed, putting the token away. "Wasn't that. I think the connection to her dad made the mask…reactive. The two items formed a connection for a minute and I got swept up. Thanks for stepping in. I don't think that would have killed me or anything, but I doubt I'd have enjoyed going any deeper. I learned a lot that I'm…not sure what to do with. Like you said, I did give a speech. Humanizing gods gets you killed."


Seeing the Lady of Lamentation's tragic backstory HAD made me feel bad for her, but it had also scared me. I wasn't sure if the conclusions I'd drawn were right. The similarities to Felicity (my cousin) might have been my own imagination, but a goddess who was that kind of brutal, mechanical, person…that shouldn't even be possible Zeke said that kind of process precluded being able to go very far down a Path. So it might be something different.


Whatever the case, it had given me insight, for good or ill. I smiled up at Callie's shadowy form. "So you can just manifest on my side whenever huh?"


"Afraid of a visit from your wife?" she asked archly, though I could see a playful glint in her eyes. "Maybe I should knock first." At my eyeroll, she just chuckled and turned to look at my shocked apprentice. "It's nice to meet you Bella. My idiot husband has been too busy passing out all over the place to introduce us. Speaking of which, what the hell S-Mephistopheles? I thought you were past that phase."


"Don't get me started," I groaned. "I'm working on it, but in this case I don't think it was a bad thing. Archie had to regrow my eyes, an experience I'm happy to have skipped."


She grimaced. "I can understand that. Anyway, try not to fry your brain before I see you again. I've gotten surprisingly attached over the course of our short marriage. I'd hate to have to retrain you if you blast your mind apart and lose all your memories."


I put a hand to my chest, putting on a touched voice. "Oh, honey. You say the sweetest things. But don't worry, chances are good I'd just die." She laughed, leaned up and pecked me on the cheek, then vanished in a puff of shadows that I was almost positive was a purposeful dramatic effect because I'd never seen it before. I turned to Bella, who had been struck dumb by the interaction. "I thought you saw her before, why are you so shocked?"


Them having never met didn't sound right. I was pretty sure Elena wasn't the only one who had interacted with Callie. I might be misremembering though.


"I just thought she was a shadow," she said in wonder. "I didn't know she was your WIFE! Master, did you create a shadow wife? That's…kind of weird. But cool maybe? I mean she was really detailed."


I rolled my eyes at her nonsense. "My wife has shadow powers, and can communicate with them long distance. She's an actual person, not a construct. Now, what the hell happened after I passed out. Archie is very helpful for a lot of things, but birds don't have great attention spans and don't seem to care much about past events."


She laughed, holding up an arm, and my traitor bird trilled and swept down to land on her arm, where she started scritching him under his beak and then slipped him something that looked suspiciously like a hot coal. Since I was still waiting on an answer I didn't comment, though I filed it away for later.


"Well, after you won, Archie landed and started healing you. Sister Bernadette appeared next to you and stood watch, and once you were…not bleeding from the eyes anymore, she brought you back here. I wasn't there of course, but Elena told me. She came back with Bernadette this time too. Checking up on you I think, she's really nice."


"She is," I agreed absently. I was still considering how to get her a scroll for her son. I wanted to help without blowing my cover, but I was quickly racking up quite a debt to her. Maybe I could just use Bael to sneak in and leave it for her in secret. I'd talk it over with Callie, that seemed like the kind of plan that sounded really good to me until I did it and realized I'd gotten tunnel vision and done something really stupid.


Bella continued on, not noticing my inner turmoil. "Sister Bernadette said that you have a week before the next trial, so you should get some rest. You're in way better shape than last time, since your soul wasn't damaged, and your body is mostly healed. She said your head might hurt for a while, apparently regrowing optical nerves causes strain."


That made an unfortunate amount of sense, and explained my headache. At least it wasn't some soul damage bullshit. That was what my immediate assumption had been.


Holding up my own arm, I waited for Archie to fly over. When he didn't budge I cleared my throat loudly and he actually rolled his eyes at me before swooping over to land on my forearm with a slight clank. He flapped his wings and a corona of green flame surrounded me, soothing and rejuvenating me.


I laughed, thanking him for his effort, and then spent the rest of the night catching up with my apprentice. She'd been testing out her manifestation, and had lots to report that would be of use to me later.


All in all, it was far from the worst way I'd woken up from an involuntary nap. I';d been through five trials now, and only two were left. I was kind of excited to see what was coming. I hoped it wasn't worse than this one, but I knew I couldn't count on that. Still, I somehow doubted it would be pure physical again. This one had been about the limit of what a D-ranker could reasonably survive in terms of raw damage. Whatever it was though, I'd be ready. I had this, and nothing would stand in my way.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Rather than just grind wishes and relax, the next day I decided to check in with the others (though I did store my eight scrolls in the ring before I left) . Vesper, Ray, Desria, and all my friends from the first round had been busy with their own trials, some of which had started while I was doing my thing. I found them all the next morning, eating breakfast together, and when I approached everyone seemed pleased to see me.

"Fist!" chirped Ray happily. "Well, look what the bird dragged in. Speaking of which is that bird on fire? Because I feel like that's weird. I know we're Ascendants so weird is relative, but flaming bird seems like an oddity. I might just be drunk."

Desria rolled her eyes at him. "You haven't been drinking. How would you be drunk?"

"Maybe I drank so much I forgot I started drinking," he said triumphantly. "What do you think about that?"

Vesper sighed. "Please don't answer that Desi. I can already tell it's going to be unnecessarily harsh. Honestly you should take a day off. Go to a spa or something. If you spend another consecutive day watching him you're going to stab someone. Where is your brother, anyway?"

"Cavallo is on a frog watching expedition," she said with a shrug. "I told him I'd cover. Luckily our trial hasn't started yet, and the mystery trials seem to be too tough for Rayden to manage."

"So you started your trial?" I asked Vesper without paying attention to Desria's sniping. Her friends weren't around, so I figured they might be doing the trials separately. I was kind of curious exactly what theirs entailed.

She brightened. "Yeah! It's actually been really fun. I was expecting some survivalist nonsense, but it turns out that Verdyn tries to softball the early trials. We've been wiping out invasive species. Our next one is this weird type of wasp larva that burrows into the brains of creatures and hijacks their bodies."

"That's…horrifying," I said in an appalled voice. "How are you supposed to deal with that? Kill the hosts? Or is there some kind of nest or hive you can destroy?"

She grimaced. "Both. The larvae are psychically connected to the queen. We have to eliminate all of them before destroying the hive, otherwise one of them will mutate and spawn a new one. What's worse is once they hatch from their host, they take on characteristics of the animal they nested in. Some of them are the size of bears and armed with natural weapons that make normal wasps look like fuzzy puppies."

I glanced at Archie, who was looking surprisingly offended. I could feel his disdain for parasites like this, and his desire to purify them. I could feel that he had the power to wipe out the larvae with his purification flames.

Chuckling at the strong arrogance I was picking up from my phoenix companion, I turned to Vesper with a grin, "Apparently we're interested in helping out. I have some time to kill, if you're down for some help." While the trials were my main interest here, and training Bella was taking up plenty of time, but honestly, having nothing of consequence to do except essentially relax between torture sessions was kind of getting to me.

It had been nice at first, but at this point I was itching for something productive to do, and I was planning to make some offers to my new friends before leaving, hopefully recruiting some of the ones who didn't make it for my faction.

The ones who did…well, that might be trickier, I could only hope the other trials were as absurd as mine.

Vesper, for her part, seemed enthused at the offer of help. "Hey, I'll take any help I can get. Will it just be you?"

"My apprentice is around somewhere," I shrugged. "You guys met Bella. I've had her training pretty hard, and she could use some field work. These open freeform trials are fine to get help with right? My trial for Delthrys they allowed us to bring along helpers."

"As far as I know," she said with a smile. "I can't tell you what a relief that is. I was dreading doing this one on my own."

Archie trilled and I rolled my eyes, jerking my chin at the bird, "He says we should get going and stop talking about it." Vesper laughed, agreeing to get ready to go, and I went to go find my disciple, who was around the inn somewhere, to let her know we'd be doing practical field exercises.

While she was coming along well, I was going to send my phoenix with her just in case. Her Goetia Staff Art was still coming along, and it was kind of unreliable. She had enough techniques to get out of trouble, and her Escape Path made her unlikely to be pinned down, but having a healer slash bug purifier on hand would make me feel better about tossing her in the deep end so early.

To my complete lack of surprise, I found her out front, going through her stances. Slow and steady, she moved from one combat style to the next, and if I looked close I could see brief flares of power from the different forms.

Currently, she was working on suppressing those flares. While that might seen counterintuitive, if she could control the expression of the form's energy, she should be able to increase it as well as throttle it back, which seemed like a good next step. Control was never something you could have too much of.

That exercise had been one I'd been fairly smug about formulating, and I felt it made me sound like a real teacher, instead of an under qualified thug trying to show my apprentice how to beat people with a stick in a more complicated manner than usual.

When she saw me approaching, she didn't react right away, finished the rest of her rendition of her current stand before she snapped out of her concentration and turned to grin at me. "Breakfast over already? I expected you to be eating for the next hour or two. Also to possibly bring something for your favorite apprentice?"

"I only have one apprentice," I pointed out. "Which by definition also makes you my least favorite. Sadly for you that precludes breakfast." She slumped, looking sulky, but I just laughed and waved her to relax. "I actually cut things off. Vesper needs some help with her next trial, and I thought we could do some practical applications for your training."

The way her face lit up you'd think I told her I was buying her a small planet. "Wait, really? You're taking me with you out into the field? What are we doing? Fighting pirates? Another mystery? SKIING?"

"No, no, and why would you possibly ask that?" I said in exasperation. "How is that a practical application of anything?"

She pouted. "I could use the staff like one of those skiing guide poles."

Snorting, I filled her in on the trial. I expected her to be underwhelmed, but she actually seemed kind of pumped. "How big are the hosts? You mentioned bears? I want to fight a bear!"

"You really don't," I said firmly, thinking of Randall. "But you might have to. I don't know the specifics, I assume Vesper has some way of tracking them, otherwise we'd be screwed. Finding a bunch of larvae in the brains of any of the undoubtedly massive number of creatures on this planet would be pretty much impossible in a short amount of time. Speaking of, her she comes, so we can ask her."

Vesper, it seemed, had gotten ready fast, and was coming out of the inn carrying a large pack she hadn't been wearing earlier. "Alright, I'm ready to go!"

"You sure?" I said wryly. " You might not have packed everything. Did you manage to stick a bed in there? Don't you have a spatial ring? Why do you need to carry that much on your back?"

She grimaced. "Once we wipe out the stragglers, we'll need to blow the nest. The explosives they gave us are spatially reactive, because much like pretty much everything Ascendants make, it's bigger on the inside. Unfortunately, that means they can't go in a spatial ring or it might set them off."

"Huh," I said with interest. "That's actually pretty cool. I've never heard of spatial explosives." I made a note to pick some up for Abel. My mentor might get a kick out of studying something like that.

"Anyway, I heard what you were saying earlier," she continued. "And yes, I do have a way to track them. Here, come see." Wasling over to a nearby tree, she unrolled a map, pinning it to the bark with a pair of knives. She then reached into her pouch and pulled out a long, silver chain with an amber stone on the end.

Taking out a match, she lit it, holding it up under the stone. Light sparked inside, revealing a small insectoid lump in the center, and then a series of small beams shot out, burning a few dark spots onto the map's surface.

"Is that witchcraft?" I asked with interest. I'd seen my mom fight someone who used witchcraft before, it tended to focus on sympathetic links. That was obviously one of the larva, though how she'd gotten one frozen in amber I had no clue.

She shrugged. "Maybe, they gave it to me for the task. My first trial was finding one of these things and retrieving it intact, then they made me this thing to track the rest. We'll probably have to use it again a few times, I have other maps. In any case, looks like we have one pretty close by we can check out, do you want to go together or split up to start."

As much as I trusted Archie and believed in Bella's ability to escape if needed, I decided some supervision wouldn't hurt to start. "Why don't we do the first one as a team so we know what to expect. Have you killed any yet?"

"One or two," she said with a grimace. "Looks like we have about ten more. Probably lucky it's only that."

And so we set off, following the map. When she said the larva was 'close', she'd been speaking relative to our travel speed. It was more like twenty miles out of town. Luckily even at a brisk walk that was nothing to an Ascendant. We took our time and still made it in about ten minutes.

As we approached, we slowed down to scope out the situation, and I triggered Eye of Revelation to scope things out.

I didn't see a larva, but I did see what was probably the host. A large shaggy bear with deer antlers and the face of an ant, which was objectively pretty unsettling. Pointing it out, I saw Vesper grimace. "It's a Shaunus. They've got tons of Might, that's not ideal. It's going to be much more physically powerful than almost anything else we could've run into."

Cracking my neck, I grinned. "Well, then I'll handle this one. If you don't mind." She nodded and I grinned, triggering Limbo.

I only had five minutes of my domain, but I was confident that would be enough. Rushing forward into the rapidly expanding mist, I lashed out with my staff, an explosion of black flame coming forth to destroy a potential timeline.

Because of its stupidity, straightforward nature, or possibly because of the larva, this particular enemy had a much more limited pool of potential options for combat, which meant this fight would be easier than expected. With Limbo active, I had access to both Belial and Mephistopheles, so I started my work, whittling away at its potential fates to entrap it into the corrosive destruction attacks as I dismantled the monster. It was nice to fight something I had a hefty advantage over again. In the end it didn't even take me five minutes. I got it done in three.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Well, that didn't take long," Vesper said casually as the fog cleared. I had two minutes left on my timer, but it occurred to me wasting it on random larvae MIGHT be a poor use of my resources. In my defense, I'd been bored and it had seemed fun. A trilling cry rang out as my phoenix swooped down, flapping his wings and blowing a wave of green flame at my face. My mask prevented it from even being a nuisance, but I still didn't love it.


Bella snickered as I rolled my eyes. "I didn't STEAL your prey. It was a fucking BEAR. Or something like one. It's way too big for you to prey on. You clearly have delusions of grandeur." He trilled again. "Yes, I know you're permanently on fire. I don't think that counts as LITERAL grandeur. Well I can't define it, but like…something to do with mountains or castles or something. Something bigger than a scraggly green bird."



I laughingly dodged the next burst of fire, and he swooped away, taking up a position on Bella's shoulder as he looked away from me haughtily.



Vesper chuckled. "I think you offended him."



"He could use it. Trust me if you could hear him talk you'd want to deflate his ego a bit too. He's a sweet bird, but he's very cocky." I smirked at my companion, who did the phoenix equivalent of snorting in derision, which was really impressive without a nose.



Bella scritched him on the neck, comforting him, the traitor. "So can we split up?" She asked hopefully. "I don't actually think I learned much about killing them, but you got an idea how strong the bugs are right? I can totally take one on." She tried to keep her tone even, but she was clearly excited to go out on her own.



I glanced at Archie. "Keep an eye on her?" I asked him bluntly. He trilled grudgingly, letting me know he would obviously keep her safe. I smiled at my companion, proud that even so young he had such a strong sense of loyalty. "Alright, be careful ok? Both of you. If something unexpected comes up you run. Between your flight and herEescape Path there shouldn't be anything that can catch up if you decide to leave."



He didn't seem happy about it, but he grudgingly chirped an acceptance. He didn't like the idea of running away, given how proud he already was, but he knew keeping my apprentice safe came first.



Bella scowled at me. "Hey, I can take care of myself."



"That is demonstrably false," I told her bluntly. "I kick your ass in training all the time. If Archie can agree to run if it gets out of hand so can you. He's literally less than a week old. Seriously, the bar for maturity here is so low it's almost impossible to miss. Just do as you're told and stay safe." I said with exasperation.



Sulkily, she nodded, and I sighed in relief. I understood wanting to prove herself but I needed to know I could trust her to take care of herself, even if it hurt her pride. Otherwise I wouldn't have been willing to let her go. I still might not have, if Scent of Truth hadn't confirmed she was being honest. That skill really was weirdly useful.



Once we'd made our decision, we checked the map again, each of us orienting on another host. After getting my assignment, I headed off to deal with the next monster. I absolutely wanted to kill my target before it birthed an insectoid brain baby that would be even worse.



As I walked, I decided to reach out to Callie, see how she was doing. "How goes the training?" I sent through the bond.



"Not bad," came the voice of my wife. "Your grandmother is very patient, but very demanding. I'm learning a lot from her though. You won't even recognize my combat style when you get back. You better be working hard if you want to keep up." She sounded as excited about that as I was, and I had to chuckle at the enthusiasm.



"What does she have you doing?" I asked. "Blind training in some kind of secret dungeon or an ancient city of the dead?"



I got a burst of amusement and mischievousness. "No hints. I'll just say it's helping me grow fast. That's the only way I can keep up with you. What about you, training right now? Or is this another day off to whip your apprentice into shape."




"Actually, neither. I needed a day off from being tortured by fanatical god followers and being tortured by my apprentice. I'm helping out one of my new friends, doing something productive and building some good will for when this is all over." I sent her a jumbled series of impressions along with a bit of info about the bugs, and I could feel the grimace from across the galaxy.



"Gross," she sent bluntly. "But probably good for you. Do you see your next target yet?"



Stopping, I hopped up into a tree, narrowing my eyes "Just did. It's… gods, that's hideous. What even is that?" I sent her an image of what I was seeing, trying to make sense of it myself as I beheld what might have been the ugliest creature I'd ever seen.



It looked kind of like a humanoid moose, shoulders hunched and back bent to make it seem only about seven feet tall. I could tell it was actually MUCH taller, and its misshapen arms dragged the ground behind it, loo long and lanky even for its tall, spindly frame. Matter hair hung off every inch of it, shrouding the monster in curtains of fur, and empty red eyes scanned the clearing around it, disgusting squashed snout snuffling horrendously.


"I…have no idea." Callie said uneasily. "It looks horrible though. What kind of animals does that planet have?"



Amused, I shook my head, showing her some of the things I'd seen here. "Some really fucked up ones. Luckily for me, I've been working on a new trick. A new form, actually, and a new combination. This one has been a long time coming."



I closed my eyes, focusing on my skills. Pit of Despair, Dust Construction, Afterburner for a little kick, Stone Limb, and trying something new, just because I was pretty sure I could make something better with this fifth pillar of the form to balance it, Shadow Manipulation, a charge pulled from Callie ages ago.




I merged them together, darkness and earth and stone, infused with infernal flames of amplification, crafting my new form slowly and carefully, perfecting it as best as I could with all the experience I have.



The result was something new. The earth flowed and shifted at my command, dissolving into darkened liquid that burned like tar when needed, or into burning ash, or hardening into abyssal black stone. I named the form for a demon who could cause earthquakes, shaking the very ground beneath his feet with a flex of his will. Agares.



The form clicked into place like it had always belonged, my most complex and oddly well balanced form so far. As I activated it, my skin hardened into dark stone, though not the impenetrable kind I had with Mornax. This stone was hot to the touch, and I had to step onto a pair of Ripple Running platforms to prevent the branch I'd been on from catching fire.



Without waiting for the thing to notice me, I activated Mephistopheles, waltzing forward to appear before the monster. It whirled on me, roaring indignantly…and I waved a hand.




The ground below it turned to ash, my black flame infusing this new Pit of Despair with the heat of infernal destruction. The creature was too stupid to avoid it and it dropped into the pit. Agares made not only using but holding Pit of Despair much easier, and expanding the normally ten foot pit into a veritable lake of burning ash was almost effortless, forming the technique to utilize the form instantly without much thought.




An infernal lake that consumed everything it touched. A new technique that used two of my strongest forms. It was so powerful I felt a new pseudo Domain forming without even meaning it. The technique shaped by the powerful imagery and the intense focus I'd put into every aspect of the form. The third circle of Hell. Wrath.



The monster screamed and flailed, desperately trying to escape as it was consumed by the burning dark ash. Once it ended I released the domain, letting both it and the two forms I was holding fade away.



"That got a bit more out of hand than you expected, huh?" said Callie in amusement. "Were you planning to use some of your domain time for that?"



"Not really," I admitted. "Something about those two forms just…clicked. Creation and destruction merging together. Maybe I should show that one to Chelsea. Might help with her Path."



Still, the new form AND the new domain had been worth using up another minute of today's allotment. I still had one left, and I kind of wanted to test it on the nest. I wasn't under the impression the lake could destroy ANYTHING, but it seemed pretty suited for mobs of weaker opponents. As for bigger monsters…well it could soften them up at least.



Heading back to meet Vesper, I got another assignment, and this time I just used Agares. I wanted to figure out a new stance for it to teach Bella. I worked through a few variations, eventually settling on low, solid movements utilizing the ground to lend me momentum. A bit like Mornax but less defensive. I figured my apprentice would pick it up pretty quickly with the other as reference.



Whips of boiling tar, clouds of burning ash, spears of super dense black stone. I learned quite a few uses for Agares, not to mention my excitement about possible construction projects. I'd successfully created a wide skillset based around this form, and I couldn't have been happier with the results.



Meeting back up with Vesper and Bella, I was pleased to see my apprentice none the worse for wear, and Archie seemed smug about his ability to keep her safe. I didn't correct my cocky little bird brain, he'd earned a little swagger.



With every straggler destroyed, it was time to move in on the nest.





"Alright, there will be a small army of them here," said Vesper sternly. "We need to make sure we get them all."





I grinned, stepping forward as the nest came into view. It was a huge twisted abomination, like a mix between wax and flesh molded into a grotesque imitation of some kind of home. "Just be ready to pick up the stragglers. Archie, might want to start charging up a purification nove, see if you can wipe out the Queen when she emerges."



The other two looked a bit confused, but I'd earned the benefit of the doubt, so they shrugged and let me do my thing.



Triggering Agares and Mephistopheles, I reached for my new domain. Wrath came quickly and without resistance, and with a wave of my hand, the entire clearing dissolved, the ground beneath the tree becoming a lake of burning ash.



The twisted abomination of a nest began to sink, slowly being consumed by superheated ash and the black flames of destruction Screams echoed from the nest, and I noted that Vesper was right, it WAS bigger on the inside. As a few of them emerged, a flex of my will sent whips of tar licking up to drag them into the lake, screams rose from the destruction as they were dragged under and burned to death…but sadly it didn't last.



My one minute was up, and I had to drop the domain lest I damage my own soul like I'd promised Callie I wouldn't. I staggered a bit, Bella catching me, and laughed as I realized how exhausting that had been, even without the soul weight. As the Queen burst out and Archie trilled his battle cry, flying out to meet her, I couldn't help but be smug. Today had been a good day.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Archie's fight with the Queen wasp was pretty spectacular. Lots of fire and screeching, though the purification didn't seem to hurt ALL of the wasp, just parts of it. Archie had other weapons, namely very sharp D-rank talons and very fast wings. His flames seemed to boost his own physical power constantly, making him a dangerous threat even without the techniques he'd learned from me.

Still, he was a baby, and while he managed to tear a big chunk out of the Queen, Vesper ended up needing to step in to take care of it, pushing the monster over the edge.

Once it was dead, we returned to the inn, and Vesper paid for everyone's meal so we could all celebrate the victory. Ray, Desria, and Cavallo all met us there, and to my surprise, one more familiar face was there.

I offered Chester Baddington my hand with a laugh, "Chess, where did you get off to? Haven't seen you since you helped me out with that second Delthrys trial."

The master thief laughed, dropping into his chair. "Family business to take care of. My dear old Auntie sold me out to you for a quick buck. Certain parties under her influence take umbrage with that kind of disloyalty. Honor among thieves is a bigger deal than you might expect. Overcharging you might have helped, if I'd died in the attempt. Since I didn't, I was able to rally support from some of her…less enthused constituents and push her into early retirement."

"You bailed on us to go foment an insurrection in your Aunt's criminal organization?" I laughed. "I take it from your enthusiastic demeanor that you took over when she decided to step down?"

"You led a coup against your Aunt?" asked Bella worriedly. "Bad Millie wasn't the BEST person but she-"

Chester shook his head. "She's fine. She's family. I was a little pissed about her selling me out, but I get her reasoning. I really did just force her into retirement. She has a compound in Plainhallow she's been preparing for a few decades. She moved out there with some of her closer supporters. It'll be comfortable and safe."

I'd forgotten that Millie had known Bella's dad, and possibly Bella herself if I remembered right. I was happy to hear Chess wasn't a complete bastard. Maybe the organization was in better hands.

I didn't care too much about the local business industry. The whole 'criminal enterprise' thing wasn't much of an indicator of morality. Ascendants loved their games and roles. Being an 'illicit organization' was probably just a way of gaining notoriety. None of it meant much to me, but knowing my friend (even if a recent one) was doing well was nice. In fact…I had an idea.

"Hey, I was hoping to test out a new power. If you're doing the local crime boss thing, maybe I can hook you up with some new digs. You have a place nearby I can flex one of my Skills?" It wasn't a Skill, but I didn't feel like explaining. With my mask in place I didn't worry about doing a little bit of work with Agares, and I'd come up with a combination I was interested in exploring.

"Wait, what kind of Skill?" asked Ray with interest. He and Cavallo had been having a drinking contest (that he appeared to be losing dramatically). "I want to see!"

Desria snorted. "You're drunk. You'd want to see paint dry."

"She's right," Cavallo intoned. "You're dunk. Drank. Skunk. You're wasted." He blinked. "I…might be a little buzzed myself."

Rolling her eyes at her brother, Desria just shook her head. "Embarrassing, aren't they? But I suppose seeing you do your tricks might keep them entertained enough not to wander off. The last time they had a drinking competition Ray stole the local mayor's house. They found it eventually, but it was in pretty bad shape and full of ducks."

I had a lot of questions, but for my own sanity I chose not to ask them. Knowing Bethy had made me wise. Instead, I just chuckled and gestured out the door. "Well after you all then. Chess, why don't you take us somewhere you could use a secret base."

He laughed, nodding and standing to lead us all out the door. We went on a bit of a hike, which considering our speed even on a B-rank planet was quite a trek, but we ended up somewhere…interesting. A little crevasse that was somehow, through a trick of the landscape, both open air and completely hidden from view unless you were inside it.

"Found this on one of my escape runs," he said fondly, smiling. "I'd just stolen an emerald necklace from some visiting Countess…or was it that crystal penguin? Either way, I was running from a bunch of guards, and one of them had this Stealth penetrating detection Skill. I decided to use my Path a little different, and formed my own detection technique to find some place I could hide that wouldn't involve my Path. Ended up finding this."

He gestured down to the clearing in the middle of the crevasse, open air but covered in a ring of trees whose canopies knit together into a roof, or some approximation of it.

"So this is where you want your hideout?" I asked with a grin. "Better be sure because I'm not doing this twice." I avoided using the term secret base. I'd felt a slight heat from the mask earlier when I said that phrase, and while it had faded, it occurred to me that some words were best avoided during specific activities.

He shrugged. "I only come here for vacations or to think anyway. If it's not any good I can just remove it, no offense."

I shrugged. "Your call. I have to do a bit of work on the land before I start. Need to set a foundation, even on a B-rank planet. Luckily, I have some idea of how to do that. It's pretty genius too."

At least, I did with a little help. Foundations were…weird. An entire discipline of construction with people dedicated to their study. Creating buildings could rely heavily on location, special places giving special abilities, and foundations could simulate those places. However, a deep forest, a hidden crevasse on a B-rank planet, there should be plenty of special here to go around.

Triggering Agares and Zagan, I activated Eye of Revelation and Song of the Soil. Combined with Zagan and the Eye, Song of the Soil showed me something different than usual. A life force. A heartbeat in the planet. Reaching out with Agares, I shifted the dirt and grass in the clearing, forcing it down, packing and condensing it. There was a lot of Impact here to work with, and I was able to get it pretty dense.

Once that was done, I constructed a technique, letting me harness and manipulate the flow of life in this area with Zagan, and Archie poured his power into the dirt from above, the cry of the Life Nova Phoenix echoing through the crevasse as he empowered the earth I worked with.

The refilling dirt shifted, squirming and writhing, but I controlled it, Song of the Soil showing me the flows of life force and Zagan letting me alter them.

It was like rerouting veins and arteries through a beating heart, shifting the arrangement of life in the soil to resemble something stable, something growing and alive. It reminded me of Formations, kind of, but it was more of a one off trick that let me recreate the same effect. I shaped the refilling life force until it made up a stable structure of power, one that could exist without me, and then I cut off my contact.

The black stone foundation beneath us was set a hundred feet down, in a deep hole made when I'd compacted the earth. As the energy cleared from my eyes, I saw it in the physical world and I was thrilled with the result.

My work wasn't done though. I'd just set the stage. Reaching out with Agares, I pulled on the dirt, melting away the straight edges of the hole, gathering material. Stone, dirt, roots, trees, it all dissolved into that tar like muck, flowing towards me as I condensed it into blocks of rough dark material.

Unlike before though, I didn't infuse the Agares form with harmful black flames. I infused them with the purifying, lifegiving flames of Zagan. The formerly sweltering and destructive heat was warm and life affirming, making the whole crevasse, which had expanded quite a bit from all the hollowing out, feel like a holy place.

Archie flew above in circles, a slow cyclone of green fire raining down to help me set the stage, and with my Piece of Mind skill helping by letting my split my attention, I slowly began to create.

First a floor, then the walls. Rooms separated by arched doorways and windows to the outside. I built the structure up over time, slowly condensing and firming the stone, going back to shore up places that seemed week as I did, and I connected each bit to the beating heart of that foundation, into which flowed the energy of the entire forest.

The veins of life force helped, showing me where I needed to expand or contract the stone, what spots were weakened, and finally, after probably an hour of work, I gasped in relief as I slumped back onto my ass, staring down at my finished work.

At first, I was underwhelmed. It looked…ugly. A misshapen lump of darkened rock that didn't deserve to be called a house. But as I watched, something changed. Catalyzed by the life fire in that stone, all the roots and seeds and trees that had been consumed by Agares sprouted anew. Vines and branches shot from the rock, encasing the place in wood and greenery. Flowers bloomed across the surface, and through the windows I saw carpets of thick green moss growing on the ground.

The heart of the forest beat through the building, pushing new life out of it as we watched, changing the malformed hovel I'd created into something beautiful and unique. I turned to the others, most of whom were gaping at my creation. "I meant to do that," I said confidently.

"I…don't think it matters what you meant to do," said Vesper in awe. "This is…holy shit Fist, this is crazy. Can you make another one of these?"

"Nope," I replied cheerfully. "Total fluke. I THINK this is some kind of natural energy center. This is the kind of thing you'd have gotten if you Invented a building in this spot. I cheated a bit to make that work, connected a few threads, crossed a few wires. But mostly this wanted to happen, I just gave it a push. Turned out great though."

Dropping down from the cliff I'd made, I landed on a lush carpet of grass that had sprung up outside the house. Approaching the front door, I was pleased to see a curtain of hanging flower vines that I could push aside to enter.

The moss inside was springy and soft under my boots, making for an easy and comfortable stroll. Bark lined the walls now, coating them like wallpaper, and luminescent flowers had grown out around the windows in sconce form.

I'd figured Zagan would make construction with the stone easier, but I hadn't considered THIS. It made me determined to learn more about my powers, to learn to do things like this on my own, without Archie or help from the environment. I'd forgotten how much I loved experimenting and building things, not to mention working with my Dust Construction.

Turning to Chess, I spread my arms, indicating the interior. "So…what do you think? Not bad for an hour's work, huh?" His answering cackle had an edge of hysteria, but it was the good kind, and we all burst out into gales of laughter. All in all, it was a pretty good night.

 

[JangGun]

Lucky number chapter

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"This is the coolest thing I've ever seen," said Ray bluntly as we pushed through the hanging flower vines, stepping into the house. I'd taken to calling it the Heart of the Forest, because it was what popped into my head when I made it, and when I'd told the others the name had stuck.

The craziest thing about it was the sheer life force radiating out from the place. When the plants finished growing, the intensity of the power hadn't diminished. If anything it had increased a bit. It was like standing in a low level burst of Zagan flames just being in here.

On the upside, it would enhance the rate of any healing that needed doing, not as much as a dedicated healer or burst of my flames, but it was a passive boost that would remain as long as the Heart did. On the downside (thought not for me, really), it was an aura of life force and purification, which meant Ray and Cavallo had sobered up nearly instantly upon entry.

"Master, this really is amazing," said Bella in awe. "Will I be able to do this?"

"Not a chance in hell," I told her bluntly. "At least not any time soon. Hypothetically if you turned the staff are into your main ability and focused your path on it maybe. Otherwise you might be able to make a small tar pit."

Though she could use the abilities of my forms, it was only during her stances. Even if that expanded, she'd have brief bursts of use for each of my powersets. Invaluable in battle, but it had taken me an hour and a total fluke to make this place. It was one of those weird coincidences that in retrospect I was pretty sure my fatewalker build had pushed me into. I'd been running on instinct when I made the choices that led to this.

The only question was why it had happened. Was it just a random confluence of luck leading to an interesting result? Would this place be important in the future?

Not for the first time I wished the divination aspect of my abilities was more potent. I'd been tinkering with a form for it, but I was missing something. The construction of divination skills was mostly Perception, but there was Fantasy in there too, from the fate sense side of things. Because of the way those two stats interacted, the construction of the form had to be extremely stable to avoid overbalancing.

Stat interactions were something I'd only just started getting into in the book, and more than that, they varied wildly based on purpose and distribution. Divination was WAY more Fantasy than Perception, and keeping it balanced was difficult in a way I couldn't really quantify. It didn't help that my overlay wasn't EXACTLY a Skill, in a confusing way I had trouble identifying, and I wanted to use that as a base.

I'd figure it out eventually, and even had some ideas, but for the moment it left me mostly in the dark and at the mercy of my instinctive responses to things.

Putting that out of my mind though, I followed the others as they toured the house, enjoying the awed responses and excitement to something I'd made, even if it wasn't exactly intentional. I'd forgotten how good it felt to make things.

"This place is going to make me rich," said Chess in wonder. "Even if I don't tell anyone but my most trusted subordinates about it, this passive invigoration effect is amazing. I feel like I'll never need to sleep again if I live here."

I waggled my hand. "Sort of? The mind needs sleep to reorganize itself. I mean, as Ascendants we don't NEED to do it nearly as often, Focus can help stave it off pretty much indefinitely, but my Uncle is pretty powerful, and he says that there are a lot of reasons that even high rank Ascendants usually sleep. I wouldn't recommend skipping it completely."

He grimaced, but nodded. "Still, I bet people will flock here. It feels great. Like I'm LIVING in a warm bath."

Bella nodded excitedly. "I love it here! Can you make me something like this, master? I know the house was an accident but maybe like a…lamp or something? I bet this makes sleep super restful."

"That…is a really good question," I said pensively. "I mean, without the local energy pumping through it I'd need to put in a power source, but theoretically…yes?" The thing I'd done with Song of the Soil, constructing those veins for the power to run through, I was pretty sure I could do it in a smaller context, at least if I put my mind to it. Maybe some kind of VItality gem?

It almost seemed like a new form of Enchanting or small scale Formation work…but it wasn't. It was more like armor and weapon smithing in a way. Just imparting my energy into an object to pump out in its normal way.

But was that so different? And hadn't I imbued the egg with a technique? Where did Inventing, Alchemy, Smithing, Enchanting, and all those other crafting disciplines overlap? Was in really that easy to make objects? Too early to tell, since I hadn't done it yet. But it made me wonder if I should look into picking up a crafting Skill again.

Sadly, now wasn't the time for that particular flight of fancy. I was on a short break from an important mission. I had far too much going on here to become a lampmaker in my spare time. Still, I made a mental note to speak to the Moravian about this little exercise. Maybe I could learn a bit more about how this fit with Formation making. That would be useful even outside of a crafting context.

For now, I'd just made something interesting. It wouldn't serve a purpose. I actually had the idea that this place might be able to amplify Archie's abilities, but I didn't have a use for that. It wasn't like I knew any sick pe-. I froze.

Elena. Her son was ill. A place like this would be a perfect environment for helping someone with a chronic illness, and if it really could amplify Archie's power, it might even be able to cure him. She'd helped me out so much that I'd been thinking of trying to slip her a scroll, even if it risked my cover. This though…this was better. This was a fucking BUILDING, and it wasn't something that matched my demonstrated powers at all. She'd never connect it to me.

"Chess," I said slowly. "Would you mind if I invited someone here? A friend? Her son is sick and I think this place might do him good."

He shrugged, laughing. "You built the place. Don't take out an ad in the local tavern or anything, but a visitor or two won't hurt anything. My house is your house. Literally. You made this house. That still blows my mind. I have a house. And it's fucking AWESOME. Seriously man, I owe you one."

"Let my friend visit and treat her son here and we'll call it even," I said with a chuckle. "I really owe her, and you could consider this you paying off that debt."

Shrugging again, he didn't seem to be bothered. Bella, however, looked excited. "Are you going to help Elena? She was so nice! I didn't know her son was sick though. That's so sad. I hope we can help."

I smiled at my effervescent apprentice. Bella might be a little weird at times and often annoying, but she had a good heart. Moments like this made me glad I'd chosen to make her my apprentice. I couldn't think of anyone on this planet who deserved it more.

Turning, I whistled for Archie, pulling a piece of paper from my ring along with a pen and pressing it to the bark walls so I could scrawl out a message. "Take this to Elena for me buddy?" I asked hopefully. "No eyes but hers."

He trilled solemnly, then snagged it in his beak and vanished in a burst of flame. He appeared outside the house, visible through a window, and I rolled my eyes. His version of the Supernova Step (or wing beat I guess) was way more dramatic than mine. Green flames were so eye catching. How gauche.

"Well, while we wait for her, why don't we continue the tour," I said brightly. "I left a basin in the lower floor. We need someone with a water ability to fill it, but there's a concentration of life fire down there that'll turn it into a perfect hot tub."

I was particularly proud of that one, and clearly they all thought it was as cool as I did, since they perked up and took off in the direction I'd pointed.

Once they were gone, I was surprised to find Ray waiting behind to talk to me. "Hey man," I said with a smile in my voice. "You need something? Sorry about your buzz earlier, I didn't mean to make an anti drunk building, though if it helps I'm pretty sure it's also anti hangover."
"It actually does," he admitted. "I was sloshed and tomorrow was going to be hell, so I actually appreciate it. But that's not why I stayed back. I wanted to talk to you about something."

That was an unexpectedly serious tone for Ray, so I waited…then realized I was wearing a mask and answered aloud. "I'm happy to listen, what can I do for you?" Ray might be kind of flippant, but he'd been a welcome respite from my own messiah complex when I first got here, and helped me realize I was overcompensating, at least after Callie had pointed it out to me first.

"I need your help," he admitted. He looked almost concerned, which was alarming. "You know I'm here for the trials, ours haven't started yet, but when they do…well, Raxus's trials probably aren't going to be a picnic. I don't mind failing, but Desria and Cavallo NEED to do well. My family is pretty well off, but theirs isn't nearly as comfortable. They came here to gain more influence to help their parents out of a jam."

I assumed he couldn't just wave his hand and fix it, otherwise he'd obviously do that. It was clear he really cared about them.

Honestly, I liked them too. They were good people. "I can't promise to be available at all times," I cautioned. "I have my own trials and they've been getting rough. But barring recovery and actual trials, I can do my best to help you out. When do Raxus's trials start?"

"Tomorrow," he said grimly. "Part of why we wanted to come out and celebrate with all of you. We have no clue what to expect. Most of them probably won't be something you can help with, but I know you did well for Delthrys's trial, and I have to assume there's some overlap, even if Echelon got weirdly offended when it came up."

I chuckled at that, but held out my hand. "Like I said, I'll do whatever I can." And I meant that too. Not just in terms of the trials. I was already planning to invite the three of them to the WCP if things didn't work out for them here.

Once again, I wondered if I'd need to reveal myself to someone early, because I got a seriously bad vibe about Raxus. Maybe I was wrong, but much more than Felicity, I had a sense of deep foreboding about the god of deceit. If need be, I'd contact the Acheron before leaving and have the A-rankers snatch Ray and friends up.

After I agreed, he grinned widely, then clapped me on the shoulder. "Well, now that we have that out of the way, lets go check out that hot tub. I want to see how big it is. Need to know how good a job you do as an architect, I'm thinking of hiring you to do my next summer home." With a wink, he blurred off, and I laughed, trailing behind him. Guess serious Ray didn't last long.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next day was pretty quiet. I'd slept in the Heart, and upon waking, gotten my wishes stocked up in the ring. I'd considered using them, but honestly, given the million point end goal, if I forced myself to tick down the stats day by day I'd probably go insane. Letting them build up and getting four to five digit boosts ever few weeks was much more palatable.

To my joy, Elena and her son had arrived, along with the daughter she'd mentioned reminded her of Mnemosyne. Her name was Emma, and I actually kind of understood what she meant. The fiery haired girl was about the same age I had been when this whole mess had started, and I was pretty sure I was more scared of her than I was of Abel.

My first stop of the morning was to check in on them. "Elena," I said with a wide smile as I found them in the kitchen (furnishing the place had been a matter of minutes, one of the many joys of every Ascendant carrying all their worldly possession in a portable pocket dimension) "How's the place treating you so far. Simon, how about you, how you feeling buddy?"

The eleven year old looked…better. Better but still not good. His skin was pale and waxy, his eyes sunken and ringed in black so dark they looked bruised. But he seemed to be breathing easier now than when he got here. Even as I noted his condition, Archie let out a trilling cry and pulsed power into the house. A wash of green flame bounced off the walls, amplifying like some kind of echo chamber as it washed over the kid.

His eyes closed, shuddering a bit, but when they opened they seemed less tormented. Elena reached down, adjusting the bracelet on his wrist almost compulsively. Rackham was a B-rank planet, and small children who didn't even have abilities weren't made to withstand the Impact here. The bracelet was a thamaturgical device that offloaded the pressure onto his mother when he was outside of designated safe areas designed for children.

"I feel good," Simon said happily. "It doesn't hurt so bad anymore. I couldn't sleep for a long time, but I slept for four whole hours this morning!" The enthusiasm behind that comment kind of broke my heart.

I nodded up to the window sill where Archie was perched. "Well, if you're feeling better, you'll have to pull your weight around here. Can't have any freeloaders. Do me a favor and watch my friend up there? He's kind of an attention hog, and if he doesn't have people fawning over him he gets whiny."

Archie chirped in outrage, and I ignored him, causing Simon to giggle. The sound was sadly ruined by the coughing fit it devolved into, but another pulse of green fire settled him. My phoenix swept down, landing on the table next to the kid, then hopping close so his aura was helping more directly. I nodded to him subtly, and he returned the gesture knowingly. Archie knew what was up. Smart bird.

I jerked my head to the side, gesturing for Elena to follow me out of the room while Emma strode in with a plate of waffles I assumed she had made, since I didn't see anywhere else to have gotten them.

When we got outside, Elena threw her arms around me, squeezing tightly before letting go and giving me an embarrassed smile. "Sorry, I just really wanted to do that. I can't thank you enough for this. He's doing so much better, and this place…I know that revealing this kind of location isn't something someone would do lightly."

I just shrugged, a little uncomfortable about the credit for something that hadn't really been that much effort. "It's fine. I'm glad it's helping." I was relieved actually. If it hadn't I'd have either had to give her a scroll or felt like a monster for withholding it.

"More than you can imagine," she smiled warmly. "The breathing was only the least of it. The loss of energy, the aches and pains, I'd gotten so used to seeing him in discomfort I forgot how big the difference was. I'm not sure if this is TREATING his illness, but considering the symptoms are just constantly degrading health, it's at the very least counteracting it. At this rate he should be feeling healthy again in a few weeks. Hopefully since we won't have to worry about the wasting we can find a cure more easily."

"I can't make promises," I hedged. "But I HIGHLY suspect that consistent exposure to Archie will cure the underlying disease." Life Nova was a powerful curative, enough to restore even a soul if damaged enough.

Honestly I'd expected it to just fix him instantly. It was only after I mentioned the delay that Elena mentioned that the bracelet that kept him safe didn't just offset passive Impact from the world around him. It was actually resisting MOST of the healing effect. Too much life energy poured into a mortal would be harmful. He was only receiving a fraction of the full effect, moderated by the bracelet, but even with the suppression, it said a lot about how BAD his condition had been that he was going to take weeks to recover.

"Did you reach out to your husband with the directions?" I asked, deciding to change the subject. Thinking about how long it was taking made me feel bad for waiting after she'd told me the truth.

Her smile was blinding. "I did. He's still working on the trials. Joel's been enjoying the investigative work, and I think he might stick with Delthrys even if Simon is fine. He's going to come visit before his next trial, if that's still alright."

"By all means," I said with a laugh. "Chess doesn't mind the visitors. Just don't tell anyone where this place is and we're good. I owed you one anyway. More than one really. I, however, am going to be out for a while today. I promised my friend Ray I'd help him with the first Raxus trial. He's off meeting with his emissary now."

Her warm expression faltered. "I'd be careful," she warned. "We did our homework on the gods before we came here. The twins represent a duality. Delthrys is attractive to those who would uncover secrets, and Raxus to those who would bury them deep. That doesn't translate to good or evil, mind, they're both dark gods. But Raxus initiates tend to be…more outwardly focused in their malice."

"I got that impression, yeah," I admitted. "I'll keep an eye on Ray. I don't think he wants to do anything too bad." If he couldn't get it done, I'd tell him about the Acheron and send him to my grandmother's guards. "I'll watch out for him, gotta pay it forward and all that."

She just laughed, shaking her head. "I had no idea you would do something like this when I helped you, but I'm glad I did. We searched for such a long time to try to find a way to help him. Seeing how quickly things have been…well, if not resolved at least repaired. It's kind of crazy. What a world, right?"

She wasn't wrong. Ascendant life could be a bit nuts. Granted Zagan was cheating levels of effective, even for Ascendants. I was well aware my own ability to solve certain problems, even without wishes, was far beyond what the Average D-ranker could manage. Honestly it was still insane to have thoughts like that, thinking of it from the point of view of baby Solomon, who wasn't sure he'd ever get to E-rank back on Callus.

After a bit of small talk I said my goodbyes to Elena and made my way out. Archie stayed back with the kid, hoping to help, so it was just me. Bella had slept in alongwith all the others. While the life force aura of the Heart DID make sleep technically unnecessary, once you were actually unconscious it seemed to extend and enhance the rest. Good dreams and restful slumber were the standard in the Heart.

Once I got out of the crevasse, I made my way west, to where Ray had asked me to meet him. I ended up in a small town called Shadehorn, and stopped at the local tavern for a meal while I waited. I was just digging into my country fried steak when Ray dropped into the seat across from me. "Alright," he said in a determined voice. "I've got my assignment."

"That's nice," I said casually. "I've got FOOD. I'm gonna eat it." I cut off a piece, sticking it into my mouth through the opening I triggered in my mask.

He blinked. "Oh," his voice was a bit crestfallen. "Right. I mean, this just felt like a big dramatic moment. Like we should set off on our mission, ready to take on anything. Should we…not do that?"

"Is your mission to be hungry?" I asked mildly.

"Not…specifically?" he said in confusion. "It's an infiltration. We have to pose as members of a certain organization. We're supposed to steal an item and replace it with an exact copy."

I took another bite, chewing and swallowing before answering. "Doesn't seem time sensitive. I'm gonna finish my food. Some advice? Slow down. Rushing is never helpful. Sometimes it's NECESSARY, but it's never helpful, and in this case it doesn't seem to be needed. We take our time. Case the place. I've got about six days to help. So we take our time."

He slumped. "Yeah, that makes sense," he admitted. "I guess it just feels…urgent."

"Trust me," I told him with a laugh. "All the important stuff does. But impatience will kill you faster than a knife in the gut. That's the kind of wisdom you pick up from doing trials that are essentially torture. Procrastination is your friend." Intellectually, I knew that I had NOT been partly eaten alive by beetles because I had been impatient and mouthy…but it probably hadn't helped the situation. Apparently I could be taught. "Anyway, give me the details while I eat, what are we doing?"

He pulled out a roll of paper, unrolling it and smoothing it out on the table. "This, is Angelina DeWinter. She's the daughter of a Count. Now, as you may have noticed around her neck, there is a rather large golden necklace. THAT is the Fox diamond. It's a stone with an exorbitant amount of Perception naturally occurring inside. It's got a natural rune, and the setting harnesses that Perception, making it a unique item that can be used to spy on other people from a distance."

"We're stealing a spying device?" I asked in surprise. "Do you know why?"

"Not exactly," he grimaced. "But I can guess. Despite my flippant demeanor, I'm not stupid. Based on some context clues, I think my emissary is double dipping. Using our trials to do local jobs for a payout. It kind of makes sense, given he worships a god of deceit."

I winced. "If it helps, he won't be able to do that for more than the first two. Trial three and on are shared competitions, at least they are for us."

"Good to know. Anyway, I was given a false necklace to swap out with the real one." He sounded tired already. "Probably a knock off that prevents people from seeing specific things. It's a C-ranked item, so it'll be guarded pretty closely."

Blowing out a breath, I finished my bite and pushed my plate away. "Alright, well, like I said we need to take this slow. Find out her schedule. Where she puts it at night, how closely guarded it is. We'll be doing recon to start, and then once we know everything, we'll make a plan from there. Now, I don't suppose you have a map of where this person lives?" He shook his head grimly and I sighed. Of course, nothing was ever easy.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Turns out, he did NOT have a map. Which, given that it was private property and had been built a century or two ago, wasn't surprising. So we had to go and case the place ourselves. Finding it was pretty easy, but on arrival, we ran into the obvious problem of the extremely dense security.

I'd been expecting Bael to be our all access pass, since DeWinter was the daughter of a count. I was a count, technically speaking, or count adjacent, so he was just D-rank. It should have been a breeze getting past his defenses.

Of course, I'd been thinking small. DeWinter, it turned out, was an OLD count. He'd been at D-rank for a while (possibly stuck behind making his Path solid), and accrued a lot of money and power. He had C-rankers working for him, and not just a few. Bael could bypass some of them, but given his daughter had a magic Perception necklace, it would be stupid to assume that he didn't have some other methods of scanning his place.

So the first step was to try to identify what all the elements of security were. To that end, it was time to finish a project I'd been working on for a while. Namely, my divination form.

Which was why Ray and I were posted up across from the manor in question, inside the top floor of a building that was currently housing a fairly popular pub. We'd managed to easily bypass their defenses and sneak into the storage room that looked out the window we needed, and now I was collecting myself to make another new form.

The creation of this one was something I'd been working on for a while. The problem running round and round in my head. How to balance it all. How to include the overlay when it wasn't technically a Skill.

For a domain it would have been doable. Working it in was simple enough, because my Pseudo Domains were fundamentally different. The domains weren't constructed like a skill, them more…mixed them together. Different abilities and skills bleeding into each other in a complimentary way.

Forms needed to be more stable. More replicable. So I started with senses. Sight was easy. Eye of Revelation was my go to for sight. I could see the truth of things, look beyond the surface. Next up was sound. Song of the Soil was based on music, and it was perfect for that. Rhythm of the Wild worked for touch, oddly, but I didn't question it, Scent of Truth obviously being smell. For taste, I had to kind of improvise something, and I used Danger Sense. Which wasn't…wrong, exactly. Just not completely right.

It was close enough though, and that was all five. The next part was a bit tricky. The overlay wasn't a Skill, so adding it stably into the construction should have been impossible. But I'd had an idea, based at least partly on my creation of Beelzebub.

Carefully, and drawing on Callie to help me, I began to trigger Piece of Mind. Six parallels was a LOT, even for an Amethyst soul, but between us we managed it, even if only because we weren't doing anything to strenuous with them.

Sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. All five sense represented, each parallel completely devoted to them. Once that was done, I triggered the overlay with all of them, letting it congeal into one solid overwhelming mass of information, doing what it did best and molding that information into a single coherent form.

Reaching out with my soul, I harkened back to my early days as an Ascendant, when I hadn't known anything about Skill creation. I wrapped my intent around the power and SQUEEZED. It condensed, pressing inward inexorably, until finally, something clicked, and the skill formed.

Then of course, i had to pry the damned thing open and FIX it. Slowly, methodically, I adjusted the remains of my perfect skills, shoring up some that had broken too badly, leaving some alone. But more than that, I used my Eye of Revelation to map out exactly where the skills weren't. Made a mold of the skill as it was, then reverse engineered the shape of the overlay from that.

It took hours. Exhausting and painful hours. I had to keep the parallels active, and that was a huge strain on my soul. I ended up activating my mask to offload some of the strain. Luckily the parallels weren't anywhere near as dangerous as my domain fragments, so it handled the extra load perfectly.

Once I had a map of what kind of shape the overlay would take, I shattered the Skill, breaking it into component parts painfully, and then rebuilt the whole thing from the ground up.

Throughout the process, I expected to be barely cognizant, running on instinct, or to need more help from Callie…but I didn't. I was in pain, sure, but it wasn't enough to derail or deter me. I'd gotten so used to the unrelenting agony of the trials that the pain in my head seemed like a light twinge in comparison. I had apparently trained my pain tolerance to absurd levels just by surviving to this point.

Trying to construct a Skill using senses from that Skill was tougher than expected, but once I was able to drop the parallels it mostly became just annoying instead of agonizing, and the last hour of creating my new form was actually surprisingly peaceful.

Finally, I came to the end, and I added the one ingredient all my forms needed. Afterburner slotted in easily, given the familiarity with the Skills in question and with Afterburner itself after using it so many times. Supercharging all the senses was a good way to finish it off, and when that final stat clicked into place, I beheld my creation with awe.

My eighth form had, funnily enough, eight parts. More different components than anything I'd made up to this point. The overlay was actually the secret to combining them, it was, though not a skill, built to agglomerate multiple skills together without degrading or falling apart. It was a framework I could base this form off of, something that showed me the way to take my power to the next level.

Standing, I stretched, pulled out my staff, and held it up in a ready position. I'd been considering exactly what kind of martial stance this form would have as I made it. I'd decided it would be entirely reactive. An open stance focused entirely on perceiving the enemy and responding to their attacks in the optimal way.

"Goetia staff aft, eighth form," I murmured aloud. "Dantalion."

And time…stopped. Not literally, of course. But my brain was flooded with so many inputs it kind of stalled out. I could smell light and taste sound, I could feel color brushing across my skin and see the feel of the wind ruffling my hair. I could hear danger, not just its existence, but WHAT the danger was. A whisper of a possible stray arrow through the window, a rustle of someone finding us in this room.

It took me a minute to parse. My Focus wasn't massive, and only the six instances of Piece of Mind built into the form kept me from passing out from overload. The closest sensation I'd felt to this was becoming D-rank and gaining access to my full Impact based senses. But even that was orders of magnitudes less.

Then I opened my eyes. A hammer of pure data smashed into the frontal cortex of my brain, or the back, or the left? I wasn't sure I even had a brain anymore. Wasn't sure I was a person. It was swallowing me, consuming me whole. I'd always likened Focus to a computer, increasing the max capacity rather than the day to day usage. Hardware instead of software. But now the hardware was crashing, and I couldn't-

I felt something shift, and suddenly, Callie was with me, in my head. Her Focus was bolstering me, giving me the tools to process the new data, to sort and categorize. My brain unlocked, and I forced myself to focus on the overlay, on the way it sorted and managed the information it used to function.

The overlay boiled down a ton of very complicated info into…arrows. I didn't want arrows exactly, that was too vague. So I decided on something a bit more productive. Words. I condensed all of that excess data into visible descriptive words that would give me a synopsis of the data in the shortest possible form, drawing conclusions and using my brain to distill it all down to brass tacks.

"You ok?" asked Ray worriedly. "You just said something really dramatic and then started hyperventilating. I think, it's hard to tell with the mask, but your breathing got weird. You seem better now."

I swallowed, pushing all of my new senses back to the place where the word generator was in my head, making a new, seventh parallel and then holding up my hand, taking about a half hour to work it into the structure.

Once that was done, I blinked a few times, letting my mind get used to all that bullshit. Dantalion was heavy on the soul, even using the mask. Seven parallels would normally be pretty much impossible, given that they basically doubled in soul strain each time, but I'd used the overlay to condense them, and after adding the seventh, managed to push them all down to minimum usage, like a kind of subroutine.

I glanced at Ray. Paragraphs of information scrolled through my vision. Name, temperament, current emotions, information about his past that I had no way of knowing, but that my brain had somehow mined from past interactions and current observation through a variety of absurdly overpowered senses picking up things they shouldn't.

Averting my gaze, I cleared my throat. "I'm fine," I said lamely. "Just need a minute." This information overload felt weird, but also kind of familiar. It reminded me a bit of my fate sense. Not in specifics, but in the feel. Of course, this particular sense was actually USEFUL and told me things directly instead of just giving me vague insights.

So, with that in mind, I walked slowly to the window, focused my gaze, and stared at the house.

First I got the layout. Not just from the outside. I was getting the whole thing, a series of words describing exact dimensions, what rooms were for, and a dozen other things. I grabbed some paper and started sketching, drawing the details I was getting, going back and filling in random bits here or there.

It wasn't anything as cohesive or useful as directions. I'd start a room, then get a flash of insight on another and have to start that, then I'd jump back to the first to draw a mantlepiece and then have to start a third. I grabbed paper after paper, not just drawing a map but actual pictures of the inside of the house, lining them all up next to each other, sometimes stacking new pictures of older versions of the room, though I had no idea how I was getting those.

It took me about an hour, drawing out not just images, but writing descriptive essays on some of the security, on some of the PEOPLE, and on one notable occasion, on a particularly storied coatrack in one of the foyers.

Eventually I had to drop Dantalion, my brain burning from overuse, and I slumped over, panting, as my eyes started to tear up as if to try to self cool my mind. "Fist!" said Ray anxiously. "Are you alright? Seriously man you're scaring me."

I groaned, rubbing my temples as I sat up. I flared Zagan, which repaired my body, even if the soul was beyond what I could do myself. I looked down at the piles of paper littering the floor, some of the pictures overlapping several sheets. "I'm good. But I have a feeling this will take a while to sort. Not to mention we'll probably need more. Good thing I have another six days at this. I might need a little time to get the hang of things." Once I did though, I had the feeling this was going to be one of my most potent forms yet.

 

[Lone-sith]

He's just so fucking cool

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next four days passed in a blur. Dantalion, parse the info, then repeat. I actually had to start using Beelzebub to speed up my sorting, because after repeated usage, I'd realized Dantalion actually had one crippling weakness. It produced TOO MUCH data. I had reams and reams of paper stacked to the ceiling from the manor, and honestly, about eighty or ninety percent of it was useless.

I had lists of the types of timber used, the exact dimension of the beams, the variations of screws, bolts, and nails, the exact age of each piece of material in comparison to the house, and in some cases, the actual names of the fucking workmen who installed them. I wasn't sure where the hell Dantalion was getting some of this stuff. Some of it was craftsman marks and probably some documents lying around the house, but since the form was basically black boxed, I had to work with what I had.

Which was everything I could possibly want, and about ten times that amount in random bullshit I didn't need.

"Well this looks useful," Ray said excitedly. "It's a recording of the security watch rotation…" He slumped as he kept reading. "Nevermind, this is their order of performance in the staff talent show. Also, apparently their dental is REALLY good. Wow, DeWinter doesn't skimp. They even cover crowns."

I held up a page I was holding. "They also provide free childcare, and there's a staff retreat to a planet called Carcello once a year. Hold on a second, let me see that." He shrugged, handing it over, and I scanned both papers. "I think I have something else, one minute," I dug through a stack I had made an hour ago, finding a list of dependants, then I started cross referencing.

Grabbing another piece of paper, I started writing, checking all three of them and producing a master list. "Ok, this should be all the staff members. I eliminated the non recurring names, so we should have it narrowed down to current staff, there's reference to some recent health plan adjustments in the healthcare paperwork. Search for anything referencing these names. We've got dossiers on everyone buried in here somewhere." We'd stopped going through those when we wasted ten minutes assembling a complete set of documentation on a gardener who had been fired for embezzling eighty years ago.

While he did that, I checked my stats. I'd specifically funneled all my wishes into Focus in the last few days, which amounted to eight hundred points in that stat. I'd made it up to twenty per wish at this point, though I could feel it getting harder to increase as I went. I suspected I'd stall out for a while at twenty five.

I'd also gotten another five thousand points of VItality, and forty two hundred Might off that last trial, apparently having thoroughly impressed everyone. Though thinking about it I might have had two trials since I last checked. Regardless, I was left with eight scrolls on hand for myself and five with my friends for emergencies.

It was frustrating. I was gaining more points more regularly than I ever had, and it was still just a drop in the bucket. Hopefully coming out on top in these trials would help. But I needed to focus on pushing up Perception and Creation. My stats were starting to become wildly unbalanced.

"Alright, I think we've got what we need," announced Ray. "Check this out."

He handed me a few stacks of pages, and I rifled through them. "Height, weight, eye color, blood type, favorite song…hah! Here it is, work schedule. Hours, break times, hey, they have prime rib on wednesdays. I've got patrol routes, where's the map we made out of all those room diagrams?"

He pointed across the room. "I think it's over there. It was under the requisition forms for the pipes. Or the duct work. Wait, possibly the boiler schematics. Your powers terrify me."

'Yes, clearly I am mighty," I said dryly. "To wield the weapon known as paperwork. Realistically, this is a fantastic ability, I just kind of wish I could pare it down a bit. Also, don't forget this is the result of sitting around using my information gathering form for pretty much five entire days with only short breaks. Probably won't have time to deep dive into a location like this very often."

Dantalion was kind of weird. I was getting stuff off paperwork, impressions from Paths and techniques being picked up by the Eye of Revelation, material analysis from Song of the Soil, and some odd stuff I was pretty sure was the overlay. The longer I focused on this one building, the deeper I went, and the information got REALLY specific.

The result was almost a kind of psychometry, reading the past of places and people, though it was VERY hit or miss, and took a lot of time and focus. I was pretty sure without the mask to support it, I wouldn't have been able to keep up my deep dives for nearly this long.

Being on a B-ranked planet also helped. More Impact seemed to allow for deeper impressions. Though one thing I'd noticed was that all of my readings were for people who were C or D-ranked or below. I wasn't getting shit about B-rankers, and I suspected their impressions were just too high level for me to read.

Not that I thought there were any B-rankers inside. Comments on some of the other dossiers led me to believe there weren't any present, but they HAD visited on occasion, and I wasn't able to detect hide no hair of them in the house's history.

With the routes combined with the house blueprints, we were finally able to make a legitimate plan for entry. We had schematics for the formations and enchantments on the house and where their weak spots were too. With Bael at my disposal I was pretty sure I could get in and out without being detected at all.

We just needed to wait for the right time. Namely, about five hours from now, when Lady DeWinter went to sleep. She stashed her necklace in a warded jewelry box I had the specs for, and I had a plan on how to get the thing out and replace it without anyone noticing.

"So, at eleven PM, I'll enter through the eastern atrium. The third glass pane on the top left hand side has an overburdened containment rune and it flickers for a half second every two hours." I circled the pane on the diagram I'd drawn. "Once I'm in, I'll have twenty minutes until the guard patrol sweeps the storage room under the Lady's closet where I'll be using Dust Construction to lower the jewelry box out of the room. Did you get the specs to Chess like I asked?"

He nodded, reaching into his ring and withdrawing a small bronze device the size of a palm. "He says it's single use. Couldn't do anything more intricate in such a short time period. It'll open a small hole, and once you remove it there won't be a trace. Are you sure you can put the floor back?"

I blew out a breath. "I'm not SURE, but I'm fairly confident. I did some practicing on our downtime. Pit of Despair was made to return things to their natural state when it ends. I can mess with them, but with a detailed schematic of the flooring, which I have, I should be able to put it back exactly as is. Once i finish planting the decoy, I'll return with the real thing, pass it off to you, and we'll get the hell out of here."

We'd decided that I would be the one to go in. Bael was easily the perfect technique for this, and Raxus didn't require Ray to do the job himself. He just needed to get it done. We'd already outlined most of this days ago, we'd just needed the last few rotation details to slot into the plan, and now we had everything.

With all that confirmed, we were good to go, and I decided to rest for a few hours until it was time for my heist to begin.

Closing my eyes, the time flew by like it was barely passing, and before I knew it I was being shaken awake by Ray. "Thanks for this, Fist," he said solemnly. "Seriously, this means so much to me."

"Don't worry about it," I said firmly. "You took my mind off things, plus helped me figure out this cool new form. I say we're even."

Despite knowing that wasn't true, I didn't want Ray to feel like he owed me. I could have used that, leveraged him into working for me later, maybe joining my faction, but…I didn't want to be that guy. Contracts were something I was good at and enjoyed, but I didn't want every interaction to become transactional. I didn't want to be my dad.

I triggered Bael, and Ray blinked as I vanished, disappearing from his view as my stealth form covered me. It was kind of funny to watch, but I didn't have time to dwell on it.

Looking out the window, I spotted one of the guards outside the manor, and I triggered Double Trouble, appearing behind him before I slipped into the shadow of a nearby wall. I counted off to twenty five, then slid effortlessly between a pair of circling detection wards.

My path through the estate was a bit winding, having to double and triple back to avoid some of the wards and formations this place was covered in. Bael did a lot of the heavy lifting, but to maximize my chances of going undetected I went out of my way to follow the path with the largest number of weaknesses and gaps in the enchantments.

When I reached the specific pane of glass a combination of Pit of Despair and Dust Construction turned it to sand and then held it in the air while I slipped through, reforming it perfectly as it was. The half second gap was more than enough time to slot it back into place with all the right runes where they needed to be. I'd actually needed some help on this part, sending the runes to Zeke via Callie for the feedback on where the weak spots were.

My own understanding of enchantment wasn't up to snuff here, but I had lots of resources at my disposal. Knowledge was power, and with this much of it…well, I was almost considering just becoming a master thief.

Slipping between the guards was child's play, and when I reached the storage room, a quick flash of Dantalion let me know the Lady was asleep. The floor of the closet was clean, and it was easy to dissolve it, catching the Dust with a parallel and Dust Construction, and using it to lower the jewelry box down.

This part had involved Zeke too, and I withdrew the bronze disc he'd had me commission from Chester and opened up a temporary hole in the box, swapping the two necklaces before replacing the box and floor both, my mission completed.

After that, I made my way to the nearest window, and once I caught sight of the next patrol, I used Double Trouble to teleport down behind the last guard and slip out through my planned route. Arriving back at the building, I dropped my invisibility and held out the necklace to Ray. "Alright, we should be good. They most likely won't notice the swap, at least presuming your copy was any good, but we should get out of here anyway. No use tempting fate."

He clapped me on the shoulder, grinning wildly. "I owe you for this, man. Whatever you have to say about it, I know that. You need anything. Ever. You ask. Here's hoping the next trial is a bit less involved. Now come on, let's go get something to eat. Dinner is on me." I laughed but followed him anyway. I never turned down a free meal.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next morning I woke up feeling strangely exhilarated. I had another trial today, but after almost a week of sifting through random paperwork and nothing else, the pain didn't seem so overwhelming a prospect. The first thing I did was get my wishes stockpiled and check in on Elena and Simon.

The kid was looking much better today, and Elena beamed at me as I came into the kitchen. "Mephistopheles! Lovely to see you! You're heading in to the trial today?"

"Yup, you want to make the trip together?" She seemed as energized as I was, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I wasn't the only one who had apparently had a catastrophic failure in the part of their brain that could recognize when things were a good idea.

Her smile never abated though as she shook her head. "Sorry to say I won't. I've already contacted Sister Bernadette and withdrawn from the trials. Now that Simon's condition has been managed, I've decided to withdraw. No offense to you, but without the overwhelming time pressure I lack the motivation to undergo such gruelling endeavors."

"That's…honestly probably really smart," I admitted. "If anything, it says something about me that I never considered that you might back out. I'd probably be worried about that if I was more introspective, but I'm trying to work on living in the moment." Weirdly, the Lamentation trials helped with that. Pain kind of forced you to live in the moment. "In any case, you two have a great day then. I should be back later tonight."

I was obviously going to use the Heart as my recovery spot after my next trial. It would be insane not to take advantage of ambient healing and purification.

After saying my goodbyes I headed out, meeting up with Bernadette in a clearing where she had arranged to pick us up. This time, she brought a shuttle, and she'd already picked up Harper and Mnemosyne. The mohawk wearing girl nodded laconically when I dropped into the seat. "Poser mom isn't coming?"

"Nah, I think she suddenly got sane," I said wryly. "Can you imagine giving up on being ritualistically tortured for no apparent reason?"

She snorted. "Torture? I haven't been through any of that. If anything, we've been enduring a brisk tickling up to this point. I barely even remember any pain. I hope the next trial is a little bit more extreme."

Bernadette lit up in excitement. "Oh, it IS! It's several times worse! Most candidates drop out before the seventh trial because the sixth is so mindnumbingly gruelling. I won't spoil the surprise, but it's definitely going to be memorable. Unrelated question, how do you feel about being stabbed in the joints?"

I glared at my fellow potential initiate. "Did we learn NOTHING from the beetles?"
"Oh, come on! It's not like I made that happen! We would have gotten the same test either way. Besides, she might just be messing with us. I figure it's about fifty fifty at this point."

Bernadette didn't even bother commenting on that, humming happily to herself as she removed something from a spatial ring that I realized was some kind of plant fiber she was weaving together with a pair of long needles. Whatever she was doing to it, it made my head hurt to try to follow the pattern, so I suspected it wasn't exactly mundane. Some kind of formation, I was pretty sure.

Didn't take us long to arrive at the clearing where all the other candidates were gathered. Only about fifty remained, a surprising number of us having dropped out of their own volition before this point. I was a little surprised, since even losing wouldn't get you disqualified, I wasn't sure why anyone would just fold after so much effort.

"Sunk cost only gets you so far," said Bernadette cheerfully without looking up. She was focused on her weaving as we landed, but seemed to just know what I was thinking. "Plus after Darian let the points system slip, a lot of them realized they wouldn't be making the cut anyway."

That hadn't actually occurred to me. I guess because I was doing well, but knowing that there was a point value might make some people rethink their possibility of winning, even without knowing what the requirements were. In fact, leaving it open ended was even worse, because people were always more critical of themselves than anyone else could be. Judging their actions by the imaginary impossible standards of a god would make anyone self conscious.

It made my suspicion that he'd leaked that tidbit on purpose all the more likely. As we disembarked and joined the crowd, I saw that a surprising amount of the big tough looking Ascendants were gone. The mix of sizes and eclectic styles had deepened. Once more the universe tended to trend towards randomness and variety when it came to us.

There was a flash of white fire, and Darian appeared in front of us. Unlike the last few times, I didn't see Chad and the other emissaries right away. Looking around, I noticed some forms up on the cliffs surrounding the small valley we'd landed in.

We were standing at the mouth of a large cave, the floor worn away by time or tide, but festooned with symbols I didn't recognize. Darian waved excitedly as he appeared. "Welcome back!" he chirped excitedly. "Good to see so many of you made it to round six. Only one more after this, but this one is a doozie. A lot of you won't make it past this point."

"Behind me," he continued. "Is the Cavern of the Shining Wind! It is a fiendish and diabolical location, designed to test you in ways unique to these trials. As with all Lamentation trials, there will be pain, but there will also be hardships beyond mere agony. This is a trial of endurance, in all senses."

Strolling over to the entrance, he took a step inside. There was a flash of light, and suddenly, I noticed a shining silver needle lodged in Darian's leg. Wincing, he stepped back, then reached down and plucked the needle out.

"Behold," the said with a bloodthirsty grin. "The ghost wind needle. They bypass armor and defenses like they aren't even there. These needles are made of C-rank ghost metal, coated with a painful soul poison. It won't do long term damage, but the compound causes indescribable torment to the soul when it comes in contact with it. The design of the cavern is simple. Each step will bring you deeper inside, and as you move closer to the prize at the other end, a new needle will pierce your flesh."

Stabbing it into his hand, he demonstrated how effortlessly it went in. "The needles will target joints, nerve clusters, the most painful and debilitating places possible. In order to resist, you will be forced to use all your power, all your Skill. The use of Paths, techniques, or abilities, as you know, requires the soul. The more you resist the damage to push yourself forward, the more the poison will ignite, and the more pain you will endure."

I felt a bone deep sense of nausea from inside me. Soul pain was…awful. I'd been training to resist pain of the body and mind. I even had some experience with soul pain, but the difference between those three things wasn't anything mere training could overcome, and I was limited in how much soul training I could do by the fact that soul pain traditionally came with damage. Permanent soul injury could cripple an Ascendant, so not only COULD I not just push through, I SHOULDN'T in most cases.

This stuff would test us past limits we'd established for good reason. I'd considered there might be a soul component to this, but I hadn't expected it to be quite this bad.

"What's the prize this time?" called Mnemosyne, seemingly unfazed. I had to hand it to her, she was tough as nails. I was pretty shaken by his description, but she just seemed to shrug it off.

Darian gave her a respectful nod. "The reward for completing this trial is a bit special. It's called a Reincarnation Baptism. Up to this point, many of you may have utilized pills and elixirs. You have a ten percent allotment before it weakens your soul too much to withstand your rank up, but even when you withstand that, there ARE still weaknesses. These remnants can cause problems later in your journey, lowering the quality of your Chronicle and making further progress more difficult."

I frowned at that. No one had mentioned anything along those lines. Of course, I knew that there was another mechanic to the soul beyond strength. Maybe this had to do with polishing. I'd tried to start that process, but had only gotten so far with it.

"The Reincarnation Rebirth will purify the soul, burning away the weakened spots and saving you years of work later in your lives." Darian's voice was uncharacteristically somber. "The remnant elixir taint will even push some of your stats higher in the process. It is a procedure that very few beings, even divine entities, can perform. Our lady's Domain being related to purification through pain makes it possible for her, but it is taxing. As you know, the soul isn't so easily affected. This is a precious chance, and I recommend you fight hard for the privilege. It will, of course, be indescribably painful."

It sounded amazing. Not the agonizing pain, but the results. My soul was already much tougher than most. It wasn't unique or anything, but I'd pushed further than a lot of people my level, and it had given me plenty of advantage. The higher I got, though, the less I stood out. By this point, more and more people who had broken their shackles and reach Azure Soul Body in time were popping up.

My technique talent was great, but it depended heavily on the soul. With this new purification strengthening mine, I was sure I could push further, do more. It was possible this might allow me to use my mask for longer, making my domains more accessible. The mask used my own soul as a foundation, even if I offloaded the strain to it, so fundamentally changing myself would be a game changer.

Out of all the rewards, this one was easily the most tempting. Archie was great, and a single defensive item from a god was a big deal, but this…I had a feeling getting this done before I created my Chronicle would pay dividends. I needed to talk to Zeke about it.

Everyone else seemed as entranced by the possibilities as I was. Darian had continued talking, though I had mostly ignored it. Apparently the Rebirth made training the soul easier for anyone who hadn't reached their limits, which was sadly useless to me. Still, I took my place at the entrance of the cave like everyone else, ready to fight for this one.

I triggered Mornax. Nothing else. Gluttony and Abomination Engine would engage the soul more than I'd have liked. I'd need them later, I was sure, but I'd get as far as I could with only the physical protections. Mornax itself was soul use, but it shouldn't be too bad to start out.

"Well, I can see you're all fired up!" Darian cheered as we arrived at the entrance. "Nice to see some motivation. Everyone ready? Make sure you're as prepared as you can be, because if you want to make to to the other side and claim the tablet that entitles you to the Rebirth, you'll need to stay ahead."

Ahead of us, the cavern yawned, empty and dark, resembling nothing more than an open maw of some great beast waiting for us to deliver ourselves down its gullet. "You may now…begin!" shouted the Kitsune. And so, with that one last prompting, we all took our first steps into the dark.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

It took me about three steps to notice the needles. I'd started with momentum to try to ride my early wind to victory, and they were so sharp and fast I barely even noticed them to start. Of course, my first three steps happened in a split second, so once it caught up to me it all hit me at once.

First was the physical pain, the needle was too thin to actually shut down the joint, but every time I moved I could feel it thrumming inside my flesh. It punched right through Mornax, but just eyeballing the others nearby, I was PRETTY sure it hadn't gone as deeply into me. Maybe. I could have confirmed it with Dantalion, but it would have meant soul usage, and the low burn permeating my spirit from the poison was already beginning to build.

"Huh," said Mnemosyne from next to me. "That's not so bad." It might have been more convincing if she hadn't been spitting the words between gritted teeth, but I smiled at the attempt.

"Bet you I get further than you," I chuckled. "Hey, Harper, you want in on this? We're putting up bets for the furthest walked."

It was interesting. This particular test was much different than the others. The more you used your soul the stronger the pain would be. It was a tradeoff, amount of physical agony withstood vs. amount of raw hurt you could take. The soul pain would get worse the more you leaned on it, so uniquely among the trials this one could be pushed through with raw grit without having to lean on Ascendant ability.

I could also see why this one would be the one that broke so many people. There was a certain kind of helplessness that washed over you when you knew that resisting would hurt you even more. Most of us, despite being tough as nails, leaned hard on our powers to resist. There weren't nearly as many masochists here as one would expect.

My next step caught another two needles, then three, then another lone spike of pain in my lower spine. I suspected the ghost metal wasn't entirely physical, because with so many spikes in me I was pretty sure I should be having trouble moving.

Well, I WAS having trouble, but not as much as having spikes of metal through my joints should be causing. I took another step and three more spiked slammed into me. At this point I was starting to run into genuine problems taking another step. Cautious but curious about potential advantages, I bit the bullet and triggered Zagan.

Green flame flooded my body, doing nothing for the needles, but seemingly blunting some of the soul poison. I hadn't expected even that much, but between that and the flood of energy, I got back into my rhythm, pushing myself several steps ahead, another fifteen or twenty needles thunking into my body in a multitude of fun places. I had to bite down a scream when one somehow went INTO my ear drum, my head exploding with an endless wave of pain and nausea as I wobbled on my feet.

Knowing the agony that was coming but not caring, I triggered Abomination Engine and them Gluttony, letting the cocktail of soul poison, agony, and residual Zagan flame pool in the pit in my gut, exploding through my body via Abomination Engine like rocket fuel.

Gritting my teeth, I pushed forward, letting the pain wash through me, driving me onward like a burst of flame as my body exploded with power…until another fifty or so needles thunked into me in several key locations and my power stuttered to a stop. I froze, disbelieving as I realized what was happening. The ghost metal needles were disrupting Abomination Engine.

Apparently whatever spiritual disruption they were making me experience wasn't able to touch domain shit, because Gluttony was fine, still swallowing down the dispersed energy like a bottomless pit, but without Abomination Engine to run it through my burst of energy was gone.

Pain was being consumed even as it was generated, but my soul was active, so I was hitting basically a net zero state in terms of agony.

Step, step, step. I had five minutes to get through this place, and my only advantage was that I was in so much pain every second felt like an hour. I tried to construct Abomination Engine again. It failed. And again. Nothing. Every time I triggered my technique it fell apart. The soul was deeply involved in technique creation, and the poison seemed to be punching holes in it somehow.

Despite all that, domains still worked though. Gritting my teeth, I dismissed it all. Gluttony vanished, along with Abomination Engine's dregs and Zagan's fire. The pain exploded through me like a white phosphorus volcano, washing away my consciousness in a sea of endless suffering beyond anything I'd ever experienced.

Before the trials, I'd have passed out, the sheer torment would have been enough to wipe my mind blank and leave me twitching on the ground. But I was more now. Not because of tricks, or useful abilities. I KNEW pain. I understood it, welcomed it. Pain was part of me, and when I accepted that it couldn't hurt me. So I didn't need to resist the pain. Didn't need to wash away the cleansing fire narrowing my consciousness to a pinprick. I just needed to advance.

I called for Limbo, for the path of destruction and manipulation that would let me find my way through this.

I took a step, a dozen more needles landing, my fist lashed out, once, twice, a dozen times. I destroyed every future before me where I fell. The next step, and another, and a third. The needles rained down, and they were horrifying, but I ignored them. More pain was fine, it was washing through me like a creek bed, pouring over me and out the other side.

My soul was burning, but I found it was familiar. This was the agony I'd experienced so often coming up. This was the scream of tortured spirit I fell into when I pushed my soul beyond its limits. Except this wouldn't hurt me. Not really. I wasn't destroying my soul, wasn't breaking myself beyond repair. I just felt like I was.

I watched the futures unfold, destroying the ones I didn't like, and I saw all the potential pitfalls. I saw a needle take me in the eye, interrupting my brain function and dropping me near comatose, I saw one sink into my heart, stopping it and keeling me over temporarily dead. Whatever non physical attributes the ghost metal had made them incapable of permanently killing us, apparently.

But it didn't matter. I didn't want to fail. Didn't want to stop. I destroyed those futures, banished them with fist and fire, and made my way forward, taking the needles in the least damaging places.

I felt a sort of synergy inside me, my Path pushing forward, growing and refining. This was what I was meant to be. Fatewalker. One step, one destiny. Destroying all the versions of the world that didn't belong, that weren't for me. I was pulling ahead, and I wasn't the only one who noticed. A wave of my fist banished a future where a spear lodged in my back, another an arrow that took me in the throat. Attacks from the others I was passing that I didn't allow to hit me.

Of course, they still LAUNCHED the attacks. The spear skidded off my armor and the arrow lodged in my gorget (the metallic collar piece under my armor meant to protect the neck), though it snapped off with my next movement.

Unfortunately, the resonance with my Path broke at the moment of distraction, and I lost that realization I'd been on the cusp of. I was pretty positive it had been the road I needed to tread to condense my Chronicle, but I wasn't sure that was a good idea yet. My Goetia Staff Art seemed…unfinished. Eight wasn't enough forms. I'd considered thirteen, but I needed at LEAST nine. Symbolism and all that.

I'd have to consider what I wanted my last form to be. I needed to condense my Chronicle soon, and I knew that once I did, once I constructed it, I wouldn't be able to add more forms anymore. I could still create pseudo Domains, but some part of me was sure Goetia would solidify once bound into physical form (or whatever you would call a Chronicle).

I sped up, the distraction allowing me to push aside the pain as I continued to get deeper. There were SO MANY needles in me. I probably looked like a porcupine, but I'd managed to avoid any seriously debilitating hits. From what I could see, it only aimed for places like the brain, eyes, and heart, when you were actively pushing ahead of the pack, but Limbo was helping me avoid those.

Three minutes had elapsed, including the thirty seconds or so of Gluttony, and I had two left. Two minutes and I was only about sixty percent of the way to my goal. I needed to speed up. I let out a roar of pain and fury as I pumped my legs, the pinpricks of a hundred spikes of admittedly non physical metal tearing me apart as they raked through my muscles and joints and bones.

The pain crescendoed, exploding to a new level I couldn't have imagined, but I ignored it, let it flow through me and push me onward. My vision was going white, the combusting agony beginning to dissolve my sight as it threatened to swallow even the laser focused pinprick my consciousness had become.

And then, like magic, I saw it in front of me. The futures began to narrow, converging to one final slew of possibilities. The tablet was ahead of me, right there on a pedestal, and I could take it. In fact, my options were take it or collapse into a heap. I swung my fist sloppily, desperately, destroying that last future, wiping away all choice except the one I needed, and then I let Limbo dissolve as I fell forward, hands weakly grabbing onto the tablet.

An electric shock ran through me as I touched it, an explosion of energy, and my vision cleared, pain and blurriness blown away by victory. The tablet had some sort of mechanism to relieve my suffering, because even as I watched, the needles dissolved, blowing away from my body in a cloud of mist.

The soul poison was cleansed too, though I wasn't sure that was the tablet, given the glow beneath my feet. I slumped onto the pedestal as I dropped the tablet in my ring, wheezing and panting as I let the stone hold me up. The absence of agony was such a profoundly jarring experience it ACTUALLY hurt, the sensation of armor on skin, of air ruffling my hair, everything was magnified and so overwhelming it made me want to scream.

I didn't use Zagan, I didn't need it. I wasn't injured, not in body or soul. I was just…damaged. I breathed through the pain, letting my body reboot, letting myself recover. I did NOT pass out, and I was pretty proud of myself, grinning foolishly as I pushed back to my feet, turning to look back through the cavern.

The distance shocked me. Not because it was so long, but because it WASN'T. It looked like a few hundred feet. It had felt like so much more. I watched the others stagger toward me, so lost in torturous pain that they didn't even notice that I'd made it.

Looking around, I spotted a path to the side, and I walked down it and through an opening in the wall, taking a side path down and around the trial to emerge behind a rock off to the side of the cave entrance. Darian spotted me, grinning widely as he threw back his head and howled. "And we have a WINNER!" And as all of the emissaries cheered for me, I had to admit. I felt like a winner.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Quenster06]

She knew I preferred the cold. I usually kept my room at about sixty.

Click to shrink...

Man, this is tragic. Poor, poor Shane is somehow using Fahrenheit instead of an actually sensible temperature measurement. I still love the story even with this travesty, though.

Also 60 F = 15 C = 288 K

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Man, this is tragic. Poor, poor Shane is somehow using Fahrenheit instead of an actually sensible temperature measurement. I still love the story even with this travesty, though.

Also 60 F = 15 C = 288 K

Click to shrink...

Listen, let's be clear, metric is the superior system of measurement for physical dimensions (I don't use it because I'm used to imperial, but its better), but Farenheit is a much more rational way to measure temperature. I will die on this hill. On a cale of zero to one hundred, how hot do you feel? Thats the temperature in Farenheit lol. Farenheit is based on human perception, and as a human I prefer that to knowing how cold a glass of water would be.

 

[Quenster06]

Listen, let's be clear, metric is the superior system of measurement for physical dimensions (I don't use it because I'm used to imperial, but its better), but Farenheit is a much more rational way to measure temperature. I will die on this hill. On a cale of zero to one hundred, how hot do you feel? Thats the temperature in Farenheit lol. Farenheit is based on human perception, and as a human I prefer that to knowing how cold a glass of water would be.

Click to shrink...

Ah, a classic American debate. I've never heard it explained how you have before, but it's better than most. I prefer Celsius because it makes the most sense to me that anything below 0 is when water freezes. In Farenheit 32 degrees is the point between cold and freezing, and that number, for what difference it means, bothers my OCD something fierce. With your explanation that's like saying you feel 1/3rd warm, but you're actually freezing to death.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Ah, a classic American debate. I've never heard it explained how you have before, but it's better than most. I prefer Celsius because it makes the most sense to me that anything below 0 is when water freezes. In Farenheit 32 degrees is the point between cold and freezing, and that number, for what difference it means, bothers my OCD something fierce. With your explanation that's like saying you feel 1/3rd warm, but you're actually freezing to death.

Click to shrink...

By that logic, a 32% on a test would be 1/3rd of a full score, which it basically is, but its also a failing grade and a pretty low one at that. But if you think about it, 0 degrees IS freezing (by feel not mechanically) and a hundred is just very hot. The halfway point there is pretty comfortable for me, personally, though I do lean slightly more hot at 60 (Shane is based on me in that sense, that's where I keep my room). I'm just saying, to me Farenheit is more intuitive lol, but I see how it might not work for everyone.

 

[MichaelSuave]

We'd made it hear just as the sun

Click to shrink...

We made it HERE... not hear.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

 

[Hyperion47]

Whoa, enlightenment through pain.

 

[BJJPanda]

Shouldn't he have gotten a massive renown boost from being known by Gods, since the higher the rank the more renown?