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

[Malcolm Tent]

We took the trip to Ironreach slow. I was concerned about being noticed now, not just by the godchildren, but possibly by the Void Child too. I had faith in the candles (because realistically what could I do if they didn't work?) but I decided to be cautious. Slowing down meant more time to process each area with Murmur, which meant better stealth.


While we walked, I left Callie to her own devices and hung back to talk to someone else I'd been worried about…my apprentice. Bella looked tired, if excited, but I could see a bit of fear in her eyes.


Thinking about it, Bella had been through a lot. From being a casual bandit on Rackham to storming a dangerous dungeon, the hits had just kept coming for her. I slowed down to stroll next to her, not bothering to say anything, just letting her get her thoughts in order to decide what she wanted to say, if anything.


"Is it always like this?" she eventually asked. "Being…powerful? I mean, these people are scary. Seeing you and those other two fight back at that village, I've never seen anything like that. One the one hand it's amazing, knowing I might reach that point, but on the other, I feel like this water is too deep for me, if you'll excuse the pun."


I chuckled. "You know the trick to surviving in deep water?" I asked her wryly. She shook her head. "Be a shark. Ascendants are a lot like sharks. If you don't move forward, you might not move at all. In my experience, growing as an Ascendant is about momentum. Seize the initiative, then keep it. Show you're amazing, then use the power from that demonstration to be even MORE amazing."


"Master," she said in exasperation. "No offense, but I'm not sure you can give me reasonable advice on this. You and your friends are all monsters."


"All great Ascendants are monsters," I told her bluntly. "Some of them are polite, or kind, are fun, but they're all creatures that are no longer humans. Normal people don't become high rankers. My Uncle gave me this same speech when I was younger, and I didn't really fully grasp it until now. Teaching really is the best way to learn, I guess. I thought he was warning me that becoming powerful would change me, but he was also saying I'd have to change to become powerful."


She cocked her head in confusion. "Master, you just said the same thing twice."


"No," I laughed. "It just sounded like it. What I mean isn't that normal people can't adapt to the process, it's that normal people don't even have the right state of mind to attempt it. It takes a special kind of monster to cultivate the mindset of a high ranker, and you have to have that mindset to get there. You can't think of yourself in comparison to most people, or other people. You have to compare yourself to the limits of what you can imagine.


"Don't ask 'am I as strong as this guy in front of me?', ask, 'am I as strong as the strongest guy who has ever BEEN in front of me?' Find the limit of what you think you can achieve and push past it," I continued with enthusiasm. "Because if you can surpass your limits for just a moment, and someone else hears about it, your new limit will be even further. That's the nature of being a living legend."


She looked…energized. I was happy to see my speech had helped, at least a bit. It was one of my better speeches as a teacher, I think, and I wondered if Zeke had felt the same mixture of pride and expectation when he gave me his version of this speech.


"Anyway, I want to do a bit of training while we travel," I told her cheerfully. "Nothing directly combative, just some control exercises. Want to join me? I THINK I might be able to help you learn one of my established techniques now." I was planning to try to teach her 'Extinction Event' since I had such a good grasp on it. Beyond that, I had some ideas for how to improve it myself, or at least my control over it.


Honestly, I was expanding my repertoire too damned fast. I needed to start over. Slowly refine each step of my process, and start trying to integrate them into a larger combat system. Once I did that, I could figure out what I was missing, and skew my future domains to cover those weaknesses.


My pseudo Domains were all strong, and varied, but just like I could integrate skills and techniques into the domains themselves, I should be able to integrate THEM into larger 'demi-domains'. Of course, that was just adding more complexity for the moment, I would look into it once I managed to master the abilities I currently had. I knew there was a lot of room for improvement with what I could do, especially with the staff.


Bella nodded excitedly, and I held a hand out. "This," I told her solemnly. "Is Extinction Event. It's a powerful instantaneous combat technique, relying on the principles of explosion and annihilation." I explained the mechanics and imagery of the Extinction Event. "The foundation of this move is the black flame of Mephistopheles. Since you've come into contact with that, and have the Skill for it, you should be able to use this technique, much like you were able to learn a version of my Waltz."


Or rather, Supernova Step, my mother's technique that I based it off of. But the logic held up. She could use Mephistopheles, at least momentarily, so she should be able to create the event.


"Now, beyond instinctual power release, I'm also planning to refine my control." I focused, and in my palm, an orb of annihilation the size of a pinhead appeared. I locked it down with my willpower, then started to expand and contract it. One moment it was the size of a pea, then a baseball, then a pin again. I varied the speed, the intensity, I even slightly altered the shape. I gave Bella ample time to study and perceive it as I worked.


It was hard. I hadn't expected to run into this kind of a challenge, thinking my willpower and soul were both more than up to any challenge. But it turned out while my raw power with techniques was pretty much at its peak, and kept climbing, my finesse had lagged behind. Automating the Skill with the library hadn't helped, even if it hadn't hurt as much as I might once have assumed.


This was more…technical. Like Callie had said before, it was like muscle memory, but now I was learning to control exactly how that muscle flexed when I was paying attention. I focused on the Event. Larger, smaller, shaping in patterns. Bella watched, entranced as I turned the dark sphere into a star, a pyramid, and a few other very basic geometric shapes.


It was an odd sensation. It felt draining, but not on my soul, really. At least not the same way as I usually felt soul strain. I'd experienced something like it during training once before, but it was so long ago I couldn't remember the exact instance.


After about ten minutes, Bella got a determined look on her face, coming to a stop. I did the same, though I also triggered Mornax, just in case. The others kept going for a bit, then stopped and turned around. "I think I've got it master!' Bella said solemnly. "Stand back! I'm going to use Extinction Event!"


I didn't stand back. I was in Sammael and Mornax at the same time, not to mention wearing C-rank armor. She couldn't have moved me with a D-rank forklift.


She held out her hand, palm up, and STARED. And stared. And stared. Her face turned red, cheeks puffing up and sweat beading on her forehead. Nothing happened. She growled, then removed her staff from storage and started practicing the Mephistopheles stance, moving slowly through the motions as she tried to find the headspace.


That made sense. She couldn't use the forms naturally, so needing to perform the stance in order to execute the technique was understandable.


She moved slowly, feeling it out, and then, finally, she lashed out with a thrust and yelled…and a small hayseed sized black sphere appeared at the end. My hand snapped out, wrapping around the staff as I slammed my will down on her technique. I'd created it, and the form she was using to channel it, and I could just FEEL the energy. I held it in place, then glanced up at her. "Alright, you've got it, now reel it in. Give me some more power."


Nodding tightly, she growled, eyes narrowing as she poured her will into the staff. I was holding the technique in place, something I had no idea I could DO before this, but I suspected had something to do with the library and the tome containing Extinction Event. It was something to look into later, at any rate.


I felt her will flow through the technique, and I let it, just maintaining the shape. I was pretty sure she could have wrested it away from me with almost no effort, this was only working because she was allowing it, but it was still amazingly useful.


As I watched, the hayseed sized black sphere began to grow. First to grape size. Then to a golfball, then finally to the size of a small plum. It stopped there, and I had to hold it together because Bella's will was getting shaky. Then, just like she'd seen me do, she pulled back on it, shrinking the orb.


It was slow, and irregular, and the shape wavered in a way that was obviously unintentional. But it happened. She flexed the willpower in the technique, altering it and slowly controlling it until finally, she fell backwards.


I released the technique, but not the staff, using the stick to catch her and pull her back up to her feet. She wobbled a bit, but I clapped her on the shoulder proudly. "That was fantastic Bella! You got it! Do you think you can do that again? Once you recover I mean, don't try it now. How does your soul feel?"


"Sore," she groaned, rubbing her temples as she put away the staff. "That was really hard. I saw a lot of weird stuff."


"Not surprising," I said, waving her off. "But you didn't answer. Can you do that again?"


She paused, thinking it over, then nodded. "Yeah. Yeah I think I can. It'll take a lot of practice, but I think I can do it. I think my Goetia Staff Art improved too. It didn't rank up, but it improved. Maybe that's how I'm supposed to train it? Learn to use the energy outside of the stances. Do you think I'll eventually be able to use the forms like you can?"


We walked back to join the others as we talked. "I suspect you will," I confirmed. "At the very least, there's a bunch of ranks of the staff art to go. I can't imagine at the Grandmaster rank you won't be able to tap into the forms manually."


I wondered if she could REACH that rank right now. I'd made the Skill, but it was a genuine part of the system now. Whatever that meant. If other people could learn it, could they surpass me? Or would they be stuck until I ranked up and paved the way? It was a fascinating subject, and one I'd be looking forward to studying…in the future.


But for now, I had other things to worry about. Like the giant collection of black metal towers jutting into the sky off in the distance. I'd already asked the Citizen about it, so I wasn't surprised by their appearance. We'd arrived at our destination. We'd officially made it to Ironreach.

 

[prymael]

My thanks to you author for coming up with a cultivation story that isn't all about an endless speedrun for power where the characters just happen to be nearby as a distraction or means to an end and not the focus. I appreciate that this work is able to let us readers watch as the characters grow as people, you know, cultivating themselves as they learn how to influence their paths towards something greater. Thank you for sharing such a great story and I look forward to reading more.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

My thanks to you author for coming up with a cultivation story that isn't all about an endless speedrun for power where the characters just happen to be nearby as a distraction or means to an end and not the focus. I appreciate that this work is able to let us readers watch as the characters grow as people, you know, cultivating themselves as they learn how to influence their paths towards something greater. Thank you for sharing such a great story and I look forward to reading more.

Click to shrink...

That means a lot, thank you. I'm really glad you're enjoying the story.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Unlike the last city, the gate guards at Ironreach didn't make things hard for us. The Citizen was clearly well known here, and when he brought us to the gate, they let us right through. Once we entered though, I noticed things were different than expected.


Based on his descriptions and his general demeanor, I assumed Ironreach would be lively and bustling. It WAS pretty packed with people, but it wasn't loud or energetic. Everyone walked quickly and silently, eyes trained on the ground as if afraid to catch a glimpse of something they didn't want to see.


I frowned at the Citizen. "Is this how it normally is? I was expecting more…just more. This is weird and grim."


He shook his head, brow furrowed as he scanned the streets. "No. This is strange. Ironreach is a rowdy place. Something is wrong. Come on, I need to go see a friend." He paused. "Unless you think this was enough?"


"You're a guide," I said dryly. "Guide us."


He chuckled distractedly and then led us further into the city. We eventually came to a stop outside of a small building. It was a noodle shop, apparently, basically a stand with a roof and a front wall. He pushed the door open, then strode up to the counter. "I'll have a number thirteen with extra peppers, and thirty seven degree twist."


The girl behind the counter, who looked so bored I thought she might have been asleep, looked up fuzzily. "Ah, right." She hit a button and the counter popped up, opening a path into the back. We walked through the kitchen, reaching a staircase with a sign beside it. It simply said 'Inverted Heaven.'


Without pausing, the Citizen opened the door, gestured for us to go ahead, and we all piled down the stairs, coming out in some kind of…gambling parlor? Everyone was playing a strange game involving symbol covered butterflies and a remote controlled toad. Technology here wasn't exactly medieval, but it was definitely eclectic. The designs were very old fashioned, and the toad was made of dark metal with lots of gears.


The Citizen ignored it, walking through the parlor until he reached the back and knocked on a screen door. There was a pause, and then it slid open. "I'm here to see Caladwen," he told the towering mountain of muscle on the other side.


Glowering down at him for a moment, the man nodded, then slid the screen closed. After two minutes he came back, opened the screen, and stepped away.


We were escorted back to into a spacious antechamber, where a blonde woman with bright green eyes reclined on a couch, reading a book. "Tag!" She said brightly as she sat up. "So good to see you! You didn't say you were coming."


The Citizen (Tag I suppose) shrugged. "I wasn't planning on it, but things just kind of worked out this way. Sorry to disturb you Cal, but I had some questions about…well about a lot of things. What the hell is going in Ironreach? Everyone is so quiet and reserved. This can't be natural. Your sister must have some idea what's causing this, why hasn't she stopped it?"


"Dez is…busy," she said grimly. "There's been an infiltration from the Deepchild Collective. The organization isn't TECHNICALLY illegal, because no one can prove they're connected to the Pale Men, even if we all know it. One of their priests has been causing trouble, and he's here with the backing of Algenclave, so Dez can't just kill him."


He blinked in surprise. "Algenclave? I thought he was dead. Didn't he vanish like twenty years ago?"


"He did, and now he's back," she shrugged. "He killed Zelgar over in Shadowcrack and took over the city. He's been pressuring Dez for the last few months, sending his Mistwardens to "patrol" Ironreach territory, collecting taxes from our villages, and a dozen other little things he can claim are misunderstandings but everyone knows are blatant provocation."


I stepped forward. "Hi, sorry, don't mean to interrupt, but what exactly are you guys talking about? This is fascinating, don't get me wrong, but I've got things."


Tag snorted. "Sorry, where are my manners. Caladwen Renfroe is Dezcarta's sister. She's also a powerful force in the city. This is Solomon, he's looking for some friends of his in the local area. We were planning to ask Dez, but maybe you've heard something."


I gave her a detailed description of everyone, and she shook her head. "Like I said, we've been busy. I'll ask around, but Dez would probably have a better idea. I just don't know if you can get in to see her. Algenclave has been applying lots of pressure, and slipping this priest in has made it all worst. He's been ministering, doing charity, and all sorts of other things that seem harmless but are almost definitely brainwashing."


Glancing at Callie, I exchanged worried looks with my wife. I refused to believe that the 'Deepchild Collective' wasn't in some way involved with the Void Child, especially given the stated connection to the Pale Men. This priest showing up here might have something to do with Callie, or with my friends, or might just be the usual Ascendant bullshit making our lives difficult, but whatever the case, it was almost definitely going to drag us into a mess.


So I decided to be proactive. "What if we look into it for you?" I offered. "No one here knows us. I infiltrate the Deepchild Collective's organization and feed you info, and in exchange you search for my friends with your local connections."


She raised an eyebrow at me. "And what makes you qualified to do that? I don't know you, you might be a total weakling. Maybe you'll just get murdered the second you step in the door."


"Maybe," I agreed cheerfully. "But what does that have to do with you? No me means no deal, which means you don't have to investigate. And like you said, you don't know me, so it won't matter much to you if I die."


Staring at me for a minute, she burst out laughing. "Well, I suppose that's true. I like this kid. Fine. You infiltrate the Deepchild Collective, we investigate and try to find traces of your friends. You have a deal. When can you start?"


I shrugged. "Depends what I'm doing. I need to know more about them, where their bases are in the city, how they interact with people around them. If they're looking for geniuses I can just roll up and offer to join, if they're low profile I might need to wait for them to notice me. I need to know what I'm dealing with."


Actually, I was pretty sure I could find a breakthrough point just from investigating with Murmur or Dantalion, but casing places like that took a while, and I didn't have the time. Between the Void Child and the godchildren, without even mentioning the local forces, my friends were in extreme danger. And now Callie had attracted the attention of that THING in the ocean, and I wasn't able to do anything to fix it yet.


I felt like I was suffocating, surrounded by enemies on all sides. I'd been honest with Bella earlier, when I gave her that speech about being a shark, but I was also putting on a brave face for my disciple. In reality, I wasn't sure we could all get through this, and the worse it got the more afraid I was that one of the people I brought here would die and it would be all my fault.


My own life was…not irrelevant, but less important. If I died, I died. I wouldn't be around to worry about it. I'd never have let that thought pass through my head if Callie could hear it, but it was true. The danger and pain I'd been through had almost ground away my fear of death. Could dying hurt more than being burned alive with ego fire? Than the falls? The idea of being killed just couldn't move me anymore.


But watching my loved ones die. No amount of soul refinement, training, or mental polishing would ever make that anything but terrifying. If I had to see Callie killed, or Benny, or even Abel…I didn't know what I would do. I suspected it would be violent and very drastic.


So I needed to be proactive. Find the answers ahead of time. And this priest was a servant of the Void Child, so he should have information. That was the real reason I'd volunteered for this. I could see Callie staring at me, and I knew she was worrying. She would be aware of what I was doing, and while she couldn't exactly get mad that I was putting myself at risk for my own wife, I knew she wasn't happy because she would have already figured out that I couldn't let her come with me.


With her current connection to the Void Child, it would be too risky to expose her to one of its servants, even if we didn't have rock solid confirmation.


I spent the next hour talking to Caladwen while the rest of my group decided to test out the game being played in the parlor. Based on the yells and cheers the few times the door opened, Bethy was apparently really good at it, or was possibly cheating. Regardless, hearing them so carefree really helped me calm down, and the warm feelings of support through my bond with Callie didn't hurt either.


Caladawen was straightforward and helpful, of course. I was going to take care of her enemy for her, or at least give her the keys to doing it herself, so she would naturally do her best to be helpful.


Speaking of which, I wasn't sure how this would work out. Would I have to fight the priest? And if I did, would that C-ranker (I was assuming) they'd mentioned come after me. I wanted to avoid that if possible, obviously. If it WASN'T possible…well, I'd cross that bridge when I came to it, for the moment I just needed to know the exact stipulations of the agreement, so that was what I asked.


Caladwen hummed, considering the terms. "I'd say I need you to at least give me evidence of foul play. What that is, I'll leave up to you, but if you can prove he's corrupting the minds of the citizens with an ability, that should be enough. Sacrifices are also an acceptable excuse, or experimentation. I don't know what the Deepchild Collective actually DOES, just that I don't want them doing it here."


I couldn't help but laugh at that. It was nice to deal with someone who didn't mince words. Not that most of my friends did, but too many Ascendants leaned hard into the PR and reputation aspects of building their legend. People like Abel who let their fists do the talking were rare, and meeting another one was definitely a good thing.


"Anyway, your entry point will be the Broken Song Ministry. It's a shelter the priest set up in Old Town. Anyone can come there for a meal or a place to sleep. He also hires "guards" to keep the peace, but everyone knows its an excuse to recruit a private army in Ironreach without violating town law."


I nodded. "I can work with that. I doubt I'll run into anyone I know there." I couldn't seer the high and mighty godchildren stopping at a shelter, and while I would definitely investigate, I wasn't planning on causing trouble there either. I would apply to be a guard, then use Dantalion to gather info, possibly slipping into the deeper parts of the base if they existed. I assumed so, Ascendants loved secret passages and hidden chambers.


With the agreement made, I decided to get some extra insurance. I wrote out a contract and we both signed it. Once that was done, I headed out of the parlor, leaving my friends to enjoy themselves. I would be less noticeable alone, especially without my mask. I didn't plan for this to take too long, after all. No one who might be a threat to my life was going to have it easy with me looking into them.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I had to borrow some clothes. Removing my mask made me stand out less, but being a baby faced six four behemoth in a thick suit of pitch black plate mail was still really attention grabbing. I snagged a set of…well, kind of old fashioned clothes from Caladwen before leaving, stowing my armor in my ring, and then set out toward the ministry.


Arriving at the ministry, I queued up for entry, but when I reached the door, I didn't follow the greeter in to be given a meal or a bed. "Hello, I'm here about the security position," I told him cheerfully. "I'm…Wayne. Wayne Shyndham."


The pause between the beginning of the sentence and my fake name wasn't long, so the greeter didn't notice it. I was relieved no one from my group was here, because that was the worst fake name I could have possibly come up with. In my defense, I hadn't ever needed a fake name outside of my costume, so I hadn't ever put much thought into it.


"Welcome!' Said the pale young man. "You certainly seem like a strapping lad, I'll take you to see Father Abraham. He'll be so happy to have another applicant. Security positions are tough to fill around here. Most of those skilled in combat choose to take the wrong path, joining thise unsavory organizations that oppress the common people. Or the city guard, of course, we would never dream of slandering Lady Dezcarta."


His tone, still cheerful, made it clear that he definitely WOULD dream of that, and was in fact doing it at this very moment, just in the politest way possible. He chattered casually to me as he escorted me down the corridor that split off from the side of the large hall where the meals were being served.


After walking for about fifteen minutes, we came to a worn wooden door. The greeter knocked, and a smooth, charismatic voice rang out. "Enter."


Pushing the door open, the greeter stuck his head inside. "Father Abraham? We have another security applicant?" He ushered me inside. "This is Mr. Wayne Shyndham, he heard about us from…" he paused. "Sorry, I was so excited I didn't ask. Who mentioned our job opening?"


"Ted," I told him vaguely. "From the shop. And just call me Wayne. Please." I tried not to sound like I was begging. I really didn't want them addressing me by my terrible spur of the moment last name. "I'm trained in martial arts. I use a club. I'm not sure if that helps or hurts me, but I wanted to be up front."


While something like a spear or sword would be incompatible with my staff art, a club should be mostly fine. I actually HAD used short wooden sticks early in my journey, so I had a bit of familiarity with them.


Father Abraham chuckled. "An honest man, what a rare commodity. Please, take a seat." He gestured to the chair across the desk from him. "I assure you, any weapon proficiency is more than expected. All I require is dedication and an open mind. Do you consider yourself open minded, Wayne?"


Father Abraham was not what I expected. He was tall and intense, with a square jaw and symmetrical, pleasant features. He looked like an honest, upbeat person, with intense amber eyes and a wide grin that invited you to smile along. Despite his clearly cultivated image of reassuring welcome, I felt my Danger Sense tingling slightly. He couldn't hurt me, but he didn't have good intentions.


"I'd say I'm open to new ideas," I hedged. Contrary to popular opinion, acting like a sycophant wasn't the best way to gain someone's trust. People valued things they had to work for. I had enough experience with infiltration to know my best move was to be cautious and let him 'win me over'.


This would also allow me to keep my guard up. I triggered my Promethean Fire Soul Body, keeping the outward signs of it suppressed so my eyes didn't start randomly glowing as I took my seat across from the priest.


"And cautious too," he said approvingly. "That's wise. People who just believe whatever they're told are wonderful parishioners, but they don't make good LEADERS. I think you've got the makings of a fine leader, Wayne. Would that be interesting to you? I can see you've had some fortunate opportunities, and I bet you're excited for your talents to be recognized."


He was talking about my Impact. I hadn't hid it, mostly because I knew being a cut above everyone else was a good in. Opportunities to boost Impact were RARE, but they existed. The Shoals was a big place, and not having seen every impressive person was natural. Obviously, Abraham was interested in recruiting someone who would always be just a bit better than everyone else.


Of course, he was also blatantly manipulating me. My great grandmother was a cult leader, so I was pretty familiar with this kind of thing. I'd done more than a bit of research on the kinds of tactics people like him used to recruit.


Still, it was as good an in as any. I hesitated, but let my face show a hint of eagerness. "You really think so? I mean, I've never led anything before. What exactly would you want me to do for this leadership position?"


"Nothing strenuous," he chuckled. "You'll be responsible for driving off unsavory elements, protecting our parishioners, that sort of thing. Of course, you'll also need to enforce internal discipline within the security force. Sometimes outsiders can be a bit…obtuse. When those outside the flock don't understand their role, a good leader knows to remind them of their place. Don't worry, I'll be happy to help you get started."


I suppressed a grimace. That sounded a lot like hazing, turned up to eleven. I suspected he was hoping that giving me power over others and pushing me to abuse it would isolate me, forcing me to rely on him more. He was clearly VERY interested in my Impact.


"That doesn't sound too hard," I said slowly. "Are you sure the lack of experience won't be a problem? I don't want to cause tension coming in unqualified. I came here for an entry level position, but being hired as a leader right out the gate might upset some people."


"The Deepchild provides opportunities for all his followers," he said serenely. "Even if yours might arrive earlier, the others need only have faith that their time will come."


I highly doubted the abomination living in that ocean gave a shit about who was 'following' him, at least aside from people like Abraham, but I nodded seriously, pretending to correct my mindset.


As he spoke, I felt…something. Some kind of gentle pressure probing my mind. Nothing as overt as a touch, but like a sort of pervasive mist coiling around me, looking for a way in. Specifically, the same mist I'd felt from the ocean outside. Except this was much fainter, and much purer. It was obviously higher quality than the stuff being driven off by the candles.


My Promethean Fire Soul Body, of course, melted it all before it got close, but I could sense him layering it into his speech in a strangely hypnotic way. I wasn't sure what Abraham's ability was, but the assumptions of brainwashing were dead on.


Caladwen wanted evidence though. No one would be able to sense this except me, at least not unless he tried to directly influence them. If it was that easy they would have done it themselves by now. So I smiled gratefully, bowed my head, and followed the greeter (whose name was Simon) out into the hallway and further back into the ministry.


"So you can sleep here, of course," Simon chattered as we walked. "We have separate bunks for security, but we naturally supply our own people with the same opportunities we grant to others. Free food, lodging, and an additional stipend of bone coins based on performance."


I wasn't sure what 'performance' I was supposed to have. Or for that matter why they needed a whole security force to stop people from stealing basic food supplies from the needy. Whatever the excuse was, it was clearly a pretense to build a private army, but I didn't even know what the pretense itself was.


We arrived at another door, this one a metal security door bolted together with rivets. Rather than knock, Simon just pushed it open, stepping an ahead of me and clearing his throat.


The area inside looked like some kind of bunker. An arched rock ceiling, beds lining the walls, dirt floors, and not much else. When Simon entered and coughed, everyone in the beds jumped up to attention, all of them looking terrified as if they'd been caught doing something unforgivable.


"Preston, Felix, I saw you two over there reading," reproved Simon gently. "Do I need to tell the father about this?"


Two of the men went deathly pale. "No, of course not Simon!" he said quickly. "You're just joking, right? I know you always look out for us. Here, I'll give you my stipend for the month, for being such a good friend."


The other one nodded. "Of course, Preston is right, you always look out for us, you deserve a reward."


Simon, pale and fragile looking, smiled happily, his eyes looking hard and out of place as he gloated. "Well, it's nice that you realize how much I do for you. It would be rude to turn down your good intentions. I suppose I can accept your reward. But don't let me catch you doing it again. I can't protect you forever, can I?"


I could smell the dishonesty on the air with Scent of Truth. It was easy to figure out what was going on. He was blackmailing them, and he wasn't being subtle about it. I cleared my own throat. "Simon, you were going to introduce me?"


He flinched, but recovered quickly. "Ah, of course. Apologies. Everyone, this is Wayne. Wayne is going to be the new captain of your little squad. Wayne's word is as good as mine of the father's, so what he says goes." He turned to me sheepishly. "We don't allow Preston or Felix books anymore, because they were bringing in heretical material. The first time was just a warning, but after their second offense they were forbidden from having reading material."


Gesturing to the two, he held out his hand, and they withdrew a book each, setting them in his palm. "Well, I'll keep it in mind," I lied cheerfully. "But for now I think it would be best if I got to know everyone. Can you give us some time to get acquainted?"


"Of course," he beamed. "I'd be happy to. I have to get back up front anyway. Sylvia is on greeting duty, and she's dreadfully lazy. She'd better not be napping again." As if just talking about the possible infraction got him spun up, he turned and stormed off, already plotting how to punish her in his head.


I watched him go with a grimace. "What a deeply unpleasant human being," I commented to the room after he closed the door. "So, I'm Wayne, and fuck everything else that guy said. Seriously. What a dick." They'd all been watching me tensely, but at my proclamation, I saw them cautiously relax. "Look, I'm in charge of you guys now, but I'm not trying to step on toes. I'd appreciate if you could help me get settled, tell me how things work, that kind of thing."


One of them, a dark skinned guy with lots of very tight miniature braids pulled back into one long ponytail, smiled and held out a hand. "Well, how can we say no to that. I'm Daniel, nice to meet you Wayne. Now pick a bed, and I'll get started on giving you the dirty details of this place." I grinned as I followed him deeper into the room towards the empty beds. Maybe this part of things wouldn't be so bad.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The rest of the security team was quick to open up about Simon. Apparently, he was a bully and a rat, and never hesitated to throw them under the bus for his own benefit. Even when he kept things to himself it was just to get leverage over the others. Everyone in the ministry hated him, but the father kept him around because he was loyal.


Of course, that was their opinion, but I wasn't so sure. Something about this place was…off. The air around us was heavy with misery and unease. I'd noticed it in the town, and even moreso here. I assumed it was a side effect of the brainwashing, but I was starting to think I was getting cause and effect mixed up.


Simon went out of his way to cause misery, to make people unhappy and stressed. Father Abraham used a mist similar to the stuff in the ocean, but somehow denser and more saturated. But the question was, saturated with what?


I'd used Dantalion a few times, though I had to wait until I was alone to avoid showing any outward signs. My analysis had shown that my suspicions were accurate. The mist didn't just brainwash, it FED on negative emotions. The more miserable the people here became, the more insidious the mist got. Simon wasn't just tormenting them for his own amusement, he was doing it on purpose.


Which made the choice of venue especially disturbing. Were they feeding on the misery of the desperate people who came here for help? The mist allowed them to slowly erode the will of those nearby, but beyond even that, it induced negative emotions. Hunger, envy, rage. The Pale Ones were basically unstoppable rage ghouls, and they CAME from the mist.


But again, this was all stuff I figured out through analysis. Most people couldn't perceive the mist at all, let alone analyze it. Besides I didn't KNOW Dezcarta. I didn't want to reveal our position in regards to the Void Child. Who knew how the local power structure interacted with it.


So I decided to look around in person. Once I finished dinner with the security team, I headed back to the bunk, vaguely mentioning turning in early. Then I went to my bed, the furthest from the door, and triggered Beelzebub. I suppressed the effect substantially, manifesting just a single clone, and then split off a parallel to control it, before having the parallel get in bed.


Once that was done, I triggered Murmur, then slipped out of the room. Once I was out, I moved slow. The longer I took, the deeper my stealth became, and I wanted the best chance of staying hidden I could get.


I slowly made my way down the hall, listening in on what was happening as I went. The first thing I came across was a pair of people in a room. Simon was talking snidely to a smaller man, one of the kitchen staff based on the calluses on his hands (Dantalion gave me the extra info). "Look Charles, I don't know what to tell you. You know we don't allow smoking here. It doesn't matter if you went outside or were on a break. The father has a zero tolerance policy. A little gift won't smooth this over, it's a very serious offense. I want your wages for the month."


"Simon, PLEASE," the small man begged. "My daughter is SICK. I need that money for medicine! I know I shouldn't smoke, but I've just been so stressed. I promise I won't do it again, just please let me off this once!"


Simon just clicked his tongue, shaking his head in faux sympathy. "It's a shame when the innocent suffer because of our actions, but rules are rules. If I let you off this time, people will think the rules don't matter. Then everyone will expect a pass, and before long, we'll have anarchy? Is that what you want, Charles? Do you want to be responsible for the ministry descending into anarchy?"


The smaller man's eyes filled with tears. "I…no, no of course not Simon. You're right of course," I saw his shoulders droop. "I can find someone to borrow the money for the medicine from. Of course you deserve to be rewarded for keeping my secret."


Simon beamed. "That's a wonderful attitude Charles. You're going places here, I just know it." He held out his hand, and the other man grimly fished out a pile of bone coins and dropped them into his palm. The last time this had happened, I hadn't noticed anything, but this time, I was in Murmur, which meant I was constantly scanning the surroundings, and I'd been here for a bit listening.


As the coins dropped into Simon's hand, there was a flash of black light across the surface of the bone. The energy around Charles, meanwhile, dropped slightly.


My eyes narrowed. Those coins came from fish in the black ocean. I hadn't really connected that to the Void Child, but now it seemed like Simon was using the coins as a CARRIER of some sort for the misery he was gathering. Were ALL the coins carriers? Did they collect misery from this place as they were circulated?


It was a disturbing thought, but I didn't have much time to think about it, because Simon said his goodbyes to Charles and walked out, strolling right past me as he made his way further into the base. He followed the hallway back, stopping before a full sized portrait of Abraham ministering to the poor. He looked around to be sure no one was watching, then hooked his fingers behind the frame of the picture and pulled. It swung away from the wall like a door, opening onto a small stone landing and a set of stairs leading down.


Stepping onto the landing, Simon started to pull the portrait shut. Cursing, I triggered Double Trouble, appearing behind him as the portrait clicked into place, plunging the whole landing into darkness. There was a scratch and a hiss, and Simon was holding a lit match and a candle stick, the latter of which he ignited before flicking the former into the darkness beside the staircase.


He descended the steps slowly and casually, and because they wound around, I had a lot of time for Murmur to process the chamber we were circling. We arrived at the bottom in about five minutes, and I followed him to the center of the chamber, where a pool of water sat in front of an altar made of blue green bone, with a dark metal effigy sitting atop it.


On the altar lay a tarnished silver bowl, and Simon, scooped himself a bowl full of water from the pool and then set the bowl on the altar before dropping the coins he'd collected into it. As the bone hit the water, there was a deep hiss, and the water exploded outward into the air as a plume of mist.


Simon watched serenely as the mist circled above the altar before being sucked into a small glass orb on a necklace hanging from the tentacles on the face of the black metal figure. The orb glowed with a dark light, almost sucking the brightness from the world around it somehow, and then quieted.


Leaning in, the greeter squinted at the light. "Damn, still not enough. Useless trash, can't even suffer properly. I should up the dosage of weakening agent in the food. Maybe have that new thug beat some respect into those whimpering 'guards'." His voice was cold and detached, as if everything he was saying was just a matter of course, and I thought he was talking to himself until the pool began to bubble. Simon's eyes widened, and he dropped to his knees, slamming his head against the floor so quickly it must have caused damage.


The pool emitted a strange, strangled hiss, and Simon stayed kneeling, listening until it finished, before finally responding. "Apologies, my lord. I meant no disrespect. I was simply venting my frustration about the lower beings."


A laugh sounded from above. Abraham descended the stairs, entering the field of Murmur's detection only seconds after he started laughing. "Oh Simon, how can the master listen to you whine about 'lower beings' when you yourself are simply the dregs of this world. It would be like hearing a rat sneer at a cockroach."


Simon's fingers dug into the ground in anger, but he didn't respond. Abraham walked past him like he wasn't there, kneeling in supplication, though I noted he only went down on one knee. "Master, your unworthy servant returns. We've acquired a new pawn today. He's a step beyond the mortal dross, and I believe he can be cultivated into a useful tool. Perhaps even more useful than some we already have." His tone was scathing as he flicked his gaze to where Simon was laying.


The hissing emerged again, and Abraham beamed. "Of course. I will begin his education. Once he has seen the light, I will usher him into your presence. As your father's most devoted spawn, I am sure such a paltry will can only crumble under your pressure."


Father…ok, that was…interesting. Because it implied this thing wasn't the actual Void Child. Unless the void itself was sentient and planning to kill us, but i had to believe that even MY bad luck and attraction to nonsense had limits. I would assume for now that this thing was probably the 'spawn' of the Void Child. Which was its own kind of disturbing because it meant the Void Child was BREEDING down there, potentially with the horrifying C-rank abomination in the ocean. Fantastic.


I watched them for a bit longer, and they only traded barbs as they reported to the pool. They were doing…a lot of terrible shit. Just heinous things. Poisoning, beating, stealing. Abraham had apparently arranged for multiple people to be crippled, just so they would be forced to attend the ministry.


His sermons were also specifically designed to induce nightmares and paranoia, and the people who slept in the building slept with a bone cone unknowingly hidden beneath their mattress (which was apparently designed to be uncomfortable, because I guess they decided they weren't quite evil enough). By the time they finished talking, I was ready to just straight up murder one or both of them out of sheer moral outrage.


Instead, I did the prudent thing. I went back upstairs, got my clone, and sent it back to Caladwen with a report. Sadly, apparently hearing them literally CONFESS to a fucking eldritch monstrosity wasn't evidence (I really hated the term 'hearsay'). So I was asked to stay under.


Given my progress though, I was informed the search for my friends was underway, and they would be brought to Ironreach under guard as soon as they were found. That made this a lot more palatable. I still needed to learn more about the monstrosity in the pool and the thing that spawned it, so I wasn't too upset about staying aside from the general hatred of being around these people.


I went to sleep that night under guard, with a clone under Murmur watching me sleep, and I slept in Mornax, for an added bit of protection.


When I woke up the next morning, Simon came to get me, and I resisted the urge to punt his skull off his shoulders like a ball. He chattered cheerfully as we walked, and it made me physically ill to listen to him sound so friendly when I knew what a fucking monster he was. I honestly hated him more than Camden's cousin, who had been a sociopath who murdered his own sister as a child.


He escorted me around the ministry, introducing me to workers (including poor Charles, who I planned to visit after this was over to see if I could help his sick daughter with Zagan). Finally, we ended the tour, and he brought me back to the front where the food was served. He beamed at me as we chose a seat. "Now that all the training nonsense is out of the way, you can see the real reason people come here. Father Abraham is a hell of a speaker." Somehow, I didn't doubt that at all.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Father Abraham's speech was surprisingly persuasive, even with my mist resistance. He called us all together into an informal huddle in the middle of the room, dragging tables together, and sat up on one of them smiling benevolently at everyone. "Friends, you know me, you know my mission. I seek only peace between land and sea."


Some of the parishioners nodded, but a few, who must have been new, looked bewildered. One of them, a lean girl with wild eyes and braided hair scoffed. "Peace? The Pale Men come from the waves to kill and eat us. How are we supposed to have peace?"


Abraham smiled benevolently at her. "Ah, but are they the only ones who plunder? Do we not fish from their waters, killing the living things to collect their bones for their usefulness? I think you'll find that if you look back, it was we who invaded first. The depths of the sea have done their best to keep us away, releasing the mist to drive us back, seeking only their solitude. Humans are hungry, greedy creatures, it is we who insist on stealing the bounty of the waves."


She bristled. "Are you saying our lives aren't worth as much as FISH?"


"Are the lives of all living things not valuable?" he asked benevolently. "Can one put a price on a living existence? I admit, there have been grave sins on both sides, but just as someone cast the first stone, so too must someone lay down the first sword. At the Deepchild Collective, we believe that with enough time and persistence, we can reach a common understanding with those beneath the waves, and aim to create a better world together."


Another man, this one tall and tan, smiled at her encouragingly. "I know it sounds odd, but the father really believes in coexistence. Don't look at the Pale Men, who are only weapons unleashed to drive us back, many of the creatures below the ocean are wise and benevolent. The father has told us many stories, and there's a lot we can learn from them."


I was disgusted. I'd heard that thing in the pool, had seen the tentacled monstrosity in the depths. The oceans were not some benevolent undersea kingdom of misunderstood creatures. They were fucking death traps full of nightmarish abominations.


The worst part was, I UNDERSTOOD. He wasn't selling them the ocean, he was selling them hope. They'd lived their lives in this despicable cage world, trapped on the islands and constantly assaulted. The mists undoubtedly increased misery wherever they got by the candles, even when they didn't have a chance to convert anyone to a Pale Man.


Not to mention the fucking bone coins. SOMEONE in the higher ups of Skartaris the Weeper's organization had to understand what those did. There was no way they ACCIDENTALLY built their society around evil hate batteries.


Which made me think of the cloak in the Ghost Bone Tranquility Tower. He had seemed benevolent and helpful, like he was taking our side…but was he? Going out of his way to introduce us to the coins, not to mention the NAME of the tower was incredibly suspicious when taken in the context of this cult and the coins themselves.


These people were being kept in conditions approaching torture by their overlords, all of them pushed the point of mental and emotional exhaustion. Thinking about it, Malzareth's Mistwardens were ostensibly protection, but Wesley had implied they mostly bullied and extorted, making things worse, and we'd seen no signs of them when the Pale Men attacked, either.


The more I saw of this place, the angrier I got. And someone like Abraham, who had essentially abandoned humanity to side with the monsters who prayed on them, disgusted me even more. I wasn't one to put value on a nebulous concept like 'humanity', mind. I turned myself into a part time fallen angel, and some of my best friends weren't human, but there was a difference between a racial trait and becoming a toady for predatory monsters that ate people's misery.


I wondered how involved the vanished gods were in all this. Were they really just taking advantage of an opportunity? But I decided that line of thought wasn't useful. Being careful was fine, but going down a rabbit hole trying to connect unrelated issues wouldn't do anything but send me into a spiral.


Father Abraham, meanwhile, was just getting warmed up. "It's true, my child," he beamed. "Beneath waves, in the deepest parts of the world, there are great cities and civilizations, wonders and treasures and knowledge for those brave enough to seek it. The shallows are where the scum of the ocean reside, and the monsters you see breaching the surface are simply criminals and villains to the wise and benevolent sea faring races."


I had to flare my Promethean Fire Soul Body hard as he spoke. Something in my head wouldn't let GO of the image of that thing in the dark. Not even the one Callie saw, just that tentacled monstrosity that had tried to drag her down. It was like an infected splinter in my brain that wouldn't go away.


Grimacing, I made a note to spend some time in Leviathan, purifying my consciousness a bit just in case. That seemed like it might become a problem later if left unattended.


Abraham continued, speaking of shining underwater cities and wise unknowable creatures with knowledge of great art, science, and philosophy. He spoke of impartial justice systems and crafting masters, and advanced technology. It basically sounded like a dream come true, and I could see even the sceptical girl starting to be won over by his words.


I was confused as he spoke, not understanding the goal here. He was giving them hope, making them feel happy and excited and all the things that weren't useful for him. It wasn't until he finished talking and the parishioners dispersed that I realized what he'd been doing. As they left, the spell of his stories faded. In comparison to that fantastical ideal world, the current darkness seemed even bleaker, was even more unbearable.


With my Perception, I was able to see the hearts of these people breaking as they were yanked out of their beautiful dream and shoved back into the cold hard grasp of reality.


Why were they DOING this? What was the Void Child gaining. Power, I assumed, but to what end? Why create this terrible place and fill it with these suffering people. Why engineer this system to purposefully torment them. Was it trying to break out? But it must have been involved with creating the void barrier around this place. Couldn't it just go back to the void? I was missing something. Possibly a lot of somethings.


I approached Father Abraham, putting on a look of wonder. "Father, that was so amazing. Can such a wonderful place really exist?"


"It does exist," he said warmly. "I've seen it. The cities beneath the sea are wonders of the modern age. Towering monoliths are as common as cabbage and great heroes exist on every corner. Most of my flock will never have a chance to see such sights, but you, Wayne, are a bit special. Would you be interested in joining our collective? You would need to earn your place before descending, but in a few years, you too could dive beneath the waves to receive the blessings of the Deepchild."


I put on a delighted face. "That sounds amazing! I wonder though, is the Deepchild really only one being? I always assumed the Collective was mentioning multiple entities."


"Yes and no," he said, his expression turning genuinely fanatical. "The Deepchild is the origin and the truth. It descended from the higher world to save us all, and teach us the weakness and sin of this fragile mortal realm. To that end, it spread its love to the great beings in the depths of the sea, for only they could withstand its power. From these unions came the Abyssal Lords, its trueborn children, the Lords are the ones who created those great cities."


This was what I'd been looking for here. Learning more about the presence of the Void Child. It seemed like it didn't act directly very often, preferring to allow the Abyssal Lords to do the dirty work. This meshed well with what I'd seen. That tentacled thing in the deeps that had grabbed Callie must have been an Abyssal Lord, acting on its parent's behalf.


If not for Callie's connection to the Abyss I wouldn't have even known about the Void Child, and my Perception was nothing to scoff at. I briefly wondered if the thing in the pool was the same Abyssal Lord that had tried to grab my wife, but I decided it probably wasn't. We were a long way from where that happened, and it sounded like there were more than a few of these creepy things. Hopefully not TOO many, but enough that I didn't think we'd run into the same one so quickly.


"What would I need to do?" I asked hesitantly. "In the collective. I'm not good at much, I'm just ok in a fight. If you need me to do anything complicated I might not be able to help."


He clapped me on the shoulder. "Not at all. In fact, you'll be perfect for what we have in mind. See, sometimes when we help the less fortunate, people take advantage of our hospitality. They steal from us, hoard supplies, and drain our resources. Most of these people are despicable liars who will never admit what they've done. Even in their last moments they claim to be the victims, trying to invert good and evil and frame us."


I had a bad feeling about this, but I gave him a 'puzzled' frown. "There are such people?"


"Far too many of them," he sighed with an air of faux melancholy. "And that's why we need a big strong lad like you. We need you to track these villains down and take back the things they stole from us. A smart boy like you won't be swayed by their insidious lies or their false pleas. By helping us take back what belongs to us you'll ensure that we have enough resources to help the others in the ministry, undoing the despicable wrongs perpetrated by these heinous thieves."


So…he wanted me to rob a bunch of poor people. Classy. I could already see where this was going. He's send me to 'repossess' some of these so called stolen goods, push me to beat these people and rob them, then soak in the suffering as I unknowingly destroyed their lives, all the while twisting my mind until I slowly came to agree with his way of doing things. I wondered if Simon had started out like this. Genuinely optimistic and wanting to do good. How many people had this monster ruined?


But if you have to manipulate and brainwash someone, a demon is a bad choice, even if only one in spirit. I could play vicious games too.


Pretending to be unsettled, I chewed my lip, before finally nodding slowly. "I can try. But I don't know if I can bring myself to resist someone pleading like that, even if I know its false. Can you come with me the first time, Father? With you there to reassure me I'm on a righteous path, I'm sure I can harden my heart to do the right thing."


I saw the smugness in his eyes, the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, and the excited clench of his fists. I wasn't surprised. With the mist, he should be able to manipulate the target to basically confess, setting up a perfect first outing to begin my corruption.


Of course, I was just as smug. Providing evidence of him actively participating in robbery and assault would be more than enough reason to evict him from the city, or worse. I would tip off Caladwen and then help her capture him. Once that was done…well, I could question him under Dantalion to learn anything else I needed to know about the Void Child. I couldn't live with myself if I let this scum walk these streets another day. It was finally time to act.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I followed Father Abraham into town, and as we left, I reached out to Callie to have her tip off Caladwen about what was coming. I hadn't been out in Ironreach much since coming here, though I wasn't expecting to see much that differentiated it from Highhaven. Sure enough, the city layouts were very similar, though obviously not identical.


The streets were cobbled, sort of, but rather than being uneven and rough like most cobblestone roads I'd heard of, the stones were smoothed out and provided an even surface for walking or driving.


Speaking of driving, there WERE cars here, though they weren't particularly advanced. Very simplistic designs, four wheels propelled by enchantments, with sconces anchored onto the frames for candles. The wheels were large and suspended on springs, making them look more like all terrain vehicles than a normal car, presumably for travel between cities.


They weren't prevalent, and I could tell from the Impact of the material that the process for creating them was probably pretty involved. I considered whether I should try to get one, but I didn't know how much travel I'd be doing while I was here, or whether it would be cost effective.


I decided to look into trading one for a wish if I had a chance, being short of one wouldn't hurt. I had eight more scrolls today, leaving me sixteen total so dropping one would still leave me with fifteen, a nice round number. My thoughts drifted off to logistics, not bothering to engage with Father Abraham personally. I left a parallel in charge to talk to the scumbag, but my main thought processes were dragged back to the present as we entered a new area.


Well, NEW implied that it was modern or up to date. It was new to ME, but it definitely wasn't new. In fact, it might have been the oldest and most run down residential space I'd seen since arriving, and that INCLUDED the village that had been basically a collection of rickety shacks.


This place wasn't even made of actual buildings, more lean-tos constructed from flat metal sheets or spare pieces of wood. The wood was uneven and obviously salvaged from other things. Despite the limited materials, the makeshift buildings were creative and clearly made wit extreme care. The people who built these put time and effort into them, personalising their dwellings with painted designs on the metal and carvings on the wooden supports.


My already low opinion of Abraham somehow got even lower. I'd known he was bringing me to do something horrible, and I wasn't planning to go through with it, but seeing the conditions of the people he was planning to make me rob…I was seriously considering just crushing his skull with my staff right now.


He sneered at the houses. "Disgusting. Parasites like this can't do anything but live of the blood and sweat of others."


I frowned at him. "I thought the ministry was all about helping those who are less fortunate."


"Those who wish for help," he corrected. "If these people were really interested in bettering themselves, they would have come to the ministry by now. Only a few of these leeches bother to show themselves at our premises, and the ones who do are dishonest and cunning like the thief we're here to apprehend."


I wondered how he thought he could reconcile those two points of view. It seemed like hypocrisy to me, but then again, I knew he was a fucking monster, so that might just be my inherent bias. I didn't think so though. I liked to think that even if I hadn't already seen his true face, this would have shown me what a bastard he was. I was certainly sure that I'd never have participated in anything like this, regardless of what he'd tried to tell me it accomplished.


Dantalion flared, and I felt the world around me. People were approaching, lots of them. Some were my friends, others I didn't know, but I assumed they were either Caladwen or Dezcatra's people.


They didn't actually engage. They were waiting. I prepared myself for this next part, splitting off a clone with Beelzebub and shifting it into Bael. The clone ranged ahead, getting into position to provide protection for whoever Abraham thought we were here to harass. I wouldn't have allowed this to happen if I thought I'd be putting an innocent person in danger. My clone could protect then while the rest of us dealt with Abraham.


We stopped at the end of a street in front of a corner dwelling. It was mostly metal sheets, with lots of complex painted designs of roses and animals across the surface. A small, well worn welcome mat was laid out in front of the flimsy metal door, clearly old and well cared for.


"Damon Skwell!" Bellowed Abraham. "Reveal yourself, coward! You've stolen from the ministry of the Deepchild Collective, and you are owed retribution!"


There was a slight pause, then a man came out. He was older, with salt and pepper stubble and laugh lines at the corner of his eyes. He was pale and gaunt, obviously underfed, but he had a kind face. "Father Abraham?" He asked, confused. "What's going on? I'm sorry I couldn't work today, but my daughter had a bad fall yesterday and broke her arm. I just need a day or two to take care of her until we can take her to the alchemist."


"Still not admitting it?" sneered the corrupt priest. "Do you deny that you stole several loaves of bread from the kitchens?"


Damon flinched. "What? No, I would never do that! Simon told me I could take home a few extra. He said you knew I was having a hard time and that I was getting extra food to bring back for my family."


He was telling the truth. I could smell it. Abraham, however, didn't know about my Scent of Truth ability. He laughed coldly. "Theft and defamation. What a despicable cur you are, to blame your crimes on poor, humble Simon." He shot me a faux desolate look. "You see, Wayne. This is the kind of perfidy we are up against. Scum like this makes it impossible to help righteous, deserving believers. I know it's heartbreaking, but you need to be willing to educate the masses by smiting the wicked in any form. This will be your first lesson."


I stared at him. I could agree. Draw things out. I could wait for him to show even more of his true colors and put on a show…but I didn't want to. That little speech, combined with the obvious fact that poor Damon didn't do anything, made his current actions basically indefensible. It would be enough to raid the ministry and question Simon for sure, and I could guide them to the altar.


So I didn't respond with my words. I just hit him really hard with a stick. My staff appeared in my hand, and a quick, brutal thrust smashed it into his perfectly sculpted nose, smashing the bridge and sending him stumbling back in shock and horror as he covered his nose, trying to stanch the explosive bleeding.


"What…what did you just do?" he howled. "Where did you get that? How could you….heretic! Non-believer! Abomination!" His voice got higher pitched and more insane as he went on, and by the end he was screeching so loud I was expecting dogs to bard.


"You're a scumbag," I told him bluntly, spinning my staff between my fingers. "You're a monster, and a psychopath. You torment decent people to feed the sick fish freak you worship, and you don't even feel bad about it. The people in charge of this city know who you are, I've been gathering evidence, and I can provide them with the concrete proof to kick you out of this place, even with the backing of that C-ranker you're sucking up to."


His eyes bulged. "You're…what? You didn't even see anything! I kept you isolated in those fucking barracks. How could you know about the altar? About the Abyssal Lord I serve?"


I'd been talking about the city lord actually, but the Abyssal Lord WAS a C-ranker he was sucking up to, so I got the confusion. It didn't matter though. Abraham roared, charging forward, and a WAVE of mist erupted from him. Behind his form, I could see a massive effigy of a horrible creature, the mist twisting and weaving into the form of a tentacled monstrosity with glowing red eyes.


As it drew closer, I felt a wash of dread slam into me. It didn't shake my mind at all, but it was increasing in pressure as he approached. So I stopped bothering with token resistance and triggered Leviathan. My hair blazed up in green fire and the flames that subsumed me melted away the cold mist without a hint of suspense.


My staff flicked out, smashing into an ankle and he toppled forward. I vanished in a blaze of black fire, reappearing standing on his back, where I jammed my staff into the base of his skull. I didn't kill him, just pressed it into his neck so he could feel how close he was to death, and he froze.


"People like you are so pathetic," I told him conversationally. "Bullies get so wrapped up in their own perception of power that they forget what real power is. You're too pitiful to gain any actual strength, so you sold your soul to that fish freak so you could feel bigger than others. But without the disgusting tricks you learned from that monster, you're not actually any good for anything are you?"


"You can't!" He screamed, squirming under me, face ground into the dirt. "You can't DO THIS! My master is the true ruler of this world! You will respect me! You will debase yourself! You will release me!"


I pulled the staff back an inch and then smashed it into the base of his skull, and he slumped. "How about your just fuck off to dreamland and imagine I did," I said as I hopped down from his unconscious body.


I turned to the side where I could sense Caladwen. "Openly inciting me to attack an innocent person, ritual torture, pretty much admitting to theft, is that enough to drive him out?"


The city lord (lady?)'s sister appeared from nowhere, smirking down at him. "Oh that's plenty. It's more games than legality, really. We need a pretense more than we need hard evidence. It just needs to be a solid pretense. If you had been the only one here it would have been pointless, but since I was a witness…this asshole has got to GO."


"Kind of want to throw him in the ocean," I said maliciously. "I bet his bosses don't love failures. But that's your call. As long as you don't let him hurt anyone else. Also make sure you scoop up Simon. He's some kind of junior priest or something. Now, about my payment."


Her face fell. "That's…complicated. We found traces of your friends. But their location is a bit precarious. We can give it to you, but we aren't sure it'll be USEFUL to you. They appear to have been taken to Shadowcrack. Algenclave has them in the dungeons of the city lord estate. They're being guarded by a few powerful D-rankers no one has heard of before, and by Algenclave himself, of course."


I froze. That…that was the worst case scenario. Literally. My friends being captured by a hostile C-ranker and presumably at least some of the godchildren. We had no chance agains t a C-ranker. Not one with literally any time in that rank. A new C-ranker would be almost impossible to kill without a trick like I'd used last time, but we could pin them down. For someone further into the rank though…we had no shot.


Closing my eyes, I exhaled slowly. We needed to change the game. We needed backup of our own. I lifted my head as I opened them, focusing on Caladwen. "I'd like an audience with your sister. Can you arrange it?" Guess I needed to make someone else's wish come true.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Dezcarta lived in a castle. This was absolutely zero surprise to literally any of us. As the city lord, she had plenty of access to the best resources, and I wasn't sure why anyone would choose NOT to have a castle if given the choice.


We were led to the entrance hall and left to wait, and I waited with bated breath, my armor and mask back in place. I'd tried to use Dantalion to scan the place, but the castle was made of C-ranked materials, and I couldn't get a decent read. I ignored that, pacing back and forth as I considered my options, but I was stopped after a minute when a familiar hand caught mine, pulling me to a halt.


"Shane," Callie said softly. "This isn't on you. We came to help them, and we still will. Getting snatched up by this C-ranker was just bad luck."


Bethy chimed in. "She's right, you know. C-rankers do whatever to weaker Ascendants. No guarantee they would have been safe if they didn't know you. Actually, maybe the opposite. Chances are good that they're only alive now because they provide leverage. Knowing you probably saved them."


I just shook my head. "I get your point, but they wouldn't BE here if I hadn't painted a target on them to begin with."


"Yeah," said Abel lazily. "They might just be dead. We have no idea how your interaction helped or changed them, or how far reaching the effects are. Welcome to being alive. We're all just exploding balls of chaos bouncing off each other and careening into walls of random chance. Any person you've ever met might have been better off without you, or they might be a corpse now. No way to tell, and worrying about it is an exercise in pointless self pity."


I snorted in amusement. "Tell me how you really feel Abel, no need to sugar coat it."


"That WAS sugar coating it," he said dryly. "I didn't make loud sniffling baby noises at you or point and laugh. That was about the nicest way I could have said that."


My sister giggled at that, and I turned to glare at her, but she just stuck her tongue out. I smiled a bit, about to get into some relaxing bickering with my twin, but sadly my catharsis was cut off by Caladwen's return. The Citizen was gone, apparently having headed back once he finished his task, and she was our only real contact here. I made a note to pay her back for her help how I could.


"Alright," she said as she entered the room. "You've got ten minutes. I'm not sure exactly what you've got to offer, but if you're asking for what I think you are, I hope it's a lot. Dez isn't afraid of Algenclave, but challenging any of the generals is a stupid idea if you aren't SURE you'll win easily. It's usually best to team up with someone else who hates them, and she doesn't have any backup she would trust with an operation like that."


I nodded, unsurprised that it would be a hard sell, but I was pretty confident in my wares. Wish scrolls were extremely versatile, and would be indescribably tempting to anyone stuck at the peak of what a world could withstand. Within the same rank, skills and techniques were key to raising combat potential. Just like Abel, Bethy, Callie, and I could fight across our rank because of our powerful techniques and Skills, Dezcarta could theoretically go from a middling C-ranker to being nearly unbeatable at the same rank with a few wishes.


Most of the time, Ascendant power structures came down to two things, advancement or entrenchment. The two schools of thought were either to move forward as quickly as possible, relying on higher Impact and rapid core improvement to compete, or to firm up your foundations at the same level, making yourself unbeatable.


Ninety percent of Ascendants who HAD this choice (much like myself) chose the former, because no matter how powerful you got, at higher ranks, tier barriers were nearly impassable.


But in places with a power ceiling, entrenchment became a much more viable strategy. Since no one was behind a tier barrier, developing yourself to the extreme wasn't just NOT a pointless timesink, it was an integral part of the development process. Wishes were exponentially more effective to people in this situation, because rather than use them to advance like we did, they could use them to improve and integrate new techniques and Skills.


I was still thinking about the dichotomy when Caladwen led us into the throne room, where a red haired woman with an eye patch lounged on a giant iron chair that could NOT have been comfortable. She didn't even glance up from the book she was reading as we entered.


"Heard you helped me get rid of that shitbag priest," she drawled lazily. "As a reward, I'll hear you out. You've got five minutes, go."


"I'm Shane Wyndham, I'm a member of the Wyndham family of the Wish Curse Palace, and I can grant wishes. If you help us, I'll grant some of yours." I didn't hedge, didn't hold back. She might turn on us, but I had ways to escape if she did. She might be a C-ranker, but I had items and abilities that could let my friends get us clear. If I chose to use them.


She went still, her eye raising slowly to look at me, a predatory gleam in the single amber iris. "Well," she purred. "Isn't THAT interesting." In a blink, she was standing WAY too close, her face decidedly in my personal space as she stared into my mask. "Wishes, is it? How novel."


"I want your help rescuing my friends," I told her bluntly. "In exchange, I'll help YOU deal with the D-rankers Algenclave is working with. I suspect they're here for me anyway. I'll even supply you with the wishes ahead of time so you can use them in the fight. One of my wishes can be EXTREMELY devastating in combat. Bindings, suppression, direct attacks. So many possibilities."


Dezcarta looked…well, hungry was the best word I could come up with. Like she was a cat and I'd just let a mouse loose in front of her. I wasn't sure about the relationship between the generals, but I suspected that it wasn't positive. She'd been extremely keen to remove that priest, not because of his damage to the city, but because he was related to Algenclave. She must really want him dead, and I was giving her a surefire way to do that.


"You want my help to save your friends," she reiterated slowly. "It's possible, but how many of these 'wishes' will I get? If it's just the ones I need to destroy Algenclave, I won't gain much from them, will I?"


I chuckled. "Wishes need to be paid for with fair compensation. It's a requirement of my power and can't be changed. I can give ten, but you should know that you can only use the promise of aid to pay for a few of them at most. The rest you'll need to pay for out of pocket, and I can't do anything about that."


Sometimes I wondered if my ancestor had worked in such rigorous compensation rules just to justify not having to help every random person who arrived looking for a wish. The cost requirements certainly served a balancing purpose that enabled him to reach the heights of perfection required for that three times bonus, but they also made interactions regarding wishes much easier to deal with. No questions about freebies, it's impossible, pay up or get lost.


Knowing what I did about techniques, mythology, and domains, I wondered if this reflected a core mindset trait of the Wishmaster. Or maybe it had CAUSED that mindset trait, you never knew with Ascendants. Whatever the case, he clearly didn't mind the trait, since he didn't bother to erase it when authoring his Chronicle.


Once I explained how things worked, I took out ten scrolls. These were two thirds of my total non emergency scroll stash, but I wasn't going to be stingy with them. Aside from wanting to help my friends, like I'd told her already, it wasn't like she could get anything for free from them.


Picking one up, she examined it, then unfolded it and read over the scroll itself. The physical vessel of the scrolls wasn't super important, but it was still anchored in a specific way. Scrolls were the form I could use, and if it was possible to use anything else I wasn't aware of how. I didn't care much though, scroll, book, monogrammed cookie, it didn't matter what form it took as long as it worked.


She frowned at it as she read…something, I wasn't seeing what she did, though I probably could have if I tried.


"So you're saying I can use the agreement to help your friends as payment for one of these?" her voice was cautious, but optimistic. "Or was it more than one? How would that work? Would I have to make all the wishes up front?"


I shrugged. "Possibly, but it would be easier to break the task into multiple steps and pay for each one with a wish. In this case. Escort us to Shadowcrack and help us enter safely, delay or defeat Algenclave, then help us retreat safely with my friends in tow, to the best of your ability. Those terms sound reasonable?"


While I couldn't tell her what to wish for because it would have violated the spirit of 'fair compensation' I could tell her what kind of payment I wanted. That was just common sense. Otherwise my power would be useless.


She nodded slowly. "I can probably work with that. I have some followup questions though. What do you consider safely, when does my role in your entrance end and when does my role in your escape begin? What level of responsibility do I have for your experience inside as I delay Algenclave, at least as it regards to fallout or to his helpers?"


"Once we enter the building that houses the dungeons they're locked up in, your infiltration help will be concluded," I said after a moment. "Once we successfully leave the building your exfiltration duties will begin. We just need to get AWAY, it doesn't need to be perfect. As long as we can lost them initially, I have ways of disappearing."


Not to mention once we had my friends I could have Callie contact my grandmother to get us out. She'd been able to create an entrance for us when we arrived, and she was more than capable of extracting us, even through the spatial issues. She just needed an anchor point inside the Dungeon where she knew we could be found to make that connection. It was part of why Callie had the Starpluck Bangle on standby.


Dezcarta looked intrigued, and finally, after a bit more negotiation, she grinned and hopped down from her chair, ambling over to shake my hand. "Fantastic. Now I just need to figure out what to use these wishes for before we go, so, do you have any suggestions for me?"


Of course, I didn't. I couldn't tell her what to wish for, because if I was involved my bias toward the wish would make any payment similar to being paid twice. Luckily, I had other options. I grinned at her, even if she couldn't see it behind my mask. "Not personally, no. But lucky for you, I brought an expert at working with me on getting the most out of wishes. Allow me to introduce you to my wife." I put an arm around Callie, dragging her forward, and Dezcarta eyed her like a hungry wolf. I was too distracted by the upcoming mission to pay too much attention to Callie's groan of irritation. It was almost time to save my friends.

 

[Bezarius]

scarta

Click to shrink...

This got cut-off. It should be Dezcarta, I think.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Man, this place is kind of a dump," said Bethy as we stared off into the distance at Shadowcrack. "It had such a cool name, but now I'm just disappointed." She clicked her tongue at the jagged rocks barely peeking out over the surface of the terrain distastefully.


I turned to Dezcarta. "So…not to be that guy, but that place is made of black rocks and mostly underground, your city is made of metal and it's really tall. Who named these towns? Because whoever it was didn't exactly strain anything coming up with something creative. Not the point, I know, but I am curious."


Holly snorted. "I mean, this place is secretly run by cultists, right? They're not exactly known for creativity."


"We don't KNOW that," disagreed Chelsea. "I mean, clearly they have some involvement in the local power structure, what with the money thing, but we can't say for sure it's RUN by cultists. Maybe they've just deeply infiltrated the government."


"That's probably not better," Callie said with a sigh. "Anyway, so what's the plan here? Will they see us coming? Do you have a tunnel into this place like the Citizen had one out of Highhaven?"


The C-ranker shook her head. "No, nothing like that. I'm going to blow my way in and engage Algenclave directly. Caladwen and Derrick will lead her people in behind me, and their defensive formation will cover me for D-rank attacks. GIven how strong most of these people are supposed to be, I'm a bit worried they might have one or two burst attacks that are too much for me. That's why I arranged the secondary defensive wishes that I did, not to mention the escape."


Abel grinned. "Don't worry about the D-rankers. Bethy and I will be going in with you. No one is getting past us."


My sister cleared her throat. "ALL of us. Gabe will be leading the charge against the D-rankers, and given his path he should break ranks easily enough. Serah and Holly will harry from above, Sable will provide cover with her root puppets, Dom will be with Bethy and Able in the core group, and Dyasia, Bella, and I will be in the back providing long range support."


Bella frowned dismally. "I can't even do that. I know you're just coddling me because Master doesn't think I can handle this."


"Oh, good," I said kindly. "I thought we were being too subtle. Be good and stay out of the way."


"I want the Dryad with me though," Sable interrupted. "Her tree powers will help boost my witchcraft by a substantial amount. Imagine how much she can enhance my root puppets."


I nodded to her. "Agreed, Daysia should be able to help a lot. Bella…jokes aside, I need you to stay safe. You'll benefit from this battle immensely, just by being around, but I don't want to risk you while you're still learning. There will be time later for you to join battle directly. For now you're not on the same level as the rest of us."


"I like how you pretend it's just one level," Chelsea said dryly. "Because I think we all know Abel and Bethy are on a whole other plane. I mean, admittedly, you're probably close because you're so stupidly versatile, and Callie has been working on that new-"


My wife cleared her throat, cutting her off. "I haven't even come close to finishing making that work. Honestly, I've been too worried about starting. I think I'm going to wait for my new racial trait before I attempt it. Celia says she can shield me from the negative effects of the scythe with her energy, but I'd like a second layer of protection, just in case." With Dezcarta around, she kept it vague, but we all knew what she wasn't saying. The power of a god was nothing to mess around with.


Which was fair. She hadn't spoken much about the scythe or what they were doing with it, but I was glad she was being cautious. I wasn't at a level to mess with anything involving that scythe, be it technique, skill, or even a physical object. My grandmother would have a much better idea what to do with something like that.


I shook my head. "It's fine. We've got more than enough firepower. Bella, Chelsea, Daysia, you each have one of the emergency scrolls, right? Keep some chits handy in case you need to pay something off."


They all nodded, and I relaxed a bit. That would mitigate a lot of the danger. Callie squeezed my hand tightly, showing me she was there, and then stared at the city. "With so many shadows around, I'll go with Shane. My current Solid Path should make me uniquely suited to pushing away the abyssal darkness that permeates the shadow in this place. As long as we don't actually enter it'll be fine."


"Murmur will cover us otherwise," I agreed. "We'll be infiltrating directly while the lot of you play decoy. Anyone bothered by that?"


No one was. Dezcarta watched us in amusement, then pulled out a small glass orb and broke it. In the distance I heard revving sounds. As we watched, a wave of those weird candle cars broke through the mist at the edge of the island, coming off the walkway two at a time. They fanned out, and Dezcarta nodded to us all and then turned. Bending her knees, she crouched down and JUMPED.


The C-ranker's form shot up into the air at an angle, plummeting toward the city as the wave of cars approached the edges of the crack. Dezcarta flung out her hands and a massive cloud of metal dust erupted into the air around her. She jerked both hands down and the cloud condensed into a RAIN of swords, all of them rocketing down towards the city.


"DEZCARTA!" boomed an enraged voice. "HOW DARE YOU!?" There was a rumble and the ground split, an eruption of magma exploding from the earth and condensing into a single spread hand, intercepting the majority of the swords.


"Alright, go!" I told the others. I grabbed Callie's hand and triggered Murmur, the two of us bolting towards the city. After a few steps, I triggered my Waltz, the two of us vanishing in a blaze of black flame. The scenery flickered as we blinked across it. Flash, empty dirt, flash, magma, flash, the edge of a cliff, then finally one last flash and we appeared in a dark street overlooked by the clifftop.


We stopped as soon as we landed, and Callie flicked out a hand. She drove all the darkness from the space around us, cleansing it from my domain as Murmur got to work on the world around us, analyzing.


There was a decent chance that we wouldn't have been noticed because of the darkness anyway, but it obviously possessed a trait that I couldn't really identify. Having Callie push it away ensured the Abyssal Lords couldn't use it to track us, or worse, the Void Child itself. I hoped.


After about a minute, I'd eliminated all traces of us well enough not to worry about any D-rankers we might meet. Once that was done, I started walking slowly forward, Callie and I working together to keep the Domain clear. "Alright, Dez is going to be watching out for us in case she needs to step in. Unless she sees someone attacking an empty space though, she won't be able to spot us once Murmur has had time to sink in."


This was still within the bounds of our agreement, since it was my idea, and Callie nodded along as we walked. We didn't exactly run, but we were hurrying, and we made it to the city lord's manor quickly enough. Rather than a castle, this one was carved right into the cliff face, sort of a cave mansion. That meant there was only one entrance and sneaking in would have been much more difficult…if we weren't undetectable.


Just to be safe, we cased out the entrance for a few minutes, giving Murmur time to really excavate as much detail as possible before we slipped past the admittedly already distracted guards.


The descent down into the dungeon was surprisingly uneventful, and I was riding high when we finally reached the lowest levels. When we did though, I was brought up short by the terrible conditions my friends were being kept in. All of them were alive, thankfully, but they'd been beaten badly and they looked hungry and dirty, trapped inside steel cages with thick metal bars.


I scanned the area with Murmur, then dropped the domain, letting them see me as I rushed to check on them. Elena noticed me first, her head jerking up. "Fist!" she said anxiously. "You can't be here! This is a trap!"


Nodding, I knelt down, examining the floor. Sure enough, the bars were only set into the rock. I focused hard, triggered Wrath in a small area directly under the metal. I infused the ground with black fire, pouring in the destructive energy, then triggered Agares, shifting the dust away to reveal an empty space. It wasn't enough, so I did it a few more times, widening the hole until she could slip out under the bars.


Once that was done, I freed Desria, Cavallo, Vesper, Chester and Ray. Making sure everyone was ok. Once that was done, I sighed in relief. "Alright, now that you're out, we need to go. Elena's right, this is definitely a trap. We avoided being noticed coming in, but there's no way they aren't going to check on you. We aren't being watched right now, or I'd have picked up on it with Murmur, but that could change at any ti-" I cut off my sentence, vanishing in a burst of flame as an bullet streaked through the space where I'd been standing, smashing into an through the stone of the wall.


I stared at the incredibly deep hole, warily glancing back at the shooter. It had taken a powerful domain and a LOT of effort for me to dissolve that stone, and that domain was MADE to dissolve stone. That bullet had punched through it like paper.


"You missed," said a dainty voice as a pair of people appeared in the open doorway. The voice came from a small girl with two braided plaits of hair, dressed in a complicated old fashioned dress. Her eyes appeared to be SEWN open, and her lips were stitched in an incredibly wide grin that somehow didn't affect her ability to talk.


The guy with her was dressed in a beige coat and pants, thick leather boots and a wide brimmed beige hat with one edge bent up. He had a thick mustache and a monocle, and was holding an incredibly large and threatening C-rank rifle as he stared at us thoughtfully. "This one has excellent instincts," he said approvingly. "T'will be a princely hunt. A hunter must be patient above all, Rulka."


"Yes, I've listened to your speeches Thaddeus," said the girl in a bored tone that belied her forced cheerful expression. "I don't care how you kill them, as long as I can keep the bodies. Their skins look exquisite. Imagine the dresses I can make."


I very carefully did NOT examine what her current dress was made of after she said that. I didn't want to now. I triggered Mornax, stepping forward in front of my friends as I silently instructed Callie to prepare to flee. I was going to have to make an opening here, but I was confident I could manage.


Opening my hand, I called up my staff, whirling it around my fingers defensively, building up momentum to prepare. "I don't know kind of idioms where you're from, but where I grew up, we have a saying about counting chickens before them hatch."


Rulka brightened. "Oh! Where we're from, the saying is 'don't cook your piglets before you slaughter them'. It toughens the meat."


Thaddeus rolled his eyes, shouldering his rifle and taking aim. "Enough chitchat Rulka. The hunt is on." He pulled the trigger, and this time I wasn't too distracted to hear the low boom that followed the bullet as it sped toward me. I couldn't teleport away because my friends were behind me, so I triggered Belial, my staff flicking up to deflect the bullet slightly while it was still a few feet out, allowing it to slice harmlessly through the air over my shoulder. Rulka, none too pleased, snarled, and then she rushed me and the fight was on.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

My reaction to Rulka's attack was slow and deliberate. I sunk down in my stance, triggered Mornax and Belial, and faced her head on. Mentally, I told Callie to take the others and get out. If she could get outside to Dez she would be safe. In the meantime, Rulka was already halfway to me, and my staff whirled out to meet the claws that sprouted as she shifted into a werewolf.


Dantalion flickered out to give me an idea of what was going on, and with that information, I began to deflect.


Belial was my first form, and I had always known there was untapped potential in that ability. Not just the acid, which could be improved when I had the time or inclination, but in the basic principles of the staff art.


I had based Belial on the principles of deflection and leverage, using minimum force applied perfectly to nullify or offset power. It was a useful and extensive potential area of study, but I had moved on quickly to the raw power of Mephistopheles. I'd ignored the potential of my very first staff form for far too long, and now that I was focused on it, with Dantalion as a support, I could finally apply the leverage at maximum efficacy.


Callie was running, knowing I could leave when I wanted with Double Trouble or my Waltz, so I was able to take my time and get a feel for this combat style. With Mornax keeping me safe, I was able to test and experiment, and that was what I did.


I started basic. Normal deflection, moving the attacks slightly aside. Not strikes, but gentle guidance applied at EXACTLY the right place. A sweeping tap at the wrist joint combined with a planted butt cap in the dirt, a swipe to the back of the leg, and trip or a jab at the feet.


Rulka attacked ferociously, but when she realized she wasn't making any headway she retreated. As I watched, she reached up and grabbed her fur, screaming as she tore the pelt right off, revealing her own human form underneath. She threw the still corroding pelt to one side, then flicked her wrists and a long sheet of skin appeared. Swirling it like a cloak, she wrapped it around her dress clad form and it melted into her, vanishing into her skin and clothes like an invisible film.


I cursed. Skinwalker. It was a branch of witchcraft, using skins to act as totems to allow the use of other powers. It was a bit like Zeke's masks (which actually were NOT witchcraft, interestingly enough, because he literally sealed the soul into the mask instead of creating a thaumaturgical link). Skinwalkers were considered unusually horrible even by dark Ascendant standards, because due to the nature of witchcraft they had to keep the beings they skinned ALIVE to tap into their powers.


This particular skin was apparently a harpy. Skinwalkers had to use the skin of people with racial traits, because otherwise the ability doesn't become part of the body until S-rank when an Ascendant combines with their sagas. It was highly illegal in the Fairieland for this reason, though it was an ability that admittedly fit in well with Verdyn's whole vibe.


Rulka, now with wings and sharp talons, rushed forward, screeching as her claws wheeled and struck. As she attacked, Theddeus took aim, readying his rifle as he searched for a perfect opportunity to attack. Unfortunately for him, I had Dantalion active, and I was even now working on the next step up from my normal deflection stance. Specifically, control.


Deflection was useful and powerful, but the true power of leverage wasn't just moving or avoiding things. It was controlling more powerful things with inferior force. My staff snapped out, the claws clanging off the end caps and the sapsteel wrapping the shaft, and my deflections moved the claws (and the harpy attached to them) not just out of the path to attack me, but INTO the path of Thaddeus's attacks.


Every deflection altered the flow of the battle, but with Dantalion, I was able to take advantage of my knowledge of the area and of Thaddeus's movements to put Rulka in exactly the wrong place every time he was about to fire. My feet started to move, not enough to disrupt Mornax but enough to expand my range of motion, slowly controlling more and more of the floor.


It was ALMOST like a domain, but I didn't allow it to become one. I wasn't trying to make a new power, I was trying to master my old one. I slowly expanded my range, taking up more of the room, controlling more of the space. Despite being easily twenty feet away, even Thaddeus was wrapped up in the effect.


I wasn't just using my staff to apply leverage to Rulka's movements, I was using RULKA to apply leverage to Thaddeus. The longer we fought, the more seamless it became, she became my weapon as much as the Ten Demons Tree was, and with every strike, the energy of Belial infected and corrupted her.


That was when I finally came to the conclusion I should have reached ages ago. I'd been severely limiting myself with this form. I used the staff infused with corruption to burn and trap and manipulate, but now Rulka was infused with that same acidic fire. She wasn't just a metaphorical weapon. She was a LITERAL weapon through which I could channel my form. As she fell further and further under my sway, I was able to control more and more of her movements, not just with strikes and leverage, but with the form itself.


She slowly moved back, matching my movements still, but now there was no deflection, no back and forth, there was just a give and take, a dance where I was in control. When I got her backed far enough up I moved slightly to one side, pulling her into an attack, then pushed her with my mind to adjust. Her clawed foot swept past my face, continuing the arc to lash out at Thaddeus.


The hunter stumbled back in shock, his gun imposed between them, his face twisted in confusion. "Rulka? What are you doing?"


The Skinwalker, her eyes now burning green-black, didn't respond, darting forward to attack as I moved fluidly around the other side to assault him from the opposite position. His eyes widened in panic and he started firing his gun. I knew the bullet was absurdly powerful, with Dantalion active, I could see the secrets of the gun after being around it for long enough. The entire barrel was lined with incomplete formations. When the bullet spun along the rifling it completed each formation, gathering power until it exploded out of the end of the barrel to tear apart whatever it struck.


I could deflect it, of course, but it was difficult and involved basically stacking a lot of really cheap abilities to barely manage to offset the damage, so instead, I just maneuvered Rulka into the path of the shots. We spun around him, Rulka's body jerking at the bullet impacts but continuing the movements I'd pushed her into.


My control was improving as I went. Corruption, manipulation, I'd always had this ability, always had this potential. Belial was made for this kind of combat. I'd even seen it a bit when I was creating Limbo. My original form of that domain had been similar to this, but I'd reworked it into its current much more powerful form. Now the vision I'd seen back then had become clearer, and it was something I didn't even need a domain to accomplish.


Sadly, almost immediately after that thought, my control slipped slightly. My corruption was mainly meant for damaging others. The extra corrosion from the acid had actually damaged my control abailities. During one of the bullet impacts the overwhelming damage overloaded the corruption and Rulka broke free, turning and rushing me in an attempt to kill me.


Deciding I'd stalled long enough, I triggered Double Trouble, then used my Waltz to escape. It took them a split second to discover the illusion, and by then I'd broken line of sight, dropped all my forms and entered Murmur. I'd already scanned most of the hallways so I was able to conceal myself perfectly as I slipped away. I saw the two D-rankers run past, calling for others who appeared to search, but none of them were even close to finding me.


I found them all waiting for me outside. Once they'd exited, Callie had been able to tap into Bael and combined it with her shadow manipulation to conceal them. When she saw me, she beamed. "Thank the gods, I was getting worried."


Glancing up, I studied the sky above us. Dez was still in combat, her rain of swords tearing apart the giant magma hand as fast as Algenclave could reform it. Taking out a small glass orb she'd given me, I broke it, and I was relieved to see a slight hitch in the fight as she detected it, ready to come and get us.


We waited for a minute, and then there was a pulse of energy. From the sky, chains of golden light lashed down, whipping around Algenclave's magma armored form. He'd emerged from the city in person to assume better control while we were inside, and now he was wide open for the binding spell Dez had wished for. I could hear his scream of outrage as he hauled on the chains, trying to break free, but for a short period of time, those chains were basically unbreakable.


Dez flicked her hands, another cloud of steel appearing around her, and this time she condensed it into one sword. An absolutely gigantic sword with a razor sharp point obviously intended for thrusting. With a tremendous cry of effort, she sent the sword spearing forward, and the point jammed into the magmatic chest of her target. With all his defenses suppressed by the chains, he stood no chance. The blade speared him through the torso, the rest of the edge splitting him in half heightwise as it went.


Crowing victoriously, Dez swept down, showing me blade wings I hadn't seen before as she dove down to our location. "You all ready?" she asked eagerly. "We've got to get out of here!"


Before I could respond, I felt something SHIFT around us. Something I'd felt before. The suppression of someone actively flexing their soul at me. Not just one someone either. Multiple someones.


Dez's head snapped up. "FUCK!" she spat. "Selvarin, Dramin, Escurta? I don't know the fourth or fifth one, but those three are powerful generals. How did they get here so fast?"


Grimacing, I glanced up in the air where a series of forms were floating out over the city toward us. "Bethy!" I called for my vampire friend. When Dez had killed Algenclave the rest of my group had headed here. "You know the drill. Get us into the Domain!" With her Domain we could all be moved by a single ability. I'd considered how to properly apply this little boost, and I'd realized it would be best to use it in conjunction with Callie's Starpluck Bangle.


My wife pulled off the bangle, tossing it to Bethy as she appeared, and all of us were pulled into her Domain as she prepared to trigger the bangle, letting us all escape this fucking dungeon.


And that was when things went wrong. There was some kind of…breakage. Some kind of force striking something beyond the normal world. Behind reality, i felt a ripple as something cracked, and Callie's eyes widened in horror. "Void Shattering! Bethy wait, don't-" But it was too late. Bethy had triggered the Bangle, which I could only assume utilized the void to travel.


There was a sensation like I was being sucked through a straw full of microscopic razor blades on a spin cycle, and I screamed as I was deconstructed, reconstructed, then deconstructed again and put back together out of order. By the time it ended, I was barely coherent, and all of us were lying on hard stone, staring up a swirling red purple bubble of energy that blotted out the whole sky. "Well…" I said slowly as I sat up. "That could have gone better. Now anyone know where the fuck we actually are?" Because wherever it was, I couldn't imagine being there was a good thing.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I was kind of freaking out. The Starpluck Bangle was an S-rank artifact my grandmother had given to Callie. It was SUPPOSED to be basically infallible. Using it would bring you anywhere you had a mark, and Callie had left one on the Acheron. We SHOULD have been safely aboard the ship now. Instead we were sitting on a rocky outcropping overlooking some kind of ancient looking stone city.


"Where the fuck ARE we?" I demanded. "This isn't the ship, but it doesn't look like we're still in the Shoals. Not based on THAT." I pointed up at the dome surrounding us.


Callie grimaced. "I THINK we're in a Void Shallow. You know how when people spatially expand the real world, it creates a bubble of real space inside the void? A Void Shallow is the opposite. It's a bubble of expanded void intruding into real space. It's not…exactly the void. But it's not NOT the void."


I frowned down at the city in the distance. "That's not actually very comforting. How the hell did we end up here? Isn't the Bangle supposed to be foolproof?"


"The Bangle is a method of teleportation," she said with a shrug. "Spatial powers and teleportation involve the void. This place is in a weird spot in the void, presumably because of the Void Child. Celia taught me a decent amount about the void when I was training with her. Our Abyssal Path takes a lot of inspiration from the void."


That explained why she'd been vulnerable to the Void Child's interference. It also meant we weren't completely in the dark. "Ok, so…how do we get out? I'm assuming the Bangle won't work a second time?"


She shook her head. "We're not in real space. There's no anchor for it to grab onto in the void. We need to get out of the shallow, and unfortunately, much like with expanded buildings, we can only do that in one place. The entrance. Aside from the fact that there's no way it won't be guarded, I also have no idea where it might be."


"Damn," I cursed quietly. "That's not ideal. Can you get in touch with my grandmother again? Does the mirror work here?"


Callie sighed, shaking her head again. "The mirror uses a void frequency formation. It's the only way we were able to talk through the shield around the dungeon. The Void Shallow is full of void energy, and it creates interference. The mirror can still send and receive, but the signal won't be able to get out and it'll pick up clouds of unrecognizable gibberish."


Searching the area, I noticed another problem. My eyes widened as I saw Chelsea sitting off to the side with Gabe, a familiar head of dark hair cradled in her lap. "Shit! Bethy!" I scrambled across the plateau we'd found ourselves on to check on my friend, and was relieved to see that she was in decent shape, just unconscious. "What happened?" I asked my sister anxiously.


Serah and Holly were standing nearby looking concerned, but Chelsea hardly seemed to notice any of the rest of us. "I think her Domain was damaged by…whatever the hell caused this. I couldn't really pin down what happened, but I felt something."


"Me too," I agreed. "Some kind of ripple behind the space around us." Glancing over my shoulder, I spotted my wife. "You called it something before she triggered the bracelet, what was it?"


Callie made her way over to crouch next to Bethy. Abel, Mel, Bella, and Daysia had fallen back to watch worriedly, and they were fanned out around us in a loose circle, providing psychological support and implied protection, even if I had no clue how much good it would do. "It's called Void Shattering. It's…if you exert the right kind of pressure on space you can cause it to break. It's a rare ability and a really dangerous one. Anything spatial is pretty rare, just look at how scary Abel's spatial lubrication is.


"Void Shattering is the opposite of Space Shattering. You destroy the void, basically creating a blender of fragmented void on the other side of the spatial barrier." Her expression was bleak. "It's extremely dangerous. Trying to teleport through a shattered void is like jumping into a meat grinder. Bethy's Domain is a kind of altered space, the prototype of a world. Pushing something like that through a fragmented section of void can cause a lot of damage."


Grimacing, I knelt down, triggering Sammael and then Zagan. Focusing, I triggered my Life Nova. I heard a trilling cry from nearby, and looked up to find Archie watching from a stone he'd perched on. I blinked in surprise. "You're out? What about the others?" Chalk, Luggage, Poptarts, and Donuts had all been resting in Bethy's Domain since we arrived.


Archie, being a Life Nova Phoenix, was pretty much antithetical to the creepy murder mist we'd been seeing since arrival. While we hadn't known much of the situation before entering, we were pretty sure he might have a reaction, so Bethy had been housing him. My companion looked as worried as the rest of us, cawing softly as he hopped over to join me. He poked Bethy with a wing, chirping again when she didn't stir.


"I know, bud," I told him sadly. "It's not natural, seeing her this quiet. Think you can help me out?" Behind him, I saw Luggage crouching nearby, though the cats appeared to be hiding in Bethy's shadow. They looked as concerned as my little buddy did.


Callie's hand fell on my shoulder. "We both can. But we'll need Abel. I think there are some void fragments stuck in her Domain. I can…kind of see them? I don't like how familiar I'm becoming with the void, if I'm being honest. But Abel should be able to help us remove them. Chelsea, you might be needed too."


My sister's head snapped up. "Of course," she said quickly. "Anything, what do I do?"


"I'll use my Abyssal energy to isolate the void fragments," Callie said as she raised her hands, clouds of darkness gathering around them. "But I don't work with the void directly, and my Abyssal Path isn't really void. The energy will taint the Domain. I need you to cleanse the leftover energy while Abel using spatial lubrication to create paths for the fragments to be ejected. Then Shane can use Zagan's purification abilities to force them out, and they should take the Path of least resistance. Finally, Archie can flood the damaged areas with Life Nova, repairing the injuries as they form."


I was a bit worried that it wouldn't work. This Domain wasn't a soul, or a body, it was a world, or at least the beginning of one. But in some ways, it was also an ability. Bethy's Domain was integrated with her racial trait, that was how Lark had been able to anchor it. So it WAS a part of her, and I had to hope that was enough.


"Before we start, let me try something," I closed my eyes, triggering Dantalion, and then let the information spill into my mind, and through it into the bond with Callie. She was able to share the info with me easily enough, so this operation should be nothing special. With the detailed feedback, at least for the two of us, we could more carefully manage the situation. Callie beamed at me, closing her eyes as she sorted through the incoming details.


As I sat and watched, I could almost…feel something. A sort of warped space around Bethy. Like a heat distortion in the air. The longer I looked, the clearer it became. But despite staring for a while, I couldn't see her actual Domain. It was more like I was watching space bleed out. It was deeply disturbing.


Callie seemed to be able to perceive more. Or rather, she was able to parse the information she was getting more accurately. It just showed me that my forms weren't invincible. Dantalion could scan an area deeply and dig up lots of minute details, but unless I could understand the information, it wouldn't really process. Like my mind just ignored it, filtering it out as excess data. This wasn't a flaw of Dantalion, but a feature, in order to stop me from going insane from microscopic nonsense.


Callie, however, was able to parse the void energy because of her new Solid Path (and that was worrying me as much as her) and within a minute she had begun, pouring darkness into the heat haze and deep into the Domain to surround the void fragments.


One by one, we all did our parts. With Callie's darkness showing us the fragments, Chelsea was easily able to apply her purification to the shards, cleansing the abyssal energy away again and leaving the shards both revealed and safe to handle. Abel, seeing his cue, created a series of paths through the Domain with his spatial lubrication, and I applied Zagan's purifying fire to the shards themselves.


Much like a splinter being forced out by a healing wound, the shards were pushed forcefully along the canals he created by the purification power, cleansing the unnatural energy from the wounds. As they were pushed out, Archie flooded the injuries in the Domain with Life Nova energy, and even as I watched the cleaned and prepared Domain space began to knit back together.


Even with all of us working together, we were forced to take it slow. One shard at a time, infuse, purify, prepare, cleanse, heal. We almost killed her when we did the first one, and only Dantalion allowed Callie to catch the shard before it perforated the spatial vessel we'd prepared and adjust it so it didn't shred Bethy even further.


But with that experience and Callie and I directing, we were slowly able to adjust the process. One by one, we cleansed the shards. Some were huge, the size of dinner plates. Some were no bigger than my thumb. They were EVERYWHERE, and the sheer amount of spatial energy bleeding from the Domain had me convinced that Bethy would probably have been dead if she wasn't a Vampire.


Somehow, when each shard was removed, her Domain began to suck the bled out energy back up, like it was draining the space away. This actually caused an issue a few times, because the spatial vessels Abel was making would be drained if the shard we were working on was too close to one that hadn't finished healing yet. But after some trial and error we managed to get them all out.


Bethy's face, pinched in an uncharacteristic grimace of quiet pain, smoothed over, and her breathing became more even as we finished. We all slumped down onto the rock and I shut off Dantalion, groaning as I rubbed my temples. "That was rough. She's ok though, I think. Dantalion isn't picking up any issues. I think she just needs to rest."


Sadly, both Archie and I were drained dry, and neither of us would be able to muster the life energy to supercharge her recovery. I wished Jessie was around, but with my friend out of imminent danger, I could afford to wait. Probably.


I glanced up across the stone platform to where my friends were waiting with Dezcarta. Bella had gone over to explain things to them while we'd been working, and was still over there catching up with Chess. They looked tired and bruised, but mostly alright, and I was glad their time in the dungeon hadn't done too much damage.


"Alright," I said loudly as I stood up. "Bethy is going to be alright. But she needs to rest. We'll take shifts on watch, and everyone who was involved in the healing will get first rest. Gabe, Mel, Serah, Holly, you guys will be on first watch. Dezcarta, if you're willing to help out with this I can use it as a payment for another wish. Everyone else…bust out your sleeping bags. We're camping here for the night." It was a sign of how exhausted we all were that no one argued. When we woke up though…we'd need to venture out into that strange alien city.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next morning, after I stored my wishes, we got ready to descend. Callie, who had been distracted all night, called everyone to a stop before we did. "Everyone needs to be careful. The void is a place without real space, and space and time are connected. Temporal anomalies are common in Void Shallows. In fact, the rules or reality themselves can be extremely malleable here. If this challow has a master, we might run into some strange laws we have to follow."


"Did my grandmother really teach you all this when you were training with her?" I asked her worriedly. I could tell from her tone that Callie didn't feel confident in this information. Not that she didn't know if it was true, but more that she didn't know where it was COMING from. Which wasn't ideal.


Callie looked nervous. "Not…all of it. I keep remembering things. Things I shouldn't be remembering. I think it's from some of the Abyssal energy I incorporated into my Path. I wasn't going to mention it until we were safe, but…it's kind of worrying me."


I could tell. She'd been occluding our bond a bit, but just enough to shroud the details. I knew her well enough to feel when she was concerned, even with only vague emotions coming through. "Just…try not to engage," I said worriedly. "Abel and I will take the front. You and Bethy can hang back and recuperate."


"Lame! That sounds boring," Bethy chirped as she skipped up behind Callie, throwing an arm over her shoulder. "We're totally tough enough to deal with some stupid brain darkness. Don't worry Cal, I'll help you keep it out. I'm good at that kind of thing. You can fight as much as you want."


Callie's eyes moistened, and I could see how much it touched her that Bethy was willing to stand with her when she was such a potential danger. She expected it from me, we were married, but Bethy…our vampire friend never ceased to amaze me with her courage, at least when she wasn't befuddling me with all the other aspects of her personality. We all beamed, confident as we descended the plateau to reach the archway of the ruined city.


There were no guards, no gates, no barriers at all. Just a single sign hanging next to the arch that said "Don't use the letter Y".


Callie grimaced. "I was afraid of that." She said worriedly. "There's a Void Official. Someone is manifesting laws with intent instead of leaving them to the natural functions of the void. Once we cross the arch, we have to follow the rules."


"Otherwise…" I asked slowly, pretty sure I already knew.


"Otherwise we get shunted out of the Shallow and into the Void proper," she said grimly. "Space and time don't exist in the void, like I said, which means moving there, at least without a specific ability to control it, shifts you in ways unrelated to realspace. You might move an inch and end up falling into an S-rank star going supernova halfway across the universe once you're out."


I grimaced. "Alright people, look sharp, don't use that letter." I could already tell that was going to be annoying, but it wouldn't be TOO big of a problem.


Everyone nodded, and we lined up shoulder to shoulder, in a curved line that would let us more easily keep track of our surroundings. With that done, we entered the city. As soon as we stepped across the arch, the world became…heavier. Everything got cold and hollow, like any solid object we saw was just an egg shaped like what that thing was supposed to be, and any interaction would cause it to hatch and slaughter us.


Besides us though, I could see other people now. They were faint, more ghosts than anything, but they walked through the streets around us, passing through my friends. One of them seemed to notice me, but before I could say anything, Callie grabbed my head and yanked it around, pointing me at a sign. "Don't speak to anything without any eyes."


I quickly realized the ghost I'd been about to address had a blurry, faded face, with only a mouth visible. I swallowed hard, then nodded a thank you at my wife. "Alright people," I said again. "Mind the signs. Don't use the letter, and don't speak to beings without optical orbs."


Figuring out how to say that without using the letter Y was harder than I'd expected, but more annoying that difficult. With my Focus, it wasn't a problem, and just to be safe, I split off a parallel to focus exclusively on that. Callie stared hard at the ghosts. "Be careful," she warned. "These ghosts might not all be harmless."


Everyone tensed, but no one said anything. The easiest way to avoid slipping up was not to talk. We had to find the exit, and we were pretty sure that was in the center of the city, in the giant temple complex we could see from outside.


This, I was pretty sure, was the underwater city Abraham had mentioned in his sermon. I wasn't even remotely surprised that it turned out to be a hellscape full of dead people, he'd been that kind of guy. We walked on, ignoring the ghosts, even the ones that tried to get in our way and speak to us. Especially me. I realized after a few steps that I might count as not having eyes, and I mentally messaged Callie, having her pass that on just in case.


After about twenty minutes, we came to a crossroads. A sign hung in the middle from a post. "Walk, don't run."


Reaching up, I pulled my mask off before addressing my friends. Without the mask it should be safe for them to respond. I was glad none of them had replied verbally to my first instructions. These signs were trickier than I had first assumed. "All of us should bunch up. I don't like being so spread out. Clump together."


I'd dropped all my forms except Sammael and Mornax. I'd tried to keep Dantalion active, but the whole are had some sort of interference buzzing through it. It cascaded through my senses, creating a kind of echo that continued to loop and amplify until my brain felt like it was going to explode, so I'd immediately dropped it.


We continued along the road, heading for the temple complex, but we were quickly drawn to a stop by the least expected member of the party. Dezcarta pulled up short, her eye wide as she stared at a figure standing in the center of the road. A man, middle aged and gaunt, with sunken eyes and a light stubble of salt and pepper hair. "D-dad?"


The man had been glaring down a series of ghosts surrounding him, but at her words, he turned around and raised a brow at her. "Do we know each other, miss? I'm afraid there must be some confusion. Though I have daughters, both are small children."


"Carmichael Taggart," she said quickly, her sole eye locked on his face. "Who disappeared eight decades ago, leaving behind a wife named Nasha and two daughters, Caladwen and Dezcarta. When I was five, I remember being carried to the baker, and we would each get an extra sweet roll. We'd eat them on the walk home without opening the box, so mom and Ad never found out."


He blinked at her in astonishment. "...Dez? What happened?" he paused. "Wait, I disappeared eight decades ago?" He looked lost. "I don't understand. I've been walking for just a short time."


I was mildly impressed they'd managed that whole conversation without using the letter Y. I wasn't sure I'd have remembered. Still, that wasn't the main issue. I turned to Callie. "Like I said," she shrugged. "Time and space don't work the same in the void. Or in the shallow. Him being here decades ago doesn't mean we won't run into him. Whether he's some kind of temporal echo like the ghosts or has been in some kind of timesink, I have no idea, but we should get out of here fast."


"Is there some method to anchor us?" I asked worriedly. "With the Path related to this place?" Not being able to say the fucking WORD Abyss was really inconvenient. I wondered if that was intentional, a way to slowly pile on difficulties until we couldn't function.


Callie raised her hand, and the darkness of the street around us began to pool at our feet, our shadows expanding as she focused. While she did that, I turned to Carmichael. "So…I guess we've got an open spot in the group. Interested?"


The ghosts behind him, all of whom had eyes, luckily, booed and hissed. The spokesperson, a large barrel chested man with a thick ghostly beard, stepped forward to sneer at me. "Fools! None shall pass our barricade. If thou wish to proceed, it shall be through our incorporeal flesh and translucent bone!"


I honestly couldn't tell if the weird dialect was a symptom of being from an earlier time, another region, or just an affectation to avoid the letter Y, but it was irritating. I just glared back. Just to fuck with them, I slipped my mask back on before responding. "As if we're scared to go through a few phantom wisps. Not that it would even come to that. I imagine it would be difficult to have a fight without being forced to run. We have staggering amounts of firepower." I gestured to where Dayna (the name of the heaven murder elf Bethy had converted to our side) stood menacingly in silence, a hand in her quiver.


I'd honestly lost track of Dayna after the mess in the ocean. In my defense there were a LOT of us here, and she didn't talk much. Apparently she had been willing to become one of Bethy's thralls in order to keep her word, which was good because Bethy had no one to feed on in here. She could go without, but having a source of blood and points made it easier to maintain her control.


Bethy could theoretically feed on anyone, but feeding on non thralls was excruciatingly painful, and it broke her heart to subject anyone she cared about to that kind of pain. She mostly avoided eating as much as possible. Rationing blood she stole in combat through her domain. I'd felt it when she cut into me with her claws during our fight, Bethy's "bite" was more than just what she did with her teeth.


The ghosts, seeming to notice the interplay, hesitated. "There is no passage," hedged the leader. "Sir Delphran demands this. To allow a departure would be tantamount to rebellion."


I frowned at that. "Delphran? Is that the name of the Lord of this Void Shallow?"


He barked out a laugh. "Though jests," he jeered obnmoxiously. "Sir Dephran is the eldest of the spirits in this place. All who lack the flesh of the living give respect."


Sighing, I turned to gesture for Carmicheal to come stand behind us, leaving him to catch up with his daughter. "Well, it seems we're at an impasse," I said with a shrug. "Move or die, we don't have time to argue."


Callie had tied our shadows together in some strange ritual diagram that I'd never seen before and found VERY worrying. It would apparently anchor us temporally so we didn't end up lost in time, but she hadn't know how to do that a minute ago. I was in a hurry and these bastards were in my way. "Abel," I told my friend coldly. "Take a walk."


Grinning, he cracked his neck in both directions and then started to stroll forward. At one step the air rippled, at two it started to tint, and at three steps Abel was gone and a figure made of rippling swirling blood had taken his place. The ghosts, understandably, got the hell out of the way.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Carmichael filled the rest of us in on his situation once Abel came back. The C-ranker had gotten entangled with an Abyssal Lord before his disappearance, and had ended up dragged into the sea. They'd battled underwater for weeks, only for Carmichael to get pulled into the Void Shallow, the entrance of which was apparently at the bottom of the ocean.

His experiences here weren't much more detailed than ours. From his perspective he'd only been here a few days. Entering had been a bit more complicated, and he told us more than a few things about the entrance, including exactly where in the ocean it happened to be, namely at the bottom of one of the deepest trenches in the abyss.

The entrance location wasn't the WORST thing to hear, but it wasn't ideal. It meant once we got out we'd need to break for the surface, and Callie was pretty sure that it would be impossible to use the bangle in the depths because of all the void taint imbued in the water.

Which brought me to my big question…"What's the point?" I asked my wife as we walked. "What does all of this accomplish? The Void Child has to be doing SOMETHING with the emotions it's harvesting, and with all that mist. What does this have to do with…this place?"

To my shock, Dayna was the one who answered, the taciturn elf speaking to me directly for possibly the first time. "It's the Shallow," she said bluntly. "The Lord told us to be careful of this dungeon. The Void Child is known to the gods. It seeks to expand the Shallow across this dungeon, creating a foothold in real space through which the Void can launch an assault."

My blood went cold. This dungeon was capped at C-rank, and the Void Child here was presumably at the peak of that rank. But there were bigger fish in the void. Bigger Void Children and other things. If the void managed to create a beachhead here and possibly break the shield around this place as they did it, that would create an entry point for big and more horrible Void Children.

Part of why everyone had been so surprised by the presence of the Void Child here was that they couldn't normally enter our reality. Openings to the void were small and fleeting, not enough for the Void Children to find or fit through. A big gaping hole like this though…this was basically an airlock that could release void creatures into real space. Even if it was still limited to C-rank, the void was outside time and space. In an infinitely charged negative realm, there could be billions of C-ranked void children, and with no spatial limitations they could be here instantly if alerted.

That might be why the vanished gods were working with them. An army of foot soildiers like that would be invaluable. It would also ruin this world, but being gods who lived in their own realities I doubted they cared, and once they managed to elevate the universe, it would be the problem of the higher realm, and not one I expected would cause real problems for the monsters up there waiting to enslave whole galaxies.

Which meant that goddamn ocean was like…partially congealed void. No wonder we couldn't use the bangle. It also implied some distressing things about the void that suffering and despair could be condensed into void stuff. I wondered if it was really the despair, or if it was something more like hopelessness. Ascendants got stronger from faith, belief, and renown. Was the void congealed from the loss of those things?

That said some alarming things about the world that I'd rather not delve into, and it was pur supposition anyway, so I focused on Carmichael's story. Having a powerful C-ranker would be a huge coup for us…except raw combat power wasn't the name of the game in the abyssal city. The rules made fights difficult and overly complicated. We hadn't run into too many of them yet, but Carmichael had passed through several more areas than we had, and was severely limited by the signs he'd come across.

He was very careful not to tell us any specifics. Apparently rules only became active once you learned about them, hence the signs. If he'd told us about the effects currently active on him, we'd have been placed under them too.

When we came to the next section of the city though, we ran into a problem. The street narrowed out, and the path forward condensed into a single narrow tunnel, a dark archway with a sign above it on which three rules were listed.

Rule 1: Only one person may enter the tunnel at a time, five minutes must elapse before a second entry can occur.

Rule 2: Once inside the tunnel, the entrant may only advance, never retreat.

Rule 3: Don't look back.

I grimaced at the tunnel. "Bet that isn't going to be fun to go through. I'm first." I saw a few of my friends tense to argue, but I held up a hand. "No, no debate. I'm the sturdiest. I'll let Callie know the situation, and if it's safe, follow in five minutes."

With that out of the way, I strode forward, entering the mouth of the tunnel quickly enough that it was still a walk, but one that the others would have had trouble catching up to. With the prohibition on running my long legs actually served a purpose here, and the advantage let me keep ahead of my sister, who had objected and tried to cut me off.

I appreciated her concern, but I was just as concerned about her. I had the best chance of survival, barring maybe Abel. Bethy was still recovering from having her Domain shredded. She seemed fine outwardly, but kind of off balance, so I wanted to avoid putting her in a bad spot.

As soon as I entered the tunnel, I realized what a huge trap this was. Firstly, it was DARK. That might not seem like an issue, but since the light from behind me was gone, I was having trouble identifying which way was forward. The rules were clear about not retreating, so if I'd gotten turned around, I'd have been fucked.

Luckily, I had a countermeasure. My overlay activated, and I was able to use the arrows to orient my direction, maintaining my forward motion.

Once I'd advanced a bit further though, the noises started. Screaming, crying, begging. Some of it was my friends, some of it was strangers, small children or old people who needed help. After that it became offers of power and glory, whispered temptations of what I could gain if I just turned around. I blocked it all out. I made sure to alert Callie to both of those problems through the bond, and was glad to see it was still working fine.

I walked on, ignoring the sounds from behind. The arrows guided me, and after five minutes I felt Callie reaching out for the overlay. I let her connect and could feel her using the same arrows to light her way, keeping track of her progress as she went. But instead of just reporting back, Callie decided to try something a bit more indirect.

As she walked, she left behind a rope of abyssal energy. Since this entire place was abyssal energy, the tunnel didn't affect the rope, and it just floated there behind her. After five more minutes, the next of us was able to enter, and with the rope in front of them, they had a guide rail to proceed further.

Since Callie and I were the only ones with a bond, we had no way to actually confirm it was working, but Callie was able to sort of sense them through the rope, so we knew someone had grabbed it.

Halfway through the tunnel, I reached a junction. Three separated turns, lit by a single torch, and above each was a new rule.

Rule 1: If you pass someone on the path, you must stop and greet them.

Rule 2: There are no torches in this tunnel, if you see one, do not approach.

Rule 3: Enter any archway with your left foot first.

I stared hard at the second rule, then at the torch whose light I was reading by. It was situated in the center of the chamber, surrounded by empty space. It wasn't the green flame of the candles from the walkways of the Shoals, just a normal orange fire. But the more I looked at it, the more it seemed…off. The flames leapt and flickered like a normal flame, but the tongues moved in an oddly repetitive fashion. It didn't look like a flame, it looked like an image of a flame on a loop.

I had to pause there, figuring out what to do. I had to mind the rules. Don't look back, don't turn around. Go straight ahead. I needed to get to the center branch of the tunnel, but that required going around the torch, or rather, not approaching it.

That was a complicated concept. Because approaching was a vague term. It took me a minute to figure out what to do. I turned myself at an angle toward the edge of the archway in question, then walked straight ahead. I passed through the circle around the torch, but nothing happened. I was pretty sure the circle was a trap. The rules only said not to APPROACH the torch, they didn't say anything about avoiding the circle. The easy answer was that the circle was a misdirect.

I walked through it unaccosted, made it to the archway and entered, then I sent a message back to Callie warning her about the trap, and she left a shadow message above one of the signs as she passed through so the others would be warned.

After another ten minutes, I came across a figure walking along the path in the opposite direction. I tensed, ready to stop and greet it, but I realized something. It didn't have eyes. I froze. The rules of the tunnel were clear, but the rules of the city were still in effect as far as I knew. The rules on the tunnel had been…different. They seemed more temporary, and when I asked Callie, she confirmed. The tunnel rules were tunnel rules. She's been able to tell that, but hadn't realized it until I asked.

I noted that phenomena in case I had questions later on. Having Callie check signs would be a smart play going forward. Still, now that I knew, I continued on, walking right past the figure. Sure enough, there was no reaction, I didn't get kicked out into the void.

I sent a message back to Callie, and she created a sign in the tunnel. We weren't sure it would be visible, but in the end it was all we could do. We just hoped the others would remember the rules from outside.

Finally, after about an hour, I reached the end, stepping outside of the tunnel. Sure enough, there was a sign outside. "All rules from the tunnel entrance to this point will cease to be enforced." The format was different, like the ones in the city instead of the numbered designations. Sighing in relief, I stepped past the sign and turned around, waiting for the others to emerge.

It took about two hours, but when they all arrived, we gathered behind the sign. "Alright, we're clear," I said with a sigh of relief. "That was…rough. I hope the rest of the trip is less eventful. The central building is close though. Right over there." I pointed to a large building off in the middle distance. It was clearly the middle of the city, and now that we were closer it was easy to identify our target.

Sadly, it wasn't exactly right next to us. We had a ways to go. Looking ahead, I could see a large town square type platform in the next section of our path, full to the brim with ghosts in various poses. I had a feeling my wish about the trip being uneventful was destined to go unfulfilled. I couldn't decide if that was irony or not, but since it was inconvenient I was guessing it was.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The square was divided up into a grid pattern. I wasn't able to see the specifics until I got closer, but one I did, I grimaced. A series of squares, each one with a different spirit in it. The squares each had a rule on it, written in the center in gold. Callie knelt down, grimacing at the nearest square. "Single use. One square, one rule, changes when moving."


I sighed. "It looks like the exit is on the other side," I pointed across the square at the colossal stone building. It was strange and hard to look at, the shape seemingly weathered from the stone instead of carved, and something about the patterns was disturbing.


"It's not going to be straightforward," Callie warned. "Each square will be different, needing different skills. We can't fight through."


"I assumed," I said with a sigh. "But with all of us close enough to make contact it should be doable. We can help each other as we go."


Holding up a hand, I released everything but Mornax, then strolled down the line of squares until I found one with a rule I didn't mind.


Rule 1: Use only your left hand.


Making sure to step in with my left foot as per the earlier rule. I walked into the square, coming face to face with a spectral being. "Fool! Thou enters my sacred ground? Ist thou prepared to die?"


I glanced at the man, noted he had no eyes, and then ignored him as I moved across the square, checking each side to identify the next one I would pick. There were three, of course. Two of the rules seemed almost impossible to follow, but the last one was plausible, so I stepped with my left foot, moving one square to the left instead of progressing onward.


The rule in this one was to move backwards, so I turned around, then realized I couldn't read behind my back. I ended up walking to the edge, turning a full one eighty, and then taking one small step back so I could read.


This time I actually managed to move a step forward, one closer to crossing. But when I arrived in this one, I ran into another problem. The spirit in this one was a big burly guy with a manic look in his eyes. He roared and rushed me as soon as I crossed in, but I was able to read the rule before entering, so I knew what not to do. Namely, no defense was allowed in this square.


Snarling, I pivoted on my foot, launching a punch infused with an Extinction Event. I'd been working on the move in my spare time after losing my old staff. I had been helpless without a weapon, and I wanted to be prepared if it happened again. In this case, my staff was too long to be functional within the five by five square.


The spirit snarled, swinging his own fists, and I triggered Double Trouble. His fist sailed through my illusion, and I spun as he did, hammering my fist into his ribs in an explosion of dark energy. He staggered to one side, and I stomp kicked him into the next square over, sending him sprawling…and then something happened.


In an explosion of howling darkness, a small pinhole opened up in front of the prone spirit, and he was instantly sucked into it with a terrified scream. I stared at the spot where he had been before walking over to look at the rule.


Rule 1: Both feet must remain on the ground.


"Callie!" I called over my shoulder. "Be careful! I just saw what happens when someone breaks a rule. It was NOT nice to watch!"


"We saw one too!" she shouted back. "What square was it? Is the rule impossible? We're making a list. So far we know to stay away from D5 and C7. We're using chess notations to keep track."


I glanced down at it. "It's keep both feet on the ground, which isn't IMPOSSIBLE, but it's not ideal. I think this is…B4? I stepped in on A2 I believe. One left, one forward, then this one is another left. The next forward step is onto C3. Which will put me…" I looked up, noticing a familiar face. "One diagonal over from Chelsea who is now on D4, hi sis!"


She noticed me waving and rolled her eyes, waving back. "Hi Shane," she said in amused tone. "I was the one who found D5, I passed the info on to Callie when we met up at C5. The D5 rule is all walking must be hand walking."


"I can see how that might be difficult to deal with," I laughed, stepping onto the diagonal after checking the rule, which was that I had to snap my fingers before every step. Some of these were just weird. There was no spirit in this particular square. Behind me, I saw some of my friends following my path, though they were taking it slow. "Alright, what are the squares in front?"


Not being able to use the word "you" was REALLY starting to irritate me. I'd caught myself slipping about ten times so far. You, my, anyone, all words I used frequently. I couldn't even USE the word frequently, because it had a fucking Y in it! I missed adverbs so much.


She glanced around. "Hop on one foot, sing all words, that one just reads 'don't start screaming'. Hard pass."


"Do some of them have background effects? Torturing for example?" I couldn't imagine that one would be as easy as it sounded. And if there were auxiliary issues pushing us to break the rules this was going to get a LOT harder. Chelsea looked like she was considering stepping on the screaming square to check, but I held up a hand. "Don't. Let me. I'm trained." No one was better at enduring pain than I was. Unless it was literally impassable, I wouldn't scream at anything that happened.


I crossed into my sister's square, then took a deep breath. We could skip this one, sure, but then we wouldn't have the answer about the auxiliary effects. We might need to factor that in later as we crossed to make it through, so I wanted an answer in a controllable situation.


Making sure to move left foot first, I stepped over the line into the square she indicated. E4. As soon as I did, my teeth snapped together and I strangled a low moan. There was this…force. A vibration mixed with an electric shock. It shook the air inside the square, and at a closer glance I could see faintly scratched symbols along the edges. This thing was fucking enchanted, though not with an enchantment language I'd seen before. It was jagged and harsh and hurt to look at.


I hadn't even noticed it before, because the lines were so discordant it just looked like scratches on the stone. I studied the next few squares, finding an innocuous looking rule with no visible edge scratching, and then stepped off the one I was on, exhaling in relief as I crossed my fingers, following the rule.


"Ok, there are alternate effects," I called to Chelsea, and then again to my wife. "Check the squares for scratching at the edges! Enchantments or something."


Callie cursed. "I see some!" she called. "I'm not sure all of them will be obvious. I think I passed some of the squares and didn't notice." In my head, she filled me in on the details, since our bond wasn't subject to the verbal limitations. I couldn't see where the effects might have influenced her. Maybe some of them were broken? Or maybe the pushes were just too subtle to affect us.


Then I considered another factor. Focusing hard on my Promethean Fire Soul Body, I triggered something I hadn't tried yet. Afterburner synergized perfectly with the soul defense skill. I felt a burst of powerful flame inside me and then…nothing. Cautiously, I stepped back onto the torture square. I felt a small buzzing, but nothing as bad as last time. I grinned, stepping back onto the finger crossing square.


"Callie!" I yelled happily. "Their enchantments are all soul based! The Promethean Fire helps! Use it!" They all had it active, but since I didn't need it, I hadn't bothered. I'd resisted the mental influence before so I'd been sure I wouldn't need it. Frowning down at the squares, I considered my situation, then decided to go all in. I triggered Leviathan. Then I started crossing.


One square had a rule about vowels, one had a rule about keeping your eyes closed. They were annoying, but without any secondary effects able to effect me, I was able to stroll through mostly unharmed, with only the occasional fist fight with spirits before reaching the other end. Once I crossed into the area in front of the stone building, I relaxed, turning back to see my friends.


"It's fine!" I called to them. "Just take the ones I did!" I gave them a list of safe squares, and between me and the others, we'd been able to map a route for each of us. There were a limited number of squares, and a lot of us, so it took a while to get everyone across, but eventually we were all safely on the other side.


"That," said Abel in frustration. "Fucking SUCKED! I couldn't do much at all! I just had to take it one step at a time. How frustrating."


I sighed. "Agreed, but this is the exit, I think. So we can get out of here. Granted, we're getting out into the middle of an evil ocean, but it's progress." We all laughed, heading to the giant double doors. Abel and Bethy each took one, levering the door open to reveal the inside of the building.


The first thing I noticed was that it wasn't spatially expanded. Which made sense, because we were in the void in a reverse spatially expanded area. Could you expand space inside expanded space? I was pretty sure, because our rings worked inside buildings, but maybe that didn't count, because they worked here too.


We pushed the doors shut, then headed into the interior, following the single long hallway until we emerged into a room full of sand and rocks that looked like it was on the ocean floor, minus the water. It was a huge cavern, the edges seemingly worn from natural sea rock, with coral and seaweed strewn across the area.


In the center, floating in the air, was a single green slash, energy sizzling off it in snaps and pops. It was like a wound in the world, and it was very obviously the exit to this Void Shallow. Which would have been fantastic…if there weren't a bunch of people standing in front of it.


Godchildren. Three C-rankers and a dozen powerful D-rankers, all posted up and waiting for us to try to walk through the exit. They saw us enter, but didn't seem to be in a hurry. The lead C-ranker, a tall man in a long black cloak, smiled sharply as he spotted me. "See!" He said cheerfully. "I told you they would make it in the first few days. You don't steal from a god without being competent at least. Come out now, no need to be shy. We've been waiting for you for quite a while!"


I grimaced, looking back to check on my friends. They were all tensed, ready for battle. Dezcarta and Carmichael were prepared too, luckily, but there were THREE C-rankers. I didn't know how tough Carmichael was, but these were godchildren. The only silver lining was that they had to be recent breakthroughs, at least the one in the cloak, since he could only have broken through after arriving here.


Stepping forward, I put myself between the group and my friends, my eyes locked on the leader. "Apologies, we ran into traffic," I said acidly. "We took care of that though. It was a mess. I don't much like obstacles." I had a feeling this next part was going to be bad. I sent Callie a message to get her started preparing as best she could. We were getting out of here no matter what it took.

 

[koya]

Do they all not have to follow the rules anymore, or is it just that the godchild didn't come up against the 'no using y' sign so isn't bound by that one?

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Do they all not have to follow the rules anymore, or is it just that the godchild didn't come up against the 'no using y' sign so isn't bound by that one?

Click to shrink...

They were working with the abyssal lords, so they had an advantage with rule stuff.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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



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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What? How?" I asked excitedly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

 

[Malcolm Tent]

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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