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

[Malcolm Tent]

Tbh the Azure Soul Transformation felt a bit underwhelming, I was expecting it to be a bit longer

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It usually is. It's also usually considerably less painful. You rush a miracle worker, you get lousy miracles, but you DO still get miracles all the same lol.

 

[Bezarius]

He should have Double Tap to make sure Billy died.

 

[TheTittleLord]

So Callie now sounds like my pawn from Dragon's Dogma in my head forever after this chapter. Wolves hunt in packs Arisen

 

[Strong_Thread]

Didn't Benny have an extendable rope equipped? Or was that replaced at some point?

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Didn't Benny have an extendable rope equipped? Or was that replaced at some point?

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Replaced a while ago. Idr the exact chapter.

 

[Quenster06]

---

I waited for it to get REALLY into the bone, then I triggered pit of despair, dropping the hound into a ten foot hole made of dust...and right out the bottom into the floor below.

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Shane, you impulsive dummy, don't make pit traps in unfamiliar buildings. That only ever leads to trouble.

Loving the story as always!

 

[Quenster06]

Welp, there's a second person for Jessie to bring back. Time for a moment of silence for the fallen and then move to stop the nutty cultists.

Thanks for the chapter!

 

[BJJPanda]

I am excited for this arc to be over, not because it's bad but I want to see the full depth of his new ability

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I am excited for this arc to be over, not because it's bad but I want to see the full depth of his new ability

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The difference between DS Mastery as a Skill and as an ability are mainly going to show later on. It's a half step into B-rank, which is going to make that much easier, though the actual changes in the moment aren't as pronounced. Though there will be a noticeable effect when he ranks up and the Skill evolves, which will be relatively early in book 9, so you can look forward to that.

 

[Lone-sith]

the god romance sounds really interesting and I love learning things about his parents. Damn the geas, I can't wait for this talk

 

[odinori]

What an amazing chapter. I'm glad he was finally able to get the reason of why he was abandoned and I'm happy there was actually a legitimate reason. His dad is a grade a asshole though but at least his mother seems nice.

 

[Lone-sith]

This story keeps proving why it is goated. I don't suppose that by the end both gods will return sane, same as his dad, and it will end with a whole family dinner and happily ever after?

 

[Mastersenseinewby]

This story keeps proving why it is goated. I don't suppose that by the end both gods will return sane, same as his dad, and it will end with a whole family dinner and happily ever after?

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I think that would be disappointing but the reverse would be as well. I would like it to be something like he has to make big and small sacrifices to get what he wants and something's sometimes can't be changed no matter how powerful he gets

 

[theaceoffire]

Progress to next rank: 8100/1000

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Calliope Reynolds

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Typo, she needs 10,000 for the next rank... I freaked out a little bit thinking she was about to level up!

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Four months. We'd been in space on the road for four months. One hundred twenty days, seven hundred and twenty wishes. Of course, I hadn't focused all that on myself. While training was out as per my promise to myself (any my girlfriend), it was a big ship, and there were lots of people who WERE training. People who got injured doing said training, and I was more than happy to heal them with the charges I got from Jessie.

This enabled me to rack up a sizable nest egg by charging healing fees, as well as continue helping Jessie boost her Vitality, since she was the furthest behind out of all of us statwise.

Half of my wishes went to actually boosting my stats, of course which totalled out to twenty five hundred and twenty points each for us. I still had a bit of bleedover from the godslaying incident ( though not nearly as much as Callie ) which got me up to a solid three thousand points of added stats over the trip. I was officially over nine thousand total and closing in on E-rank which was pretty solid for not putting in any effort.

Aside from Jessie and I, Benny spent a no inconsiderable amount of time inventing, and sold most of it to Nat for wishes to keep up. While I was unwilling to train for the trip, my cousin was much less sanguine, and spent all her time either fighting or granting wishes, except on the rare occasions we were able to drag her away. Benny got a full two thousand points out of her ( Might and Focus, of course), and Callie had her godslayer renown still coming in, which netted her a thousand for doing nothing.

All in all, Jessie and Benny were both right on the edge of seventy five hundred points, with Callie and I both over nine thousand, and I had thirty six hundred F-rank chits (or thirty six E-rank) as a nest egg stashed away from healing fees.

More importantly, I got to spend time with my sister, my girlfriend, and my friends, just enjoying life and NOT worrying about being impaled alive on spider legs or eaten by wolfhornigators. Sadly, all good things must end, because according to Killian we were rapidly approaching Stratholme, an imperial C-ranked planet where would be joining up with a local force.

Vinnie had already left by the time we tried to get in touch, so hopefully we'd see him again at some point. This particular planet had been picked by Zeke after talking to some of his contacts (since this was about the war and not the candidate competition it didn't trip his geas) and would apparently be perfect as an entry point.

So we all gathered up at the house, where Callie and Chelsea had put together an information briefing on Stratholme based on research and preexisting knowledge.

"Welcome everybody." Callie said as we all sat down. "As you know, we've been heading for the Empire, planning to join a noble house for military training. Now, obviously we aren't signing up long term, this is more of a mercenary contract. It'll be for less than a year, but plenty of these places have high turnover, so it shouldn't be too tough to find someone to take us. Before that though, we thought we'd give everyone a breakdown on how the Empire works."

Chelsea nodded. "Most of you are from the Conglomerate. Which, while relatively established, is much more recent than the Empire. Because of that fact, and the structure of the Empire itself, it's a much more rigid and law abiding place. Individuality isn't quite as prized as in the conglomerate, even among Ascendants."

"How is that possible though?" I asked, a bit confused. "Renown is how Ascendants rank up. If nobody is doing anything interesting how does their legend spread?"

Callie chuckled at that. "First off, I think our standard for interesting is a bit skewed. But secondly, because they work on the job system. Much like the Church and the Cult, who you may have noticed tend to be mostly pretty uniform rank to rank. That's because the job system allows you to funnel large amounts of belief to specific roles, rather the people filling them. In the Empire that's nobility. There are other jobs, and those are managed by the Empire's roles, where he keeps records of who does what."

"Basically, the Empire is incredibly stratified because it lets the Emperor funnel renown to all the imperially accepted roles." Said Chelsea. "As a god whose domain is concerned with administration and the running of a nation, he has the power to do that kind of thing. It's why the Empire has MANY more possible jobs than the Church or Cult, which have less than twenty or so each."

Reaching out for a piece of paper, Callie sketched out a quick pyramid. "The Emperor, as a god, doesn't need renown anymore, but as the symbol of the empire it all feeds to him. He funnels it from there, first to the kings, then the dukes, and so on down the line. Each noble is responsible for funneling renown to those in their own territory, a duty heavily monitored and managed by the imperial court. Bakers, candlestick makers, even guards. Everyone gets some."

"That's...weird." I said after a minute. "But if it works for them whatever. How will this affect us? We don't have jobs, is it possible for us to get renown this way?"

Callie shrugged. "Somewhat. There's always excess, and the Emperor can't access of distribute renown outside the imperial scope. It won't be much though. Just not how the Empire works. Not a huge problem for us, since that's not why we're here, and you can always get a job officially to gain renown that way. But we've gotten off track. I mention this particular fact because it means there's actually LAWS in the Empire. More than just the haphazard random 'hey probably don't do that' guidelines we had back home."

To my surprise, Celine cut in. "She's right. The Conglomerate, especially the edges where you were, is chaotic. The Empire is a more regimented and lawful place, so we'll need to confine any issues we have to specified combat areas. Costumes should be fine, they're not the norm but there are people from all over in the Empire so they're hardly going to shock anyone."

"Speaking of costumes." I grimaced, glancing down. "I need a new one. I tried patching that big ass hole where Travis shivved me and nothing will stick. I have zero Skills for tailoring, and honestly I'm almost outgrowing the things anyway. They were really nice when we got them from Cicero, but it's been months, and I really need to get something a bit more suitable before I hit E-rank."

Abel snickered at that. "If anyone back home heard you say that they'd probably stab you again. Your progression is absurd. I'm lagging way behind at this point. If it wasn't for Nat I wouldn't even be at the halfway mark. Hopefully I can get a temporary military role while I'm on Stratholme and pump my numbers."

I hadn't even considered that Abel and Mel might be lagging. They were the strongest of us, pretty much. It just made it even more obvious how terrifying my mentor was, though I suspected he was also heavily focused in one area like Jessie was, and that probably helped.

"ANYWAY." Said Callie loudly, bringing us back on topic. "Stratholme is our first C-ranked planet. It's going to be pretty rough. Our stats are going to be suppressed by the native Impact, though everyone else's will too. There are certain areas like cities and special residences that are exempt, places where children are raised and such, but they're under heavy guard and the actions you take inside are tightly restricted."

She pulled out a few more papers, covered in tightly packed scrawls. "We looked into the various factions on Stratholme, and as a C-ranked planet, it obviously has C-rankers. In the Empire that's an Earl. The Earl in charge of the planet is Earl Nevius. His family pretty much runs things, though there are Viscounts, or D-rankers, of various factions, and each of them is in charge of several Barons, or E-rankers. Those E-rankers mostly field armies of F-rankers, or Lords, which is what we are. Any lower and they pretty much can't function on a C-ranked planet."

Which meant we were probably going to be the next best thing to mortals on this planet. With the weight of the Impact we were going to be under serious strain, luckily, we were at least HIGH F-rank, we'd probably be stronger than most. Good for training, bad for everything else. Joy. "I'm guessing there's a lot of political bullshit going on behind the scenes?"

"Tons." Said Callie with a grimace. "But the basics are this. The Earl is peak C-rank. He did...something, and the Emperor censured him, which means he stopped his renown gain. He's stuck unable to enter B-rank, but still isn't someone anybody wants to mess with. Because of that, he doesn't micromanage much, just lets the Viscounts do whatever."

I sighed. "Which means their Barons are probably fighting like a hundred cats in a five foot bathtub. We're going to be avoiding working for any of the big power players right? Because I don't need to get mixed up in imperial bullshit. We're here for training and possible faction building, not to get sucked into regional nonsense."

She nodded, circling a few names. "There are a few Barons that are essentially free agents. They call them Robber Barons. They don't answer to the Viscounts for anything more than lip service and taxes, and fight amongst themselves. Territory there changes hands semi-often, they don't actually lose TOO many fighters, and there's a high turnover as people prove themselves and use the reputation to join a reputable faction. Low commitment, medium risk, high intensity."

"That's perfect." I said with delight. "Let me see that list?" She passed me a piece of paper with a series of names and descriptions, rank, approximate level with that rank, personnel reviews. She'd really dug into this. It was a good thing the Empire was on the scan ring network. "Tell me about this one." I pointed at a Baron three quarters down the list.

She found him quickly enough. "Camden Tolbert. Father is a Viscount from the Tolbert family, big money in the Empire. Camden hit Baron young, decided to go out on his own. Bit rough around the edges and a tad battle crazy, but supposedly an honorable guy who takes care of his own. He was on my shortlist too." She read over her notes before nodding again to herself in confirmation. Before we moved on though, she reached over and put a hand on mine. "Are you sure about this Shane? This is going to be rough."

"I know." I said grimly. "But you heard Nat before. This will help us run our own faction when we reach that point. And mercenaries like this will be perfect for recruiting. Is everyone else still good?" I asked my friends, looking around for confirmation.

They'd all been quiet, listening to us talking and memorizing the information. Benny spoke up. "Honestly, I'm kind of looking forward to it. Being just another face in the crowd sounds nice. Like I'm sure you and Nat will tell this Tolbert guy about your powers when you can trust him, but until then, we're going to be bottom level grunts. I'm even looking forward to being normal levels of strong again."

I laughed at that, but nodded in agreement. We'd been getting so powerful, getting involved in such crazy shit. Having to prove ourselves and fight our way up would be a nice change of pace from fighting gods and their crazy fanatic worshippers. Of course, I was just as sure that was going to change quickly when we got to Stratholme. For now though, I just settled in for the rest of the briefing. I wanted to learn as much as I could.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

After our meeting, I wanted to head back to my place and cuddle with Callie for a while, but I decided to stop and talk to Abel. He hadn't sounded exactly...unhappy, about dragging behind, but I wasn't the most observant about emotions, and I was trying to be a better team leader. So I pulled him aside to check in once the briefing broke up.

"Hey man." I said prensively. "I just wanted to check in, see how you were doing with all this. You mentioned feeling like you were getting left behind. I can focus more on you for wishes if you want. I know you did some work with Nat."

He shrugged. "I wouldn't say no, but it's not a big deal. I'm still growing, and jokes aside I'm happy with my progress." He shot me a wry smile. "I suppose you're trying to feel out if I'm getting bitter or discouraged. I appreciate the thought, kid, but I trained alone in a sausage stand for a few decades, remember? It'll take more than some time at the same level to bother me."

That was a solid point, and I let out a rueful chuckle. "I guess I forgot who I was talking to. I mean, Bethy's needling seems to really get to you, so I just figured.."

"It doesn't." He said with a smile. At my disbelieving silence, he laughed. "Really. I play along because it amuses me, but she's not hurting my pride or anything. In fact, I pretty much think pride is a completely useless emotion. That was part of how I broke my first shackle after all. I think I mentioned that. But...it's more than that too."

His voice was inscrutable, and his face was more serious than I usually saw it. "What do you mean?" I asked, curious what made him suddenly get so somber.

"This is my own personal theory." He said with a shrug. "But I think part of why I am the way I am is because I decided to let go of what other people thought of me. Not all of them, I care about Mel, and her opinion of me has weight, but so much of what we all do is wrapped up in appearances. And that's the duality of being an Ascendant, isn't it? The more you care the more effort you put in and the more hold it all has on you."

I blinked at that. "Are you saying that recursion is...optional?" It wasn't a take I'd heard before, or one that would make sense coming from most people.

He shook his head. "Is shame optional? Is embarrassment optional? Hypothetically I suppose. It's more that we walk a tightrope. We need the regard of others to Ascend, but I think the fact that we CRAVE that regard leaves us open to recursion in the first place. People like me, we don't really care. We just...let it go. Pride is just investment in the opinions of others, and I don't need it. And when I came to that conclusion, it felt like recursion lost a lot of its hold."

I thought back on our time together. In some ways, Abel had always been the most stable of the people I knew. Not because he was normal or healthy, but because he was what he was. He knew his role, knew his place, and it didn't change or twist over time. Some of that might have been a coherent story about him making the rounds, but the rest...

Zeke was like that, too, now that I thought about it. All the really powerful Ascendants I'd seen had this...core of steel. This conviction in who and what they were. Purpose. Sure, they might play the role, but the recursion didn't seem to touch them and I'd never known why. Callie had even mentioned it way back when we first talked about this. Willpower. That ineffable thing that let some people climb up without being swallowed by recursion.

"You think that the secret to that is just...not caring?" I said slowly. "Just let go of the influence others have on us completely and do whatever we want?"

My mentor just shrugged. "Doubt it. It was that for me. I see all these people talking about reputation and respect and I just...I don't care. I don't care who respects me. I don't care who acknowledges my power. Power isn't an opinion Shane. It's a fact. Respect isn't some magic wand that makes my punches work. If someone has a problem, I'll kick their ass, if someone doesn't like me, they can fuck off, who cares?"

"Why tell me this?" I asked after a brief pause. "Why give me the secret to your success. Is this some kind of wisdom you're passing on?"

He burst out laughing. "Nah kid, I'm telling you because I don't care if you know. Not that I don't care about your opinion of me, we're pals so it has some weight. Not enough to keep from doing my thing but some. It's more that I don't care if you spread it around. Maybe it'll help you. Maybe it just lets you understand me a bit better. Hell, maybe it's payment for caring enough to check on me, who knows?"

I nodded slowly. "I don't think I can do much with it to be honest. I just...I DO care what people think of me. Some of that is wanting to get stronger to help my friends, but some of it is just...me, I guess. I wish I didn't. That I could just brush off things like that."

"Well living alone in a shack for thirty years helps." He chuckled. "But really, if you want a guide, I can't give one. I'll say this though. It's all about consequences. If someone says something bad about you, what do you lose? How does it hurt you? What consequence does that have. And how does reacting to it benefit you. What makes that person important enough to matter?"

That was just such a...brutal way to look at the world. Like everyone was a ghost, with only a few select people mattering enough to be real. It fit well with Abel's personality, but I didn't think it would fit mine. I didn't want to just throw away my concern for everything that wasn't my friends or family. It would be easy, convenient even, and it probably would help me resist recursion. But that didn't seem like enough.

I glanced at my teacher. "I can accept you not having more of a reason, but what about the timing?Why now? Why share this tidbit at this moment? Is it really just repayment for caring enough to check on you? We're coming up to the Empire, is this something you think I'll need?"

He shrugged. "You're floundering kid. You've got a reason to fight, a backbone, and strength to push through, but you're missing something. I thought I'd volunteer my perspective. Maybe it'll help, maybe it won't, but like I said, my reasons for doing things aren't that complicated. I do what I want. You're the kind of person I respect enough to consider worth talking to, and if I can help my student, why not?"

That seemed to be pretty much it for him in terms of serious conversation. Abel wasn't a big fan of somber philosophical talk, and I could tell it had been tedious for him to try to put all that into words. Even now I wasn't sure I got it all, but I got enough, and I continued to let it swirl around in my head as I said my goodbyes and headed back to my place to pack.

Packing, as it turned out, is really easy with a spatial ring. And I got that done quickly enough, I got so lost in thought that I barely noticed time passing until Callie came to get me. "Hey, there you are." My girlfriend said cheerily as she found me sitting on a large padded chair in the living room. "I've been looking for you, we're close enough to use the shuttles, Killian said to gather everyone disembarking in Stratholme."

I almost jumped out of my skin, my Focus had been sunk into parsing everything that had happened to me so far through the lens of Abel's odd worldview, and in trying to retroactively puzzle out how recursion had changed me. I hadn't had much luck. "Sorry." I said, hopping to my feet. "Bit distracted, it's time to go already?"

"Yeah..." She said slowly. "Are you sure you're ok? You feel...tangled. Like there's a lot on your mind. You know you can talk to me, right?"

I leaned down to kiss her before putting on my mask. I hadn't been wearing it as often and it was going to take getting used to again. "Always. But this isn't a problem I can solve by talking or thinking. I've done enough of both. We came here for a reason. Let's go see where we've ended up." I offered her my elbow, and she stared at me impassively for a moment before taking it and following me out of the building.

We headed straight for the docking bay we'd first come into when we arrived on the ship, and everyone else was already there. Jessie, Cark, Benny, Zeke, Cass, Nat, Valk, Chelsea, and all our other friends were crowded together at the edge of an immense gap in the side of the ship, the same one we entered through, a permeable shield keeping out the vacuum of space.

Benny saw me coming and waved me over excitedly. "Shane! Come check it out. Our first real higher ranked planet." He sounded excited, and I didn't blame him. We'd been on ships, dungeons, floating staging areas and even an old ruin, but this was different. This was just a normal higher ranked planet like any Ascendant would travel to. Part of the experience of Ascending. It felt somehow safer and far more dangerous all at once. Anything could happen to us down there.

Stopping next to him, I stared down at the massive sphere of the planetary body. It was...big. Not that I'd expected less, it was C-ranked after all, but it just seemed large and imposing from here. Mostly dark blue with a large splash of purple that I was pretty sure was water. I took Callie's hand in mine as I stared down at it. It was...beautiful. Imposing. And HEAVY. I could sense the Impact from here. Immense and weighty.

"The Necromedes will be circling back." Said Killian from behind us. "We've taken a few small jobs in the area doing transport for nobles and cargo. Until we return you're stuck here. So make the most of it. Zeke should be up to the task of taking out anything that poses a real threat, so you just have to worry about things your own level."

I held out a hand to him. "Thanks again Killian. I appreciate all the help, and definitely the ride. I know that probably wasn't pleasant to break to the passengers."

He shrugged. "We got a better gig, and it was an emergency situation. We'll get them where they're going eventually, and we have contracts for this exact scenario. Extenuating circumstances and all that. Take care of yourself kid, and tell your old man hello if you see him."

I grimaced, which he couldn't see behind my mask thankfully, but nodded. "I'll do that. Safe travels." And with that we all headed for the shuttle, the smaller conveyance being the fastest and most convenient way to ferry us down to the planet's surface. As I climbed aboard, I took one last look at the Necromedes, where I'd spent more than half of my last year. I was going to miss the place, but hopefully not too much. After all, I was going to be busy pretty soon.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The first thing I noticed when I stepped off the shuttle was how...nice it was. Being back on a real planet, one we were going to be staying on for a while was special. It felt good to have my feet on solid ground that wasn't ACTIVELY trying to murder me. Of course, the second thing I noticed was when I crossed the shield on the shuttle and the ground started actively trying to murder me.

Ok, that's a tad dramatic. I mostly felt like someone dumped a small galactic cruiser on my head. It wasn't dangerous, just really strenuous, and I could feel not just my body but my mind and even my soul compress under the conceptual weight of the planet's Impact.

We all stepped off and stopped, trying to process what was going on, with the singular exception of Cass, who was holding Zeke's hand and seemed perfectly fine. One of the many benefits of his absurdly high rank was his ability to manipulate his Impact in ways like this. We'd seen it when he suppressed his aura on Callus, but this seemed much more impressive and direct.

With Cark coming with us, Cass's safety and protection would be left to Zeke, who could obviously protect her better than any of us, and he'd made it clear that something like this wouldn't be an issue for him.

Standing our ground, straining against the Impact of this massive planet though, I didn't feel crushed or beaten down, I felt...nostalgic. This was what it felt like to be a normal person. Well, I was high F-rank, so it was probably what it felt like to be a professional mortal athlete or a minor superhuman, but still. This was almost nice.

"Fantastic!" Crowed Abel as he limbered up. "This is just fucking phenomenal. I haven't had a playing field this even in years. If everyone at F-rank is this suppressed this trip is going to be a blast. I wonder if there's an arena in town?"
Mel sighed. "I'm sure there is, but don't forget we're joining an army. They usually expect soldiers to be...you know...soldiering. You can't just run off to punch idiots." She held out a hand and concentrated, a small flame sparking in her hand. "Plus, our Skills still function, even if it a drastically reduced level."

She was right. I focused on Belial, letting the power roll over me. A thin layer of dark toxic stone covered me, and I could feel the poison being severely limited, but it did work. Focusing hard, I pushed with my Path, focusing on the Fatewalker aspect of my staff form, and the rock got denser, the green glow beginning to brighten.

"Use your Path if you can. Impact does less to hamper it I guess." I said as I felt some of my strength return. Nowhere near the full amount, but Belial did make me stronger than the baseline human I had been before. In exchange though, the power was slow and hard to conjure, the Impact pressuring my Solid Path and making it a strain that I couldn't keep up for long. It receded after only a few minutes, leaving my soul quivering and aching.

The others mostly didn't have a Path, and the ones who did hadn't reached Solid, so their usage was more instantaneous, but I could see when Callie tapped into her Abyssal Path and Abel his Path of Blood that it was exhausting for them.
"Well." Said Benny with a sigh. "This is definitely going to get old. Why didn't we go to a lower ranked world again?"

I rolled my eyes. "BECAUSE it'll get old. This is a perfect place to train. We're unknown, pitted against people our own strength, and this will give us a chance to get some ground up military training we couldn't get easily with so many stats under out belt. Besides, we're all pretty close to E-rank, and once we hit that we're going to be able to function way easier here, so it's not like it's long term."

Turning to Zeke, I cocked my head. "So, you walking with us to the next town? Or are you going to fly to the capital or something?"

He shrugged. "I'll stick with you, that way you guys can visit pint sized over here between engagements. I won't be involved with any of this training anyway, so no reason to worry about setting off the geas."

"Sounds good." I pointed off in a random direction. "Onward!" I announced boldly, striding off into the (unfortunately prevalent) blue green forest. Callie caught me on the way, pulling me back to whisper in my ear, and I cleared my throat before proclaiming. "That was a test to see if you were paying attention. Most of you failed." I swung my hand about sixty degrees. "We're going that way."

Benny snickered under his breath and I flipped him the bird, making sure to angle my body so I didn't teach Cass a fun new hand gesture. Our language wasn't going to fix itself anytime soon, but I didn't want to add to the problems.
Celine, for one, looked positively enchanted by the place, and as they drew even with us, I couldn't help but ask. "Hey Celine, you seem less bothered by all this Impact. Is it just being in the woods? Because I'm already getting sore and it's been like a minute."

She laughed, shaking her head. "I grew up on a higher tier planet. Below F-rank isn't safe on anything above a C, but my home planet had areas where children could try to slowly acclimate to higher Impact levels. It's good for training the soul early on as well. It wasn't something we could do for long, and it wasn't this extreme, but I remember learning to hunt and fish under higher Impact on the grounds of mother's estate."

I couldn't imagine someone shunting the Impact from an area that large like Zeke was doing for Cass, but hell, Zeke could probably do it. I guessed it made sense as a training tool, even if it kind of highlighted how dickish Celine's family had been to her growing up. Though I guessed any proper training was a pretty shitty way to raise a kid. I'd had some basic drills and games and stuff growing up that dad had run me through, but no actual combat training, and I was kind of grateful for it.

As we set off, I froze in my tracks after about fifteen feet. "Um...small issue." I said slowly. "We're walking at normal people speed now right? Because of the Impact pressure?"

I'd told the shuttle to drop us about twenty miles from the nearest town, so we wouldn't need to deal with anyone seeing us come in and mark us as targets or enemies or whatever other stupid reaction we might get from random Ascendants. But...I'd neglected to consider the fact that we couldn't cross twenty miles in like ten minutes at a brisk walk anymore.

Callie gave me a horrified look. "You didn't factor in travel time? I assumed you had some kind of plan for that! Normal humans walk at about two to four miles an hour. That's a ten hour walk! Especially since we can only walk as fast as the slowest person in our group. Who is a NINE YEAR OLD MORTAL!" I very carefully didn't mention that it was probably a worse problem for her at five foot five than for me at nearly a whole foot taller than she was.

"Zeke can carry Cass." I said firmly. "He's B-rank, what's the point of keeping him around if he can't do manual labor. Plus Cass isn't involved in the competition so his geas won't prevent it. We'll be fine. We're all mid to high F-rank, so we're stronger than your basic human, even here. We'll almost definitely be able to walk faster than average, probably like five miles an hour. And that's a perfectly respectable four hour walk."

Callie gestured around us dramatically. "In the forest. We hate the forest Shane. And look at these roads. They're dirt. And not packed dirt either, we're out of the way. The chances of us running into someone driving around here who can give us a ride are insanely slim."

I sighed. I was high F-rank like she was, which meant I was stronger than pretty much anyone here at the moment under the suppression. Not counting Zeke or Callen, obviously. I turned around. "Fine. Climb on."

She blinked at me, backpedaling a bit. "Oh, I didn't mean... Shane that's sweet but I was just a little annoyed about the walk, I don't expect you to carry me. I'm exhausted just standing here, and you must be just as tired. I don't want you making it worse dragging me around."

"You sure?" I asked. "You're not exactly gigantic, and we're the same level of Impact so it wouldn't be too tough."

Benny let out a loud groan. "Come on! We're in the woods exhausted under this annoying new suppression, please don't also make us watch you two be adorable. There's only so much hardship a man can take."

"I'll give you a hard ship upside your head." I said spitefully to my annoying friend as he stepped on my moment.

He sneered at me. "That doesn't even make any sense. We're nowhere near a dock. Where would you even get a ship in the middle of the forest?"

I snapped my fingers, triumphantly holding up a book. "A boat building tome from the wizard's tower. Nerd. And we're surrounded by trees. I'll study the book, build a boat, and THEN hit you with it! You have anything to say about that? I didn't think so! Now you-hey!" I was cut off as Callie jumped on my back, sending me staggering forward. "What happened to not wanting to make things worse."

"I reconsidered." She said imperiously. "You two were being annoying. Worse is fine." She squeezed her knees like I was a horse. "Onward noble steed!" I was outraged, but I was mildly appeased when I saw Bethy jump on Gabe's back out of nowhere and mimic Callie's war cry. At least I wasn't suffering alone.

We made better time than expected. Three and a half hours, and carrying Callie really wasn't that bad. When we finally arrived I had to admit I was a little thrown by the entrance to the town. "Welcome to Saltzburg." I read aloud off a sign by the gate. "The imperial guard sees all. Huh. Clearly they're got a firm grip on this whole tourism thing. So...giant closed wooden gate. Do we knock?"

Almost as if they were waiting, a panel slide to the side on the gate at eye level. "Halt!' Bellowed a voice. "Who goes there?"

"I'm Shane." I said directly. After he paused for a minute and didn't respond I continued. "See why that's a dumb question now? We're strangers, we've come to try to get into the city. Can we get in?"

The voice was silent for a moment. "Do you have an imperial crest? Because that would make this much simpler."

"Do we LOOK like we have an imperial crest?" I demanded. "We just walked out of the woods covered in sweat and dirt. Is that imperial crest having behavior? Come on man, I'm sore, tired, and my girlfriend is getting bored. I don't have time for this shit. How do we get in? Like can I just bribe you?"

"A bribe?" The voice said cheerfully. "Well why didn't you just lead with that? Five G-ranked credits per person. Pleased deposit the money in the donation box to the left of the gate." I glanced to the side where a brass rectangle with a single knob at the top was set into the wall. I looked at the others, who seemed just as surprised as I was, then shrugged, setting Callie down. Well, it was nice to know some things were consistent at least.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The inside of Saltzberg was...weird. There was a word that people in DS would use in roleplay servers when someone said or did something that didn't fit the meta. Anachronistic. Saltzberg was like that. The construction was mostly kind of old timey. Not straw and mud or anything, but gabled roofs and cobblestones, but only mostly. One second I would see an old style house, the next a more modern building.

Rather than cars, people were using...not wagons, really, but metal boxy conveyances obviously running on enchantments. "So...this is kind of weird." I said to Callie as I stepped in after Nat paid the toll. "I was just expecting a normal city, why is it so...quaint?"

Zeke chuckled. "The Emperor is a big fan of control. He doesn't like things that are wild or untamed. Mad Scientists are the definition of that, and because of it they aren't on the Empire's roles. They get almost no renown here, and as such most of them don't bother coming. Because of that, along with being one of the oldest existing factions, the Empire took a...different technological path. They lean Enchanter heavy."

Not that it precluded tech. I could see plenty of things that showed me their technology level was just as advanced as ours, it just manifested differently. Rather than scan rings, people were watching things and talking to each other through handheld enchanted mirrors, some large with a handle and some in compact form. In fact, checking it on a whim, I realized there was no network here. Not one I could use at least. I'd still be able to contact my friends through the more walkie talkie features of our rings, but otherwise they were just tiny computers.

I knew that some of the Empire's information was on the larger networks from the Necromedes, but apparently they had alternate forms of communication. It probably helped a lot with the Emperor's control of the renown in the faction's territory.

We walked for a while, taking in the sights and sounds. "So, they obviously take chits here." I said as I inhaled deeply, enjoying the smell of freshly baked bread. "So first thing we need to do is use that to find a place to stay."
Chelsea beamed. "I knew you'd say that. Which is why back on the Necromedes part of my research was into the local area. Saltzberg in particular, since we knew this was our destination." She flicked a hand and a projected screen appeared in front of her. "No network here, but I do still have all the information I saved.

I studied the page on display. A list of inns, rated based on comfort and aesthetic. There was even a map showing where all of them were. Looking around, I could see a few tourists, though I wasn't sure why, so I got where the info came from, but it was nice to know my sister was on the ball enough to save it for later. I scanned through the list, looking for the right fit, and went through my criteria.

First we needed a place to stay that had spacious rooms, and also a lot of rooms, and also long term rooms since chances were good that Zeke and Cass would stay there after we left to go and talk to our prospective employer. That eliminated a few of them right off, then I nixed a few that were marked down as being run down or where the staff was unfriendly. With all the obvious stuff out of the way I was left with three, and I picked the one with the coolest name.

So that was how we found ourselves standing outside the Imperial Fork. I stared up at the sign in some confusion for a minute after we arrived. The image on the sign was just...a fork. It was a fancy gold fork with lots of delicate engraving, but it was a fork nonetheless. Shrugging at Callie, I pulled the door open, only to be hit in the face by noise and warm air and the smell of delicious food.

Inside, the Fork was a cozy little place. Dark wood and lots of low lighting. Candles sat on every table and the room was alive with cheerful conversation. No one noticed us coming in, and a pretty older lady in her mid twenties (she carried herself like she was older, but it was hard to tell age with Ascendants) "Welcome." She said with a smile. "I'm Anna, and welcome to the Imperial Fork. Quite a group you have there. How many rooms?"

I looked back, counting our party quickly. Bethy, Gabe, Nat, Valk, Benny, Jessie, Chelsea, Callen, Zeke, Celine, Cass, Cark, Abel, Mel, Callie, and me. Callie and I would room together, same with Benny and Celine. Cass would room with Cark, and Callen would want to be close to Chelsea, while Valk would want a room near Nat. "Thirteen rooms." I said slowly. "Close together if possible. You guys have an expanded residential floor, right?"

She beamed at me. "Yes sir. One of only five inns within city limits with the permits. Thirteen rooms is more than feasible. How long will you be with us? And do you want to include meals? Our chef is one of the best in town. I'll even throw in a bowl of the beef stew on the house. We don't usually get such big parties checking in."

That sounded fantastic. "Two rooms will be long term, we'd like them right next to each other, the rest will be for..." I glanced around. "What do you guys think? A week maybe? I'd like to look around before we sign up for training."

She chuckled at that. "Ah, here for Baron Tolbert's recruitment drive? We've had quite a few newcomers arriving for that. Before he arrived, lord Tayle was the only game in town, and his forces have long been at capacity. People are excited to work with such a young and promising noble."

After meals, accommodations, hot water, and a few other incidentals, I ended up paying six E-rank chits for the whole stay. That was honestly a bit pricey, but not so much that it seemed excessive. There was a bit left over, but I decided to leave a tip. Always best to endear yourself to the host.

Anna was thrilled, the older woman immediately escorting us through the back to a larger dining area clearly meant for private parties. Randall, in his tiny form, was sharing with Jessie, he was the only animal anyone but Bethy had brought along. We'd left the wolves on the Necromedes with Blake, since bringing them into a war seemed awful, so we didn't need much extra food. She had seventeen bowls of stew brought out, since we asked if she wanted to eat with us. She clearly knew quite a bit about the area and knowledge was power. Once we were all settled in to eat we started in on our stew, enjoying the tender, well seasoned meat as we peppered her with questions.

"So." I asked between bites. "The Imperial Fork. That's an...interesting name. Where does it come from?"

Anna gave me a wide eyed look. "When my parents were young, they saved the life of a nobleman. They were invited by him to be his guests at an imperial ball. While my father was there, he pocketed a single golden fork. It's our family treasure, and we keep it proudly displayed on a pedestal in our ancestral home."

I raised an eyebrow. "That's an interesting story. I'd love to see it sometime." I tried to remain polite about the stupidest reason for naming something I'd ever heard. At least until I noticed her mouth twitching and she finally dissolved into laughter.

"I can't believe you bought that." She cackled. "Or I can, because it works every time. But still. Do you honestly think we're so backwater and destitute that we engage in fork worship? Saltzberg is on a three way imperial intersection, it's named after the bend in the road. I just thought the sign was funny."

I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose as my friends laughed at me for falling for an obvious line of bullshit. "Alright I kind of deserved that." I admitted ruefully. "Sorry, it's just kind of weird seeing all this old timey stuff."

She took a bite of food, still chuckling. "It's fine. Honestly though, we have most of the same things you do, they're just more magical than technological. The Enchanter's Guild is employed directly by King Shadrak. The Emperor can keeper a tighter grip on commerce by using magical artifacts for industrial applications. We do have visitors though, so it isn't like I've never seen a scan ring."

It struck me exactly how much control the Emperor had over his faction. The micromanaging that must take, I was betting he'd been Focus heavy as a mortal.

Callie was grinning at the dark haired, blue eyes innkeeper. "You seem to have your finger on the pulse around here even without a scan network. Or whatever the equivalent is. Mirror network? We saw some people using magic mirrors to communicate and watch movies."

"The Mirror Space is similar to your scan network, albeit more ethereal. A void of floating screens and images you can search through for specific contacts, information, or sights." She laughed. "As for why I'm so well informed." She winked.
"Innkeepers and bartenders are always the ones to hear the dirty secrets. Why do you think I offered you lot a free meal. You're clearly interesting folk."

Benny snorted at that. "Doesn't seem like a great way to pump us for information. You just told us your intentions."

"I find it doesn't much matter." She said with a shrug. "Even if you don't tell me anything, you've got questions and I've answers. The things you need to know will tell me plenty about you. There are more ways to gain information than to just be given facts. So, tell me, what are a group of talented youngsters like you doing coming from one of the other factions to this little hole in the wall just to sign on with an upstart like Tolbert?"

It was my turn to shrug. "We need the training, and we don't want to get wrapped up in politics. Not everything has an ulterior motive."

Zeke, who had been watching Anna with interest, snickered at that. "Still teaching the kid subtlety. Maybe you can give him some pointers. You seem like a capable woman." She turned to look at my uncle, giving him a once over.

"Well I hardly noticed you there handsome." She said with a raised brow. "Content to let the kids do all their own talking? Most of them were quiet, but you practically blended into the background. I wouldn't have ever thought to look your way if it wasn't for this little cutie here." She smiled winningly at Cass, who was too busy eating stew to notice.

My uncle smirked, taking a bite of his own food. "What can I say. I only make an impression when I mean to. I'll be sticking around though, and I have plenty of questions about the local political environment, so I'm sure we'll get to know each other." I grimaced internally at seeing my uncle flirt, but mentally tuned it out. He and Stella weren't together, at least not consistently, and he didn't usually show much interest in anyone. We weren't going to be around anyway so if he wanted to date one of the locals it was his business.

Returning my focus to Anna, I started asking questions about Tolbert and his circumstances, letting the conversation veer back toward more businesslike topics. I had to say though, despite our rough start here (and I was still exhausted from the walk) I was loving the stew. I wondered if I could get some cooking lessons at some point while we were here.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Are you sure this is the place?" I asked Callie as we stood outside a rather large house. "Because I'll be honest, it's not what I was expecting." We'd left the others back at the inn for a while and decided to take some time to ourselves to walk around. Inevitably our constant need to be doing something pushed us to check out Tolbert's manor, where we'd be signing up for our stint as mercenaries.

The house WAS huge and imposing, as one would expect of a noble, but that was where the image fell apart. The huge wrought iron gates were wide open, as were the doors to the manor, and we were able to walk right in without issue. Not that there weren't any people there, in fact, there were far TOO many people. Random men and women walked in and out around us, chattering and measuring and doing any number of other things.

The house itself was empty, no furniture or anything, and a large man with long dark hair and a goatee was standing in the middle of everything, fielding questions and barking orders as people bustled about. I did see a pair of men carrying a couch up the stairs, so I guessed they were moving in.

Callie looked as confused as I did. "I thought he'd been here for a while, since so many people have apparently showed up to sign on, but this looks like he's barely broken ground."
I just shrugged. "We're getting in on the ground floor. Maybe we'll get better terms that way."

"You won't." Chimed in a voice from behind us. I turned to see a whip think blonde man with a hawklike nose and an honest to gods monocle staring at us. "The terms are fairly awful. Camden put most of his personal wealth into securing this estate and establishing his claim on the local territory. This is such an unusual event that even if he was expecting people to fight for free they'd sign up for the chance to possibly become part of a noble coterie."

Grimacing at the news, I held out a hand. "Solomon. And this is Nightstrike."

He chuckled. "Conglomerate, I assume." He took me hand and gave it a firm shake, offering the same to Callie. "Alister Morgan, Camden's seneschal. Apologies for the chaos. As you surmised, we've only just arrived. I must say, it's a shock to see any possible hirees from such a distant place. We have the occasional fae signing up, but the Conglomerate is a ways off. How did you hear about us?"

Deciding to play it safe, I shrugged. "I have a friend in the Empire." I said evasively. "He hears things. From your earlier comment I assume the pay here isn't great?"

"Sadly not." He said ruefully. "Most of the volunteers are hoping to be offered a permanent position among the Baron's forces once he manages to establish his foothold. Camden's family isn't...thrilled, by his decision to set up his operation in such an out of the way area."

"Then why do it?" Asked Callie. "It seems like a lot of risk for not much reward. Not that I'm an expert on imperial politics, but this isn't exactly prime real estate, is it?"

Alister frowned. "It's complicated. The Tolbert succession isn't exactly neat and tidy. Camden wants no part of the family squabbles, and is hoping distancing himself will prevent any...accidents. Seven of Camden's cousins have been poisoned in the last year alone. His grandfather is ill, you see, and when he dies, Camden's uncle Vallis will take over as family head. Someone from the next generation will be chosen as heir and the position comes with quite a few perks."

That I could understand. It wounded even more obnoxious than my family drama. "Ah, so he's striking out on his own, and hoping that starting his own little sub branch will make him an unattractive target for the assassins?"

"Even so." Nodded the seneschal. "So I'm afraid if you came expecting a generous payday you've been misinformed. The contracts for employment are heavily weighted towards eventual payout rather than immediate gratification. We do accept short term employees, but their compensation is far reduced. Though if you're here for a long term assignment we'd be happy to put you through the necessary assessments."

Despite not being here for money, that wasn't really ideal. Still, a job was a job, and Camden seemed like the kind of person I could work with. "Sadly no. We're here for something a bit more short term. Maybe a year tops. Little less. We're not against taking a pay cut for a good fit though, and we're hard workers. We came with quite a few friends, since we heard you need all the help you can get."

I noticed something that made me feel a bit better about being here as I watched everyone bustling around. Despite him barking at a few of them for different things, none of these people seemed afraid of Camden Tolbert. The big noble was gruff, but everyone seemed more focused on keeping busy than flinching when he made any demands.

It said a lot about him that his employees were comfortable enough with him to ignore his temper like that, and it made me more willing to work for him by the second. "Alright, well, can we talk to Baron Tolbert? We'd love to hear more about his operation. You understand we can't commit to anything before we take the terms back to our companions, but hearing him out sounds like a good start."

Given we were joining an army, establishing myself as an authority figure seemed like it might cause problems. Best to take a more collective approach, since Tolbert's people would probably want to establish their own heirarchy rather than use ours.

Alister's face lit up. "Why, of course. As mentioned assessments will be forthcoming, but we're happy to discuss collaboration pending those results."

He led us over to where Camden was standing, glaring at a defiant looking woman with red hair in pigtails and soot stains on her face. "I'm telling you upfront." She said bluntly. "I can't turn your chandelier into a defensive emplacement with those specs. I understand your basic request here, but the power requirements are prohibitive."

"I told you to use Might gems for the crystal spikes." He growled. "I even budgeted for it. So what the hell do you need these energy storage runes for? Not to mention the extra hardware."

She pointed up at the ceiling. "Because the Might gems provide the power for attacks, but they don't launch themselves." She paused. "Well, they could, but I can't fit that kind of runework on the frame you commissioned. We need a secondary rune sequence for setup and launch, and it's going to require Perception. I can't do it with your current supplies. Get as pissed as you want, but that's not changing."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "How much for the Perception gems? And what kind of changes will we need to make to the frame? I'm not made of money."

"Ten E-rank chits for the whole upgrade." She said sympathetically. "We're going to have to rework the whole frame, melt it down and reforge it. OR we can just go with the original design and nix the launch sequence. Have it shoot straight down when they walk under it."

Sighing heavily, he rubbed his eyes. "Fine. But I want delivery for the frame included. That's transport to the enchanter and back." She agreed instantly and he turned to us with a wry smile. "Sorry. Certain conventions need to be upheld for a noble establishing a manor, but I'm trying to get as much utility as possible out of the useless detritus I'm filling my home with. Now, I take it you're here about the army?"

I nodded. "Got it in one. There's fourteen of us pretty much. Varying levels of combat experience, most of us halfway to E-rank or higher. We have a healer with us who comes as part of a package deal if we decide to sign on, and her power can also wipe away fatigue."

Jessie's lifeweaving was even more valuable here because of the Impact pressure. Doing things here as an F-ranker was exhausting, and having access to a pick me up was bound to be helpful.

Sure enough, Camden looked interested. "A healer? Those are expensive and hard to find. My forces weren't a draw for many since they have so many other options. No one turns away a good healer. As for the fighting experience..." He shrugged. "It doesn't mean much. Fighting in a formation is quite different than single combat. In fact we prefer amateurs for the rank and file because they have fewer bad habits to train out. That said my drill instructor is damned good, so we can work with anything you bring us. Provided you're all up to standard physically and you can bring me the healer you're in."

"What about pay?" I said, mostly to make it clear I wasn't an easy mark. We were offering him a vital service, especially with Jessie coming along.

He looked us over, spotting the hole in my armor easily. "Tell you what. Every member of my forces gets a stipend and a set of gear. Forgo the stipend and I'll let you design the gear yourself. If your healer is willing to give up payment I'll even shell out for E-ranked materials. It'll end up being cheaper than paying by the injury in any case."

That...would be a huge win for us. It also made me wonder how much healers made, because it was an absurd amount of
money he was talking about. "I'll talk to her about it." I said firmly. "I can't commit to that big of a move without her input. Is the offer time sensitive?"

"Not unless I magically get another high level healer knocking on my door." He chuckled. "But basic starts in three days, so I suppose I'd prefer your response by then." He held out his hand. "On the off chance you accept, I'd like to welcome you both and your group to the Tolbert Military."

I shook, as did Callie, and we left, both of us feeling a bit unsure of what just happened. "So..." I said slowly. "We need to do a ton of research on local materials and healing costs right? I mean we'll bring it to Jessie, but he seemed way too excited to be paying that much money. I feel like he's dramatically undercutting us costwise. How rare are healers in the Empire?"

"It's not the Empire." She said, shaking her head as she slipped into stealth speech. "I think it's just here. Didn't you hear him? Healers can write their own meal ticket. Chances are most of them move up to more lucrative positions and more financially flourishing planets. We can look into it, but as for leverage..."

Grimacing, I did the same, isolating our conversation from prying ears. "Yeah. we're stuck here for the moment. Camden is the only game in town if we all want to stay together. Of course, he doesn't know that, but it's still true. At least we might get new costumes out of it. E-ranked gear for everyone is pretty enticing."

I really needed new armor, and everyone else getting their own was a stroke of luck. I was sure Jessie would be interested, though I hadn't been lying about not being willing to push her into it. We also hadn't mentioned Randall. I wondered if we could get HIM an E-ranked gear set. The idea of a giant bear in powerful armor amused me and seemed like it would be useful.

Walking back to the inn, I considered everything I'd learned and how this would probably work, and I couldn't help but get excited. Something about being back at a human level and being about to go through real training to work with a team from people who knew how to actually train others had me excited to start. Before that though, I had to fill everyone in about our conversation with Camden. We had some choices to make.

 

[Lone-sith]

I'm just curious how he can leverage the Wish ability, that sounds even more useful than healing tbh

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"So...that's basically all of it." I finished, filling in the others in on our talk with Camden. "I didn't want to commit to anything without consulting anyone. Being the leader is one thing, but signing you all up for military service working on commission for gear without asking seemed like a dick move." Benny snickered a bit at that.

Jessie, who was the person whose opinion I was here for, nodded. "I appreciate you checking, but yeah, I'm down for that. Helping people is what I'm here for. You really think we could get a set of armor made for Randall? Because that sounds crazy expensive." Despite her words her tone was eager. Apparently it sounded as cool to her as it did to me to outfit her giant animal companion with high ranking armor.

Everyone else seemed just as eager for the new gear, and we quickly confirmed everyone was interested. Once that was done, I moved onto the plan. "That said, I think waiting a bit to get a better handle on the local environment before we sign up. Training doesn't start for another three days anyway, so it makes sense to make the most of our time. First thing I want to talk to Anna about who exactly we're going to be fighting. The rest of you can do whatever, just let me know if you learn anything interesting."

We all split up, but rather than going with Callie, I decided to spend some time with my sister. Chelsea and I both headed downstairs to find Anna and ask about the local power dynamics. "So...how is it to be out on your own?" I asked my twin as we headed downstairs. "Must be pretty jarring."

She chuckled at that. "You have no idea. I'm definitely still getting used to it. I've been sleeping in the past few months. I'm always expected to be awake at the crack of dawn back home for training. Here I can just...be. It's lovely. I've also had a great time getting to know your friends. They've been so welcoming. I really appreciate you bringing me along with you, Shane."

"I'm happy to have you here." I said with a laugh. "Though that sleeping in thing isn't likely to last. Military trainers are pretty infamous for being strict about timetables."

As we'd been talking, we were strolling around the inn, with the expanded residential portion it was much bigger than expected. The place had five floors and dozens of rooms. Luckily Anna was down in the main bar area, so when we reached the first floor we found her easily.

The dark haired proprietress of the inn was washing and drying glasses behind the bar. I didn't see a bartender, though there had been one last night. Maybe she took shifts. She smiled as we walked up. "Ah, well if it isn't two of my favorite guests. What can I do for you?" I was pretty sure everyone was her favorite guest when she talked to them, but it was nice to get such a warm greeting.

"Hey Anna." I said, sitting down at the bar. "We were hoping to get some info about local politics. The movers and the shakers. We were talking to Tolbert and it looks like we'll be working with him so we want to know what we're up against."

She smirked at the question. "You sure you can afford it? My services don't come cheap. I have the best sources on Stratholme, and more than a few throughout the empire at large. Even a basic information package from me is bound to be more than you can afford."

"I'm sure we can figure something out." I said with a laugh, thinking of my wish power. I hadn't used any wishes today, so I was in a great position to bargain from. "Can we get some of the Shepherd's Pie by the way?"

Since we'd prepaid for meals, she didn't charge us when dishing out the delicious smelling meal, just retreating to the kitchen and coming back with two heaping bowls of potatoes, meat, and veggies. "So." She said, setting them down in front of us. "What exactly do you think you could pay me that would be worth my time? You lot aren't even Barons yet."

That drew me up short as I squinted at her thoughtfully. I'd never actually checked what rank Anna was. She didn't feel stronger than us, but I knew from Zeke that it was easy for strong Ascendants to keep that suppressed if they felt like it. Was Anna a D-ranker? I couldn't imagine her being any higher than that. How the hell had we picked this place out of all the others if she was high ranked? What were the chances? Fucking Fate Sense.

Whatever rank she was, it wasn't higher than Zeke, obviously. There was only one C-ranker on this planet, so we were safe enough to negotiate. Especially if she was D-rank, since that was just past the limit. "Well, that depends." I said smoothly, reaching into my pocket to pull out my WCP card. Aside from giving me access to branches, it also acted as a form of identification. "What do you want?"

She blinked, eyes snapping to the logo on the card. "Ah." She said thoughtfully. "That would explain the looker who came along with you. Seemed odd for such a powerhouse to be puttering around with a group of kids. Do you have a stock of scrolls, or can you actually grant wishes?"

"The latter." I said bluntly. "Six per day. And I'd be willing to trade for information, if that's something you're willing to discuss."

That got a laugh from the innkeeper. "Of course it is. I can't think of anyone sane who would turn down a wish. You're a bit young, so I'll need to keep it on the lower end of extravagant, but I'd still be interested. Though of course the limits will effect what kind of information I'm willing to trade."

Her familiarity with the process brought me up short. I expected her to recognize the crest, but this was a bit much. It finally occurred to me to ask the question I hadn't bothered to ask before now and probably should have. "Wait...do we have a branch on Stratholme?" Realistically I should have assumed that. We'd had several on Callus, and that was a much lower ranked planet.

"Of course you do." She snorted. "Three of them actually. Though one is in Crenwick, which is clear on the other side of the planet, and another is in Velholm, which is in the ice caps. The closest is in Roarfield, the capital. We don't merit an actual Wyndham obviously, though there has been a member of the family passing through now and then. Still, a resident Wyndham is bound to draw some attention."

While some people might have considered this a threat, or an attempt to gain leverage, based on her tone it was clear to me that Anna was giving me a friendly warning. She was an information broker, and I'd given her information. If I wanted to make sure she didn't sell it to anyone I needed to make preparations to keep it from spreading.

Luckily, I had an easy means of doing this by virtue of my geasa. I'd already planned to include the cost of keeping my bloodline to herself as one of her wishes, but I appreciated her pointing it out for me just in case. At the moment though, I really wanted to hear more about the local WCP. "I imagine the branch head is one of the Viscounts?" I asked, trying to focus.

"One of them." She agreed. "Though no one is sure which. The WCP operates a bit more in the shadows in the Empire. They aren't an illegal organization, but they keep a low profile because of the stricter legal precedent. Makes things easier for everyone. The capital branch head goes by Drelan. No one has seen his face that I know of."

That was interesting, closer to the way they did things in Velan than in Rajak. If anything it would keep them out of our faces though. No reason for them to be all the way out in Saltzberg if they were laying low.

Knowing there wasn't a time limit on that information though, I was more willing to waif. "Alright. We can talk about that later. I need information on who we're going to be fighting for Tolbert. If we're doing wishes we could use a place with more privacy. Don't exactly want to advertise."

Frowning, she turned to call back into the kitchen. "MATTIE!" She bellowed. "Come work the bar for a bit!" After a minute, a small blonde woman around my age in an old fashioned dress stepped out, looking annoyed.

"It's my break." She said belligerent. "Why can't Lionel do it?"

Anna rolled her eyes. "Because Lionel is unloading the kegs. Do YOU want to unload the kegs?" Her glare made it clear that the question was not rhetorical.

Mattie put her hands up in surrender. "I was just asking, gods. I'll do it. But since I'm working through my break I get to keep all my tips right?" Despite backing down from the presumably backbreaking work of loading kegs in this ridiculous exhausting planet, the girl didn't back down, her amber eyes narrowed like she was getting ready for a fight.

"Fine." Anna sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Keep your tips. But I'm checking the bottles when I get back. No freebies, and no pouting drinks for yourself when you pour them for customers."

When the blonde nodded, Anna gestured to us and escorted us to the back of the inn, into a storage room packed with everything from glassware to burlap sacks of potatoes. "Not afraid to mouth off to the boss, is she?" I asked as we stepped inside. "I'd recognize that complete disregard for authority anywhere. She your daughter?"

"Niece." She said with a laugh. "Lionel is her brother, and neither of them are nearly afraid enough of me. I take it you're related to your guardian."

I shrugged. "My dad's best friend, but basically yeah, he's my uncle. I suspect he gets just as exasperated as you by my own antics. So, here's how this will go. You make a wish, I let you know if I can grant it, and if I can get you offer the information you think it's worth as payment. Assuming my power accepts, I grant the wish and then we move on to the next one. Your last wish will be paid with a geas keeping you from divulging my secrets. Understood?"

This was a perfect solution to a lot of my problems actually. Because wishes concerning secrets were so expensive, information was at something of a premium to me. Since Anna had it to spare, we both got what we wanted out of this. She mulled it over, then nodded. "Sounds straightforward enough. Now, for my first wish..." She trailed off, clearly too excited to pick the first one. Eventually her eyes lit up. "I wish for a copy of Baron Clairdon's trade manifest."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I confirmed, and the values for the wish scrolled across my vision in purple flame. I'd expected not to be able to grant it, since that sounded like secret information, but apparently wishing for a physical object was a way to partway negate the issue because it was just within my parameters. I blinked in surprise at Anna, who grinned at me. "I told you." She said with a chuckle. "There have been Wyndhams here before. In payment I'll offer everything I know about Baron Clairdon's forces."

Assuming he was someone relevant, I confirmed the wish, then held out my hand. The building electricity in my body welled up and manifested in my hand as a small leatherbound book. Anna took it gingerly from my hand, flipping it open and then rifling through it. Snapping it shut, her eyes returned to me. Thus began my crash course in Stratholme's local politics.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Baronies. On Stratholme, the undisputed ruler was the Earl. Vanden Nevius was a peak C-ranker that was stuck at the threshold of B-rank after pissing of the Emperor somehow. Even Anna wasn't sure how, apparently asking was considered a taboo, and pissing off the strongest man in the world was a pretty obvious no go. Beneath Nevius the twelve Viscounts stood supreme, D-rankers of varying strengths, each of them having carved out a decent chunk of the planet.

Viscounts, however, didn't micromanage. They were there to collect taxes and be left alone. The real movers and shakers on Stratholme were the E-rankers. The Barons. There were dozens of them, and dozens of Baronies that they ruled, though more than a few had several territories under their sway. As long as you paid up on time, the Viscounts didn't care what you did, so there was quite a bit of social mobility among Barons.

The Robber Barons were the E-rankers who didn't report or owe allegiance directly to a Viscount, and traditionally squabbled over poorer territories like Saltzberg, which was the whole reason we came here. That did NOT, however, mean that Saltzberg didn't already belong to a Baron, which was where Anna came in.

Baron Alexander Clairdon was first on the list. The Baron whose family had possessed this land for the last five hundred years or so was well known for his trade acumen, and until recently his rule had been fairly stable. At least until about a century ago when the neighboring Baron suffered and accident and his son took over. Chancey Highgrave was young, vicious, and had something to prove, and he'd declared open war on Clairdon almost immediately.

Unfortunately for Highgrave, Clairdon, while not particularly talented as a commander, was still much wealthier than the younger man, and had been throwing money at his forces for decades now, slowly whittling down both his own fortune and the Highgrave military. Due to this struggle, an opening in the local power structure was being created, and Camden had come to exploit it.

Because of the way politics was handled on Stratholme, none of the local forces had any wiggle room to try to break Clairdon or Highgrave's hold on their territories, lest they expose their own flanks, since the surrounding Baronies were all fairly weak ones, which made this a uniquely suitable place for someone like Camden, who was hoping to avoid his family politics by establishing himself as an independent.

Since we were here to help him, that meant we needed to be up to date on the information for Clairdon, Highgrave, and the closest neighbors who might risk exposing themselves to attack if the power imbalance got too extreme.

First up was Clairdon. Anna had asked me for a copy of his trading ledger, and had gotten it, but unfortunately for her the man wrote in code, and the decryption was too expensive for me to afford with my stats. She also figured out, after some perusal, that Clairdon didn't keep all his accounting in one place, he actually had four ledgers, and each of them made up a part of the decryption, with the code being written line by line across all four books.

How she knew this I had no idea, but she apparently had a Skill for cracking codes, and while she couldn't just breeze through whatever he'd done, she was able to get enough out of the books to figure out the basics.

Clairdon, as I was told in payment for the first book, was particularly adept trader, specializing in quick ship travel. He had an entire shipping industry setup along the river that ran through his territory. Because of this trade flexibility, his gear was better than most, and he put all those resources into heavy infantry. Every man a Might focused Job called a Cavalier and decked out in absurd amounts of heavy armor.

Highgrave, on the other hand, focused more on mounted warriors, and fielded mainly cavalry units called Hussars, a form of light cavalry known for their speed and mobility. The absurd overgearing Clairdon had done to his Cavaliers made them a nightmare for the Hussars, since harrying them didn't really do shit when you couldn't hurt them, though Highgrave continued to put pressure on the older Baron by using his forces to attack shipyards and other land based supply lines.

This had been happening for decades now, and both sides were bleeding men and resources at this point, hence Camden's presence.

After she explained the main players, Anna filled us in on the two closest Barons most likely to make a play if opportunity presented itself. Simon Prentiss and Albert Carrey. Prentiss was an entrenched Baron with centuries of time watching over a lucrative F-ranked iron mine, and his specialty was heavy cavalry. Slower than the Hussars but much harder to stop, his lack of mobility meant he was unlikely to exploit any small openings, and would only be a problem if everything went to shit.

Carrey, however, was much more likely to interfere at the slightest hint of weakness. The Carrey family possessed a force of powerful Dragoons. A type of mounted infantry that they used to devastating effect, riding to battle for mobility and then dismounting to fight on foot.

I wondered if Camden knew all of this, and when I asked her about it Anna just laughed me off. "Camden Tolbert is a scion of one of the great houses of the Empire. His information resources far outstrip my own, and even if he tried to keep things low key there's no chance he doesn't have detailed dossiers on every Barony in this area. His main weakness is that since he's making a patchwork militia, he can't field any specialized units like the others. The Tolbert family specializes in training Hoplites, but there's no way he's going to be able to specialize a bunch of random mercs into a new Job quickly enough for it to be helpful. I hope he brought a good general, because putting together a battle plan with a force like that will be a nightmare."

I had no clue how the Job system worked, though knowing you could change Jobs didn't surprise me. I knew all of them would have also been born with native abilities, though they would be Skills now that they had Jobs. "Alright, so...how does this work then?" I asked her after she'd given me the run down on all the players. "I know we'll be training, though I'm shocked Camden was able to buy property here when it's so obvious he's going to try to take the territory."

"Clairdon had no choice." Anna said with a snicker. "Until Tolbert actually declares, he's a visiting noble, and one from a powerful family. Not to mention Clairdon needs the money to keep Highgrave at bay. Tolbert would have still showed up to try to take the territory even if he'd said no, he'd have just been harder to pin down. Worst case he could have set up in the woods or something and Clairdon would have had no idea where the attacks were coming from."

That sounded stupid as hell to me, but politics usually did. "Isn't he worried about the defenses on that place though? Like if he digs in and builds it up it'll be impossible to get him out." We'd seen some of the defensive measured Camden was taking, and they would be hell to get past.

"Nobles rarely assault each others homes." She said with a shake of the head. "Any core dwelling will be heavily defended, and it's considered bad form. The only exception is the final push to take a territory, but it takes years to reach that point."

I groaned. "This is all such nonsense. It's more like a game than an actual war. We WILL be having actual battles right?"
"They call them skirmishes, but yes." She chuckled. "For quick and easily struck targets, raids are common, but in order to negotiate for border areas that could be contested by either, skirmishes are held. Basically both sides bring a whole bunch of soldiers and line up on either side of a field and then beat the hell out of each other for hours until one side is routed or surrenders."

That was more like what I'd expected, though it ALSO sounded stupid when phrased like that. It would be good enough though, at least for our purposes. "Alright." I said with a sigh. "Two more wishes. Payment for the first will be a map of the area complete with territorial markings and up to date affiliation. Second will be a geas from you binding you not to mention my presence here to anyone without my explicit permission, nor to allude to it through less direct means in any way you suspect may result in my discovery."

Her lips split in a wide grin. "Well someone knows all the tricks doesn't he? That's a tightly worded geas. Fine. For my fifth wish I want a new room for my inn. An underground space no one will be aware of, where I can conduct business of a...less than savory nature."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

Moving some dirt around wasn't exactly a stretch for me, though the Impact this planet had made it quite a bit tougher than it might otherwise have been. Still I could manage, and I told her so. Once that was confirmed she went ahead and had me create the room under the storage area we were already in. I walked to the back corner and discharged the building static into the ground, and the area in front of me glowed purple for a moment before the energy faded.

Reaching down according to what my power had told me as it was working, I pressed hard on the floor in a specific spot near the wall, and the stone dropped away to reveal a small wooden ladder. We all climbed down, and a switch near the wall lit up the whole area, exposing the new room.

It was...empty. She'd asked for a room and it was a room, with wooden posts supporting a ceiling structure that held up the stone and nearby earth. I whistled at the sight. I'd never used my power like that before, but realistically it wasn't a stretch. I could easily vanish dirt with Pit of Despair already, and a few wooden beams wasn't too much more effort. Seeing it all together like this just drove home the absurdity that my wish power was capable of though.

Anna grinned widely, then held up a finger, vanishing for a few minutes and coming back with a rolled up paper. She passed it to me. Unrolling it slightly I checked it over, and sure enough it was a map of the area with plenty of notations. "Last one." She said eagerly. "For now at least. I wish this room was tied into the rest of my wards. Not too many runes since there's not much in here. Should be doable, especially with permission. In exchange you get me under that geas."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I confirmed, repeating the earlier geas to make sure there was no tricks. As the static built, she glanced around the room happily. "This shouldn't be hard to manage." She repeated. "My place is under recursive thaumaturgy wards. Each individual piece of the building is tied to a wardstone which in turn is tied to the building as a whole. You hit any part of the inn, and it gets redirected to the wardstone and back to the building in its totality, so you can't break any single piece of the building without demolishing the whole thing, and there are a LOT of pieces."

As I took her hands, discharging the static, my symbol appeared on her forehead for a second before fading, and runes began to appear on the beams and the tiles in the ceiling. They flashed once before fading, and the wish completed, my last for the day, confirming our safety here and concluding our business. I had to admit it had given me a lot to think about. I needed to talk to Callie about everything I'd learned. But first, I should spend some time with my sister.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next day we did another information swap with Anna (Callie had more questions), but the day after we'd already gotten what we needed, so it was back to the normal point swap. I got forty two Fantasy from Chelsea, swapping for forty two Might to fill out her physical stats a bit before training. With everyone having done their own thing for a few days, it was officially time to sign up with Camden.

When we arrived back at the manor, it looked a lot less empty. They'd carried in a ton of furniture and the place had transformed so thoroughly you'd have thought everything had been here for years. I whistled as we entered. "Do you think somebody here has an Interior Decoration Skill? I have to assume that's a thing somewhere, everything else is. I wonder what that would look like."

"Expensive." Came a familiar voice as Camden stepped into view. "It would look expensive, which is why no, no one here has it. Do you know how much experience it takes to rank up a Skill like that? The sheer number of houses and buildings you'd have to decorate even to make it to a point where you could apply it to other things?"

I didn't, though to be fair, I was biased. DS Mastery alone was something almost no one else would have been able to rank up. Forgetting the experience needed to start, just the sheer number of Skills I'd had to accrue to fold them in before my intermediate rank up was absurd for any non candidate. Focusing on our host though, I nodded solemnly. "Baron Tolbert."

He waved a hand. "Camden, when we're not in an official setting. Nobody has time for that Baron Tolbert nonsense. So, which one of you is my new healer? I assume you're here to take my offer?"

Jessie stepped forward, holding out a hand, and Camden grinned, stepping forward to take it, though he pulled back slightly as a miniature Randall poked his head over her shoulder and growled. Jessie shushed her bear. "Sorry about that Camden. Randall is a bit protective, especially in his small form. He prefers to guard me at a full size though, so when I start healing I'll need a sizeable tent."

The bear grumbled and settled back down, but the E-ranker was barely bothered. "Of course. I'll also be assigning you a guard. You can pick anyone you like. It's important to make sure you're well defended. No Baron would attack a healer in service to another noble, but anyone at the Lord rank will be free to try to kidnap or eliminate you. Better safe than sorry."

"Bethy." She said bluntly, pointing to the tiny vampire. "I'm positive no one at the...Lord rank, will be able to overpower her." She didn't mention the strong likelihood that our eccentric friend would be incapable of obeying any sort of military directions and would probably start some kind of camp riot after she got bored of trying on new uniforms. That actually solved a lot of problems I'd been worried about.

The vampire pouted. "Awww, I wanted to strike fear into the hearts of my enemies as I crushed them under my snazzy platform heel." She glanced down at her shoes, which were platform (though I wasn't really qualified to comment on their snazziness) then shrugged. "Oh well, I'm sure me and Jessie will have so much fun together. And I can let Luggage out to play! He's been so cramped in my Domain. He doesn't like to snooze as much as Poptarts and Donuts."

She waved a hand and a hulking black dog with glowing red eyes appeared in the middle of the room, shocking everyone who wasn't us as Luggage growled menacingly at the newcomers. Camden just closed his eyes and sighed. "Why do I get the impression that you all are going to be even more of a headache than having a healer will be a benefit?"

"Because you're a smart guy?" Said Benny with a snicker. "But you'll sign with us anyway, because we're a hell of an asset. Now, where are the contracts we'll be signing. Shane, Celine, and I are all going to need to go over them. Shouldn't take long, not with Focus like ours."

We'd decided to try to get the best possible terms out of signing up, so Benny's Haggle Skill, Celine's negotiation experience and political savvy, and my contract knowledge would all be put to good use here. Snapping his finger, Camden summoned a tall rail thin man with slicked back white hair and a well sculpted mustache, who handed him several sheets of paper.

"We had these made up. If you'll follow me I can have my lawyer walk you through them." He led us into a study, where a massive dark wood desk sat on plush carpet amid walls lined with bookshelves. A woman with red hair in a ponytail wearing an expensive looking suit sat at the desk, seemingly waiting. "This." He said as we entered. "Is Patricia Smallbrook. The Smallbrook family are some of the best lawyers in the system, and are known for skill and discretion."

Lawyer was apparently a job on the Empire's roles, from what I gathered. "So, you'll all be joining our little operation?" Said Patricia with a smile. "Glad yo have you aboard." Her green eyes twinkled as she gestured to the three chairs on the other side of the desk. I had to wonder if those had been there the whole time or if she set them out before we arrived. Either way it was impressive.

I sat at the far end, followed by Benny and then Celine. The contracts were laid out in front of us in stacks. "These are all the same right? Except Jessie's, which I imagine is more detailed given her particular status here. So we can just each read one and then adjust them as we go?"

"By all means." She said cordially. "You can each go over the healer contract one at a time if you like. We have nothing to hide."

That was a nice sentiment, but it didn't change what we needed to do. I picked up the contract closest to me and started parsing the language. It was mostly pretty clear cut, with a clearly stated term of employment, mention of the benefits we'd be giving up in exchange for our armor, and a few target goals for us to hit in terms of training and battles won. I had to stop a few times to clarify certain terms native to the local legal statutes, but for the most part they'd been pretty fair to us.

Benny, on the other hand, was having a field day, changing terms and altering certain stipulations when it came to our armor. Increasing the material threshold, potential enchantments, and he caught a tricky piece limit on our armor sets that probably would have screwed us. Between Inventing and Haggling he knew exactly what we should aim for, even if he wasn't really in a position to get it.

Once he found those, Celine took over, her noble negotiation skills making for quite a challenge to the smiling lawyer, whose grin became less smug and more acknowledging by the second as our resident elf worked to get us the best deal. It was probably closer to what Patricia was used to, given the Fairyland also used the Job system (alongside the Domain system we'd seen in the tournament).

Apparently the legal terms were more familiar to Celine, because she and the lawyer were bartering back and forth without pausing for breath, changing materials, enchantments, and even equipment types rapidfire as they negotiated. I grabbed Jessie's contract as they bartered, finished it (after making notes) then passed it to Benny who did the same before handing to a just finishing up Celine, and back into the negotiation they went.

Even with my Focus it was hard to follow, though I did hear her bring up Randall's armor, which brought them into an entirely new phase of bargaining. As we'd talked about, Callen had given up his right to new equipment for Randall, since he was already pretty well geared. Camden had to be consulted on a few of the changes, given the huge size difference between the bear and the swordsman, but eventually we came to an accord.

After a second time going over everything for each of us, just to make sure we hadn't missed anything, we finalized the contracts and each signed our own. Six months with an option to re-up for another two, as well as possible command training for any of us who reached E-rank.

We'd agreed to leave four months for travel to the conclave, given how long the trip here had taken. Once we finished all of our negotiating, Camden poured us each a snifter of brandy to toast our new partnership, and filled us in on exactly what we could expect.

"Well, first thing is you'll be staying in the barracks." He clarified as we all retired to a library with a whole host of overstuffed chairs. "Male and female barracks are sepeaate to prevent fraternization. It can be a distraction. You'll get weekends as time off, though we recommend you don't stay up too late because you'll be expected to be awake and ready to start your day at Reveille each morning."

Callie's expression darkened at BOTH of those things, we'd gotten used to bunking together, and she hated being woken up early. We'd expected them though, so she didn't say anything. "Any rules about healing?" I asked cautiously. "We used to have a trainer who insisted we go without. Said it was better for muscle memory."

"It is." Admitted Camden. "But most of the people here have had physical training already. Formations are more of a mental thing. There will be combat drills to train you with your standard issue weapons, but for the most part we'll be working on formations, since we don't have time to get people into the Jobs we would normally prefer. Healing should be fine. Be warned though, I can't guarantee you constant access to the healer's tent, even if you are friends."

I knew we'd have to work around injuries, both training and battlefield, but luckily for us I could act as an intermediary because of my stored heal bursts. As long as heals were allowed we'd be fine. I was pretty sure we would need them too, this planet's Impact was going to make the whole experience here hell.

The excitement I'd been feeling had only grown. This was going to be such a good environment to correct some of the bad habits and weaknesses I had from growing up a mortal. Maybe not erase them completely, but it would be more than enough to improve my foundations as an Ascendant and a combatant. Even if we hadn't been planning to hit E-rank within a month or two and then get bumped up to command, I'd still have signed up.

Of course, at nine thousand plus, Callie and I could do it easily, and I was sure the others would be at E well before we left the planet. My goal was to have us all there by the time we hit the conclave, because I hoped it would help them take us more seriously. Plus we didn't know where it would be held, and if it was a B-rank planet F-rankers like us wouldn't even be able to stand up there let alone function.

With all the negotiations finished and our brandy sipped (apparently it wasn't a chugging alcohol) we thanked Camden and split up, Patricia offering to escort the girls to the womens barracks. I gave Callie a quick kiss before she left, hugged Jessie and my sister, and then followed Camden himself to the mens barracks to set up my space, a much easier feat with a spatial ring. Then I got in bed and went to sleep. I had to get to bed early, tomorrow was my first day of basic training.

 

[Lone-sith]

I don't yet why there was not a contract for the two wish users? Does the count not know?

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I don't yet why there was not a contract for the two wish users? Does the count not know?

Click to shrink...

He is not aware of Nat, no.

 

[Aurael]

This was going to be a whole new world.

Click to shrink...

Look, I'm not sure if that was intentionally or some kind of bug/incident/whatever or maybe you already know about this Information and doing something about it, but Chapters 5 - 121 are gone. Like, straight gone. Which is sad because I just started reading Wish upon the Stars and I liked the first 4 Chapters. Not sure why they are gone, but is there a way for me to read them? Maybe another Site? Or maybe you can somehow recover them?

 

[Lone-sith]

Look, I'm not sure if that was intentionally or some kind of bug/incident/whatever or maybe you already know about this Information and doing something about it, but Chapters 5 - 121 are gone. Like, straight gone. Which is sad because I just started reading Wish upon the Stars and I liked the first 4 Chapters. Not sure why they are gone, but is there a way for me to read them? Maybe another Site? Or maybe you can somehow recover them?

Click to shrink...

It's because he is publishing them as actual books. You can find them on kindle unlimited if you don't want to buy, or just buying them. As someone who came and read it all, as well as the first book on KU, I thinks it's worth it

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Look, I'm not sure if that was intentionally or some kind of bug/incident/whatever or maybe you already know about this Information and doing something about it, but Chapters 5 - 121 are gone. Like, straight gone. Which is sad because I just started reading Wish upon the Stars and I liked the first 4 Chapters. Not sure why they are gone, but is there a way for me to read them? Maybe another Site? Or maybe you can somehow recover them?

Click to shrink...

Yeah, like he said, I published them on amazon and audible. The first two are available on Kindle Unlimited. Amazon doesn't allow you to keep the chapters up on other sites, so I had to take them down everywhere, even my patreon. I'd thought there was an AN at the cutoff point, but I'd have to go back and check.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

In my life, I'd been through plenty of unique and often unpleasant experiences. I'd had ribs broken, been stabbed in the gut, been beaten, and a host of other torments. All of these things had sort of crowded my memory, and made it difficult to remember EARLIER pain and hardship, which paled in comparison. Yet, despite the scale of it being dramatically different, there was one pre-ascendant hell that I still remembered with absolute clarity. Alarms.

I HATED waking up to alarms. It was the one guaranteed way to completely ruin the quality of my sleep and destroy any sense of wellbeing I gained from slumber. I looked back on the few times I'd found it necessary to awaken to an alarm with disdain and irritation.

The first morning in the training camp cleansed me of all those memories. I no longer looked back on alarms with loathing or disdain. My entire concept of an unpleasant wakeup was washed clean by the absolute HELL that was "Reivelle'.

Once could be forgiven for not understanding how awful it was from the word itself. Reveille sounded light and airy, almost charming. It did NOT sound, just from hearing it, like a wall of screeching sound that pounded your eardrums like a drop hammer as you writhed in impotent agony on your bed, clawed from slumber by the shrieking wail of a sound that reminded you of nothing so much as a flock of geese being run through a rusty trash compactor.

I rolled clear out of my bed, hitting the floor with a surprising amount of force and grunting as I dragged myself up off the floor, disoriented and in legitimate pain from what was basically a sonic attack. I looked around, finding my friends for the most part just as disoriented, though Abel and Callen both seemed only minorly annoyed as they calmly got up and started changing into our new uniforms.

Armor would be waiting until the end of the first week, as per the contract, at least our personal sets. We'd have an assigned set of gear for battles so we would be a cohesive part of the unit and those would be passed out fairly soon.

Once we finished changing we were called outside, and we all stumbled out the door, blinking sleepily in the far too bright morning sun, the far too cold air like razor blades on our skin as we puffed out small clouds of steam. Camden was there, as were the girls, on the other side, and a series of stern looking figures I didn't recognize but pretty much already hated just from context.

"Good morning." Called Camden sadistically (he may have just been speaking normally, I'll admit I might have been projecting). "Welcome to your first day of training. Beside me are your instructors. Each of them is an experienced warrior proficient in a certain skill, and they'll be passing those skills on to you. Weapons training, formations, conditioning, and any number of other important and useful skillsets will be yours to acquire in this camp."

He gestured to the tall, dark skinned man beside him with a close cropped dark beard and piercing green eyes. "This is Commander Hamill. He will be in charge of your physical conditioning drills. While most of you are already familiar with combat, the ability to function and push through pain on a C-ranked planet is one that must be honed. It will be unpleasant, but it will probably save your lives in the field."

I grimaced at the thought, but he wasn't wrong. Being able to get tired again was a big change, and learning to work through it would be integral to being able to function in combat. Most of us were so far from human on lower ranked planets we barely even remembered what getting tired was. I'd already experienced some of that when we got here, but I had a feeling I'd be gaining a new appreciation for it before the day was done.

Camden continued, introducing the other trainers, then turned and nodded to Hamill, who stepped forward, glaring coldly at us. He gestured behind him. "Between those two buildings, one of which is the mess hall and the other being the healer's quarters, you will find a freshly dragged dirt path. At the beginning of that path you will find a rack, and on that rack are weighted vests. You will each take a vest and begin running laps. You will not stop until given permission."

Forcing myself to start moving, I wondered why in the name of the Revenant I had been excited about this? My head hurt, my eyes hurt, my fucking skin hurt, and that was just from the abrupt wakeup. Benny, who was stumbling along next to me, looked almost as bad. Despite having much lower stats, his might was four hundred points higher than mine because he was so specialized. Lucky bastard.

The rest of the company looked even worse, and I was deeply thankful for the extra Impact we'd picked up in the Glade, which was clearly blunting our reaction to the pressure more than I had realized. Of course, once we reached the rack and took down the vests, I quickly realized that wasn't going to be as helpful as I'd have liked.

Strapping the thing on, I started running, almost staggering under the weight at first before I forced myself to push through it. Callie fell into step next to me, dark circles under her eyes. Even in agony of my own, I had to shoot her a teasing grin. "So...how's your morning going?"

"Jump in a hole." She growled, her irritated gaze locked on the distant horizon as we ran. "A deep one. Full of spikes."

Laughter really was the best medicine, because my cackle of glee made me feel infinitely better as I picked up my pace a bit. "Love you too honey." Taking pity on my girlfriend, I left her to wallow as I turned to talk to Benny. "So, what do you think they'll serve for breakfast. I'm fucking starving."

My best friend's face took on a greenish tinge. "Don't bring up food right now. Imagining eating is making me motion sick. I'm glad they didn't feed us before this. We'd be puking our guts out."

The mental imagine made me cringe. He was right, but I wish he'd phrased it different. As we ran, I was reminded of all the terrible sensations I'd felt as a normal human being. My knees were throbbing, my lungs were burning, and I had a stitch in my side. Even my Vitality wasn't enough to offset the pain.

I desperately wanted to heal myself, but part of the contracts had been amended for this exact situation. We WERE allowed to heal, but only after the entire day's training was done. I now thoroughly understood why Camden hadn't been worried about it. We were still getting the full effect of the training this way.

In fact, knowing I could have healed myself at any time and been full of energy was making the pain WORSE, because it all felt so damned pointless. I just had to push through it, watching the blue leaved trees as they slowly crept by, trying not to focus on the agony that was my entire body and losing myself in the staccato rhythm of feet pounding dirt.
We ran. And ran. And ran some more. Did I mentioned the running? Finally, Hamill stepped out into the path in front of us, signifying it was time to stop.

Rather than coming to a halt, most of us just dropped to the dirt where we were, caked in sweat and panting as we twitched on the ground. The impassive looking Commander nodded. "Good. That was exactly what we needed." He looked down at the path, a circular track we'd run dozens of times, and tapped it with his boot. "You packed the dirt down. Now the track is ready for use. All of you hit the mess hall. Once you eat we can start that actual training."

We all stared at him, horrified, before glancing down at the dirt path which, as he'd said, had been packed down hard by our boots as we ran.

I almost wanted to say something, but I was saved by the fact that my lungs were in too much agony to easily speak. So just like everyone else I watched in silence as he turned and strode off. Crawling over to Benny, I used him as a handhold to lift myself up, climbing to my feet painfully. I considered taking off the vest, but decided against it since no one else was.

Benny glared at me from the ground, and I almost offered a hand, but I didn't think I had the strength to actually lift him, especially in his vest. Instead, I walked over and offered my hand to Callie, who was much smaller and weighed less IN the vest then Benny did without one.

The vests were weighted with more than physical weight too. They were F-ranked materials themselves, which added to the strain. My best friend flipped me off but crawled over to help Celine, and then we all headed for the mess hall as a group. I debated finding the others, but I was pretty sure they could track us down, and I was too sore to delay. It felt like it took an hour to drag myself to the building indicated, but apparently it was only a few minutes, because there was still plenty of food when we arrived.

I'd expected shitty food, but they'd kind of gone all out. Eggs, bacon, sausage, a full breakfast including fresh squeezed juice from some native fruit called a gwunch (disgusting name, but a pretty decent taste, kind of like a mix between a guava and a pineapple) that I had four glasses of.

Mentally, I knew I shouldn't fill up. I knew that it would make working out worse, but between the hunger of having recently woken up and the hunger of my body trying to repair itself, I had no choice but to pig out. It. Tasted. Amazing. I didn't know if that was due to the cooking or my hunger and I didn't care. I just devoured the stuff.

Once I finished eating, I shoved the plate forward and let my head thunk onto the table, groaning in relief at the sheer ecstasy of not moving. I heard a chuckle and had to lever my head up to see a lanky, olive skinned blonde woman and a short, powerfully built tan man with red hair. They both looked... better than I did. The woman grinned at me. "First time doing an adjustment drill?" She asked with a chuckle.

I meant to respond, but all that came out was something like. "Urgh." Which just made both of them laugh harder.
"It gets easier." She promised. Once you acclimate to the pressure. The thing they don't tell you is the drills don't just help you push through the pain, they also teach you how to properly leverage your muscles. Might is what decides your output, but just because you're strong doesn't mean you know how to engage your strength. It's an important skill, and not one that many people bother with."

I hadn't really thought of it that way, but it did make sense. "Thanks." I grunted, managing speech this time. "Solomon." I jerked my head in either direction to indicate Benny and Callie. "Clockwork, Nightstrike." Then nodded to our fourth party member, who also seemed surprisingly unbothered. "Celine."

The woman laughed again. "Loretta. And this is Owen. We've been mercs for a few decades, though we're new to the planet. Tell you what, stick with us an we'll help you navigate the ins and outs of the first few days." I nodded gratefully and forced my hand up, holding it out slowly to shake. Which they both did. Two new friends on the first day wasn't bad. I just wished I wasn't so sure my day was going to get much worse from here on out.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Hamill's comment about us not having even started yet was sadly not an exaggeration. If anything, it was probably an understatement. Pain from running was quickly replaced by pain from squats, push-ups, pull-ups, crunches, burpees, and a dozen other exercises designed to hit every single muscle we had.

I expected my body to give out, but Hamill seemed to have an almost mystical ability to see when we were about to give up and give us the exact least amount of rest necessary for our Vitality to get us functional again.

We spent HOURS working out. Nothing but exercise all day. I forgot what it felt like not to be in pain, and when the day finally ended and we were allowed to crawl back to our barracks, the first thing I did was heal burst myself, Benny, Callie, and Celine. Since they were the ones actually with me at the end, I used some charges, but the others all just went to see Jessie, since I could only hold ten charges at a time.

"That is SO much better." I groaned as I felt energy and life fill me. I wasn't wired like I normally would be, since all the energy was taken up healing, so the life force inside me just felt like a soothing warm bath. It was absolutely amazing and just what I needed after such a hard day.

Callie, curled against me, groaned weakly. "That was hell. Why would anyone do that to themselves. We're going to have to do that every single day?"

"It gets easier." Said Abel from a cot where Jessie was finishing up pumping power into him. "It's all a matter of discipline. Plus you two are close to E-rank anyway. Once you rank up you'll just be doing your command training. You have what? A few months of this tops?"

The thought of repeating this for months or even weeks was horrifying, but at the same time I couldn't wait to rank up. "So, does anyone feel...stronger?" I asked vaguely. "Like we didn't get any Might from that, but they said it would help, so...did it?"

"I think so." Said Benny from his own cot. Jessie had cleared out the building when we showed up, not that there had been anyone there but staff. Her healing abilities were absurd, and she hadn't had any long term patients because of it. We were all meeting in here to catch up. Benny seemed to be the most enthusiastic. "I feel more in control of myself. Might gives us the raw power, but I haven't been engaging it well. Hell, I couldn't even move some of those muscles before."

That I could understand. I'd had more than a few muscles that I didn't remember ever straining before, and those workouts had damned sure hit all of them. I was already thinking over some of the movements in my staff forms and trying to make small improvements, as well as building a framework for my next form.

Nat, who had been quiet up to this point, spoke up as Jessie got to her. "I feel...better. Not good, but better. This was a good distraction, and I feel stronger and more confident. There's something freeing about learning to use your body better. But is this really all we're going to do here? Just train until we can't stand? Because I have to admit that sounds
pretty pointless over such a long period of time."

"Of course not." I said with a shake of my head. "We're going to be in actual battles too. Plus we get weekends off. Hell, we could probably take nights too. There was nothing in the contract requiring us to stick around here, as long as we're up and ready to work at Reivelle. They probably assumed we'd be too exhausted. Maybe they underestimated what Jessie could do."

She shook her head. "They didn't, but you're right about the loophole. In fact, I got a message from Camden earlier, inviting all of us to dinner at the manor. I think he might have dug up more about who you two are. He seemed interested in talking to Nat and Shane in particular."

I grimaced. That was the downside to becoming better known. We weren't a household name or anything, but enough people knew about us that a concentrated search effort should turn up something. Camden had access to Tolbert sources, or at least something like them, so figuring out who I was probably wasn't too tough. I wasn't exactly subtle. Chelsea should be safe enough though, with mom covering her tracks. Luckily we'd brought a ton of people so she was likely to just blend in.

"I could eat." Said Callie, to the surprise of exactly no one. She and Abel were our biggest foodies. "Is everyone ok to go though? When is it?"

"An hour and a half." Said Jessie with a nod. "And yeah, they'll be fine by then. Your workout finished at six, and the dinner is at eight. As thorough as the damage is, it's not actually too harmful. Your natural Vitality was allowed to patch you up periodically throughout the day. I've been reading some of the healer books on my downtime, and the way Vitality interacts with Impact on planets like this is fascinating."

I smiled at her. "Glad to hear you're learning a lot. The contract mentioned a mentor, did he already have a healer around to teach you?"

"Nah, there's a part timer he pays like a mercenary. She works with a dozen other local nobles too, and is only available one week out of the month. They have some expensive stasis bandages that can hold someone together if they get hurt badly, but if something doesn't kill you immediately as an Ascendant it usually won't kill you at all. Everyone with less severe wounds either waits for the healer or just walks it off."

Despite knowing how hardy Ascendants were, that still sounded awful to me. "Did we bring anything to wear to a fancy dinner?" I asked Callie. "I don't pay attention to that stuff. I guess we could just go in costume though."
She nodded. "I doubt he'd put us through all that and then expect us dressed to the nines. That said, it may not be necessary." Flashing a grin at the bored looking vampire fake snoozing in the corner, she called loudly. "Hey Bethy, do you want to dress everybody up?"

Bethy's eyes snapped open, glowing an ominous red and shining with a (much less literal) intensity that scared me more than her bloodlust did. "I can...dress you all?" She said, her voice faint and kind of dreamy. "Are you sure?"

"No!" I said quickly. "She's not sure. None of us are sure. Go back to sleep. This has all been a dream!"

Bethy's lips slowly spread in the most unsettling grin I'd ever seen, exposing fangs that I was almost sure weren't usually that long or sharp. "Nope!" She crowed as she blurred to her feet. "Not a dream! A dream come true! Oh, I have so many ideas. Does Shane need to wear that creepy mask?" She asked Callie, ignoring my presence entirely.

"Yes." I said firmly, positive it wouldn't matter. Luckily my girlfriend also said yes, and Bethy pouted as she started circling around me.

"Oh, fine." She said as she pulled a tape measure from...somewhere. "Earth tones then." She started measuring me, shoving my arms up, twisting my head, and basically tying me up like a pretzel to get a proper idea of my measurements. Snapping her fingers, she whipped out a black button up with obsidian buttons, shoving it into my hands alongside a pair of brown leather pants, a long brown leather coat, and a pair of knee length black boots with a pirate cuff on them.
Without asking my opinion of them, she turned me and shoved me toward the other side of the room where there were curtains around some of the unoccupied beds. I gave Callie a panicked look but she just shrugged apologetically.

Bethy, as we all knew, absolutely adored fashion. She was constantly wearing new gowns and dresses, and coming up with designs. I was pretty sure she actually had a tailoring Skill, though she'd never confirmed it. I knew Aida and Tracey, her thralls, both had fashion and design related Skills, though they weren't their primaries. But Bethy hadn't brought them along because she didn't think they would let her have any fun.

As I changed into the clothes, I could hear grunts and squeaks as she contorted and bullied all the others with her measuring tape. I think she'd been planning this for a while, actually, because she somehow had something sized for everyone, though she did make a few adjustments apparently (and I was grateful not to have needed those, given the yelps of pain from needle prodding) before sending each person off to their own curtained area to change.

I admit I hid back there for a few minutes after I finished, afraid to get her attention again, but eventually she barked out. "Present!" And all of us shuffled out into the main room again.

She'd pulled a mirror from her ring, and when I saw my own image I had to admit I didn't look bad. The clothes went with my mask, and the whole thing gave me a mysterious and dashing image. Callie was wearing a pitch black off the shoulder ballgown, the bodice of which was studded with some kind of shiny little scales like an onyx fish. Benny was in a copper colored outfit that looked like a cross between a tux and the leathers gunslingers wore in old movies, while she'd dressed Gabriel in a gunmetal grey smoking jacket and black pants over a grey silk shirt.

Abel was wearing a silver and black long coat over a grey shirt and black pants, while Chelsea had a black and white dress that matched her hair and Mel was in a crimson gown that went with her mask. Celine and Jessie both had hunter green dresses, while Nat's was black, and Callen, Cark, and Valk were in black suits. All the clothes were matched to our masks (for those that had them), since Bethy had taken my insistence on wearing mine as something standard. I wondered how many outfits she'd made for each of us to have such a wide selection.

"You all look so COOL!" She squealed happily. "I new that silver thread would set off Andy's mask, and Gabe you look so handsome in grey."

The uncomfortable look crusader grimaced at his clothes. "Why do they all get suits and I have to wear this. I look like a lothario."

I snickered at his old fashioned word choice, but shut up when Bethy's eyes snapped to me, narrowing in annoyance. I'm not ashamed to admit I stood up straight and avoided eye contact. She was even scarier like this than in combat. "You look very nice." She said in a tone that threatened imminent and dramatic violence to anyone who disagreed. "Doesn't he everyone?"

We all chorused 'yes' at the same time, and she gave a vindicated 'hmph' and a nod as she slipped behind another curtain to change into a blue velvet gown with black lace along the arms. Callie, pleased we were all finished getting dressed and completely indifferent to the terror we'd just been through somehow gestured to Jessie. "Now, how about you hand me the invitation, and we can go over a bit of noble etiquette with Celine before we go.

Our healer passed my girlfriend the envelope, which she opened and read over, apparently gleaning some information from what was written there. Then she passed it to Celine, who bit her lip in thought, then gestured us into the center of the room. "I'm not sure how necessary it'll be." Said the elf with a determined expression. "But I'll do my best." Somehow, I suspected this would be worse than the training.