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

[Malcolm Tent]

Kane escorted me over to the table where Deanna lay, gesturing for me to stand opposite him as he took up a position on one side of her. I glanced down at my friend, noting the serene expression on her face with relief. It seemed that whatever Kane was doing wasn't painful at least.

Honestly, I didn't know Deanna that well. She was our guide to get here, and she'd helped me out back at Mourne Kayze, but I was smart enough to realize there was a bit of transference going on here. I was used to traveling with my friends, taking care of my own as best I could no matter what was a reflex for me these days. I could have taken a step back, accepted reality and just left her here or something…but I didn't WANT to do that.

Deanna was one of my people. Maybe a recent one, maybe a temporary one, but that didn't matter. I was the Wishmaster, damn it, and I was already responsible for the lives and happiness of a massive intergalactic clan. If I couldn't even safeguard the friends who were actually WITH me, then what business did I have trying to run a faction?

Beyond that, I just WANTED to help. Deanna's relationship with Chloe reminded me a little bit of me and my sister. Not the overt stuff, obviously, but just the amount of care they took of each other, even when they weren't around the other. If Chelsea was in a situation like this, I'd want someone to help her as best they could. I knew how much Chloe meant to her sister, and I liked both girls too. I didn't want to see Chloe gone or Deanna suffer, much less watch either girl die.

"So, how do we do this?" I asked Kane bluntly. "And what do you need me to do?"

"The process is intensive, but not complicated," he assured me. "It can essentially be divided into five steps. Step one is isolation. We need to seal the souls inside the body individually to suppress them. Once the original occupants are sealed, we then initiate step two and UNSEAL the intruder, allowing it to become ascendant inside the body."

I blinked at him. "Your solution to them being possessed is to LET them be possessed? This is sounding less like a medical procedure and more like the insistent promises of a guy trying to sell me a moon."

He snorted. "In order to act with impunity on the invading influence, it needs to be in control. We bring it to the surface so we can act on it freely. Which brings us to step three. Preparing a secondary vessel. That'll be what I need YOUR help with. When I suppressed your abilities earlier, I got a good sense of your capabilities. Can you imbue a sphere of that crafted material with your Leviathan power?"

That was a good question. I wasn't sure. Leviathan wasn't an ACTIVE ability, exactly. Like it was, but not one I could imbue or pass on. It wasn't like Belial's toxic fire or Zagan's purifying flame. Leviathan was an internal state of protection.

Closing my eyes, I started to calculate. What would I need to do to make that happen? I'd need a physical medium, but Agares took care of that, and Agares COULD be imbued with other abilities like the Heretic Fire. Leviathan wasn't a transmissible state, but I had ways of getting around that too. Piece of Mind could imbue a copy of my mind into the sphere and then I could use Leviathan on THAT.

But Agares wasn't conjuration. I couldn't make something from nothing. I opened my eyes to look at Kane. "I need stone. Preferably ground to dust. I can handle B-rank material, but nothing stronger. I don't have the tools to work that."

"Shouldn't be an issue," he assured me. "The fragment implanted is C-rank, presumably because of the restrictions in place at the location of implantation. Otherwise it wouldn't be so simple to seal and extract it. A B-rank prison artifact will be more than acceptable. Do you have any specific material requirements beyond rank?"

I shook my head. "No, past that it doesn't matter." Whatever he gave me would be reduced to dust and reconstructed anyway. I paused. "Actually…do you think you could get me some A-rank materials. I want to try something."

Agares was a demon of construction, but his power of disintegration came from Pit of Despair, who had recently merged with BRAD. Brad who could create casual holes in VOID ROADS, which shouldn't be possible.

He shrugged, waving a hand, and there was a ripple in the air. A block of stone materialized in front of me, plummeting to the floor with a bang that shook the whole room. I nodded my thanks then called Agares to incarnate into me. Just to be safe, I also called up Brad, manifesting his power inside me at the same time, and then I triggered my staff's upgrade skill, pushing Agares to B-rank.

I focused on the stone, calling Brad's power through me, and I pushed the power of Pit of Despair to its fullest.

It took a second, then another, but slowly, ever so slowly, the A-ranked stone began to disintegrate. Bit by bit, little by little, dust flaked off it, collection on the ground beneath the block. It took ages. Minutes at a time. I had no clue why the hell Brad could do this instantly to the Void Road but it was taking me the better part of a half hour, but I wasn't complaining. Theoretically I should NOT be able to disintegrate and A-ranked stone block, no matter how overpowered my techniques or Domain were.

Once it finished, I reached for the dust with Agares. Because Pit of Despair and Brad were one, and Pit of Despair was part of Agares, I could FEEL the dust, like a part of my body that had fallen asleep, slowly coming back to life as the power of Agares filled it.

"This isn't going to be fast," I panted. "If that's a problem tell me and I'll switch to something weaker."

"No," he said firmly. "The better the prison the easier the final two steps will be. Creating a link and then sealing the intruder would normally need to be done very precisely, but if you can construct a prison that can withstand the pressure, I can greatly improve the speed and reliability of the process." I nodded at that, and then got back to work on constructing the orb.

That took an hour. I had to manually imbue every GRAIN of dust with B-rank power over time to fill them up, like trying to use an eye dropped to fill a pitcher. But I kept at it, pushing forward, and finally all of it was saturated. I reached for Piece of Mind, manifesting a parallel inside the pile even as I slowly sculpted it into a sphere.

It wasn't a matter of just thinking about it either. When I completed the sphere, it was still rough and patchwork. I packed it all together and then had to slowly polish it, grinding away the excess space inside and purifying the gaps until finally, about three HOURS later, I had a complete sphere of A-rank material. Inside the sphere, a parallel of my mind sat, and it was child's play to reach out to it and, triggering the rank up ability of my staff again, imbue it with Leviathan.

The sphere pulsed with power, the glassy black surface flickering with arcane green light. I held it out to Kane, my eyes opening as I shakily passed it over to the former god. "How is this?"

His eyes locked on the sphere as he took it, wide with enthusiasm and awe. "That…shouldn't be possible. You just used some kind of Divine power. But not. What a strange sensation. I'm not sure what to make of that. It is, however, quite satisfactory for our purposes. You've done very well. Allow me to complete the rest of the procedure while you recover."

I nodded slumping over onto my side as I watched him begin the process. He tossed the sphere up casually, and it froze above Deanna, hanging in midair as if sitting on a pedestal. Then he gestured and that same suppressing light he'd used on my descended from above and landed on Deanna again.

As I watched, she began to squirm in place, her body moving and leaving behind a frozen, translucent outline. Then another beam of light descended and another outline was pinned in place. The body sat up with a gasp, eyes flying open, and I saw a glow I recognized from the eyes of that skull on the tower door. The head jerked to stare at me, lips peeling back, but Kane didn't give Drexel a chance to talk. Lifting a short cane, he smacked Deanna's body on the head, driving it forward to thump into the prison.

A bright light shot through the cane and her head to touch the orb, and as she drew away, a trail of light came with her.

Grinning maliciously, Kane slammed the cane on the floor and the light flooded the room. This time it didn't come from above, but from all around us. I watched it slowly close in on Deanna, and as I watched, another outline manifested over her body, this one the same suffocating darkness I'd seen in the tower.

Slowly, an inch at a time, the light surrounded her body and began to contract, condensing the darkness until it was the size of a marble, at which point it pushed the marble down the tube of light connecting her head and the sphere and into the orb, as Deanna fell back to the table, unconscious. The orb flashed, then shook, and I heard a rumble as Drexel tried his best to escape. Wordless screams of incoherent rage wracked the orb as it shuddered and leapt as if trying to escape.

Finally, the shaking stopped, the orb resuming its eerie stillness. Kane tapped his cane twice, the suppressing light shattering and drifting away in the ether. Deanna groaned, and before my eyes, melted away into the familiar form of Chloe, whose eyes fluttered as she woke up. "Owwww," she moaned, clutching her head. Kane snatched the sphere away before she could bump into it when sitting up, and she looked around blearily. "What happened?"

It was so similar to what her sister had said earlier that I couldn't help but snort out a laugh. Once I did that, it was over. I couldn't hold back anymore. I broke down cackling, leaning my cheek against the cool floor as I released all the pent up tension I'd felt on the way over here. I filled her in on what happened, and she looked frightened, but still grateful.

Suddenly, I stopped, then started cursing. Chloe frowned at me, looking confused. "What? What is it?"

"I forgot to get that fucking PHOENIX EMBER," I snapped. "I was so focused on saving you that I didn't even LOOK for it!" She stared at me for a second, then SHE started laughing, and I picked it back up. In retrospect, it actually was pretty funny.

Climbing to my feet, I stretched and then offered her my hand, helping her off the table, then I turned to Kane. He was holding the orb in one hand, spinning it on a finger like a ball. "Thank you," I told him tiredly. "So much. Now, can you bring me this fragment I'm supposed to be carrying with me. And do you happen to have some sort of MAP to the Temple Mount? Or at least a general idea of distance?" From his apologetic smile, I was guessing the answer was no, but that was fine. Guess it was back to the road for us.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"We should go back," Brad announced boldly as we followed the arrow of Heretic Fire towards what I was assuming was the Temple Mount. "We can totally get in and out without him noticing! I can make a big hole in the tower!"

"He IS the tower," I groaned. "How would he POSSIBLY not notice that? Also, we barely got out last time. We're not going back. Trust me, I WANT that cinder, but it's not worth the risk. He's too big of a threat." It took a serious effort not to say Drexel's name, but now that we were clear of him I was taking no chances.

Which was why I refused to entertain the idea of raiding the tower for that cinder. I wanted to. I wanted to do it SO bad, but I knew that it wasn't responsible. Chloe had almost died and taken Deanna with her, and I wasn't risking anyone else. Even my demons weren't safe.

"It's just not fair," he spat angrily. "You did the right thing! You cared about your friend and helped and you LOST out because of it. To have a treasure that was in your grasp snatched away like that…it's unimaginable!" His voice was almost shaking with rage, which seemed odd…until I remembered who Brad was. Brad was a pit. Specifically one that had held treasure. For him, possession was more than just an act, it was his nature, and now he was part of my Domain. I was his king, so handing over the arrowhead wasn't too big of a taboo, but the idea of someone stealing something he considered mine was anathema.

I clapped him on the shoulder gently. "I appreciate the concern, but I'm not too upset. Easy come easy go. I know about the cinder now, and I can look for another one, but I can't replace a friend so easily. People aren't like items, there's only ever one of them."

It was easy to forget Brad was essentially a newborn. The pit had gained sentience recently, and gained form even MORE recently. He had essentially only been a person for a few weeks. As his king, it was my job to teach him about life, and that included more than just showing him around and laughing when he tried spicy food for the first time (which had been hilarious).

Brad nodded seriously. "I see. So friends are a different kind of treasure."

"You could think of it that way," I nodded. "Let me put it this way. A pit isn't just a place to conceal objects, it can also be a refuge. The high walls can keep away predators, and the overhang can be used to get out of the rain. In fact, lots of defensive emplacements are built inside of pits. Cellars, bunkers, all sorts of things. You can't just think of a pit as an absence of material, you should also think of it as the presence of absence. Empty space can be used to create living areas, fortifications, all sorts of things people need in their daily life."

He bit his lip. "Presence of absence," he said slowly. "Fascinating. I feel…drawn to that idea."

"I'm not surprised," I told him. "Pit of Despair, who you merged with, is a part of Agares. In terms of seniority, you could consider Agares your big brother, and Agares's whole worldview is about construction. You should get in touch with him, I bet he could teach you a lot."

He nodded thoughtfully, strolling ahead. I hung back, watching him go with a smile. Brad might be a little odd, but he was a good kid. And it was nice having someone look up to me. Not like the demons did, that was a little uncomfortable, but like a kid brother. I'd missed a lot of sibling interaction with Chelsea growing up, and seeing Chloe and Deanna's relationship made me with I had a younger sibling like that.

After a few weeks of travel, I was getting fond of the kid, but time would tell. Dayna, meanwhile, was staring at me oddly, and I cocked my head as I settled into step next to her. "What's up?"

"You meant that," she said bluntly. "About not being worried about the cinder. About friends being more important. Despite how much power it would have brought you. I've been around you long enough to know you REALLY wanted that thing, it must be a huge opportunity, and you're just…giving it up. To keep us safe."

I laughed at that. "Of course," I said cheerfully. "Do I want that thing? Hell yeah. But don't get it twisted. Power is for protecting the things you care about, the things you care about aren't for protecting power. Getting too obsessed with how strong you are isn't a good thing. I want to gain power to live longer, to protect my loved ones, to enjoy life. I want to help my family and keep them safe, make sure innocent relatives don't get separated from their parents because of some nonsense game. That's why I became the Wishmaster."

She just blinked at me. "I…don't know how to respond to that. That's madness. You're aiming to become a GOD, right?"

"Sure, because gods are immortal. I want to achieve divinity with my wife and all my friends. Not sure if I can DO that, but I want to try." I shrugged. "That and I think growing and learning is fun and interesting. Like I won't pretend I don't LIKE being strong. Obviously if I have a chance to get better I'll take it. But you have to remember what you're fighting for. Otherwise you're not fighting at all, you're just throwing a tantrum."

She was staring at me like I was a lunatic, and I just laughed. "Look, I'm not some kind of saint. That's my mom. I'm a selfish guy. My friends make me happy. I love them. Love having them in my life. If something happened to them I'd feel like shit, so I do my best to get strong enough that it doesn't. Same with my family. I care about them, gods know WHY because they're all assholes, but I do. I want to make things better for them because it'll make ME feel better to do it."

"I'm not sure there's a difference," she said wryly.

"Like hell there's not," I snorted. "I know people who do good just to do good. My wife is like that. Despite all the bullshit her dad put her through, Callie cares about other people. She genuinely wants to help. To make the universe a better place. She makes me a better person just by being near her, and I doubt I'd be even as concerned with people as I am without her. But that's not me. Callie is a hero. I'm just a stubborn asshole with a possessive streak."

Dayna was staring at me now, and I could see something like…awe on her face. I looked away. I didn't like that. Dayna was a friend, I didn't want her looking at me like the demons did. "I think," she said quietly. "That you give yourself too little credit. And that maybe I see what Lady Bethany sees in you."

"None of that," I said with an uncomfortable laugh. "Helping out a friend isn't some big achievement. Besides, you'll change your tune the next time you have to save me from the idiotic consequences of my own actions. It happens a lot."

I glanced back in time to see her bare her teeth in a wolfish grin, the odd look vanishing as she barked out a laugh. "Now THAT I believe. So, what did that spirit give you, anyway?"

"Kane?" I asked. "He gave me a fragment of Deveskane's soul. A very small one, from what I can tell." I reached into my Domain, withdrawing a shard of mirrored glass about the size of my palm. "It doesn't seem to be aware. Or maybe it's sleeping. He didn't tell me what to do with it though, just said he could sense I would be able to put it to use."

She stared at it in fascination. "A shard of a dead god," she muttered. "Strange."

"Very much so," I agreed. "But it's not like this is the only one we'll be running into. While he couldn't tell me where it WAS, Kane did tell me a bit more about the Temple Mount. Apparently, in order to enter, we need to pass through a place called the "Valley of the Broken Gods". It's some kind of repository for trapped fragments of the various dead gods inside. You need to pass through a gauntlet of them to enter."

She flinched. "A GAUNTLET of gods?"

"Heavily suppressed ones, I suspect," I reassured her. "Given where we're headed. And at the same level I'm not scared of anyone. It's lucky the Temple Mount is in here, because a defense mechanism like that would be impassable in the outside world. Anyway, once we're through there, we enter the outer layer of the mount, the mortuary. Beyond that, and up the slope, is the Acropolis. He's not sure what's in there, since he's never been, but he said if Atlas left behind some sort of backup plan, it would probably be in there."

That seemed to give her pause. "If you're sure," she said after a moment. "I promised Lady Bethany I wouldn't let you get yourself killed. If this was before I'd have been hesitant, but you HAVE just dealt with two different gods. I guess you know what you're doing."

"Let's not go crazy," I said wryly. "I wouldn't say all that. But I like the confidence."

We both laughed, and then we settled into a brisk walk, not bothering to talk anymore. We'd said what needed saying, and we were both fascinated by the surrounding environment of the Chaos Chasm. As we walked deeper in, the scenery changed. First a forest, then a meadow, then a canyon. The changes were dizzying, far surpassing variety you would see in a natural world, but the deeper we got the more variety there was.

More than that, I could feel the pressure mounting, the force of restriction from the vortex growing as we approached the center. By the time we spotted the mountain in the distance, it was at mid C-rank. My stats were only that high, though I made a mental note to check on that. After becoming Wishmaster I probably shouldn't wait too long between stat updates, otherwise I might end up biting off more than I could chew. My thoughts were drawn away from that concept though, by the appearance of the Temple Mount.

The Temple Mount, contrary to what Kane had implied, was not ONE mountain. Rather, it was a whole RING of them. A huge wall of nearly sheer cliffs piercing the sky. Directly ahead of us, set into the side of the cliffs, a single crack extended into the depths of the mountains. Outside it, a pair of huge statues towered like silent guardians, faces long since worn away by wind and rain.

I held up the pointer. "I think we found it," I said dryly. I moved it back and forth, and sure enough, the arrow remained locked. "Alright everyone, Domain time. This part I need to do alone."

No one argued, though a few of them looked unhappy. In a blink, I was alone, and I strode forward toward the crevice with unwavering purpose. Whatever waited in there, I would get past it, I would help my friends, help Atlas, and hopefully resolve the burgeoning Void War while I was at it. Then, once everyone was at peace, we would all be able to relax and live our lives, and I could get down to the business of fixing my family. On second thought, maybe I would prefer to deal with the war after all.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Stepping into the crevice that was the Valley of Broken Gods was a surreal experience. In some ways, it just looked like an empty cave, but I got a palpable sensation of otherness on entry. Or rather, several senses of otherness. Such as: a hungry beast lurking in the darkness, a shadowy presence waiting at the top of the stairs, the sensation insects crawling through my veins, and about a dozen others all unique and nearly impossible to put into words, colliding inside my brain in the worst way.

Leviathan's protective warmth rolled through me, melting the encroaching frost of the conflicting auras like warm sunshine blazing down over new fallen snow. I let out a long, slow breath as the conflicting energies cleared away, stepping deeper inside and looking for any visible sign of what I was sensing.

It didn't take me long. The walls of the crevice were lined with shrines. Nothing fancy, just some rectangular stone boxes with peaked rooves set into indents equidistantly along the wall. Each box had a small door made of opaque glass set into the front of it, and from behind the glass I could see various glows of different colors, shades, and intensities. The two closest were red and green respectively.

I stepped forward, and the omnipresent auras faded into the background as two of them slammed down with bonerattling force, nearly driving me to my knees. "MORTAL!" boomed a growling voice. "SUBMIT!"

Gritting my teeth, I turned to the blood red aura, which was the one that had spoken. "Bite me," I said bluntly.

This was not a god. This was a fragment. These were all fragments, which meant they were all dead and that wouldn't be changing unless I decided to change it. Which I wouldn't. I saw no reason to be polite with these things, especially not while they were actively attacking.

"YOU DARE!" howled the voice. "Do you know who I am? I am Alrax the Decimator! I am the great beast who dwells within the blood red sun! I am the unceasing ferocity of the unending chase, the screaming terror of impending doom! I am-"

"Dead," I finished for him. "For a while now. Which means you're no longer any of those things."

A ringing snicker split the air. "He's got you there, Rax. You're just a jumped up ghost with an attitude problem now."

"Like you're any better Alraune," rumbled the first voice. "The might god of insidious whispers reduced to a muttering nuisance. You're one step up from commentary section at a children's blood ritual."

I blinked. "I…a what? Nevermind. I'm going to move on if you guys don't need anyth-"

"HALT!" boomed Alrax. "Go no further, mortal! To pass through our influence, one must be worthy! You are not. To prove yourself worthy of my acknowledgement, I require a mighty warrior who has lived a live of strength and violence. You are but a suckling babe of a single score of years, I find you wanting and reject your passage!"

When I tried to continue, a wall of force smashed me down to my knees, and it became clear that I absolutely would not be bypassing this hurdle by forcing it. I glared at the red window. "Theres got to be fifty gods down here, there's no way any one person could pass all the tests, right?"

"It is possible," he intoned. "But yes, very difficult. That is why the Valley of Broken Gods has kept intruders out of the Acropolis for…hey, what are you doing? Stop that! Get back on the ground."

I grinned at him as I rose, stretching expansively with an exaggerated yawn. "Thanks for that. I had a crick in my back. I'm good now."

"Impossible!" he spat. "I just assessed you! You weren't worthy! You should be unable to pass!"

Smirking, I stepped forward, hitting another wall as the green window flared. "Interesting," said the second voice, the god Alraune apparently. "You have some means of bypassing the tests, but those means are manual and must be activated. Curious. How did you do it?"

"I have the strength of ten men because my heart is pure," I answered sarcastically. "Now what's your qualification?"

In reality, I had cheated. When he mentioned the qualification of being a lifelong warrior, it occurred to me that I HAD warriors in my court. I'd incarnated Abaddon, letting his entire life roll through my head, and it had allowed me to pass unhindered through the wall of force.

The green voice paused for a moment and then sighed. "Very well. I was Alraune, as my oafish brother already revealed, I was the god of insidious whispers. Secrets revealed in the dark and unmentionable deeds were my purview. But my true love, my most treasured pastime, was subversion. Not the secrets themselves, nor the whispers, but the extrication of that forbidden knowledge with guile and grace."

Nodding, I let the power of Abaddon fade away as I called forth Belial. Sure enough, as soon as my first form manifested in my body, the wall of force faded, and I was able to pass easily forward.

The issue was that incarnation was not a casual act. I hadn't allowed most of my court to dwell within my body, and there was a reason for that. Trying to process a whole other life, and more than that, two other lives counting Leviathan. After a slight pause, I triggered Piece of Mind, manifesting a parallel and putting it in charge of running the other selves. My main brain was immediately freed up from the quagmire, and I let out a sigh of relief as I stepped forward to stand in front of the next shrine.

Rather than bullrush through and get stopped, I just waited, and the yellow light behind the glazed glass pulsed warmly as a cheerful feminine voice all but sang. "Oh, hello! A visitor, how exciting. My name is Mara, goddess of, happiness, love and cherished kinship. Those who wish to pass through my trial must have strong and enduring affection for others and prove their regard with word and deed."

I frowned, not sure which demon to manifest, but before I could decide, the voice continued. "I see you are a caring and affectionate person, and you are welcome to pass. Be safe along your journey, and please feel free to come by again and visit. It does get a bit monotonous down here."

"Thanks," I said slowly. "I just…pass? Like I'm allowed through right away? No hoops?"

"I'm not sure what a hoop is," she said happily. "But it sounds delicious. And yes, you're free to pass. You're a wonderful person, from what I can tell, and I wish you luck and wisdom on your journey."

"Well, thank you," I said lamely. "That's very nice. I was expecting more pushback on that."

I nodded gratefully to the shrine and then moved on, approaching the next shrine, a sky blue glow flickering behind the window. "Halt," intoned a gravelly voice. "You stand before the great got Durrus, lord of earth and stone, master of stoic protection. Only staunch defenders may pass my trial, those who remain implacable against unrelenting force."

This time I did hit the wall, and I admitted that was fair. Luckily I had this covered. Mornax made an appearance, and the life of my most durable defensive form was an easy pass for Durras's trial.

I couldn't help but feel a little in awe of Atlas's security features on this place. I assumed there was some kind of back way or alternate route to get in since there was no way having twenty legendary heroes on hand to get you past this every time was sustainable, but this was SO perfectly suited to me that it blew my mind.

Had he foreseen I'd be here? Had he influenced my choices to make this happen? Was it just a crazy coincidence like so many things involving gods? Was it somehow all three of those things? I genuinely had no idea, but I completely understood why I would be the one who needed to come to this place to access whatever plans he'd left behind. The only way through this place if you weren't ME was a huge team of incredibly specific people with very focused personalities.

The next shrine was a bit more ominous. Darkness. Not like an absence of light, but like tangible black energy clinging to the inside of the window. The voice that spoke this time was dull and distant, like the whisper of dead leaves over a cold grave. "Mortal," it whispered. "What is it you seek?"

"I mean…this is a hallway," I pointed out. "And I'm already partway down it. I'm not sure how much clearer I could make my intentions."

The voice laughed darkly. "That isn't what I asked. I asked what you SEEK. What is your deepest desire?" I frowned at that. It sounded…familiar. I stepped forward, and the voice spoke up. "You never ans-hm?" It stopped, trailing off. "I sense the power of the wish. You are worthy to pass. How interesting. Your divine blood, from whence does it come?"

"My ancestor is Alistair Wyndham," I said without bothering to conceal anything. Either this thing wasn't a problem or it WAS and I didn't want to piss it off. "They call him the Wishmaster."

"A boastful moniker," it sneered. "Ill suited to a creature of subtlety."

I shrugged. "Not sure I'd call him that. Guessing you don't know him. Was wondering if you were like…my grandcestor or something."

"Your blood smells of familiar power," it said slowly. "Child, know this. You stand before the last remnants of Rylant, god of poison desire. Should you wish to explore your gifts, to understand the heights to which the power of the wish can be polished, return to this place. Your bloodline is novel, but its might pales in comparison to the true force that can be unleashed by the desires of the heart."

That should have been an interesting concept, and I might have been tempted, but before I could respond, I got…almost a premonition. A flash of insight so strong that it nearly drove me to the ground.

Rylant's wish power was fundamentally opposed to my nature. The god of poisoned desire stood as the antithesis to my ancestor's concept of the wish. Fairness, balance, technical perfection. The principal that both parties benefit and making those benefits more than the sum of their parts.

My ancestor was kind of a dick, but he was a FAIR dick. He did his best to remain impartial and to give people what they wanted, as long as he got something out of it. Rylant was different. Rylant was like those genies from the old stories. His entire purpose was to twist and subvert the desires of others, to use their wishes for his own ends. He was closer to someone like my dad than the old man.

"I'll keep it in mind," I said slowly. I wouldn't, not personally, but I wasn't against letting my dad know about this place and this particular god. I suspected he could use the information for something, and if he could, that meant I could extract payment from HIM, which had already come in handy a few times. His more flexible wishes had helped me out of a couple jams.

Rylant went silent, no longer deigning to speak to me now that he'd said his piece, and I moved onto the next shrine. One by one, I passed through them, using the incarnations to bypass each individual requirement, until finally, after one or two dozen of the damned things, I emerged from the crevice, from the Valley of Broken Gods, into a massive…place.

I didn't have words to describe the hollow in the ring of mountains, its sheer size beggaring my imagination, but I DID recognize some of the smaller mountains inside the ring. The corpses of gods. I sighed as I glanced around. Now what the hell was I supposed to do NEXT? Then I paused. Actually, I didn't need to figure that out. I had access to a primary source. Time to contact Callie and have her wake up her old man. I had some questions for Adam Atlas, and I wasn't going to be ignored this time.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I arrived in my wife's soul space without much fanfare, but she knew the second I showed up. It only took her a second to appear, and I could see from the concern on her face that she wasn't expecting me to be there. "Shane," she said as she hurried over to where I sat by the altar. "What's wrong? Is everything ok?"

Chuckling, I put my arms around her, taking the time to pull her against me and set my chin on top of her head. I hadn't seen her in a while, and I never passed up a chance to spend time with my wife. She snuggled up against me, though her voice was sardonic as she muttered "This really isn't helping the anxiety." Reaching up to pull off my mask, I smiled as I stepped away from her.

"I'm fine, just a lot happening," after the mess with Drexel, seeing Callie was like a drink of cool water for my parched nerves. I always felt better when she was around. "As for what's wrong…how much time do you have?"

The answer, as it turned out, was a lot. So I told her everything. Last time we'd talked had been a few days ago, at least in detail, so there was a lot to cover, but by the time I was done, she was glaring at the altar, or rather the gem in the pommel of the sword floating above it.

"Adam!" she snapped. "You've been dodging my calls for weeks, but if you don't respond to me right now I'm going to pitch that damned sword into the Void. You owe us some answers."

"You don't have to shout," came a calm voice from behind us. "I'm right here."

We both spun, surprised to find Atlas himself reclining in one of the pews, looking supremely unaffected by anything that was going on. He beamed at us both. "Sorry kids, been a bit busy. What can I do for my favorite daughter and her intrepid husband?"

I scowled. "You know why we're calling. Your oracle had to have told you by now."

His eyebrows went up. "You're in the Chasm?" He frowned, expression troubled. "That's not right. You shouldn't have arrived there for another two years." His eyes snapped to Callie. "What happened? Who attacked you?"

"Morwenna!" she spat. "Which you would know if you ever answered your godsdamned calls! I've been trying to contact you through the gem for ages."

He grimaced. "It's not that simple. The amount of will I can seal into the gem is limited. It's a divine artifact, and being my daughter gives you access, but being able to properly USE it is different. The gem is a storage device. That's its purpose. It holds power. I left a limited number of fragments of my power in there to operate autonomously if you needed it. Remote contact is a huge powersuck, so it wasn't a function I implanted. I can activate it myself, but you can't."

"Then how are we talking to you right now?" I asked bluntly. "Because the fact that you're here suggests-"

"I've been getting strange feedback lately," he admitted. "I wasn't sure what it was, but oracular outreach makes sense. Probably attempts to let me know you were in the Chasm. I assume you've made it to the Acropolis if you're calling me?"

I wondered how he knew the difference between the urgency of the calls. I assumed he COULD hear them and had chosen not to answer. "I am," I admitted. "I'm in the mausoleum at the moment, but I have no idea what I'm doing here. I assumed you left some kind of backup plan there, presumably to do with the god flesh. Is there a method here to resurrect you?"

"And what do you mean you're busy?" Callie asked in annoyance. "You're DEAD. What could you possibly have going on?" I put a hand on her shoulder, and she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. "Sorry. I meant to say, what's been keeping you so busy?"

Callie had a bad experience with her dad, and I knew, even if she didn't talk about it, that she'd been excited about her connection to Atlas. She'd been looking forward to getting to know him, and to be unable to contact him for so long, she felt abandoned. Atlas seemed to know it too, because he gave her a sad smile. "It's…complicated. Dead gods are dead, but we're still gods. We have certain methods of interaction, with each other and with the outside world, ones I can't talk much about."

"I get it," she sighed. "It's just been…a lot."

"I can imagine," he said sympathetically. "You said Morwenna came after you? Morwenna the Witch? The one who I made my original deal with? I have to admit, I thought she was long dead at this point."

I snorted. "Pretty much the opposite. She's a Void God. She had this huge complicated plan targeting my family and our inheritance ceremony, and she benefitted from it enough that she was able to inch her way over the finish line on her own. THEN she tried to have Callie assassinated by a traitor inside the WCP because she's scared of entering the war while you're still active."

He snorted. "That sounds like her. She was always obnoxiously cautious. Never a direct route to anything if there was risk involved. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised she survived."

"But if WE had another god in our corner," I pointed out. "A living god, who she was scared of, not to mention you would be able to help directly against the Vanished gods. The question is, can it be done? What is this resurrection ritual. I don't know too much about it aside from the need for god flesh."

"Well, you'd need one of my divine artifacts," he said casually. "But luckily, you have one of those. Your connection should enable you to summon Calliope's sword directly, if only for a short time. But that's hardly the only ingredient. The ritual I left behind in the Acropolis wasn't one I expected to ever use. It was more an emergency measure in case of a severe crisis."

I nodded, plumbing the depths of my memory. "We also need…spiritually reactive biomatter? Something we can use to clone the god flesh to create a body for you." Then I paused. "Although…actually, more than just you would be even better." I filled him in on Deveskane, mentioning the man's identity as a former worshipper. When I asked him if he remembered the other god, he just shook his head.

"Nothing specific," he replied sheepishly. "I had a lot of worshippers. It makes a lot more sense that he'd remember me than the other way around. But it's not impossible. I'd need to speak to him directly and establish terms. There's an artifact present in the ritual chamber that can allow us to speak. You'll have to get to it first. Which might be a problem, because there MIGHT be a bit of security in the inner ring of the city. And by might be, I mean there definitely is."

"What kind of security could you have that's still active after…however many thousands of years that place has been in the Chasm?" I asked, appalled at the very notion.

He shrugged. "I had a few clans of ascendants on site, and multiple stasis fields. Which ones lived, which ones used those fields, and which ones are still around, I have absolutely no idea. But you'll need to be careful in any case. The key to the Acropolis was one of my divine artifacts. It bypasses all the security, but I don't have it anymore. You'll need to go in the hard way."

"Somehow, I kind of assumed that," I sighed. "I ALSO assume you can draw me some kind of map?"

"Best as I can," he said apologetically. "That kind of proximity to the Chasm is going to seriously mess with long term enchantments. No telling HOW it'll do that, however. You're going to need to go slowly. Take your time and do it right."

I blew out a breath. "Ok, I can do that. But WHAT am I doing? You keep mentioning the ritual, but I don't know what materials we need, or how to do it. Seriously, what am I looking for?"

"Right," he said absently. "Sorry, I'm doing several things at once right now, I got distracted. One of the downsides to a shattered soul. Most of the fragments are gone or dormant, but the ones that still exist are sucking up attention. Anyway, I have instructions. You said you're in the mausoleum? Which side did you enter through?"

I blinked. "There was…only one entrance that I saw? It was the one with all the dead gods?"

"Yes, I know, which dead gods?" he said impatiently. "There are four of those passages, one for each cardinal direction."

"How many gods did you KILL?" I asked in an appalled voice. "I don't know whether to be horrified or impressed. There were a bunch of them. One of them was…Alraune? And his brother was a god too. And there was a goddess of like…affection?" I listed off all the deities I could remember. There had been quite a few of them and they had kind of been blurring together by the end. Their presences had been overwhelming, and I was getting worn down by the time I got out.

He chuckled. "More than you might expect. But it's not important. I know roughly where you arrived. Do you remember the layout of the area around you?" I did, and I mentioned it to him. He nodded slowly, closing his eyes as if digging through his memory. "That should be…the left hand of Roald, the wrist of Shang-Jin, and the calf of Dox."

"I meant to ask, actually, what's the deal with god remains like that?" I had been wondering about it. "Like I've met gods. They're not gigantic. Why are the body parts so huge?"

"A god and their world are one," he said with a sigh. "Upon death, a god realm fragments. The parts that have something to keep them stable, like an object of power, or a fragment of divine soul, or even certain lingering types of intent, they die. Those dead realm fragments return to being physical manifestations of the body, but at the SIZE of a realm." He paused. "Ok, there's some spatial nonsense involved, so the size doesn't translate, it condenses, but that's pretty much the reason."

I filed that information away for later. "Sorry, getting off topic. The gods you mentioned, will their flesh work? Like can any flesh be used?"

"No," he said immediately. "There are requirements. You need to find me a specific appendage. The eye of Habeus. The parameters for revival vary based on the situation, the eye should be optimal for my current state. It's not far from you. I'd say about fifty miles northwest." There was a slight flicker in his image, like a screen going blurry, and he cursed. "Damn, can't maintain this connection. Something is interfering."

The gaze he turned on Callie was apologetic. "Calliope, I am so sorry I haven't been here for you these last few months. If all goes well, then we can have a proper reunion soon. I have so much to ask you. So much I want to teach. But for now, just take care of yourself. You have the tools. I see you've been making improvements to my gifts, and you're already on the path to far surpassing me someday.

"Shane, I need you to listen carefully," he said as he turned to me. "I have a lot to say and not much time to say it. The specifics of the ritual will become more obvious once you reach the ritual chamber, but there are a few things you need to know first.." As he filled me in on the details, I filed it all away. I was determined to make this work. Having another god on our side, possibly two…there was no better way to keep my family safe.