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

[Malcolm Tent]

The next day was a busy one for me. Firstly, because it was FINALLY time to cash out my next batch of scrolls (five hundred twenty of them this time), and secondly because I had arranged to escort Callie to the Curse Canyon to look for loot. I was excited to see the place, and to spend time with my wife, now that I'd finished my midterms.

As soon as I woke up and finished condensing my scrolls, I headed for Common City to meet up with my allies to get all my points in. More than just the ones I'd get from the scrolls, I should have netted a solid chunk after my showing in the midterms, and combined with my Wishmaster income I was betting I'd be raking it in this time.

Honestly, it was shocking how fast I was making it through B-rank, but then again, B-rank was just the beginning, and I WAS an intergalactic crime boss. Getting through A-rank would be literally ten times harder, and I wasn't looking forward to that at all, especially since I would presumably be out of the academy by then, and missing the prime income source of this place as I made my way through.

Of course, I WOULD presumably be netting a lot more points per scroll, so I wouldn't be moving too slow. Speaking of which, I had been hoping that I might have pushed my per scroll point limit up, but I'd managed to bully my stat screen into listing it recently and unfortunately, it was still stuck at 2500 points.

I chuckled as I slumped into a chair at my favorite bar to wait for my friends. I'd gotten the word out about my early visit, and a few of my allies had chosen to use theirs ahead of time. It was technically a new week, though it was generally a bad idea to do a weekend/weekday back to back visit like that because it would essentially screw you for the rest of the week. I wasn't too worried since I had two days off, and I was only planning to use one today.

"Well, don't you look excited," a familiar voice said as I turned to see my best friend drop into a seat next to me. "Let me guess, you did something crazy, or stupid, or both, and took first in your midterms?"

"That sounds like loser talk," I said as I glanced back over to where Abel had just sat down. "Did you hear a loser talking?"

He nodded solemnly. "I did, but to be fair, that's what all of you sound like to me."

I barked out a laugh. "I'll take a bottle of Drevaln Blue Rum," I told the bartender. I didn't usually drink, but rum was pretty tasty, as long as I only had a little bit. Granted, it cost me a hundred credits, but I had a bit of pocket money, and I could make that bake easy enough. We'd all passed our midterms, as far as I knew, so a small drink for everyone as a treat wasn't a bad idea. The guy passed me a bottle of shifting dark blue liquid with silvery stars suspended in it, and a few shot glasses at my request.

Pouring a bit into two of them, I filled one for myself and raised my glass. "To victory," I said with a grin. "Long may she reign."

"So," Abel said as he downed his shot and licked his lips. "You never answered the loser. You take first?"

"Of course," I said with a dignified sniff. "I AM the Wishmaster. I have to uphold a certain standard of quality when it comes to my comportment. If I don't set a good example for you hooligans how will you know what to do?"

I checked the door, confirming more of our friends filing in, and waved Bethy over as I spotted her. She didn't have her siblings with her this time, just her butterfly friend Casi, who looked way more terrified of us than anyone really should. Bethy spotted us all and cheered, zooming over and bodying Abel off his stool as she claimed it for herself. "Rum!" she cheered happily. "It's not wine, but it'll do. I thought you didn't drink, boss?"

"Seemed like a nice thing to do for the group," I shrugged. "Besides, I only had a tiny bit. And I have more effective Vitality than most peak B-rankers. And a regen ability. I don't think I actually CAN get drunk at this point, so it's not too big a deal to drink this for the taste." I smiled past her at her shy friend, who was all but curled up in a ball behind Bethy. "Would you like a glass, Casi?"

"Hell yes she would," Bethy whooped. "One for each of us!" She grabbed a pair of shots and poured the rum into them, tossing hers back and pushing the other toward Casi, who took it and sipped it gingerly.

I rolled my eyes. "Don't let her push you around," I told the shy girl seriously. "She can be a lot, but she doesn't really know it. If you tell her you're uncomfortable she'll back off."

Raising an eyebrow at Bethy, I nodded to the girl. "You bring her for a reason? Not that it's not nice to meet your friends, but she doesn't seem like she wants to be here much. I assume you had something in mind?"

"Actually was kind of hoping you might help rebalance her a bit," she said cheerfully. "She's got a pretty even spread of stats, but I think she could do with some specializing. I figure you need some stats anyway, and you usually don't focus too much on Creation or Fantasy, so it would be a good chance to help her fix her build."

"Oh," I said with a blink. "I mean…yeah. I can't exactly give her every scroll or anything, but I don't mind lending a hand. You sure that's what you want, Casi?"

To my surprise, the previously shy butterfly girl met my gaze without flinching. "It is," she said immediately. "My main stat is Creation, with Fantasy as a secondary. But because of how my abilities work I've accrued a pretty solid amount of stats in every category, and it's starting to limit me. Bethy says that if I can specialize there's a chance my ability will evolve on rank up even if I don't mix anything in. I mean, I know that people say that, but at higher ranks it's almost impossible to pull off. If you can help I would owe you one, even beyond whatever point you'd get from me."

"Casi is SUPER tough, too," Bethy chirped excitedly. "Her Chronicle is all weird and it can store people's powers, and then she can like…turn them into butterflies."

Casi sighed. "That is a gross oversimplification, but I appreciate the vote of confidence."

I chuckled, and we dropped the subject for now. We needed to wait for everyone else before actually breaking out the scrolls anyway, because there was no way Casi would be able to support all those wishes by herself. It turned out once she had some time to warm up to people Casi was a surprisingly outgoing and charismatic person. She told us all about her time in the trait major, her goals, her family. It was nice getting to know a new friend.

Callie arrived pretty early on, and she pulled a seat near me, joining the conversation without a problem, as did Jessie after her. Finally, after everyone arrived, it was time to begin. I busted out my full stock of scrolls and passed them out to any of our allies who wanted them, excited to see exactly how much I would gain after the no doubt huge boost from my epic meltdown during the midterm.

Sure enough, aside from the one point three million I got from the scrolls, I raked in another FIFTEEN AND A HALF million or so. Between the midterm and my income from being Wishmaster, I was seeing a frankly staggering amount of gains here. Months of training had definitely had an effect as well in terms of getting my name out there, probably helped by the Gehenna court running rampant across Moment City.

Granted, it wasn't as much as I might have made earlier on, because a lot of the higher quality renown I would have gotten from high rankers had been soaked up already, but enough ants can eat an elephant and all that, and it was clear that even the smaller streams of income were still definitely adding up.

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

Legendary Path of the Demonbinder- The Domain of a Great King.

Might-9,825,421(x 3)

Impact-215

Fantasy-6,233,568

Vitality-8,521,871 (x 3)

Focus-5,824,853

Perception-4,941,640

Creation-6,843,143

Progress to next rank: 42,190,711/100,000,000

Soul strength- Obsidian Soul Body

Body Forging: Nine Phoenix Reincarnation Art- 27/81 drops- First Layer (Life Nova) 9/9, Second Layer ( Cosmic Phoenix) 9/9, (Ruin Phoenix) 9/9

Chronicle: Myriad Demons Manual (pages bound:9- 4 Zagan, 1 Leviathan, 9 Nine Phoenix Reincarnation Art, 1 Limbo, 1 Overlay, 1 Mephistopheles)

wish scrolls stockpiled: 520 (5 in the possession of friends to be used over time)

Domain size: 35 miles

Soul supported stat number: 2500

Bonded companion: Archimedes (Life Nova Phoenix)

Weapon: Pillar of Goetia

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

Financial resources: 0 B-ranked, 0 C-ranked, 0 D-ranked(worth 100 E-ranked, past master rank is a watershed)

Frozen Moment Academy Credit points: 74,900

Archdemons: Kronos- Archdemon of Time- Tier 8 (Limbo, Overlay, Mephistopheles)

Honestly, I was blown away. I was right on the verge of passing the halfway point of B-rank. While a lot of this was definitely renown from being the Wishmaster, it was also a fact that the Frozen Moment Academy was just…amazing at what it did. Comparing it to the Academy back on Callus, the former barely deserved the name. I couldn't help but wonder if this was what it was like at the Aetherbright Academy back when it was still running, before it had been turned into a toxic experimental wasteland.

I shared my progress with my wife and my closer friends, though they all decided to keep theirs to themselves. Now that we knew the finals would be cross major, no one could say who would be on which team, and everyone was already shifting into the mindset of a friendly rivalry in preparation for those of us who would be on the other side.

We all enjoyed the day together, spending about half of it just talking, eating, and drinking. Finally though, everyone had to get back, since plenty of us weren't even intermediate and were working with a lot less downtime.

Once everyone was gone, Callie and I set off on our own adventure. I could tell she'd been all but bursting at the seams to leave for a while now, but she'd forced herself to stay calm and wait. After we separated from the others though, she was practically dragging me in the direction of the place the next moment, and I couldn't help but laugh at her enthusiasm.

When we arrived, we stopped outside a huge, imposing black gate, and I was surprised to see an actual guard waiting outside. We had to stop and get permission to enter, which made sense in retrospect, but it didn't take too long, and the gate opened before us before too long. "You ready?" I asked my wife with a chuckle as I watched her stare through the gate in awe. She didn't even stop to respond before sprinting inside. Though I guess that was an answer in its own way.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The Curse Canyon was…weird. It was a canyon, like I expected, and it WAS full of junk, kind of like a landfill, but it was also kind of strange. For one thing, the air and space around the canyon's edges were strange and irregular. Sometimes I could see a heat haze like a mirage, or a cloud of sparkles, or the image of a creeping shadow shaped like a man.

As we walked inside, we passed through several patches of unusual effects that tried to grab hold. Heat, cold, light, dark, it felt like someone had set the air around us to randomize. The strangest part was that the varied effects were often contradictory and pressed against each other, but instead of exploding or fizzling out or whatever, they were just coexisting like it was no big thing.

"This is astonishing," Callie said with an awed expression. We had just walked into a sort of entry nook of the canyon, where the walls of cursed items had risen around the gates. We were on a path that snaked its way through, going ever deeper, and the piles of random junk followed the sides of the path, descending like some kind of sea of trash.

I nodded, glancing around with interest. I had Mornax active, and Callie had covered herself with Adherent fire to block out the effects, but it was still kind of overwhelming. I considered activating Dantalion's data collection ability, but I was pretty sure there was way too much going on here for me to process without using the staff to bump him to the next rank. "How exactly is this place stable?" I asked curiously as we walked. As we entered, one of the guards had followed us inside. I supposed he was there as a guide, but I figured if he was going to get a free traveling companion I could at least learn something.

To my surprise, Callie answered. "Supression," she said immediately. The guard shot her a surprised look, and she nodded back smugly before continuing her explanation. "You ever been somewhere really cold? And sometimes in the winter, the water in the pipes freeze if you don't keep it running, causing the pipes to burst?"

I nodded, and she continued, gesturing to the rest of the canyon. "Well, that only happens if there's a small amount of water. If the pipes are full, they can't freeze. When water freezes, it expands. It HAS to expand. Full pipes don't have the room for expansion, so the inward pressure forces the water to remain in a liquid state long past the normal freezing point."

"So this place is containing so many curses that they're holding themselves inert through sheer force?" I asked with interest.

She nodded. "Looks like. It IS fascinating, though it's also really dangerous."

"Why is that?" I asked as we hopped over a small patch of ominous looking swords that had 'coincidentally' rolled onto the path.

"Pipes don't freeze when they're full…at first," she said ominously. "Eventually, once it gets cold enough, the energy trying to force the water into a solid state overcomes the resistance of the pipe containing it. Then the water freezes, no matter what's in its way. Which in the case of this place means…well…boom."

The guard cleared his throat. "Begging your pardon, miss, but that's not QUITE accurate in this case. The canyon itself is a magical construct created by the dean of several departments. While that might normally be a concern, that would only be true if there was no release valve for the building pressure."

"Ah, so there are pressure releases?" she asked excitedly. "Where might those be?"

"Those would be the crucibles," he said with a shrug. "There are a few devices or places that are catalyzed by the condensed curse energy. Like the Cauldron, or the Compactor."

Interesting names. "What is the Cauldron?" I asked, naturally more attracted to the magical sounding device than the one that sounded like it was made to crush trash. "And how do you know all this? If you don't mind me asking. Are you not just a guard?"

"Guard duty here is more complicated than you might think," he said wryly. "Lots of calculations and rebalancing of energies. Natural formations arise here VERY easily, and the guards are tasked with traveling around and breaking them up before they gather too much momentum. Unless one of the students finds one and purchases experiment rights for it. But that's not too common.

"As for the Cauldron, it's…complicated," he grimaced. "Basically, the Cauldron is where we put potions and liquid creations that go in here. We just dump them all in a big reinforced bowl that does the same thing as this place on a smaller scale. Over the millennia, there have been some truly ridiculous concoctions added, and over the years the Cauldron's contents have become…strange."

I blinked at him. "Im sorry, you're saying people dump random potions, most of which are, by definition, improperly made, into a giant bowl and let it pressure cook under waves of curse energy for millennia? What possible use could they have for that? Like there's no way it's drinkable."

"It's not," he laughed. "But it IS unique. Students can apply to have a vial of Cauldron Concoction withdrawn for credit points. Because of the constantly shifting nature of the Cauldron, every vial is completely new, and its effects can change from one moment to the next. Not all of the potions are failures, either. After so long concocting, the Cauldron has become something of a pet project for the alchemy faculty. They offer extra credits for students who dump any leftover mixtures they have in there at the end of the semester."

I could tell Callie wasn't too interested in that, even if I kind of wanted to snag a vial, so I moved on to something a little more relevant. "Where do you keep the most harmful stuff?" I asked as I looked around. "Stuff that will kill you if you look at it."

He sighed. "The lethal curses are the Chamber. Dean Harper captured a fragment of a Void Child of Overgod level quite some time ago, and he's been conducting experiments on it for a number of centuries. It isn't particularly self aware," he said as I saw my reaction. "It's been lobotomized. He's just using it to test attribute combinations that have a pronounced effect on Void spawned creatures."

Dean Wallace Harper, the Dean of the Department of Atypical Physicality. Also known as the Monstrosity, he was the Overgod in charge of Bethy's department. I hadn't heard much about him, but I got the impression he was the kind of guy you wouldn't want made at you.

"Are we allowed to visit the Chamber?" I asked carefully. "Like to take stuff?"

Callie's vault was fairly unique in terms of utility, and its nature made it so that the more dangerous the item she inverted, the more beneficial the effect. I wasn't sure how something like direct damage would translate (maybe it would make a knife that healed you when you got stabbed), but in terms of utility, we wanted the worst stuff we could find here, and it sounded like the Chamber was where we would find it.

Understandably, the guard wasn't prepared for someone to ask to go to the most dangerous and useless place in the canyon, but I imagined that even if this wasn't a common request it wasn't TOO rare, because he adjusted to the question quickly enough.

"Anything involved in an active project would need to be exchanged," he hedged. "Credit points would work, but alternatively you could submit findings to the project you think might be relevant. If you find something unique, you'll be counted as having contributed to the result that comes from it, and you can redeem your contribution points directly."

I raised an eyebrow. "Contribution points?"

"All large scale research projects award contribution points," he clarified. "These are the currency that postgraduates and even teachers use to redeem benefits. They can be put towards increased research focus, additional manpower, materials, expert consultation from the deans, they can even be used to fund new and original research projects directly.

"Honestly," he admitted. "I don't think it would be possible for you to contribute to a research project the Dean has been operating for hundreds of years, but if students DO earn contribution points, they have the option to cash them out directly. It's kind of like selling them to the project staff because you can't use them. That's basically the only way I could see you getting permission to take anything useful from the Chamber."

I had been wondering why he would mention contribution points if students couldn't get them, but it made sense if there was no other way. Besides, when it came to damaging the Void, Callie and I knew a little something we might be able to contribute. I doubted there was anything we could come up with that an Overgod wouldn't be able to parse at a glance, but it was highly possible that Heretic Fire represented an attribute they might not have seen here before in that exact form, not to mention Adherent Fire or any of our other Void resistance tricks like Leviathan or Zagan.

One of the big benefits of my current path was exactly how muddled some of my demons had become. I was pretty sure I'd accidentally created more than a couple completely original attributes without meaning to. I'd have to study those to learn more about them, of course, because they were the embryonic form of what I would need to do when I constructed my Worldforce. But for now, because of exactly how much variety existed in Mythcrafting (literally anything you could imagine could be an ingredient), there was a decent chance we had something interesting to show them.

Despite my face being covered, I could tell from the guard's expression he knew roughly what I was thinking, and that he wasn't surprised at all. "Do you want me to escort you to the Chamber?" he asked tiredly.

"I think that would be helpful," I said immediately, my competitive drive ignited by this new challenge. Learning new ways to hurt the Void wouldn't be a bad thing either, given the ongoing war back home. Through the bond, Callie's fighting spirit burned as bright as mine, planning to submit both her original attribute and her father's special anti-Void flame for consideration (after a clarification on source, obviously, plagiarism was for scumbags) and see exactly how far our unique advantages could take us here in a place ruled by beings beyond our comprehension.

Apparently, the guard was used to cocky freshmen who thought they knew everything, because he just chuckled. "Yeah, you seem like the type. That was why I followed you in. Come on then."

We both grinned as he turned around a particularly towering heap of what appeared to be axe head, leaping over a ditch to land on what I swear was a refrigerator, and then began to hop from one large object to the next, heading off in a seemingly random direction. I grinned at Callie, incarnating Sammael, and unfurled my wings, igniting my Cosmic Phoenix bloodline as I swept forward focusing the spatial attribute on closing the distance with the guard.

I heard Callie's should of outrage and heard her own wings flap as she blurred after me, her Adherent fire warping the air as she sped to catch up. I didn't even need to look over my shoulder because of the bond, but I did anyway, just to see the look on her face.

Being back in the sky again, flying through this place without a care in the world, was a wonderful experience. For a few minutes, we didn't worry about curses or Domains or Overgods. Just playing around. And racing to keep up with our guide. A race that I won, obviously.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We approached the Chamber relatively quickly. We touched down in a small clearing on top of a literal mountain of junk, and I glanced around to try to spot the details or the nearby landscape of the canyon.

First thing I noticed was where we appeared to be. The canyon extended in all directions, so I couldn't say for sure, but I THOUGHT we might be in the center of it all. It certainly felt like the center. Of the canyon. Of the universe. It was…heavy. I could feel the power weighing on me, beating on the air like the heartbeat of a colossal giant whose very blood had a gravity to match a thousand suns.

There was a hole not far away. A single dark square surrounded by a rim of innocuous grey stone. Carvings covered the rock, almost invisible from wear and time, if not for the subtle blue glow emanating from within the lines.

"This is the Chamber?" I said, trying not to let my voice shake. "It's certainly…impressive."

The guard just smiled. "It's funny. So many people have come here to see this. They come for the unique opportunities, or the items, or the project. Ultimately, they come for the power. But so many of them miss the obvious truth. Power isn't an abstract. It's a truth. A destination as well as a journey. I've seen many places in this academy, but this is the only place where I've seen this particular phenomena. Do you understand what I mean?"

I swallowed as I stared into the hole. "Power is an attribute," I said slowly. "This place has so much energy it embodies the CONCEPT of energy. That's part of what the Dean is making here, isn't it?"

He let out a laugh. "A byproduct," he admitted.

I turned to look at him directly. "I never asked your name," I said accusingly. "And you didn't offer it."

"Both of those statements are very true," he said with a wide grin. Too wide, actually. In fact, a lot of things about him were slightly off. He was too tall, his shoulders too wide, his eyes had no whites, just endless seas of green. How had I not noticed that. It was so obvious in retrospect, but I just…hadn't seen it.

Which made me pretty sure who I was talking to. "Dean Harper, I presume," I said with a sigh. "The Monstrosity?"

He let out a barking laugh. Literally, it sounded like a barking dog. "Well, I kind of gave it to you, but I suppose being willing to admit it so easily is its own kind of impressive. You're not upset about my little joke, are you?"

Callie was frozen, staring at him as she realized what I had not ten seconds before. "You're an Overgod," she said slowly. "You…why are you here? What is someone like you doing guarding the canyon? Don't you have better things to do?" Her voice was shaky, and I could feel a bit of panic through the bond, though I returned it with my own reassurance to try to help her through it.

"He's not a guard," I said immediately, sure of that fact. "I bet there's only ever one guard here, and it was the other guy. I'm more curious how you knew we were coming, and why you'd bother meeting with us. We're not in your department."

He shrugged. "You're interesting. I sensed something unique about you two. Something deadly. Not to me, obviously, but we hunters of the Void can smell our own. I suspected you might have something to contribute to my little case study here, and I wanted to see what it might be."

"But how did you know we'd even be here?" I asked cautiously. "Are you watching this place at all times or something?"

"In a certain sense," he said casually. "It's more…primal than that. I am, at my core, a beast. What kind I shan't say, but a beast I was, and that comes with certain instincts. Once you reach the heights I've attained, those instincts cease to be bound by things like time or causality. You could consider it a form of precognition, or you could consider it the exact opposite. It depends heavily on perspective. I knew you would be here because you came here, and you probably came here because I knew you would. Cause and effect tend to warp around creatures like myself."

I grimaced. "I bet the Dean loves that."

"Why do you think he created this academy?" he said dryly. "The chance to study Overgods in our natural environment is hardly commonplace, and the intersection of so much fate is a contradictory soup of temporal inconsistency. We each have our own peculiarities in that regard, and we study each other as often as the students who arrive."

I glanced back at the entrance. "So you wanted us to come here. To see what we could do to the Void Child. You think we have something you've never seen before?"

"Possibly," he said with a shrug. "I am very old, but my lifespan is not infinite. There are indeed things in creation I haven't seen. Admittedly, their number grows fewer every year, but I don't suppose the supply has dwindled completely just yet."

Callie stared at him suspiciously. "You're in charge of Bethy's department," she said slowly. "Did she tell you about us?"

That did sound like her, but I didn't think so in this case. This wasn't about Bethy, this was about us, and our relationship with the Void. Sure enough, Dean Harper chuckled. "The Hybrid? No, she and I haven't had time to speak one on one. Her kind is rare, admittedly. Especially spawned from such a potent vampiric bloodline. But I've seen Maenad Vampire hybrids before. If she seeks me out I may see fit to gift her an opportunity, but she isn't interesting enough to warrant a personal visit. You, however…your power is fascinating."

"The Heretic Flame came from my father," she corrected. "He was-"

"A Void Vessel who rebelled," he said impatiently. "Obviously. I'm not an idiot, girl. But I'm not talking about that. Your other aspect is more interesting. An Anti-Void perhaps? It's difficult to describe. Not simply an attribute, but the foundation of a state of being. An inversion, maybe, or perhaps a divergent reflection. A twisted mirror of the emptiness between realms. And the opposite of emptiness should be fullness, but that's not what you possess."

She frowned. "It's not…it's not a reflection. Not really. It's a shadow. My vault is reflective, and based on the same principles, but it's not the same. The Adherent Fire is something else. It's the result of the opposite of me, not of the Void. The opposite of a Heretic. The opposite of Void destruction, but not the true Void."

He nodded with interest. "Doppleganger," he said, like he was chewing the word. "Shadow self. You've had quite a few strange encounters. But then, you'd have had to. Unique things only come from the collision of coincidence."

"Why do you WANT her Adherent Fire?" I asked. "It doesn't really destroy the Void. Not like the Heretic Flame does."

"Children," he sniffed. "So impatient. "It's a foundation, boy. A seed. A possibility of something new. A Void that is not a Void. A space that is not a space. Tell me, boy, with such a parent, what children might emerge from such an abyss? What creatures might come forth?"

I knew what he meant, kind of. Callie had done something like that one, in The Quiet Room during my trial. Created a sort of false Void that ran beside a space so isolated that even gods couldn't get inside. It had been an impossible, ridiculous thing, but at the time it had seemed less important than everything else going on.

As for his second question…I hadn't considered that. But thinking about it, I wondered if he might be right. Because the Adherent Fire was the opposite of the Heretic Fire, but like Callie said, it wasn't a real reflection. There was a seed of the original deep inside, a spot of black in all that cobalt blue. If her not Void germinated Not-Void Children, would they inherit that Heretic nature. Would they be a natural counter to the Void Children?

"So, what do you want, exactly?" Callie asked suspiciously. "Just a sample of the flame?"

He snorted. "Nothing so crude." He snapped his fingers and a strange object appeared. It was almost perfectly round, but looking close I could see that it wasn't smooth. It was some sort of multi sided prism with so many sides it both was and wasn't spherical. "I want a spark. A seed to germinate. The start of the downfall of the creatures I so despise. In all Chaos there is Cosmos, after all. What is the beginning but the precursor to an end?"

I glanced at Callie, wondering what she would say. "What will you give us for it?" she said slowly. "Aside from contribution points. Will you tell us more about the Void? About what it is and how to fight it?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I suppose that wouldn't be out of the question," he said slowly. "Though it will diminish the contribution points I might grant for accomplishing my task. Not to mention I don't know exactly what might come of this experiment. It's a fascinating potential path, but potential is inherently unrealized until it ceases to be."

We shared a look, but it wasn't needed. The Void was our biggest problem back home. If we could learn new weapons to use against them, it would help Atlas defeat Morwenna, which would tip the god war entirely back in our favor.

"Fine," she said slowly. "But rather than contribution points, I want you to help me pick a few useful items that will work well with my Vault. Let's say three of them. No price paid, I get them free and clear." She was gambling a bit there, but not much. Dean Harper was an Overgod, and this was his project, if anyone knew the items inside it would be him, especially given what he's just told us about his potential precognitive abilities.

He shrugged. "Very well, my aid picking three treasures from my collection. I can even help you suppress any of the ones that might be too dangerous. Do we have a deal?"

I got the impression we were getting the short end of the stick here, and I knew Callie felt it too. But it didn't matter at this point. Even if the flames were worth an immeasurable amount, they would only have value like this to Dean Harper. Callie had been around the Dean of the spatial department multiple times, and he'd never expressed an interest in her Adherent Fire. The Monstrosity had some kind of issue with the Void, and it was the only reason we'd been approached.

Callie nodded, and he grinned that too wide grin. "Lovely," he said, tossing her the sphere. "I trust I don't need to instruct you on the process?"

"I've done it before," she said simply, focusing her eyes on the orb.

A flame kindled inside it, and she focused on the point of light to the exclusion of all else. Dean Harper nodded in satisfaction, then turned to me. "So, how about you," he said casually. "I got the impression you might have something interesting to share."

I considered my options, knowing he'd have seen most of them, probably. I considered Mephistopheles, but the candle had been bought here at the exchange, so I doubted it was that. I went with my first instinct, and incarnated Leviathan. He watched with interest as the demon descended into my body.

"Nothing ground breaking," he said after a moment. "But a reasonable defensive attribute. I'll give you a hundred contribution points for it."

I hesitated for a second, then nodded. "Fine," I said. "Now tell me what I can get with those." If possible his grin got even wider, and I couldn't help but think I'd just made a mistake. It was too late to back out now, I supposed. All I could do was stay the course.