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

[Malcolm Tent]

"So I can bring five D-rankers, two C-rankers, and four B-rankers," I informed my friends tiredly as I slumped on the couch. Negotiating with Delia had been…stressfull. I had assumed it would be a formality, given we were family and I was doing this for her trial, but she'd put me through the ringer.


About a dozen different stipulations about power distribution, point caps, loot distribution, and any number of other niche and frankly outlandish bullet points had been added to the contract where my forces had been laid out.


I was honestly almost as impressed as I was horrified. Callie, meanwhile, was less than thrilled. "So they want you to run off to the middle of nowhere to fight the Void at a fraction of your strength? Why would they use THAT as a test? That's so dangerous. This isn't a game, the consequences of this could be catastrophic!" She growled in frustration. "What is WRONG with your family?"


Sighing, I explained my hypothesis that Delia and Roland were part of a proactive faction being hamstrung by traditionalists. Callie just grimaced.


"I'm not…unfamiliar with that dynamic," she admitted. "We had some hardliners like that in the Guild when I was growing up. Everyone had to work around them, because of course they never compromise. This is how we've always done things so it's the right way." The voice she used to spit out that line made me pretty sure it was either a quote or based on the tone of a specific person, but I didn't have a chance to ask, because Bethy interrupted excitedly.


"So who gets to go? Is it me? Is it? Can I go Shane, pretty please? I've been working on a new ability! It'll either allow me to teleport or turn someone into a cabbage." I was…unsure if she was kidding about that. "If it's the first one, there's a REALLY good chance I can control what happens when I use it!" That one seemed like less of a joke.


I grimaced. "Bethy, I think maybe for your next few tricks, you should look into something more…understated."


"Pshaw, understatement is for nerds," she snorted. "I prefer THUNDERSTATEMENT!" She leapt to her feet and bellowed that last word so loud the glasses on the table shook. Someone banged on the floor upstairs and she winced. "SORRY!" She shouted up at the ceiling.


I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Thunderstatement isn't a real term, Bethy." I cut her off with a glare, pointing my finger at her. "And don't use your hypnosis to start convincing people it is. I've been getting complaints that some of the last batch you tried that on have been having memory problems."


"Nothing serious," she dismissed with a wave of her hand. "I had to delete some stuff to make room for the improvements. It'll come back eventually. I think. Or it'll get worse. But that almost never happens."


I glared at her. "Do not EXPERIMENT on members of my army, Bethany," she pouted at the use of her full name.


"It's nothing too serious," Callie soothed me. "Bethy would never hurt an ally. I'm guessing we can wipe it out with some basic purification flame treatment. We can have Chelsea look them over, maybe give them some time off or something. But he's right, Bethy. No more hypnosis on allies. Even as a joke. I know you didn't do anything drastic but some things aren't ok to do as pranks."


She wilted a bit. "I…ok. I swear it was just dumb little stuff. Like the word thing, and that one guy who called Chelsea a bitch, so I added a compulsion for him to drink shampoo to his shower routine."


"Wait, what guy-" I started to ask in outrage, but Callie steamrolled over me.


"As long as you know now," she said serenely. "But I think bringing Bethy on the raid is a good plan. We need to keep an eye on her anyway. Do you really want to leave her alone in the camp with our entire force for who knows how long? She'll probably start another fake religion."


I rolled my eyes. "Fine. We could use the help anyway. Abel, you're with us, obviously. Callie, you would kill me if I tried to leave you home. Dayna, would be useful to have you along, and for our last party member…" I scanned the room, before finally settling on someone I think surprised a lot of people. "Mel. We haven't done a mission together in a bit, and you'll be a huge help with Callie's fire stuff. Assuming you two have gotten around to perfecting that without Chelsea bridging you?"


Mel nodded excitedly. "It's just an invocation when there's only two of us. Totally doable. It only gets complicated when you have a ton of inputs. If one party member is steering things you don't even need the diagram, but for real combinations anything past two is a nightmare. Hell yes! This is going to be great, thanks Shane!"


"Hey thank me by setting a bunch of Void shit on fire," I shrugged. "My darling wife is all brawn no brains when it comes to her heretic fire. I figure someone should be there whose battle strategy goes beyond "MORE FIRE!". Sorry honey, but you know it's true," I told her apologetically.


Callie had been gearing up to snap at me…but just slumped over. "Yeah," she admitted. "It should be taken care of soon though."


I knew what she meant. Callie's control and manipulation abilities were all part of her Abyssal Priestess Path. Until we merged her two power sources together, there was always going to be some lacking overlap. "Anyway," I continued. "Obviously Ellie and Felicity are our C-rankers, and Carmichael and Crell will be joining Fade and Alanna on guard duty for the lot of us, so I hope everyone is excited for some quality camping time. Because we're going to be sleeping out in the wilderness for a few days. Lucky us."


No one seemed worried, which, considering they knew I could make buildings from dirt was reasonable. Still, I had other things on my mind. Namely, I needed to know more about our target. Luckily, I had a local titan right here to question. "So, Fade, what do you know about," I checked the information I'd copied down. "Castle Raymore? Is that a real castle? It doesn't really fit the aesthetic here."


"It is a real castle," he nodded. "It's also…kind of haunted. Well no, it's actually extremely haunted. The Raymores were a necromancer family. They got violently murdered by a rival faction a few hundred years ago. Used some kind of creepy ritual to bind their souls to the castle itself. A few people have tried to move in, but ghosts are a pain in the ass to deal with. Not a lot of purification specialists at high B-rank."


That was interesting, but also unsettling. Could the Void corrupt ghosts? Actually what were B-rank ghosts even LIKE? I didn't think I could purify something that strong, even with Zagan and the boost from my staff. But with the wishes they'd used for this trial, we shouldn't run into anything we couldn't match. "Have you ever been there?" I asked him slowly. "Like do you know what to expect?"


He waggled a hand. "Not personally, but some of my boys have checked it out. It's sort of a local hangout for idiots who want to get into trouble, and several of the Hall's members qualify. The place has a sort of aura around it, the ghosts have leached into the stone. Super cold, drains the life from you, that kind of thing."


Which was unfortunate, to say the least. Because that sounded a LOT like Void taint, and I was pretty sure mixing the two wasn't going to produce puppies and rainbows.


I glanced at Callie, who looked equally worried. All I could do was hope that whatever Vessel was here (and I was positive if there was a Void infiltration happening in the B-rank zone there was a Vessel in charge of it) they weren't actually B-rank themselves. Callie and I could take on a C-rank Vessel. With my staff and our natural advantages we were basically made to crush the Void.


But a B-rank Vessel would be up to our guards to handle. My only consolation was that it wouldn't be a particularly good test of our abilities if they sent us after someone too strong for us to handle, so it was unlikely to make it past the wish they'd used to prepare for us.


"So, when do we need to do this?" Callie asked as she looked over the paperwork I'd drawn up. "I don't see any indication of timing."


"There isn't one," I admitted. "They don't want us to blow the op by leaking anything. I signed a heavy contract for secrecy, but they're doing this blind. We're to get within range and wait for the signal. The whole raid is going to be done within an hour, so we'll all be contacted at the same time and then we move out."


It was needlessly complicated and borderline ridiculous, but that was my family in a nutshell. Besides, Delia was clearly competent, and I was willing to accept that she probably had reasons beyond the one I could fathom for doing it this way. "Anyway, we hear anything about the smith I was looking for?" I asked Fade. "Because I want to get my armor made before this trip if possible. I feel naked without my plate."


"I found one that should be able to swing it," he nodded. "Donovan Redfellow. VERY famous smith around these parts. He's only B-rank, but only by choice. He's got a Mythical smithing Skill at least. Makes some of the best blades on the planet." He tapped the short sword on his hip. "My Devlos is a Redfellow." He drew about an inch of the sword, which I had never actually looked at closely before.


It was B-ranked, much like my staff, but…more. It was SCARY. The steel was pattern forged, but the patterns seemed to shift and twist as the light caught them. The thin red lines in the steel flexed and wove through each other like the sword had pulsating veins.


"And he'll take on the job?" I asked pensively. "Like…soon? Because we need to leave for our posting in the next few days. Some of the targets are further away than others, and they don't want to tip our hand by rushing. How fast does this…Redfellow work?" I was getting excited. That sword was magnificent, and the smith who made it had to be just as amazing. I wanted to see what my new, B-rank armor was going to be like.


"Donovan contacted ME, actually," he admitted. "I hadn't heard from him in a while, but when I put the word out about a smith, he jumped at the chance. Donovan was the person smith of the Hall of Steel before I took office. He and my master, Kairos, built the whole faction from the ground up. I think he heard about us working with you and wants to support our dreams of getting off planet. Of course, he would be coming along. But I somehow doubt that's a problem."


I snorted. "Oh of course, how dare you force me to recruit a world class blacksmith who could effectively outfit my entire force. I mean, I'm sure the materials would be exorbitant, but having someone like that on staff would be a game changer. I assume I have to do…something to get him on my side?"


"He's watching the results of this trial," he admitted. "He'll do the work on your armor for payment. But if you want him working for you, you need to win this. Handily. If you can do it though…Donovan is someone who operates at a respected level in the A-rank zone. Having him with us will not only be good for your people, it'll open a lot of doors." He grinned at me ruefully. "But hey, no pressure."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The trip out to the forest was pretty easy. A group of Ascendants can move shockingly fast over land, even when suppressed by a high level planet. When we arrived at the location in question, I was kind of underwhelmed. Not by the castle itself, exactly, but by the information gathering abilities of my cousins. I'd been impressed they'd managed to find this place so easily, but staring at it now, I quickly revoked that positive impression.

"Subtle," I said wryly as we stared up at the castle on the cliff. A castle, mind, that was coated in a bank of roiling back fog. It looked…dense. Not like Void taint, exactly, but something more.

My wife shrugged. "Well this IS the middle of the forest. We're hundreds of miles from the nearest town, and it's not like there are many people doing flyovers. Flying here is exhausting, in case you didn't notice. Even the birds don't do it for too long."

I had noticed that. It was doable, at least if you had wings, but no one below B-rank would be flying around here without them, and even the B-rankers themselves would have run into problems doing it long term. "So, how do we approach?" I asked slowly. "I assume that the wish they used will separate us to fight individual enemies, I just don't know what form that'll take. Should we split up on our own so it doesn't happen dramatically or just take it for granted and go in normal?"

Wishes were…complicated. It was one of the reasons I tended to keep mine very specific or VERY general. Trading points, or wishing for "good luck" were both hard wishes to fuck up. Ironically, leaving so much open to intent with the latter made it easier for the wish to find a reasonable outlet to accomplish the stated end goal. But for more specific stuff like "make sure we get into the castle and only run into enemies we can handle"... well that was both open to interpretation enough to go bad and specific enough to possibly require some extreme measures to happen as stated.

Everyone just kind of looked at me. Bethy, of course, was the first to speak up. "We should split up!" She said excitedly. "Like in stories, whenever people split up they get attacked by vampires. But I'm vampires. So if we split up, either no one will get attacked, we'll all get attacked by me, or one of my siblings will be in there. And because of the wish, two of those things almost definitely won't happen."

Ellie frowned at her. "Wait…which two?"

"The latter two," I admitted. "The wish is to meet up with people suited for us to fight. Anyone who runs into Bethy is going to be screwed. Everyone with us is either way too strong or not strong enough. I'm honestly a little worried about what she might run into here, but splitting up will make sure no one ELSE runs into it, because anything legitimately dangerous to her would butcher the rest of our D-rankers like chickens."

My bodyguard looked skeptical, but Callie just nodded along. "It's true. Bethy is basically unbeatable at the same level unless you have cheaty purification bullshit like Chelsea or Shane. I'm guessing she'll bump into a weak C-ranker."

"The point is, she's right," I said with a sigh. "I can feel that it's the right choice. My instincts are screaming at me to split up." I sighed. "I really wish they weren't, but they are. Everyone else down for that?" It was a rhetorical question. I was stalling. I HATED splitting up. Watching my wife and best friends walk off into a creepy Void fog was like top ten on my nightmare list, but I refused to let THEM see that. A leader needs to appear confident, even when he isn't. Possibly ESPECIALLY when he isn't. For Ascendants, faking it until you make it was a way of life.

Everyone tried to seem comfortable with it, but all the D-rankers and both C-rankers weren't. I could smell the falsehoods when they talked shit about how easy things would be. I obviously said nothing.

With a quick hug for my wife, I waited until we got the go ahead from the trial overseers and then took off into the fog. I took a few steps in…and then vanished.

Well, I didn't vanish. Everything else vanished. I grimaced. "I'm guessing you just disappeared into the darkness?" I asked my wife through the bond. I looked around, trying to find any landmark to use as guidance in the fog, because all my vision had been swallowed by the darkened mist.

"Pretty much," she said distractedly. "Stay safe, hon. And watch your back. Love you."

I returned the sentiment, along with a healthy dose of affection through the bond, then returned my focus to the world around me. It was dark. Empty. I was alone. I yawned. I'd been through so much worse. Torture, solitude, I'd ground away any weaknesses in these areas ages ago. So I just kept walking.

The space seemed to twist. I walked for about five minutes. Then ten. I was beginning to think I was in a loop or something, until I came to a stop in front of a building. A tall multi dwelling a apartment complex.

"Home is where the heart is, huh?" I asked derisively. "Bit on the nose, don't you think?"

There was no answer. I headed inside, took the stairs up, then stepped into my old apartment for the first time in years. We'd abandoned the place when we'd moved to Rajak, but I'd lived there for most of my life. The couch where I'd watched shows on my scan ring, the back room with Zeke's work bench where he made masks.

And there, in the middle of the room, sitting in a beat up looking chair, sat me. I rolled my eyes. "I give this a two out of ten," I said with a snort. "The ruined soul temple already tried this, and it didn't work there either."

This wasn't my first time confronting another me. I'd done this dance before, and this version wasn't going to be the one that broke me. In fact, I was pretty sure this one wasn't really me at all. The blue glow in the irises of his maskless eyes were very familiar. That was odd though. "Hey, why don't you have a mask on?" I asked suspiciously. "I'm wearing one, so it would stand to reason you would be too."

"Because I can't," the other me sighed. "I tried. It's…there's something off about that mask. Some interaction with the duplication. I can't make a mask of that mask."

Presumably, Zeke was too powerful for this B-ranked threat to copy. Some kind of authority among the masks at play? It was interesting but not important. "Kind of ruins any chance of you copying me for properly, doesn't it? Why even bother using my face? You had to know I wouldn't buy it."

"I admit, I was mostly going for confusion and self doubt," he shrugged. "But I don't believe that'll be possible with you. I wonder, why are YOU bothering with this? We know about your heresy. This fog is dripping with Void. You could burn it away easily."

I shook my head. "It's only half Void. The other half is some undead lifedrinking ghost shit. No idea how it'll react when freed." I didn't mention the wish, which was another big reason. This whole arrangement was going as planned. Which meant this was either a high D-rank or low C-ranked enemy. Probably…"You're the Vessel here," I decided. "The one in charge?"

He gave me an amiable nod. "I am. Not enough B-rank Vessels to have one running every outpost. I wonder though. How are you going to use that information?"

"What do you mean?" I asked him suspiciously. "Now we fight."

"We could," he acknowledged. "But do we have to? Surely you've considered that with so many various forces among the Void Children, conflicts will be inevitable. That there might be room for compromise."

I froze. I…hadn't. But that made some kind of sense. Maybe. "How would that work. The Void Children hate those of us in realspace. Our legends are loud and cause them pain. They want to wipe us out." I raised an eyebrow at him. "Or are you claiming that isn't the case?" I wanted him to give me a straight answer on this. My Scent of Truth would make discerning the veracity of any claims easy, but only if he MADE claims. He'd been very careful to pose abstract hypotheticals up to this point.

"That's true," he admitted. "But realspace and the Void overlap in many places. If there are noisy spots, there are quiet spots too. Not ALL of the Void is constantly bombarded with noise. At least not normally. For those in the deeper reaches, the war itself is unnecessary noise. Those who live at the edges have dragged the rest of them into this conflict, and it's ruining the peace of the deepchildren."

I hadn't considered that. I knew very little about the Void in general, and Void Children in particular. "Alright," I acknowledged. "So you're interested in what, an alliance? You expect me to believe that?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," he said with a laugh. "There are interested parties who might open a dialogue, is all I'm saying. But that's predicated on your ability to earn that interaction."

I frowned at him. That sounded ominous. Not just what he said, but the WAY he said it. There was a certain hungry amusement to the sentiment that make me tense up. My Danger Sense was pinging, but it had been for a while now. It had suddenly cranked up to eleven. "What are you doing?" I asked him harshly.

He put his hand to his chest in a shocked parody of a gasp. "Me? Why, nothing. Nothing at all. In fact. I was just leaving. Can't very well participate in the test myself. Otherwise the results will be suspect. Have fun now, and don't die on me. I do so look forward to our next talk."

There was a flicker in the air around me, and then he vanished. As did the apartment, and all the black from the fog. I was left standing in a field of unrelenting grey on top of a hill.

I froze. He'd withdrawn the Void taint. I hadn't expected that. But now that it was gone… it was just me and the ghosts. The wish must still be restricting me from meeting anything too far out of my weight class, because none of them were B-rank, but there were several C-ranked spirits. I could see them in the fog, their shapes forming just out of sight.

I tried Dantalion, but it was like trying to look through butter. Too much information in every inch of space for me to easily view what was happening.

"Solomon," whispered a voice in my ear. "Shane," came another from the other side. "We see you," a third hissed. "We KNOW you."

I sighed. "I'm sure," I said in annoyance. "I don't suppose you all became ghosts because you really wanted to see a rainbow or a sunset before you died but never got the chance? Because I could make that happen I'm pretty sure. Maybe you all wanted to taste a really delicious chocolate silk pie? Come on people, last requests, last meals, anything you want."

"We will dine on your soul," came a thousand voices from all around me. "Feast on your flesh. Gnaw on your bones. You will be our last meal, Wyndham. And you will be…delicious."

Sighing, I shook my head, then cracked my neck. I activated the one form I suspected might help me here, triggering my staff to boost Zagan to C-rank as I looked around in annoyance. "Alright, but I have to warn you. I'm way spicier than I look. I'm definitely going to give you indigestion." Sadly, my awesome line didn't seem to have much effect. They attacked anyway. Everyone's a critic.

 

[Bezarius]

"We will dine on your soul," came a thousand voices from all around me. "Feast on your flesh. Gnaw on your bones. You will be our last meal, Wyndham. And you will be…delicious."

Click to shrink...

Fucking D-ranked stereotypical horror movie lines. Get new scripts you poser.

Sighing, I shook my head, then cracked my neck. I activated the one form I suspected might help me here, triggering my staff to boost Zagan to C-rank as I looked around in annoyance. "Alright, but I have to warn you. I'm way spicier than I look. I'm definitely going to give you indigestion." Sadly, my awesome line didn't seem to have much effect. They attacked anyway. Everyone's a critic.

Click to shrink...

Boo, get off the stage. Don't quit your day job Shane.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Fucking D-ranked stereotypical horror movie lines. Get new scripts you poser.



Boo, get off the stage. Don't quit your day job Shane.

Click to shrink...

Shane:taps microphone "Is this thing on? Man it's dead in here."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The ghosts fell on me like a pack of rabid hyenas. Probably. I wasn't sure if hyenas retained the necessary presence of mind to form a pack after contracting rabies, but in a general sense, they were a group of very angry barely lucid monsters who definitely wanted to do me harm, so it was close enough.

They weren't the strongest ghosts here. These were C-rank ghosts, not B-rank. I suspected the wish had somehow tweaked things to allow me to end up here, otherwise I'd have definitely met some of the original owners of this place. Still, they fell on me with tooth and claw, and as their hands and weapons sank into my body, I felt icy shards of pain radiate from the impact sites.

It was agonizing, but ultimately not more than I could handle. More than that though, I felt something…deeper. Soul strain. Not from draining power or my own effort, but an actual attack on my spirit in a way I'd never really experienced before. With each burst of pain and damage, the green life energy in me flared, Zagan acting as protection and renewal all at once as it attempted to repair the damage even as it was happening.

My staff whirled, trying to deflect and distance them from me, but I ran into an issue I hadn't expected. Ghosts weren't solid, but my Ten Demons Tree was a soul based item. It could do all sorts of amazing things, including, apparently, physically interacting with ghosts.

While that might have seemed like a good thing under other circumstances, it was definitely NOT in these. My staff couldn't get enough room to maneuver, and the crowd of ghosts was too dense for me to even use Double Trouble to get out of. I couldn't see the edges, and if I appeared behind one of the interior spirits I'd just end up in the middle of the crowd.

So…I dropped the staff. Or at least, returned it to my soul. I needed room to move, and more importantly, I needed to commit. I was letting myself get bogged down in choice paralysis. My C-ranked Zagan form was keeping me from taking TOO much damage, but the bit that was getting through was starting to mount. If I sat around panicking, I was going to get dragged down and killed.

In a situation like this, when I was surrounded and had no way out, I only had one real option. Make a breakout point. Pick a specific ghost and tear into it, then do it again.

I let them all slash and snap and tear, feeling the pain as they tried their best to eat away at my soul. It was horrible, well beyond most of the pain I'd been through even in my trials for the Lady. Most.

But finally, I spotted one that would work. He was…small. I thought he was a kid at first, albeit a tall one, but upon closer inspection, I was pretty sure he was just malnourished and sporting a baby face. I triggered Dantalion as I grabbed him, then focused and started to pour green fire into his spirit.

He froze, then screamed, trying to get away, but I ignored it, holding him like iron as the others tore into me. Dantalion was necessary here. It taught me how to interpret what I was doing, because my next move was something I had never tried before.

Ghosts, by dint of the stories I'd heard, were people who had unfinished business. Spirits of Ascendants left behind when they died. They were NOT human beings. You couldn't leave behind a part of a soul beneath Mirror. If a soul broke, the person it belonged to ceased to exist. Mirror souls were the ONLY exception to that rule. No resurrection, no healing, no last minute save. That was the end. At least for the sentient parts of a soul. People like Benny and my dad could access certain aspects of a soul separate from the part with a will and consciousness, though the how was a little complicated, but their "bound souls" weren't thinking beings with emotions like these ghosts.

Because of this, it could be understood that ghosts were not broken souls. What they WERE, as far as I could tell, were more like…stuck souls. Still complete, but wedged into reality in the wrong way and jammed outside of a body. Ghosts weren't exactly controllable. They were more…confused. Spirits so lost they couldn't leave, and by virtue of that, too confused to resist simple commands as given by necromancers. You could even command your OWN ghost if you did it right, essentially using a ritual or ability to wedge yourself into reality ahead of time with FAKE unfinished business.
Regardless, this process was damaging. In order to get stuck, ghosts needed to be twisted in just the right way. Not many abilities could do it, because souls were tough to interact with, so not everyone understood the process, but I'd looked into it.

Which was where my current plan came from. I focused all my information from Dantalion in this particular spirit. On understanding him. On gaining a grasp of him. "Tyler," I breathed out, staring into his screaming face. "Tyler Reubens." He froze, the flames pouring into him quicker. As they dug in deeper, I gained more information. I learned more about him. The first thing I did was erase any artificial compulsions from necromancy, cleansing his spirit so that if he was being kept stuck it was only by his own will and unfinished business.

Then, once that was done, I started another process. Genesis Burst had been developed to heal my cousin from long term soul damage. The process her father had used to train her willpower to resist recursion had actually shared some similarities with making a ghost, and that gave me a place to start. I focused on the most recent problem plaguing him, the most recent pain of the soul I could find with Dantalion, and then I released a Genesis Burst.

The cleansing fire melted away the pain, easing the hurt and pacifying that part of the unquiet mind. Then I found the next one. I repeated the process. Tyler had gone still, the screaming stopped, and was staring into my eyes, tears trailing down his spectral face. I liked to think that I saw a flash of ease at the end, a split second of relief and gratitude as he began to burn in earnest, and his spectral form was cleansed from the world around it by the flames of Zagan.

After that, it was a blur. Grab a ghost, cleanse a ghost. My head…my head hurt. So badly. I hadn't felt soul strain like that since I was first starting out. Zagan helped with that too, actually, restoring a bit of the damage as I went. About halfway through, I felt another spirit enter the equation. A steady, soothing presence that was always there with me, stepping forward to shield me from harm as Callie interposed herself between the strain of using Dantalion.

She couldn't do much for Zagan. It was a C-ranked skill used through the staff, and she didn't have a Chronicle, so she wasn't capable of holding up under that weight. But she was there. She helped.

When I finally finished, when the last ghost was gone, cleansed from the hill I stood on, I wobbled and started to fall. But I didn't hit the ground. Callie caught me. Her embrace soft and comforting as she lowered us to the ground. I groaned, my head pounding, and looked around for any sign of the Void Vessel. I saw nothing. He was gone, as was the Void taint. The fog left behind had thinned noticeably at least at the edges.

Bethy and Abel appeared beside us, looking tense when they saw my condition. When I waved them off though, they nodded, then took off to help the others. Callie just held me, letting my rest my head in her lap, and rubbed my temples, humming softly as I recovered.

It took me about five minutes of that to realize she'd removed my mask to do it, and another five to realize why the sky above me was so blurry. She didn't speak, didn't even look directly at me. Just sat and hummed and rubbed my head as I cried. Over the tragically short life of Tyler Ruebens, and Daniel Godwin, and Sally Caruthers, and a dozen other people that I'd never met, but whose tragedies I had learned far too much about during that hellish and bizarre panoply of overstimulation and agonizing torment.

I thought I'd known torment. Had understood it. I'd thought nothing could hurt me anymore. But I still had the capacity for taking pains. As I wept there, in the shadow of that haunted castle, a part of me was glad for it. I'd come so far, changed so much, and I was getting farther and farther from the person I had been. Sometimes I relished that growth. Sometimes not so much.

It was hard not to think about my own tragedies. Not the pain they inspired, because I had slowly burned that part of myself away. I had cleansed the scars and the petty poison of weakness from myself, built myself up like I'd needed to in order to become more than I was. I'd Ascended, and left so much behind, just like Zeke had warned me years ago at the beginning of all this.

And just because I was already hurting, was already broken down. I allowed myself the smallest amount of self pity. I allowed myself to cry for one more lost soul. For Shane Wyndham, a shy boy from a backwater city on a backwater mining planet, who I had essentially killed on the path to becoming the man I was today. Because no one else was ever going to know about his sacrifice, or care about his loss.

My maudlin pity party was cut off by a soft pair of lips pressing to mine, and I refocused to find Callie smiling down at me sadly. Tears in her own eyes. "You didn't kill him," she said firmly. I realized I must have been thinking that loudly into the bond for her to pick it up. Probably a side effect of how fragged my head was. "We all grow up. We all change." She nodded at the spot where I'd been standing.

"You saved those people. Strangers you'd never met." She said firmly. "You hurt yourself to lay them to rest and set them free. Not because you didn't have another way, not because you were afraid. Because you cared. Because it was the right thing to do.

Her voice was almost angry in its intensity. "You are every bit the hero you were when we first met. Your heart is every bit as kind. You've come so far. Done so much. And it's been painful, and scary, and hard. You've sacrificed, and lost, and come up short. You protected the people you loved. Brought us with you out into the universe and helped us flourish. You never let go of who you were. Not for a second. Benny can attest to that."

"Is that really a good thing?" I asked hoarsely. "Am I doing that for him? Or am I just clinging to the past pointlessly?"
She grinned at me. "So are you a sentimental idiot who can't let go, or are you a heartless monster who buried all your human emotions in a shallow grave? Can't have it both ways, babe. I think we're going to have to face the fact that you're a flawed, stupid person who sometimes does contradictory things because you can't help but get in your own way. Just like you were the day I met you."

She leaned down to kiss me again. "That boy is still in there, I see him every day. And if you lose sight of him, just ask me, and I'll smack him upside the head so can figure out where he is." I started laughing at that, and I didn't stop. Not even when it broke down into more crying. Of course, Callie was watching out for me. She had us under Murmur. By the time the others came looking, I was back in my mask and perfectly stoic. But I felt lighter somehow. I didn't realize until we had already set off for the nearest Void outpost to try to snag a few more points that my head didn't hurt anymore. How interesting.

 

[Mastersenseinewby]

I wonder how much would it cost for a wish to let him always have perspective on himself and how others see him.

 

[Quenster06]

Spoiler: Corrections

People like Benny and my dad could access certain aspects of a soul separate from the part with a will and consciousness

Click to shrink...

I think you mean "uncle" here, not "dad".

Callie just held me, letting my rest my head in her lap, and rubbed my temples

Click to shrink...

Letting me rest my head

Another wonderful chapter!

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Spoiler: Corrections

I think you mean "uncle" here, not "dad".



Letting me rest my head

Another wonderful chapter!

Click to shrink...

I actually didn't mean Uncle there, since Elijah does soul nonsense with his contracts, but I can see why you'd think that lol.

 

[Quenster06]

I actually didn't mean Uncle there, since Elijah does soul nonsense with his contracts, but I can see why you'd think that lol.

Click to shrink...

I may or may not have forgotten that Elijah showed Soul Manipulation capabilities. To be fair, we haven't seen anywhere near as much about Elijah's capabilities in comparison Zeke.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The rest of the raids went smoothly. We dropped in to help with two others, and to my complete and utter shock, we netted a cool hundred points for our efforts, two thirds of my entire haul up to this point. I was sitting at two hundred and fifty points total, and while I had no clue exactly how useful those would be, I knew from discussions with others that it was a high number for where and when in the competition we were at.


Sadly, there was no possible way to do more in just that hour. In fact, the only reason I'd managed what I had was Callie and I splitting up the support missions for the other two raids. I barely remembered what had gone on. I was distracted, agitated, and honestly just plain out of it. Thoughts of what I'd been through, of possible alliances with the Void, swirled in my head.


By the time I returned to Veltheim, I had already processed everything, and I realized that my soul felt…different. Stronger. I'd hit my cap in terms of color, but apparently I was still capable of clarifying things a bit more. I put that aside though, because now that I'd returned, I had apparently proven myself enough to rate a face to face with Fade's blacksmith about my armor. And I needed that out of the way before we moved on to the A-rank zone, assuming we could get in, since I still hadn't looked into how to do that yet.


Donovan Redfellow had summoned us for a meeting, calling me to the ancestral home of the Hall of Steel. Fade was going to be escorting me, along with Alanna, and Carmichael and Crell were coming along as well, but aside from those four I was essentially flying solo to this little get together, and I had to admit I was a bit nervous.


Not because of the limited escort, mind. But because the results of this meeting were going to have a huge impact on the lives of myself and my friends.


We set off pretty much immediately upon reaching the boarding house. Callie wasn't happy about me going alone, especially given she'd already had to separate from me during the second raid, but I gave her a reassuring smile and a quick kiss, as well as sharing my confidence through the bond, and she calmed down a bit.


Losing my composure like that had helped release a tension I hadn't even known was there, like the pressure had finally let up despite my actual situation not having changed. I felt freer, calmer, more centered. Some of that was probably whatever improvement my soul had undergone. Though I still didn't know what had happened. So…I asked Fade. He was a resource at hand and we were traveling anyway, so I thought maybe he'd have some idea.


When I described the situation to him, he blinked at me. "Huh…you bound a page into your Chronicle." He looked pretty shocked. "I…I've never heard of anyone doing that at D-rank before. I didn't even think it was possible."


I froze. Triggering Piece of Mind, I set a parallel to take up the journey as I dove into the depths of my library, heading right for my Ten Demons Tome. Lifting the heavy book, I flipped it open, and sure enough…the first page was full. In a strange, twisting writing made up of stat points (mostly Vitality, Might, and Fantasy) was the entire story of how I had cleansed the spirits of those dead.


"I…how did I do that?" I asked in a daze. "I wasn't supposed to be able to. Not until at least C-rank, right?"


I went back over my actions, repeating them out loud. Fade was a peak B-ranker, someone with, if not a complete Chronicle, one that wasn't far off. He was the best possible choice to help me figure this out.


"There's a few possibilities," he mused. "First, you were using a C-ranked form. Second, you were cleansing C-ranked ghosts. Third…well, it's possible what you did was just so significant that your Chronicle couldn't resist binding the feat. I'm not sure why freeing a few ghosts would count, though I guess the rank gap is impressive."


But I could see why it might be. Not just the ghosts, but passing the test for the Void vessel. The first step toward a legitimate alliance with Void forces against their own. I had to imagine that was a hell of a feat to accomplish.


"So what is that going to do?" I asked slowly. I've never been clear on that. "What does the bound page accomplish?"


"You can use it as a focus," he shrugged. "For what depends on what you bound into the book. The power involved in that feat, obviously, but there's a reason people pick and choose which feats to bind as best they can, and a reason that the step for A-rank is Authoring the Chronicle. I'd assume you could use that page to boost your purification and soul restoration abilities, if you wanted to."


That wasn't too bad, actually. Zagan was one of my most potent forms, given what it was made of and how incredibly specific it was. Specialization, as Jessie had shown, always made a bigger impression, and hence yielded more impressive results.


I stopped asking questions, considering the possibilities as we traveled. It helped pass the time, and when we finally stopped at the Hall of Steel, my head was mostly on straight. I glanced up the mountain we'd stopped at. There was one path, and it wasn't particularly stable or well crafted. Just a dirt road up the sheer mountain, the top of which held a large temple building made of solid metal.


"Wow," I said as I stared up at the building. "That's definitely…a statement."


"It's gaudy," said Alanna disdainfully. "What is the point of a whole metal temple up on top of a mountain? Waste of good steel."


Fade shrugged. "It's some kind of focus for metalcrafting. Donovan made it. It does SOMETHING, even if none of us have ever quite managed to figure out what. He's implied that it's the reason his blades are always so much better though. He doesn't NEED it, mind, he can and does forge in other places, especially after he retired. But that's why we're here now. It should help with the armor."


"What about the other materials?" I asked as we started our climb. "I mean, I brought the shackles, but if we're making a whole suit that won't be enough. We'll need to cut the alloy with other metals, right?"


"We've got some stock," he shrugged. "As long as you pay what you can, and maybe pass him some scrolls, we can cover the excess. The main issue is we need to make it upgradeable. If we pick specific metals, we can splice in higher ranked versions when you hit B-rank and elevate the armor to A. Especially with the shackles as a core. It's a difficult thing to do with crafting, but with Donovan working for you, it's plausible."


I knew it was also possible to just make the armor A-rank and suppress it to let me use it, like my grandmother had done with Callie's starpluck bangle. But I'd need to not only pay for an A-rank set of armor, but more for the suppression. I didn't have anywhere close to enough to cover that.


As we mounted the path to the top of the mountain, I felt something shift around us. The world warped slightly, flexing in a way I wasn't used to, and I felt the weight of the nearby rock sort of press down on me. Not physically, exactly, but like every step I took captured some of the gravity of the rocks and poured it onto me, making me that much heavier. Every step increased it a bit more.


At first it didn't really matter. My Might was hundreds of thousands of points now, and even with the Impact making this place that much heavier, the extra weight wasn't anything to write home about. To start. After about five minutes though, I was staggering, my body covered in sweat, and my legs were shaking. To my surprise, the others all seemed similarly exhausted, though they weren't showing it the same way. Except Crell, who was wheezing and all but sobbing as he dragged his battered body along the trail.


I glanced at Fade. "Ok, what the hell IS this?" I puffed as I stepped to lean against a wall. "Is this some kind of ambush? Defenses? It's working on you too, clearly." I didn't think it was a trap for that reason.


Fade grinned at me wolfishly. "This is the path of steel. You have to have iron in your spine to climb it. There's a reason we only had one hundred members despite being so popular. It moderates itself to your power level. It's purely a test of willpower and determination. Don't worry, there's a font of life at the top we can use to replenish our energy. But it's a great opportunity. How many things can really push you physically at this point?"


I snorted. It was weird, I should be annoyed. If I'd thought this was game playing, or if Fade hadn't been going through it right beside me I might have been. But it wasn't. It was pretty clear that he hadn't even considered warning me OR taking me a different way (if there was one). He didn't even consider this an imposition, but a gift he was giving me to help me get stronger.


Alanna rolled her eyes. "In the future, you should probably WARN your boss that there's a physical challenge to get into your place."


He blinked at her. "But…it's a trial for entry. You have to do it without any prior knowledge the first time. Otherwise how do you show your dedication?" He glanced at me, puzzled. "You get it, right?"


I rolled my eyes. I'd gotten so used to Fade being stoic and competent I'd neglected to remember that he was a B-rank Ascendant. No one who made it to that rank did so without being kind of weird. Fade's weirdness hadn't shown itself TOO much, but him accepting the fight with Alanna and the way they interacted made it clear that he was just as much a battle maniac as Abel was.


He was right though. This was actually a lot of fun. I was used to strain on the soul, but I rarely had occasion to put pressure on my physical form like this. With how high my Might was, I didn't hit my limits often, and when I did it didn't tend to be slow and steady like this.


"Alright, no use chatting," I said forcefully as I stood up straight. "Let's get back at it. We have a meeting to get to."


Crell groaned as he followed behind me, but I ignored it. Now that I had changed my mindset about this whole thing I was actually getting excited to push through this. I didn't even trigger Zagan for energy. I wanted to do this cold. It felt like reforging my body like this was a perfect prelude to getting my first set of B-rank armor.


It only took about an hour to make it to the top, and when I arrived, I was only extremely out of breath. As soon as I stepped into the courtyard surrounding the temple, the pressure completely vanished, and I bent over to rest my hands on my knees as I panted out the effort for a bit.


"Took you long enough," came a lazy voice. I looked up, not at all surprised to see a tall red haired man with wire rimmed glasses smoking a long pipe. His golden eyes watched me like a hawk, and when they met mine, he grinned around the stem of his smoking implement. "Now that you've arrived, let's get started." He gestured over to a large box full of metal bars. "Go pick those up and follow me." Then he turned and headed inside. The box looked heavy. I sighed and walked over to pick it up. Guess I was going to be helping.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The interior of the metal temple was surprisingly cramped. Most buildings I'd seen were spatially expanded, and this one might have been as well, but if it was, it was expanded and THEN filled with an absurd number of walls and hallways, making every step I took feel like I was walking through a maze.


Normally, that would have been pretty immaterial to my interests…except right now I was exhausted and carrying an INCREDIBLY heavy box of metal bars. The bars were all B-rank, and Impact interacted strangely with gravity when it came to certain concentrations and environments. Or maybe the metal was just literally hundreds of thousands of pounds, I couldn't say. What I could say was that it was really heavy, and I was having trouble keeping on my feet dragging the box.


"Why?" I wheezed as I trailed behind Donovan. "Am I carrying this? I have four different B-rankers working for me, and they're all less than ten feet away and could take this off my hands in an instant."


There was a slight whistle and I staggered as something smacked me upside the head. "OW!?" I snapped, glaring at Donovan. "What the hell was that for?"


The red haired smith was holding what appeared to be a long blue LEEK, at least if I knew my vegetables as well as I thought. He sneered at me. "Fool! I'm here to design you the most effective suit of armor possible for you. I need to see how you move under pressure, how you comport yourself when tired, and I need those bars in my forge and don't feel like carrying them."


I grimaced, but eventually nodded, sighing in frustration. "Ok, yeah, I guess I can see wh- OW!" Another slap across the face.


"Fool!" Donovan barked again. "You're humoring me! If you have a problem with my methods, speak up, boy! No one is going to respect a leader that panders to his subordinates like some whimpering child."


"If you hit me with that thing again, I'm going to-" another slap. "Ow! Shit will you stop that?"


He snorted. "Fool! Don't make idle threats. Makes you look ineffective. And don't talk back to your elders!"


I bit my tongue, glaring at him hatefully, but he didn't seem to notice, scurrying off into the hall as he caught sight of a room that had just revealed itself. I turned to glare at Fade. "You couldn't have warned me?"


The Lord of the Hall of Steel shrugged. "Wouldn't have helped. He does what he does. You're lucky he played nice until you got inside. He must like you. The leek of education usually comes out with the first bit of criticism. I was expecting you to get smacked for being late. Speaking of which, I'd hurry inside with those bars."


Cursing, I scrambled into the room after Donovan, hoping to avoid that weirdly painful leek hitting me again. When I arrived inside, I was relieved to find Donovan stoking a forge, clearly focused more on the act of doing so than my presence. I was intrigued, because rather than use a lighter or some ability, he had his pipe out and was tapping the ashes into the forge, which roared up with each tap.


I cocked my head at him as I dropped the box with a rattling thump. "Magic pipe?" I asked with interest.


He popped it back into his mouth, puffing it, and I was surprised to see the bowl of the pipe start to glow. He winked at me. "Something like that," he grinned, his teeth bared as they clamped down on the stem. "Now, dump the box."


"What?" I asked in confusion. "But I just- OW! Fuck, will you stop that?"


The older man just raised an eyebrow, not even bothering to yell at me. I sighed, then leaned over and grabbed the box, tipping it sideways and sending a bunch of random bars of metal across the floor. "Your focus item," he demanded, pointing at the forge. I withdrew the shackles, tossing them into the forge directly as he gestured for me to do.


He weighed the leek in his hand, then, with a blurring flick of his wrist, he slapped one of the nearest bars of metal. Then another. Then a third. Each bar was…different. Color, shine, they all had slight variations, but more than that, each time the leek hit, they made a slightly different sound.


Donovan didn't break eye contact as he smacked them. Meanwhile, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shackles slowly start to glow. Very slowly. "Sarcassian Pit Steel," he said musingly. "Unexpected."


He smacked one of the bars again, squinting. "Desrick Phase Iron. That one makes more sense." He tapped five or six more, stopping and going back to one of them.
Pallax Platinum. And…Wraithcopper. Is that enough?" He finally broke eye contact, looking over the bars musingly, lips twisted uncertainly. Then he smacked the rest of the bars. Twice. "Arcadian Lifeiron. And Verixian Tin." He sniffed the air a few times, then flicked the leek sideways, knocking the dimly glowing shackles to the side, and then nodding.


I blinked at him. "Wait…was that why you were hitting me? You were using the leek to like…calibrate my armor?"


He smacked me upside the head again, too fast to track. "Fool," he said, this one much milder. "Don't question your elders. Pick up the bars I just gestured to, and dump them in that crucible over there." He gestured to a colossal bowl made of some kind of rock set on some kind of metal tong setup. Sighing, I grabbed all the bars and carried them over one by one. Before I dropped in two of them, he held out the leek, pressing it to my chest and stopping me cold. "Not those two," he corrected. He had me separate out the tin and copper, dumping the rest in the crucible.


Then he had me lift the absurdly heavy crucible and carry the thing over to set it in the forge, to one side of where the shackles were still sitting. Once he had, he reached under a nearby bench and pulled out another crucible. Slapping it down, he used the leek to hook the red hot shackles and drop them into the crucible. He twirled the leek three times, and there was a rumble before a bolt of blue lightning crashed through the ceiling (literally THROUGH it, there was a hole) and sheathed the baton shaped weapon in electricity.


When the electricity cleared, the leek was gone, replaced by a lang handled ballpeen hammer. The hammer crackled with azure lightning, and he swung it sideways and slammed it into the crucible where the shackles lay.


There was a mighty gong sound, and the electricity on the hammer jumped to the crucible. The stone bowl began to glow, and the electricity did…something Reacting with the banked flames in the coal of the forge. The crucible started to shake, glowing an orangish blue color as the heat began to climb rapidly. "Throw them in," he said, gesturing to the last two bars. "Quickly now, boy, we don't have all day."


I did, and as they plunked into the crucible, Donovan turned and whirled his magic hammer. Once. Twice. Three times over his head before bringing it crashing down on a table nearby. A stone table.


When the hammer struck, there was a resounding crash, and the stone splintered. About three quarters of the slab collapsed into rubble, clattering to the floor like a rain of teeth and leaving behind what appeared to be a perfect stone approximation of…well, me. Donovan turned to smirk at me. "That, boy, is why I was hitting you. Now go get the big one. We need to do this right. Timing is crucial."


As I hefted the huge cauldron of melted black metal, he easily lifted the other one with a single hand. He gestured for me to head over to the stone idol of my body, and when I arrived, he had me tip the crucible over onto it. Faster than my eyes could track, his hammer licked out, smacking several spots on the stone. Lightning clung to the rock, attracting the melted metal like it was magnetized.


The black metal flowed over every inch of the statue, coating it, and started to thicken, seeming to expand outward like it was gaining mass. He tipped the second crucible, the gleaming bronze metal spearing into the black mass and burrowing in like a river wearing down a canyon. He tapped the metal a few times, reaching down to SPIN the table on an axis I hadn't even seen before he used it. It whirled sideways so fast it almost turned into a circle, and the hammer flashed a few more times, deflating or shaping the black metal so fast I could barely track it. He turned and grinned at me. "Now, for the fun part. Back away, boy, unless you feel like experiencing life as a pile of ash." I did, and he turned on his heel, hauling back on the hammer and SMASHING it down into the steel floor.


Another gong, this one resonating through the whole building, split the air as the electricity roared over the walls and floor. He swung again, and the voltage seemed to climb. The armor still spun, and with the third strike, he slammed the hammer dead on into the chest. The floor shook again, and all the electricity in the walls and floor jumped to the armor. There was a sort crack and the armor…shrank.


The next hit did something similar. And the one after. He struck the spinning armor like a master potter shaping clay, carefully altering and smoothing in ways I could barely understand. The ballooned hunk of black metal with bronze traceries started to writhe and twitch, collapsing down on itself. As the dark metal condensed, shrinking to the proportions of a normal suit of armor.


As it shrank, the bronze crawled over the surface of the plate, sliding into the spots where joints would be, over plates as runes, and finally congregating in the center of the chest into a circular bronze plate sporting my own symbol, the one I hadn't seen in ages, not since my time back on Callus.


With one final swing, the electricity exploded off the armor in a wave of unseen force that ruffled my hair and pushed me back a step. Donovan was panting, leaning over with his hammer as a cane. "Almost done," he told me. "Just one last step." He hefted the hammer with a grunt , bringing it down hard on the exposed head of the stone statue where the metal had pulled away from it during the plate formation.


Blue energy surged into the stone and it cracked, spiderwebs of blue energy crawling over the surface of what I could see. Then it collapsed, turning into grey dust that blew away from inside the armor, leaving just my suit of plate lying on the table base the stone had been sat on.


I stepped closer, in awe at the new suit. "It's…it's beautiful."


"It is," Donovan said proudly. "You gonna name it or just stand there and stroke it like it's a fuzzy puppy?"


I grinned down at it, running my fingers over it. It was exactly what I wanted. I considered a possible name. This suit was different than my Tree. It was part of me, sure, but not the same way. This wasn't Shane's armor. It belonged to my other self. The symbol, the traceries of bronze lighting up the midnight black iron. My lips pulled back into a wolfish grin.


My fingers flitted over the bronze plate with my symbol on it. This armor would contain and enhance my forms, would work with me and augment my power. Every demon in my Goetia staff art would be bound within this plate. I knew exactly what its name was. "I'll call it…the Seal of Solomon."

 

[Quenster06]

Spoiler: Corrections

replaced by a lang handled ballpeen hammer.

Click to shrink...

Not sure if you meant for this to be lang or long, so I figured I'd mention it.

and the electricity did…something

Click to shrink...

Missing period at the end of this sentence.

There was a sort crack and the armor…shrank.

Click to shrink...

This should either be "sort of" or "soft".

Great to see Shane getting fully back into his Solomon persona. No more creepy mask for quite some time, and now goes the Mephistopheles Armour. Onwards and upwards to the future.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The Seal was…impressive. Slipping into it was deceptively easy, for one thing. It looked bulky and imposing, and it was, but it was also fluid and surprisingly mobile. I was able to open it up and slip inside with no trouble. More than that, my wings slid free of the metal like there was a custom made slot for them, and once they did, I was able to move and walk with almost no resistance at all.


"The articulation on this is insane," I said as I moved back and forth, bending and stretching to check my range of motion. Examining the spots, I was able to identify why that was the case too. The bronze that was the connection between individual iron pieces had sort of grafted to both sides, but in a strange way that made it seem almost like actual joints. "I really don't know if I have enough to cover this. Two hundred seventy five B-ranked chits and some change. Can't possibly be enough."


I emptied my pockets, so to speak. Honestly, I wasn't lying though. What felt like a literal fortune at the auction suddenly seemed woefully short of what was deserved.


Up to this point, I had always focused on utility for my gear. What it could do, how it did it, and how it could enhance my powers. And that was a feature of The Seal, for sure. It could channel my forms perfectly, I could already feel that.


But beyond that, it was also just…good armor. Utility was important and impressive, but I already HAD almost every kind of utility. The Seal of Solomon wasn't some amplifier that I carried around at all times. It was…art. It was pure unrestrained defensive power combined with flawless mobility.


There was value in specificity. Ascendants had been proving that for years, and this was a clear example of why. Rather than go with some super special trick ability, I just got REALLY good armor. And honestly? It was better.


He waved me off. "Fool," he said lazily. I flinched on reflex, expecting to get smacked, but nothing hit me. He just chuckled. "You're covered. I'm looking forward to leaving this place. I've spent most of my life on this planet. Not all, but most. I'm ready to move on to another adventure. Which begs the question. Are you willing to take me with you?"


"I mean, I would prefer you learn to use a measuring tape instead of slapping the shit out of people with a blue vegetable," I admitted. "But…after this? Hell yes. This is…mindblowing. It's also less weight on my soul than expected." Part of that might have been my first bound page making my Chronicle sturdier, but it was still impressive. "In any case, yes, you're in. Obviously. When we go to the A-rank zone, you can come along."


Which brought up another point. "Speaking of which," I said leadingly. "I never did find out how to actually GET there. I know the A-rank zone is small, and polar. I know there's only one A-rank city on either side of the planet. But I don't know how much of the zone it takes up."


"All of it," he said with a laugh. "The twin cities on the poles of this planet are connected through the core. An endless staircase from one to the other. But apart from those stairs, there's only four gates by which you can enter them. Arcadia and Albion, the shining jewels of the frozen heights. Not just the polar limits of the planet, but the highest point. A massive plateau of glacial ice on either end, surrounded by an impenetrable wall."


I could tell from his hushed tones that he'd seen them but never been inside. "Entry to Arcadia, the closest city is…" he shook his head. "Either be an A-ranker or be the personal retinue of one. There are less than one hundred thousand people in the whole city. Obviously, they're not ALL A-rank, but the B-ranks that make it inside are either terrifyingly wealthy or powerful. Or both."


"Well, that's not ideal," I sighed. "But it's not like we're going in blind. Our own A-rankers are in there. And my parents aren't the type to sit on their hands while the rest of us play around."


Not to mention Zeke. Anything Crell could do, Zeke could do better. I'd be shocked if my Uncle didn't already have an apparatus in place for intelligence inside Arcadia. Donovan shook his head. "That isn't the issue," he said grimly. "The issue is the intake. Those four gates are impregnable. The city is a fortress. The gates are the only weak spots, and only barely. And they only open once a week."


"Ok, so we wait a few days," I shrugged. I glanced at Fade, who had entered behind us and was waiting silently nearby. "What am I missing here?"


"Fatal funnel," he said bluntly. "The platforms to enter the gates are killboxes. Normally there are a few people heading up, and no one bothers starting anything. In this case, you're all competitors."


I grimaced. Despite my cousins realizing that this was an emergency and doing their best to deconstruct the Void influence on this planet, I had no illusions that the majority of them would pass up a chance to shoot some fish in a barrel. The faction behind Delia and Roland might be all about togetherness and family unity, but it was clear they weren't ascendant at the moment. Whoever ran the faction in opposition clearly enjoyed the bloodsport that embodied the worst of the succession war. Whoever their representatives were would almost definitely take a shot at whoever was nearby.


More importantly, Arcadia had four entrances, and there were eight cities in the B-rank zone. That meant I wouldn't just be interacting with the relatives I was familiar with, but another crop of dangerous unknown cousins who might be just as strong if not stronger then the ones on my side.


"What about the A-rankers?" I asked slowly. "Will they be aware of the incoming crop? I can't imagine entry is common, and especially not large amounts of people like will be incoming with us. Won't they step out to help?"


My parents were both monsters. Not morally (though you could make a solid case for my dad) but in terms of combat potential. My mother was intergalactically famous, and had two different abilities, one of which was inherited directly from a sitting pope. My father was a former candidate so feared that even the current Wishmaster, a man who essentially did whatever the hell he wanted by sheer force of arms even inside the WCP, considered him a peer.


Not to mention they had been married for decades and knew each other inside and out, and I had heard it implied several times that Zeke contributed to their group combat dynamic heavily. The three of them together would be the kind of threat that basically no other group of A-rankers would be able to touch.


Which, of course, meant next to nothing if they were outnumbered twenty to one. The simple truth of it was, I had no clue how many A-rankers were on this planet.


While the common axiom that there were one hundred S-rankers (an estimate I had been informed by Zeke) was well known, the actual number of A-rank Ascendants in the universe was…difficult to quantify. S-rank was a staggering leap in difficulty from A, that wasn't in doubt, and I was fairly certain the number was at least in the five digits, if not six.


It was hard to conceptualize, really, given how rare they seemed to me, but I had spent most of my time on lower tier planets and in special environments that specifically catered to lower ranked Ascendants. Beyond that, I wasn't entirely sure ANY of the numbers I'd been given for the numbers of Ascendants took into account god worlds, since they didn't seem to be common knowledge at certain levels of Ascendant society.


All this was to say that I had no idea how many enemies my parents would be up against, how many locals lived in the city at their rank, or how many of the candidates even brought A-rankers. I didn't believe that the thousands of candidates all had five A-rankers each. It wasn't feasible. There were like ten thousand candidates on this planet, and even if there were fifty thousand A-rankers in the universe, which there very well could be, I highly doubted my family had access to whatever percentage of the A-rank population that represented, regardless of how much money or influence we had.


Donovan seemed to sense my worry, and waved me off. "The A-rankers won't get involved. THe political situation inside the shining cities is complicated but mostly balanced. Even with newcomers, given the weeks you've been on world, there's no way some equilibrium hasn't been reached. No one faction will move lest they disturb the others and kick over the proverbial beehive."


Sighing, I headed out of the Hall. My new armor flexed comfortingly around me, almost propelling me it was so smooth. Crell, Carmichael, and Alanna had been waiting outside, and when they saw me, Crell let out a long whistle of awe. "Damn, boss. You look scary. And expensive. I'm kind of worried someone will try to kidnap you for your armor."


I paused, then turned to Donovan. "Is that…is that something that might happen?"


He shrugged. "Hypothetically possible, but unlikely. That suit is custom designed. It fits you like a second skin, and you're a bigger than average man. It wouldn't fit most people, and honestly, a B-rank suit of armor wouldn't be enough to piss off your collective forces here. Not to mention the suit is monogrammed. It has your symbol right on the front, and trust me, nobody is going to be melting down or reworking that armor. All in all, not worth the trouble to steal it."


Fade nodded. "He's right. They would just kill you and chop it up into scrap if they had the resources to unload it in the first place. Sure it would lose some value, but it would be much easier to sell in pieces. Most people don't have the resources to buy a full suit like that. You definitely didn't."


I glared at both of them. "You are the least comforting people I know. Now, is there a path down this damned mountain that doesn't require me to drag my aching carcass down the path? Because I don't even want to consider the possible power interaction between that trial and the weight of this armor."


"That…is a good point," admitted Donovan. "I suppose we can take the elevator."


I froze, then turned to glare at Fade. "There's…an ELEVATOR?" I asked him in a tone of barely constrained fury. "I knew there might be a non enchanted path, but you walked us past an ELEVATOR?"


"The elevator is for cargo," he explained sincerely. "Not people."


Now even Donovan was staring at him. Alanna pinched the bridge of her nose. "How are you any good with a sword? Your brain is made of rocks. Or possibly chunks of steel. The fact that you beat me in a fight is the most humiliating thing that's ever happened to me."


We all laughed, except Fade who looked mildly perturbed, which I took to be his version of pouting. We followed Donovan across the courtyard to a small fountain. He pressed a few of the rocks, and there was a low rumble as the water drained away. We all climbed in, and then the floor of the fountain began to slowly lower into the darkness.


We all chattered as we descended, but I started to tune it out. With the Void incursion temporarily taken care of and my armor acquired, not to mention my new blacksmith, I was now officially ready to head for the A-rank zone. I would be seeing my parents soon enough, provided I didn't die first. Hopefully it went better than my last family reunion.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"That armor is badass," Benny said enthusiastically as he studied my new suit. "I mean, obviously, but like…the craftsmanship is insane. In fact, it's ALMOST as good as my new piece of gear. Well…pieces. I just finished my most recent project. Want to see it in action?" I'd called everyone together to tell them about Arcadia, but I had to admit, given how much time my best friend had spent on his newest project, I was excited to see what he could do.


Callie sighed. "Shane, I feel like you had something important to share," she tried feebly. She knew it wouldn't matter, but she always at least tried to keep me on task.


And as in most cases, she failed. "Nah, it'll keep. It's not like we have to be anywhere in the next ten minutes. Come on Benny, lets go out to the training yard. My armor is sturdy enough to take anything you can throw at it, so you can give me a live demonstration." Not to mention I was about five times as strong as him, so I wasn't worried.


Clearly he was confident in his new equipment, because he didn't even bat an eye. "Hell yes, you're going to love this."


My wife didn't look appeased, so I took out a couple pages of information I'd scribbled down about Arcadia and held it out to her. She squinted suspiciously but finally took it with a sigh, nodding for me to go off and have fun.


Everyone else filed in behind us as we left, eager to see Benny's new gear. His ability had changed in ways we didn't all understand, and he'd been working hard on the soul weapon he was creating. It had been built around the axe we had gotten from the siege back when we first arrived on the heirworld, and included infinity crystal and the gods knew what else.


When we arrived outside, Benny was practically bouncing with excitement. "This is going to be good. You ready Shane?"


Celine, who was among the close friends who had followed us, looked worried. "Ben, this might not be a good idea. I mean, his staff and armor are both B-ranked, right? I know your new item is strong but…"


"It'll be fine," I assured her. "We're sparring. I'm not saying I'm not going to throw him a beating, but I wouldn't actually hurt him." I grinned tauntingly at my friend. "As for hurting me…well, I don't see that happening. But hey, if you can surprise me maybe I'll apologize. You seem pretty confident."


As expected, the fire in his eyes blazed brighter. Benny wasn't the kind of person who wanted to be coddled or babied. His new gear needed testing, and he wouldn't have enjoyed the process if I didn't talk a little shit about it.


Amusingly, I could feel anxiety from Callie, and my sister looked uncomfortable at the taunts. The two of them were familiar with our dynamic, but they hadn't seen Benny ever get REALLY passionate about something before. It was sweet of them to worry, but unnecessary. "So, before we start, why don't you introduce your new invention?"


"Inventions. Plural," he corrected. He held up both hands. "The axe got split in two. I put one blade into each hand, and they're infused with infinity crystal dust." He straightened his hand into a flat blade and jerked it through the air. I heard a soft hiss as it split the air itself, and I could see the disturbance behind the attack. It looked surprisingly intimidating. "My phantom blades can ALSO be channeled through weapons. They're soul items, so I can use the abilities within them a lot easier than I used to. Not to mention they can grow alongside me."


I grinned at him. "Sounds like fun. How do they pair with that Dance of the Dracolich you created. You get any better at that?"


His eyes lit up with a manic energy. "Why don't you come find out." His hands flicked and a pair of swords appeared in them. He'd withdrawn them from his spatial ring, only…I blinked at him. "Wait, did you integrate your space ring?"


"Yup, left forearm," he preened. "Along with the two axe blades I'm at seventeen of my twenty slots. I've mostly been upgrading the stuff I have to my current rank the last few months as best I can. Getting my hands on the souls is proving tough, but I've gotten pretty close. I was considering swapping everything out with new gear but honestly stuff like my triple multiplier boosts is too rare to get rid of, so it didn't seem worth it when I still had a bunch of empty slots left. Now I'm down to three, but I can always remove something later if I need to."


I nodded, but wasn't too worried. Triple his stats for a few minutes was damned useful, but I was pretty much five times his total at this point. I was pretty sure triple his Might would be more than mine, but I was also aware that numbers weren't everything. Between forms like Sammael and my Path I was more than used to taking on stronger opponents.


Behind him, a figure wavered into existence. A colossal bone dragon with eyes of burning green flame. I'd seen it before, but it had changed somehow. Rather than the same white as the rest of the bone, the empty wing skeletons were darker now. They had a sort of striated metallic look at the end, black along the length and then fading to metal. Like an axe head. The metallic talond at the end glimmered with an almost unnatural coruscation of colors, rainbow metal shimmering as the light struck them.


Benny had his pair of swords up and in front of him in a strange spread stance. One blade low and at an angle away from his body and the other high and at a diagonal across him for protection.


His feet started to slide, first forward, then back. Not like walking, but more like he was trying to build up a charge of static rubbing them on carpet. His body tilted…and then he vanished.


I whirled, my staff manifesting as I spun, and the ends licked out in succession, slapping aside his blades on the flat. His eyes widened, and he stumbled back. I pressed the attack, my staff blurring as I started flicking probing strikes at the openings in his form.


Dantalion activated. I could have done more, but I wanted this to be close to even at least. It wasn't about winning. I could do that a lot of ways. I was stronger. It was about helping, showing Benny where he needed to improve. He's integrated the new tech to improve his technique, but he hadn't adapted the actual sword art yet. "Did you just teleport?" I asked him casually as Dantalion deconstructed his sword technique.


He chuckled through gritted teeth, vanishing again. My Danger Sense pinged and I reacted with a waltz, vanishing in a flash of black flames as I appeared behind him, attacking in return. "Nope," he gritted out. "I cut the space. It's one of my many new tricks. Like THIS!" There was a flash of dark metal, and the six spider legs built into his back shot out, attacking at multiple angles. They spread like wings, and the Dracolich power infused them, dyeing them the same colors as the wing tips.


Cursing, I waltzed again, avoiding the attacks, but my lips were peeled back in a grin. Then I blitzed forward, flashing through a series of waltzes to try to trip him up. His swords sang, somehow in perfect harmony with the spider legs, all operating as a whole under the influence of his Path. He wasn't engaging the manifestation to attack directly, I didn't think he could yet, but he was using it to create a sort of structure for this fight, and it was helping him operate multiple limbs at once.


More than just that, the limbs and blades were cutting into the air in a way that made it clear that I did NOT want to experience them head on. The swords flicked at my throat and leg, and my staff lashed out to deflect them, and I detected a surge of discomfort from the Ten Demons Tree when they landed. It wasn't enough to do much real damage, but it DID cut some faint grooves in the surface, even if they faded almost immediately.


It was an impressive showing…but sadly it wasn't enough. We kept up the fight for several minutes, but the stat boosters he have only worked for five minutes each. Once his Might dropped back down below mine, the coordination couldn't offset the difference in power. I took his feet out from under him with a sweep and he hit the ground with a thud.


I dismissed my staff and offered a hand to help him up. "What the hell was that last thing? How did you affect my staff?"


It was a B-rank weapon, and while he hadn't been able to do much to it, he had done SOMETHING. I wasn't sure what rank those axe blades were, since the soul of the person used to make them had probably been higher than his actual rank and I didn't know how that worked when crafting, but it couldn't be more than C. It was impossible for Benny to use a B-rank weapon without a Chronicle.


He waggled a hand. "I didn't exactly. I kind of cheated. Those slashes cut space, kind of, but it's more like…shaped portals. It teleported a layer off the outside of your staff. It took a second for it to register as an attack, and then it bounced off the Impact. But there's a bit of wiggle room with that kind of thing. It has to do with how you perceive threats. Now that you know it won't work again. But it's a good trick. I THINK I could cut into a C-ranker with that attack. It's hard to do it though. It involves…well, it's hard to describe. When I do that teleporting trick it eats space. Then I use it to form the portals. It's a Dracolich thing."


I shrugged. I was sure it made internal sense. Path bullshit was complicated and hard to track if you didn't have access to the full story. Adding and tweaking internal consistency to align the effects with your motivations, personality, AND the way people saw you (because the stats that made up the Solid Path were formed from your mythology) made the whole thing a very personal and deeply complex manifestation of a person's power and self.


Though I still didn't know the exact details of how a Domain was formed, I was pretty sure it was based on that unique combination of factors. Benny's sounded damned impressive. "Anyway," my best friend grinned. "I just thought you seeing what I could do might tweak things in my favor on the next leg of the journey. I take it from the meeting request that we're leaving soon. And based on how serious you sounded its going to be on an important mission."


I laughed at that, but he didn't join in. I stopped. "That- are you serious? You did all that to get a spot on the assault team? We're moving up to the next zone, everyone is coming with. You didn't need to-"


"Bullshit," he said bluntly. "You have a lineup. A core group of frontliners. And I'm not one of them. Not anymore. You bench me every chance you get. Which I understand, I'm not the strongest fighter here. But this is a dangerous technique. I've spent months working on all of this, doing everything I can to get stronger so I can help."


"And we're going to need it," Callie said as she emerged from the boarding house, holding up the papers. "I was going over the details in this, and I think we have a problem. There are very exacting standards to build the Void Ladder. I originally assumed they would use the fire cage somehow, but from what I can tell, this staircase would work just as well. Maybe better. Which means…"


I sighed. "Which means that the Void infiltrators will be scrambling to get in if they aren't already there. Our trip up to Arcadia is going to be about ten times more dangerous. Great." Because of course. It never rained but it poured.

 

[Quenster06]

Spoiler: Corrections

The metallic talond at the end glimmered

Click to shrink...

talon(s) : depending on if you're referring to one or multiple.

Benny's working hard to keep up with the crazy people that are this groups main team. Go Benny!

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"So, I have a plan," I said as we stared up at the platforms to Arcadia. They nearest one to us was apparently the West gate. It was about a hundred miles outside of Veltheim. It had been a week since my duel with Benny (fifty six more scrolls put me at two hundred thirty two), and I had gathered most of my main combat force here, with the majority of the army inside Bethy's domain.


Ellie, Felicity, Callie, Gabe, Chelsea, Benny, Bethy, Mel, Abel, Carmichael, Crell, Alanna, and Fade were the only ones outside with me. Thirteen of my strongest and most trusted friends willing to follow me into the gates of hell. Granted, they weren't all willing to do it QUIETLY.


"Is it a good plan?" Benny asked politely. "Because based on even a rudimentary ability to recognize patterns, I'm a little worried."


I glared at him. "Can you use your pattern recognition ability to predict what I'm going to say next? Because if not, it's not that impressive after all, and if you can, then why are you not already shutting up?"


He zipped his lips (which were smirking) and mimed throwing away the key, and I huffed and turned back to the others. "Now, as for my completely reasonable and totally tactically sound plan," I continued harshly. "We're going to get on the platform. And everyone is going to group up facing out. And Abel and Bethy are going to combine forces and cover us with a blood sea infused Domain."


They all just stared at me. Like they were waiting. Then Callie sighed. "Shane…that's not a plan. It's an ACTION, but plans involve steps and predicting outcomes. You just basically said the plan is to block really hard."


"It worked last time," I shrugged. "If it ain't broke don't fix it."


My sister pinched the bridge of her nose. "The Universe is doomed. Either the Void will get us or my brother will become the Wishmaster and it will signal the end of days."


"I cordially invite you to join Benny in shutting up," I told her dryly. "Besides. That's not the WHOLE plan. We also have allies. My cousins are coming. And not just the few you met. Delia and Roland have been in touch, and they're joining up for this push. Apparently Roland knows my dad, and is terrified of him. He agreed to work with us in exchange for me putting in a good word with the old man. I guess Roland's dad and mine are enemies and he's worried dad might rip his soul out or something."


Chelsea look unhappy. "He wouldn't do that." She looked around at everyone else, who was very deliberately not looking back. "What? Dad's power is contract based. He needs permission to take someone's soul."


I was almost positive, based on my own experience, that he did NOT need that, or at least that the permission didn't need to be spoken with full faculties by an adult person. I didn't see a reason to make my sister sad though, so I kept quiet about that. The others followed suit, and I gave Benny and Callie a relieved nod.


Luckily, we didn't have too long to wait. Delia, Roland, Derrick, Nadia, Charlie, and Alys all arrived posthaste, their respective guards trailing behind. Once they joined us, our tight grouping of thirteen turned into more like a hundred, and I couldn't help but sigh.


Delia smiled at me, probably the warmest expression I'd ever seen from her, though it was so faint I might have missed it with normal senses. "Managing such a large gathering is a daunting prospect," she said with mild amusement. "Especially with us all being Wyndhams. I can say from experience, managing so much family is like herding cats."


"Drunk cats," I added. "With rabies. But it's better than the alternative."


I turned to glance at the platform in the distance.


It was…big. That was the only word for it. A huge grey stone plate hooked into an equally large metal rail set into the wall of a glacier so tall I literally couldn't see the top of it. The whole thing vanished into clouds a few miles up. However high it went, it wouldn't be a quick ride. Not on a platform that size.


Delia nodded. "I share your worry. Such a location is rife with opportunities for ambush. But it is a path we must take. You sent a message to your parents?"


"I did," I agreed. "Did you and Roland bring A-rankers along? I never asked."


She nodded. "My Aunt and her husband for me. Roland brought a cousin on his mother's side. I still can't believe you brought the full five. I thought only the branch heirs would manage to recruit so many power players."


"What can I say," I shrugged. "Ascending is the family business. And business is good. You're all just lucky they banned S-rankers. I could have managed at least three of those. And I MIGHT have been able to get The Vampire to show up." They stared at me in horror and I couldn't help but chuckle.


Bethy thought it was funny too. "I think he might have said yes just to watch all the branch leaders wet themselves."


"You're stalling," commented Abel. I glowered at him and he shrugged. "I didn't say I don't GET why you're stalling. Just figured someone should point it out. Personally I wouldn't mind a few days vacation. I love a good fight, but I didn't finish taste testing all the food stalls in Veltheim yet."


"Where the hell did you find food stalls?" I asked in confusion. "I didn't see anything like that." Then I shook my head, holding up a hand. "No. Stop. You're right. I AM stalling. Alright, we're all here. Let's get going. Keep your eyes peeled everybody." Then I narrowed my eyes as I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. "Damn it Bethy, put that AWAY, I know it's not a real eyeball." My vampire friend froze, her nail slowly skinning what I was almost sure was a white grape with a markered on pupil, and pouted.


Despite the ridiculousness of the action, it did successfully break the tension, which I appreciated. Still, we were all pretty keyed up as we walked slowly in formation towards the huge stone platform.


When we arrived, I was even more stunned by the device. It wasn't just large, it was intricate. The whole thing was carved with strange patterns and complicated reliefs. I also noticed that we weren't the first to arrive. My lips peeled back as I noticed two familiar faces. Rega and Pallax. Standing with them was sneaky cousin Wesley, and another person I didn't know. Delia caught me looking, then followed my gaze and grimaced. "Kent," she said sourly. "That is…unfortunate."


Roland sneered at the tall thin man with the greasy black hair. "Unfortunate for him maybe. If he tries anything I'll gut him without a second thought."


She shook her head. "You know it won't be that easy. Kent is a nightmare to deal with in a fight. His Stealth ability is nearly unparalleled in the family. But more importantly, he has Shelby with him." She nodded past him at a hooded form I had to really focus on to spot. I suspected Kent might have been keeping her obscured, but paying attention was enough to bypass whatever he was doing.


Shelby did not look impressive. I'd seen a lot of powerful looking warriors since I got here. Tall and imposing, muscular and hard bitten. Shelby looked…kind of like Jessie, actually. She was small and blonde, with a round face and big blue eyes. She had a wide smile and dimples, and her hair was braided at random spots in small thin braids, the whole effect of which made her look like she was going to the shops with friends or something.


She was in good shape, granted, but we all were, and the only real clue to her being anything but a normal, cheerful girl was the frankly ludicrous axe perched on her shoulder. A very sharp looking, very scary B-ranked axe that REEKED of blood and death.


Roland grimaced. "I missed her. He was covering her with stealth. I can take her, I think, but I'm not sure I'd be good for anything else. She's…dangerous."


She also had good senses, because when he mentioned her, she turned and gave him a wide, cheerful smile and a friendly wave. Unlike Alys though, Shelby looked…wrong. It took me a second to realize why. It was her eyes. Her smile was wide and genuine and her dimples made her seem sweet and likable, but her eyes looked like chips of frozen cyanide. Cold and poisonous and very deadly. Shelby was a wolf in sheep's clothing if I'd ever seen one. And I basically LIVED with Bethy, so I knew what I was talking about.


Kent, the candidate with her (they were both B-rank) ambled over with a smarmy grin on his face. "Delia, Roland, how lovely," he all but cooed, clearly thrilled by their dislike and the discomfort it caused them. I already did not care for him. "I suppose we're taking the trip together. I didn't see you back in Sparklev, so I suppose you ended up in the other spoke city that borders this place. I'm surprised so many of us arrived here. Derran is here somewhere too."


Roland actually brightened a bit at that. "Derran is always a welcome addition to any proceedings. Have you seen him since we arrived?"


"He hasn't," came a relaxed voice from behind us. "But he will now, as will you." We all turned to find a tall, tan man with Wyndham green eyes. "Roland, good to see you. You remember Kara." He nodded to the tall redhead next to him with literal hawk eyes. The two of them were, obviously, also B-rank.


Roland nodded back with a warm smile. "Derran. Glad you made it. I trust you were able to avoid most of the Void influence?"


Derran chuckled. "Oh I sidestepped all of that. You know me. I'm the cautious type. Bit low on points, but then, I don't have much need of local muscle. My father is here representing me personally, you know."


To my shock, Roland actually FLINCHED. "Davis is here? That's…good. I suppose. You know Elijah is here representing his own son, right?"


That didn't seem to sit well with Derran, whose eyes snapped to me. "No," he said slowly. "I knew his kid was in the competition but I didn't know he was here. I'm almost positive it won't come to anything. My mother doesn't HATE her half brother. She just finds him insufferable. And last I heard my father and Elijah aren't on bad terms, even if they're also not on good ones."


I blinked at that, processing the information. "Wait…half brother?" I asked. "So that would make you-"


"Your cousin," he said with a smirk. "An actual blood cousin, not the euphemistic kind we use to refer to people several generations distant. My mother is Arabella Wyndham. Malachai's oldest daughter."


I nodded along at that. My grandfather had more than a dozen kids, and only two of them shared a mother with my dad. I'd met one of my other uncles, though it hadn't been a pleasant experience. I assumed Davis was an A-ranker if he was married to Arabella and could be expected to be a match for my dad. I held out a hand. "Huh. Well, nice to meet you then. I'm Shane, as you seemed to already know."


He shook my hand with a laugh. "Knowledge is power. I do my best to stay informed of the goings on of the various branches and factions, though seem to have slipped through that net for the most part." We chatted a bit longer, but were interrupted by a lurch. I flinched and looked down, and sure enough, the ground was starting to move. "Hold tight everyone," my newest cousin commented. "Seems like the ride has begun."

 

[Quenster06]

Spoiler: Corrections

They nearest one to us was apparently the West gate.

Click to shrink...

The

though seem to have slipped through that net for the most part.

Click to shrink...

Though you seem

Up, up and away!

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The trip up the glacier was tense. I'd expected that, with all of us stuck together in a very small area (relatively speaking) and unable to leave. Given the rank of the planet, the distance to the ground, and the makeup of the rock at the bottom, for anyone who DIDN'T have wings, falling off this platform was going to be a quick trip to the morgue, assuming there was even enough left to bother burying.


Luckily, we were in a decent position. Roland and Delia were serious heavy hitters, and with my newfound cousin being friendly with the former, that meant most of the B-rankers on this platform were pretty safely in our corner. Most. Kent and Shelby were obviously not allies, but we outnumbered them by quite a bit. Unfortunately, those weren't the only B-rankers here, just the closest ones we'd interacted with, and once we got moving, factions started to form quick.


Kent and Shelby attracted another sixteen B-rankers, most of them allied with weaker candidates. I wasn't sure if some of my less industrious distant cousins had failed to fill all ten slots, if some of their B-rankers had died, or if they were just avoiding showing their full force somehow like we were with Bethy, but whatever the case I was sure we were only scratching the surface in terms of numbers. There were about two hundred people on this platform, and probably half of them were B-rank, though naturally only a few of those were actual Wyndhams.


Which put me distinctly off balance, and made me VERY uncomfortable. It was impossible to say where our side stood in terms of alliance strength, given how independent everyone seemed to be, but the general impression I got of this place was definitely 'powder keg'.


My only consolation was that at least I had a new relative to get to know. Derran had settled nearby and was happily chatting with Chelsea and I. He'd been shocked I'd brought my twin sister with me, given her lacking candidacy, but didn't seem at all unhappy to meet her. We were getting to know a bit about his mother, and I was fielding some questions about dad.


"So is he really as terrifying as he's made out to be?" Derran said contemplatively. "Some of the rumors-"


I shrugged. "Most are probably true. He's a complicated person. I love him, but I don't like him very much most of the time. He's…cold. Distant at the best of times. I've been told that hides genuine concern for me, but he doesn't demonstrate that well. If you're asking if he's DANGEROUS, then yes, very much so. He can and will kill you if you get in his way. I suppose the best endorsement I can give is that he isn't needlessly cruel. He just also isn't needlessly kind."


Chelsea looked unhappy at the summary, which I didn't begrudge her. In some ways, Chelsea had gotten very lucky in her placement during our childhood, but in others, a bit less so. She was obviously better off with mom, but her eventual let down was a lot worse than mine.


While I had found my mom, who adored me and had been desperate to make her absence up to me, Chelsea had ended up finding dad as her long lost parent. I wasn't sure they'd even spoken more than a few words since my great grandmother's threat had been lifted. I suppose they might have been in touch through calls or something, but I knew my dad well enough to know he wasn't the daily chat type. While I envied my sister her childhood, I did not envy her the disappointment of having my father dropped on her as an adult. He was an acquired taste in the most generous terms.


Derran seemed interested. "That sounds about right. My mother isn't fond of him. She says he's a dead fish, though I suspect being grandfather's favorite has more to do with her dislike. Even after leaving the family, it's well known that Malachai adores Elijah. He considers him running off to join the devils a daring escapade rather than the betrayal that many of his siblings see it as."


"Honestly, I'm not sure how much difference that makes," I admitted. "Malachai seems to foster a fairly cutthroat political attitude among his kids. I've only met a few Aunts and Uncles, and most of them were dad's full siblings, but I got the impression from Uncle Percy that his position as Malachai's favorite is more curse than blessing, not that I think he CARES about that at all. One of the few good things I can say about dad is that he isn't the type to be swayed by popularity."


Derran nodded ruefully. "That might not be a bad read. I've met grandpa a few times, though we aren't close. My mother is actually a member of Seline's branch. Most of Malachai's kids stuck with the one of the family branches, but mom and Percival don't get along and she was motivated to go out on her own."


I could see how that decision wouldn't endear her to Percy, though it also made her dislike of my dad a bit more hypocritical. I didn't SAY that obviously, because I wasn't an idiot. But it was on my mind.


We chatted like that for a while. It was a combination of family bonding and information gathering and we both knew it. I was learning more about Davis in preparation for coming up against him in the last round (and regardless of Void interference that was what Arcadia was) and he was feeling out more info about my dad.


Of course, we weren't really giving each other anything useful. We'd been telling emotional stories with lots of personal context and very little power scaling information. It fit with the narrative of the conversation well enough and denied the other person any real useful dirt.


I DID pick up a few tidbits here and there. My ability to smell truth made it easier to slightly shift the conversation in directions where I could confirm or deny things without coming across as prying. I kept one of my parallels active at all times, keeping an eye out for the Void. I doubted MOST of the Vessels would be willing to start a fight in this cramped environment, but there would be some. More importantly, Callie was a prime target, and Fade and Alanna had strict instructions to guard her closely…which was literally the only thing that saved her.


Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash, then heard a scream. I whirled to find Fade standing in front of my wife, a dagger in his side, and his sword Devlos drawn and arching toward the throat of a very panicked looking B-ranker.


The assassin wasn't one of the big name B-rankers that had been pointed out. Just a mousy brown haired guy a bit younger than me. But I DID recognize him. Or rather, I'd seen him before. Sure enough, the blade lashing at his throat was deflected by an oversized axe that smashed into the ground where Fade had been seconds ago as Shelby pressed an attack to drive back my retainer.


Alanna appeared next to Fade, her eyes glowing with rage as her sword flickered for Shelby's eye, obviously going for a killing blow from the jump, and the axe wielding woman snarled and ducked behind the haft of her weapon to avoid being speared through the brain. The dagger wielder had retreated into a crowd of Kent's retainers who had shown up, and my own teammates had all gathered around us. I was at my wife's side instantly, checking her for injuries, and glaring at Kent across the crowd.


"Hey, fuckface, you better explain yourself," I snapped, my blood boiling with rage. That asshole had tried to MURDER my Callie. I was going to see his skin peeled off and nailed to a door when we got to the top of this glacier.


He sneered at me. "Watch your mouth, boy. Your betters are speaking here. If Roland or Derran has a question for me, I'll happily listen. But I won't be threatened by some-"


"Fuck off!" I snarled. "Explain or fucking die! I have five A-rankers waiting at the top of this lift, and their first mission upon reuniting with me will be mounting your fucking HEAD on a spike if you don't tell me what the hell is going on. That's my WIFE your errand boy just tried to kill you pompous simpering little prick. Not to mention a noted threat to the Void. The only reason someone like you would have to try to kill a D-ranker like that would be if you were in league with them."


He blanched, though whether because of the threat of being butchered by A-rankers or because of the accusation, I couldn't tell. I also didn't have the chance to find out, because before any of us could react, the same dagger that had been driven into Fade emerged from his chest. He blinked, staring down at his chest and then looking back at the B-ranker in confusion. The man was grinning like a maniac. Everyone froze, staring at the obvious killing blow.


I didn't know what was up with that dagger, but given that my sister, Ellie, and every other member of our group with flame or purification related powers were pouring them into the wound on Fade's side, I was guessing some kind of poison. Whatever it was would have immediately killed Callie, and had done the same to Kent, who was sliding bonelessly to the ground as the light faded from his eyes.


He never made it. With a desolate howl of "NO!" Shelby crossed the intervening distance, her axe coming across in a sweeping blow that cleaved the fucking SPACE itself, bisecting the body of her employer and beheading his killer in the same stroke.


That attack was the match that lit the powderkeg. With a roar of gleeful sadism, about a dozen different B-rankers lashed out with suicidal attacks toward their nearest neighbors, doing their best to take someone with them. They were nearly instantly cut down to a man, but several Wyndhams were killed in the ensuing attack.


None of the Wyndhams revealed themselves as Void agents, but I wasn't entirely sure that was because they were all clean. I suspected this whole assault was a cover to help some of the better hidden Vessels get into Arcadia more easily. But I hardly had time to focus on that. I dove forward, wrapping my whole body around my wife, putting as much of my armor between her and harm as possible.


"Shane, stop it!" She screamed as she tried to break free. "You're going to get yourself killed idiot!"


I heard a gurgle of stunned pain from beside me, and turned to see Kara, Darren's retainer, driving a spear into his gut. Roland let out a roar of betrayal and cleaved her head from her shoulders with a flick of his wrist. He produced a scroll, popped it open, and muttered under his breath as he removed the spear.


We all exhaled in relief as Darren's gut wound healed, all except Darren, who was staring in devastated horror at the head of his second in command lying on the ground nearby.


Luckily, the assassins had MOSTLY failed. Several of the Wyndhams had defensive wishes in place, and even their subordinates had been mostly protected. Still, some of the attacks had been vicious and quick enough to claim lives. I saw Shelby on the ground, cradling the top half of Kent in her lap and rocking it as she cried uncontrollably, Darren was nearly catatonic from shock and horror, and even the various survivors had looks of numb terror on their faces. I know I did.


So of course, that moment was when we all felt a lurch as the platform began to slow. We passed out of the cloud bank we'd been sliding through, and the stone shuddered as we came to a stop at the top in front of an absolutely massive gate, upon which stood about twenty of figures in dark robes. A-rankers, waiting for their charges. We looked up at them, they looked back…and then all hell broke loose.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

There was a brief lull before everyone lost it. Not a long one, mind. It seemed like everyone was so shocked they didn't know how to react. On our side we were staring down twenty A-rankers, and on theirs a small massacre had played out among their charges. The first person to react was a particularly large figure on the left side of the parapets of the gate.


Before any of us could move, he was standing at the base of the platform, staring in at us. "What happened to Kent?" he demanded. He was tall and blonde, with a thick beard and a heavy brow. His eyes were grey as granite, and narrowed in outrage.


I stepped in front of Callie, noticing Bethy had joined me in the motion. I smiled at my friend before remembering my face was covered by my mask, but she grinned sunnily back at me anyway, as if she knew. The man, receiving no answer, turned to the sobbing blonde holding Kent's body. "Shelby!" He barked. "Pull yourself together girl. What did you do?"


"D-daddy!" She sobbed. "They stabbed him!" She gestured to the headless B-ranker. "That one went after her!" she pointed at Callie. "And the other one stopped him." She pointed to Fade. "Then Kent tried to talk them down and he turned on us. He killed him so fast I couldn't stop it."


The man's eyes darkened as he surveyed the scene. "The blade severed the spine and struck the heart. And it was poisoned. Death would have been instant."


Shelby clutched the body tighter, crying even harder, and I felt my heart break for her a little. She'd clearly cared about Kent a lot. I tried to imagine that being Callie, or Benny, or my sister, and my blood ran cold. My hands clenched in outrage. I was so ANGRY. I had nowhere to vent it. One second I'd been snapping at Kent that I'd have him killed, and the next he'd been dead. Something Shelby seemed to remember as I did. "He threatened Kent!" She said, her eyes narrowing as she pointed at me. "Said he'd have him killed!"


The man's gaze turned to me, and I felt a crushing force from his attention. I had zero hope of offering any resistance to an A-ranker. I triggered Leviathan though, and the tide of mental pressure dissolved as it hit me. Barely. It was draining me fast, and he wasn't even actually DOING anything.


"You threatened him?" He said quietly. "D-" He seemed to be about to attack, but before he finished the word, another figure appeared in front of him, and he vanished.


My mother pushed her hood back, glaring at the person sized hole in the wall over where the others were waiting. It had shaken on impact, but not too much. "I KNOW you weren't about to threaten my son, Caius."


Another man spoke up from the wall. "Are we something you take so lightly, Star Queen? An heir of a major branch has died. Kent was one of Desmond's youngest children. His sister and nephew are both Branch Heads in their own right. Do you think your brat is going to be the side anyone picks over that?"


"I think there's no proof my Shane had anything to do with that little twit being snuffed out," my mother hissed, eyes literally alight with rage. White flames flickered on her irises and ignited on her fists. "The girl the assassin went for first is his WIFE, you lackwit. Caius is just embarrassed he didn't manage to properly vet his brat's retinue. My boy isn't his punching bag, if he wants to work out his frustration he can do it on someone else."


Between one blink and the next, another figure appeared beside her. A familiar red skinned version of my (albeit shorter) with black hair and horns. My dad stared up at the wall threateningly, fingers folded over the head of his cane. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. Everyone here knew who he was and what he could do.


There was a grinding of stone as Caius climbed out of the gate, his face murderous…right up until he saw my dad. At which case it went from enraged to terrified.


"Gods dad, what did you do to these people?" I muttered under my breath. Callie snorted out a quit laugh, quickly covering her mouth, not that I was delusional enough to assume anyone here had missed it.


Sebastian appeared next, in front of my parents rather than beside them. "This is pointless," he said forcefully. "The girl is barely coherent. We need a more stable source of information."


My mom nodded. "Ellisara," she barked. "Report."


Ellie appeared ahead of us. I actually SAW her move, albeit barely. The A-rankers were so fast they might as well be teleporting. Without a ship to watch them through or anything to slow this down, I couldn't perceive what was going on aside from the talking. Ellie dropped to a knee in front of my mother. "I'm here, master. The little lord didn't do anything wrong. He was demanding answers from the dead one when his underling literally stabbed him in the back. He was protecting her for the rest of the very short fight. Putting himself between her and harm."


"Of course he was," she said with a proud smile. "That's my boy." Her face hardened again as she turned to look up at the man on the gate, whose face I couldn't see from here. "And don't think that'll be ignored either. Someone tried to murder my daughter in law. I'm quite fond of that girl, and my MOTHER likes her even more. Or did you not realize your nobody traitor tried to assassinate Drowning Shade's personal apprentice."


The figure flinched. "I think we're getting off track," he said lamely after a slight delay. "This was clearly an attempt at infiltration by the Void. We should hurry to the other gates to survey the extent of the damage. It's doubtful this was the only attack." Then he vanished.


I was surprised. There was a strict non-interference policy on the succession war. A threat of an outside attack normally wouldn't produce much worry. This was hardly a normal competition though. The Void had broken neutrality over their knee and chucked it in a swimming pool, and no one knew what the rules were. Plus grandma was right above us, and while the S-rankers couldn't make landfall because of their Impact and the fire cage, in order to LEAVE they had to go past her. It wouldn't be out of character for her to claim Void influence and kill someone who had attacked her apprentice. Grandma was kind and compassionate with me and my friends, but she WAS her mother's daughter.


Which was another issue for them. Black Sorrow was fanatically devoted to her only child. On the off chance someone had either stopped or harmed my grandmother (unlikely with my Demigod grandfather nearby), they'd be dealing with both my great grandparents and two entire factions.


Unlike the old man, Black Sorrow and the Red Revenant didn't even pretend at neutrality. If someone picked a fight with their baby girl they'd go on a rampage.


This was, of course, why neutrality was normally enforced on this event. Because the convoluted web of relatives and support made it almost impossible to make a move if it wasn't. With the spirit of that breached by the Void, this whole thing had become a lot more complicated. For everyone else. I was actually pretty fine with the whole thing.


Grabbing Callie's hand, I gestured for Bethy and the others to follow, including Darren, Roland, and Delia. Then I approached my parents. "Mom, dad," I told them wryly. "I had a terrible time at camp."


Another familiar form snorted in laughter as it materialized beside us. Killian, the fifth member of my A-rank entourage and an old friend of my parents, grinned at me. "He really is just like his dad. I swear, it's like looking in a mirror. Well, a funhouse mirror, since he's so much taller than you were. I never realized you were so short."


"I am NOT short," my dad snapped waspishly. "I am of perfectly normal size. The universal average is five foot ten. Discounting the fairyland. But they don't count because the fae are all over the place.


"Shorter than me," Zeke said with a grin as he leaned past Killian to shoot me a lazy wave. "Took you long enough, kid. Your mom was going out of her mind with worry. When we heard about the Void attacks we had to physically restrain her from going down into the lower zones to help. But the fire cage sections off Impact. It would have caused problems for her to enter anything below Arcadia."


I hadn't realized she was that worried. I'd known she was unhappy with things, but she'd played it off as just casual concern. "We're fine," I assured them. "Assuming we're not about to get murdered over shitty family politics."


"You are not," Sebastian said in a tone like cast iron. Dark and heavy and a little brittle, it was clear that he was much angrier than he looked, and wanted an excuse to do a little violence himself. I glanced at Bethy, who was looking at him in concern, and realized why. Bethy had been through a lot since we got here. I might not be able to see the signs of her various upsets, but that didn't mean he couldn't.


My mom nodded. "He's right, sweetie. No one with any real power came besides us and Caius. I was expecting Davis, but he's been steering clear of Eli. I imagine he'll be along shortly. The rest have scattered."


Looking past her, I realized she was right. All fifteen of the other figures had vanished without a word or sign. I was DEEPLY uncomfortable with exactly how casually they were all making us look like nonentities. Fucking A-rankers. Although speaking of ranks. I was coming up on a new one myself. I wasn't sure I was there yet, but I suspected I'd hit C-rank in Arcadia, given how long this test was looking like it was taking.


We also didn't have a new trial yet. I turned to my parents. "What's the deal with the competition? We've been getting drip fed information through the announcements and don't know much. I assume you guys have been in touch with the grandparents?"


"We have," my mom assured me. "The situation is…complicated. We're all kind of flying blind. There's an implication among everyone that there's got to be a traitor, and one high up in the WCP. It has to be either an elder or someone down here in one of the cities. Possibly both. Which is making things complicated."


My dad sighed. "Everyone is questioning everyone else's motives. Which means people are backpedaling on legitimately intelligent responses because idiots are implying their treachery almost as often as the idiots are proposing terrible responses and sticking to their guns. We've managed a sort of equilibrium, but it's basically just a city wide detente for the duration of this last test as we try to ferret out the Void infiltrators."


That was disappointing but not shocking. I sighed, shaking my head. "Yeah, I assumed. There must be some way to increase points though. Right?"


My uncle grinned. "Oh there is," he said gleefully. "In fact, we think you're going to be pretty excited about it. They've put a bounty on Void infiltrators. It was one of the FEW useful moves our supporters managed to bully the council into making. Which means we can genuinely get some work done here. Hope you're all ready to get started after a short rest. We've got a big advantage given your connection to the Void, Callie. Once you're all settled in, it'll be time to start hunting." Given her excited grin, my wife was just as excited about that idea as Zeke was. And she said I was the impulsive one in our marriage.

 

[Quenster06]

Spoiler: Corrections

A familiar red skinned version of my (albeit shorter) with black hair and horns.

Click to shrink...

Version of me

Callie snorted out a quit laugh, quickly covering her mouth

Click to shrink...

Not sure if you meant "a quiet laugh" or "a quick laugh" , but either would work.

Ah, yes, the smell of The Hunt. Who doesn't love a good old fashioned Hunt?

 

[Malcolm Tent]

When we reached the house my parents had been staying at, I admit I froze. "I…was expecting something bigger." We were standing in a small grass yard between two huge buildings. Packed into the intervening space was a small cottage, thatched roof and all. It was a warm brown color, with a blue painted door sporting a shiny brass knob. The windows had matching blue shutters thrown wide to reveal gauzy yellow curtains, and the path up to the door was brown cobblestone.


My mother beamed excitedly. "Isn't it lovely! Your father wanted to stay in a big drafty castle, but I wasn't having any of that. I get quite enough of castles back home. I went looking for lodgings and found this darling little cottage for us to sleep in!" The others had already split off to stay at the two neighboring boarding houses, but Chelsea and I had been press ganged into staying with my parents for family bonding time.


I turned to look at my dad, whose face looked like it was carved from stone. I might have assumed he was unaffected, if his shoulders weren't slightly hunched. I snickered at his obvious exasperation and he glared at me. I turned to look at my mom. "Hey mom, dad doesn't seem very happy to see me, was he not as worried as you were? I mean I just assumed he would be super anxious about all the trouble, but if it didn't bother him that's fine too."


He turned to shoot me a betrayed look, his jaw dropping in horror as she pinned him with a gimlet stare. "Now honey, I'm sure that's not the case. Your father loves you, of course he was worried for your safety. Would it kill you to show your son a little affection Eli? We're not on the run anymore. Now that we're a family again I won't have you treating him like a stranger."


My lips peeled back in a sadistic grin. This was MUCH better than punching him in the throat. I knew my mom was my dad's biggest weakness, but I hadn't realized how easily she could push him around.


Granted, I was also aware that this whole dynamic was probably him expressing guilt over how my life had gone, and she was playing along because she thought I deserved a little payback. Oddly though, that made me feel even warmer. They knew me well enough to know I was still upset and were letting me work it out my own way.


Chelsea giggled at his expression. "I didn't even get a hello. Honestly, it's like you both forget you have two children."


My mother snorted. "You were twins, dear. Trust me. No one forgets giving birth to twins. Your brother has simply been deprived of affection for most of his life. I'm not asking for miracles, but I'd like to see Eli put in a bit of effort at least." Her eyes softened as they landed on me. "And it would mean a lot if you could meet him halfway, Shane. I know that isn't my right to ask, given the way things went, but…now that we have the chance, I really hope we can try to be a real family."


That took the wind out of my sails, as far as tormenting my old man went. She sounded so sincere and pleading. I felt like an asshole for reducing my own mother to begging me to be nice to my family.


"I can try," I allowed. "I can't just wave a magic wand and say everything is fine. But I get why he did the things he did, and it turned out ok for the most part. I won't swear to not to give him a hard time when I can, but I'll make an effort at least. If he'll do the same."


I looked him in the eye as I said that last part, and he sighed. "I…suppose I can do that. I can't promise to do it WELL, however." He grimaced. "I'm not a KID person. Never have been. I find children frustrating, and you were a special kind of frustration because you reminded me of myself in some ways."


"YOU raised me," I scowled. "Or helped from a distance at least. I guess Zeke did most of it. Though he led me to believe I reminded you of mom more than yourself, he said that was why you left me on Callus."


He smiled wanly. "Like I said. In some ways. I don't mean to say I'm not proud of you. The things you've accomplished are nothing short of miraculous. But I've always been a selfish man. I take care of myself first. Sasha was the exception to that rule, and I suspect you know a little something about that. You and your wife seem to be close as well. But anyone else…I just didn't have it in me."


"Don't make excuses," snapped my mother. "You were never a proper child. Ezekiel's family treated you like an honored guest, and when you finally met your father he manipulated and controlled you as best he could manage. The only positive feedback you got from Malachai was when you outsmarted him, and that's not the kind of relationship I want you to have with our son."


Putting up both hands, he just sighed. "I didn't say it would be. And I'm not making excuses, just setting expectations. I'm not going to suddenly be the dad who takes him to ball games and plays catch at the park. That isn't me. It wasn't me when I was his age and it won't be me from this side of the equation. I'm not here to parent him. He doesn't need it. But that doesn't mean I can't get to know the boy. We're both adults, and just because I'm not going to wipe his nose for him doesn't mean we can't interact."


She just rolled her eyes. "Oh for the love of the gods." She turned to me with an exasperated snort. "He's SAYING that he's afraid he won't be a good father, so he'd rather try to be your friend."


"I was NOT saying that," he said in an appalled tone. "I would never say anything like that. It's…cloying."


Her eyes hardened. "I hear you deride me for showing affection to your son again, and I might decide all the affection I show YOU is cloying. You can maintain your ominous and intimidating image sleeping on a pile of fertilizer bags in the back shed."


"That's not what I meant," he groaned. "Damn it woman, this is hard enough without you putting words in my mouth!"


"Mom," I said gently, taking off my mask. "I think maybe this is making it harder for him." She looked hurt, but I offered her a warm smile. "You said you wanted me to try, and I want to do that. But I think he needs to process things with me in his own way. I know you want to just make things ok, and you probably COULD bully him into acting like it, but I think in the long rain that'll do more harm than good."


She wilted slightly. "I just…I want us to be a FAMILY," she pleaded. "It's not that hard!"


"No," I agreed. "But it's not that easy either. We'll get there. I know we will. Just…let us go at our own pace. That was my fault, honestly. I didn't realize it would upset you so much when I teased him like that. I don't actually need you to fight my battles here. I love you, and I know you feel guilty. But like I said, I'm past the anger mostly. I get you want to fix things between us all, but some things just need time."


Biting her lip, she nodded slowly. "Alright. Fine. I'll stay out of it. But can we have dinner together? The four of us? Actually, make that five. I want to spend some more time with my daughter in law."


"I'm sure she'd love that," I beamed at her. "And even better, I'll cook for us. I've been told I'm a decent hand in the kitchen, and my skills have only grown."


Chelsea nodded eagerly. "He's got a gift," she admitted. "He's going to make Callie an amazing house husband someday." She grinned at me teasingly, sticking out her tongue at me, and I raised an eyebrow in challenge.


"I'm sorry, how is YOUR love life going?" I said with a malicious grin. "You expressed your feelings to EITHER of the people you're interested in?"


She squeaked, her face going red as she glanced anxiously at our parents. "Shane what the hell? How did you even know about that? I mean…what do you mean? I mean…shut the hell up!"


My mom actually giggled at that. "Listen to the two of you, acting like real siblings. I love how close you've gotten."


"This family is the worst," sulked my sister, actually pouting about her secret being exposed. She hadn't actually told me about it, I'd just kind of guessed, so I hadn't been under any obligation to keep it secret. It was my turn to stick my tongue out at her.


I sent a quick mental message to my wife, who appeared pretty quickly after as mom led us inside to give us a tour. She hadn't been far, and was planning to stay with me, of course, she just wanted to give me time to reconnect with my family. And I appreciated it, but honestly…I felt awkward around them.


After years with my friends and allies, being around these people that expected me to be someone that I wasn't sure I'd ever been was awkward. Like yes, there'd always been expectations from mom, but only for the short time I'd actually seen her.


Weirdly my dad seemed to have the least expectations, if only because the self absorbed bastard was too focused on what he should be feeling to even worry about me. I was a little grateful though. What I'd said to my mom was true, I did think we'd get there eventually, but I hadn't had the heart to tell her that her trying to force us to mend fences made me feel like a damned zoo animal on exhibit.


Callie appeared next to me without any hesitation, lacing her fingers in mine and shooting me that lodestar of a smile. No matter how lost I got, that always showed me which way was north. One smile from my wife would set me back on the right path, and I'd never been more grateful.


We headed inside, and I explored the kitchen, snagging some easy ingredients as the others gathered at the table in the kitchen on the other side of the counter. "So," I said as I started preparing the roux I was going to use to make the Jambalaya tonight. "Zeke said there are bounties?" This was one of my favorite recipes. Jambalaya was supposed to be tomato based, but this one cooked much faster because the roux got VERY hot (the trick was using an oil with a high smoke point, like grapeseed oil).

My dad nodded as I started chopping up the onions, celery, and bell peppers. "There's been some success identifying some of the abstract information on targets. Due to the secrets moratorium, outright FINDING them is problematic, but getting some information to use as a base for a bounty list is much more manageable."


I grimaced. I knew perfectly well how annoying that could be. But with a bounty list…I hummed to myself as I started to prepare the chicken thighs. Dantalion could help me ferret out many different things. Maybe not A-rankers, but C-rankers if I used my staff. Hell if I ranked up B-rankers would be viable if I spent some time working on it. Beyond that though, I had another advantage. I had Zeke. I was in a good mood as I returned to cooking. I had a feeling I'd do just fine in this round.

 

[Timoda]

Does this book have smut? I noticed on amazon, it says it's rated for 13 - 18 age

 

[Quenster06]

Spoiler: Corrections

I think in the long rain that'll do more harm than good."

Click to shrink...

In the long run

I just realized Shane based his Legend on someone who sealed demons, and his father became a devil. I wonder if there will be any interesting interactions between their abilities in the future.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I stared down into the very large hole with trepidation. "Look," I said slowly. "I feel like no one will take this seriously, and it might not even matter since we have to go down there. But I feel like it needs to be said. Literally NOTHING good has ever happened to any of us in a hole in the ground."


Callie rolled her eyes. "Let's be honest. Bad things have happened to us in almost every imaginable biome. I think pretty much the only ones we're missing are the ocean and the desert." Then she paused. "Except after we came out of that underwater city in the dungeon, which I guess was technically both?"


I snorted at that, looking around at all my friends. "Guess I can't argue that. We have everyone here?"


"We left some of the D-rankers to guard the houses," Callie said with a grimace. "Well, not really, there's nothing they can do if someone attacks, but they're being punished. Bethy hired a bunch of them to follow her around and serenade her with a theme song they made up on the spot. She liked it so much she decided to hire them to do it to the rest of us too. Sadly, we couldn't punish Bethy for it because it's not on the list."


I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Of course she did. It's fine, we don't need most of the D-rankers anyway. The higher ranked members of the group will have a hard enough time keeping everyone safe. Are we sure splitting into groups like this is a good choice?"


She sighed. "I mean…no. But we have to maximize our odds of finding Void infiltrators. Based on what I know about the Void ladder, they'll be setting up relays along the staircase. Considering the pressure gets heavier the deeper they go, as long as our people don't go too deep they should be fine, especially with a few C-rankers on each group to protect them."


"Fair enough," I said grimly. "My people need to get out on their own and fight, otherwise they can't build their rep and get stronger. Keeping everyone locked up in Bethy's Domain all the time isn't a viable long term solution. Groups of twenty five should do it. Obviously, we're going deepest, so my parents and Zeke should come with us. Sebastian and Killian can each head up a group of our second liners. Fade's people, some of the leftover C-rankers, what have you. Does everyone have the orbs we made?"


With Callie coming along with me, I knew at some point we'd run into problems supplying heretic fire to the rest of our group when we were separated. So last night after our family dinner I'd settled in to spend hours making more of the heretic fire spheres we'd sold. They wouldn't last forever, but if any of our people hit the Void spawn, those should be enough to handle the problem.


It was a unique advantage we had. Most people didn't have an easy way to destroy Void creatures. They were nasty and hard to kill. Most of my cousins would be concentrating their forces into large groups and trying to dive deep to maximize their point gain from the bounties of the stronger Void creatures. Spreading out like we were wasn't a viable strategy for anyone else. Which was the only reason I was agreeing to it, despite my reservations about leaving the people I was responsible for unprotected.


I glanced back down into the hole. "So…this thing leads all the way through the planet? I wonder what happens if you fall in. Do you get stuck in the middle?"


"Eventually," Zeke said as he stepped up next to me. "You kind of ping pong around in the center until you reach equilibrium between the two gravities and then stop in the middle once the momentum runs out. We've seen stuff like this before, though the heirworld's is bigger than most. It's also…unique. The staircase has floors that descend surrounding it. Every few hundred feet or so there's a new level with some other new bit of nonsense. The one in the center is kind of a mess."


That made me frown. "Why are there floors like that? It's just a hole in the ground. Why dig out levels along the staircase."


"No one knows," he shrugged. "The staircase wasn't created by the WCP. It was here when we took control of the heirworld. So were the levels. We suspect it might be a resource thing, like they were digging for ore and stuff on the way down. But no one can say for sure. The levels get pretty wide. They run under basically the whole city."


Mom grinned. "They're ALSO full of treasure. Kind of. They're unstable spatially and move around pretty much all the time. Hallways changing places every few days and things like that. So the various items lost by explorers tend to pop up. It's why this city isn't ALL A-rankers. The levels closer to the surface have pretty low pressure, and the things lost there are fairly worthless. They send D,C, and B-rankers to explore for them at various depths to dig out treasure."


"It's one of the WCPs major revenue streams," my dad added. "The heirworld has been producing artifacts for millennia. No one is sure how much is down there, or how big the floors are. Since they move around constantly they're impossible to map."


Callie looked upset. "That's bad," she said bluntly. "If they get any of the receivers down there and they get shunted away into some random part of one of the levels…not to mention the spatial instability down there will make it much easier to construct the Void ladder. What about the central level, you said it was a mess? What did you mean by that?"


"Most of the levels change places every few days," Zeke clarified. "But the central level does it every few MINUTES. It's constantly in flux. Not just sideways either. Up is down, left is right, it's a deeply unsettling place."


My mom rolled her eyes. "What Ezekiel means is that he's HEARD it's a deeply unsettling place. None of us were strong enough to get that deep when we came here last. It's impossible to reach that depth without at LEAST a Chronicle. The reasons for the slowly growing pressure closer to the core haven't been fully explored, but the Impact steadily builds as you descend. By the time you reach the center, it's much too heavy for even a normal C-ranker to bear. And we weren't nearly as powerful during the last succession war."


"Alright," I said, processing it all. "So the bounties are organized by…what? Floor? How does that work with the shifting?"


"No one sticks around for that in person," said my dad. "The spatial warping is extremely dangerous. When it starts, anyone inside flees to the staircase. The stairs themselves are made of…well, we aren't really sure. Something that anchors space." He glanced at Callie. "I assume that wouldn't completely spoil the attempts at the Void ladder?"


"If anything, the opposite," she grimaced. "Ladders need to be set on stable ground to be climbed. A cylinder of stable space through the center of the planet would be an ideal foundation to use for the construction."


I just sighed. "Fine. What's our target today then? I assume with A-rankers working on information gathering we know at least enough to pick out someone worth some real points."


"A B-rank vessel named Faustryche," my mother said cheerfully. "When the purge of the planet started, several A and B-rankers already in the city fled to the stairs. It's not a great environment for fighting, so the locals "conveniently" decided to leave them for us. As a fun obstacle in the succession war. Wasn't that nice of them?" Her tone made it clear she was being deeply sarcastic, but my dad just shrugged.


"Not their monkeys, not their circus," he said blithely. "Or at least that's what they think. It's shortsighted, but I imagine the A-rankers think they can flee when things get bad. It's easy to decide something isn't your problem when other people are around to be made to deal with it."


I chuckled. "Yeah, shocking how bad most Ascendants are at long term thinking."


"Not really," Zeke countered as we began to divide up into groups. "Stories tend to change with the telling, warping over time to become something completely different. In order to survive as an Ascendant, you need to focus on the present. I told you this years ago, kid. You'll never make it if you don't live in the now."


He had. It shocked me sometimes how casual conversations with Zeke could have so many layers. The things he said or didn't say were often important later on down the line in ways I'd never expected. It clashed with the image of the sloppy drunk I'd grown up with, but then, a lot of his Ascendant persona did. Janus was a scary, competent, devious man. I suppose it shouldn't be shocking he could put on such a good front. His entire path was based on masks and deception.


In a way though, that made him the most dependable person I could think of. Zeke could have left when I was a kid, I was convinced. Thinking about it now, he could have come up with some way to slip the contract. He was the craftiest person I knew, and I'd seen him kill A-rankers at B-rank.


The fact that he stayed was one of the reasons I knew I could trust him. And really…Zeke was the first person I'd ever trusted. He'd shown me what stability meant, gave me the sense of structure I'd needed to build the friendships I had today. Even with my parents back, Zeke was still one of the most important people in the world to me. I needed to make sure that once I became the Wishmaster, he was rewarded for everything he'd done. And I knew just how to do it. In fact, I didn't even need the WCP.


"Hey Zeke," I said as we descended the stairs in a group of twenty five. "I was thinking. What do you think about Stella apprenticing with my grandmother?"


My mom blinked. "Stacy?" It still confused the hell out of me that Stella's name was a hero name and not her actual name. I knew it meant star, but the whole thing was deeply counterintuitive. "That's a good idea. Mom does a lot with stars. I bet she could teach her plenty, and her Cosmic Witchcraft has a lot of potential. Witches can be pretty scary with the right tools."


My uncle looked a little bushwhacked. "I mean…that would be great, but Celia is an S-ranker, and the daughter of two gods. I'm sure she has better things to do."


"No way," Chelsea chirped happily. "She would love to help out a member of the family. And it would be nice having you two around. Shane got to spend his whole childhood with you, but I never got any uncle time. You owe me like…twenty years of birthday presents." She winked at him, and I saw him grin back at the audacity.


"I think I can manage something," he said with a laugh. I couldn't hold back my own grin. I hadn't really considered that Chelsea might want to have a relationship with Zeke like I had, but I definitely approved. My uncle was one of the best people I knew, and my sister deserved to have someone like him in her life. I felt like it was fitting, too, that they connect when we were all doing this family thing.


Callie smiled warmly at me, reaching over to thread her fingers in mine, giving my hand a tight squeeze. Callie loved holding hands. She had ever since we got together, and I had to admit after years of it, I felt just as warm and protected as she did when her fingers laced into my own. And so, my wife and I held hands and chatted with my parents as we all marched cheerfully down to hell.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Does this book have smut? I noticed on amazon, it says it's rated for 13 - 18 age

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And no lol, this is sfw. Though it isn't actually YA really, they just mark any story that isn't smut for that age group on there.

 

[Mastersenseinewby]

The stairs remind me of "made in abyss"

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Reaching the tenth level wasn't too tough. I wanted to go deeper, honestly, but Faustryche had been recently seen down here and we had a day or two before the next shift. In fact, we couldn't have gone lower as a group anyway. The majority of our people didn't have a Chronicle, even among the top percentage of our combatants, and hence they couldn't stand the pressure too many levels down.


Even ten levels below the surface (and the staircase DID start at the surface, with the whole of Arcadia built in a sort of bowl set into the glacier which the stairway was at the bottom of), things were starting to get a little heavy, and I could see my friends starting to strain a bit.


Not Bethy, mind, who I was almost positive already had a Chronicle anyway, or Abel, but some of the lower end power additions like Benny and Jessie. But when we arrived, I was quickly shown that things weren't going to be that easy. Much like the other Vessels, Faustryche had supplied a large amount of what Callie called 'Void spawn'.


These particular spawn weren't mantis shaped like the ones in the forest. They looked…like devils, kind of. Short pudgy things with obsidian skin and little wings and tiny horns. Oddly enough though, most of them were D-rankers.


Ellie stepped forward, hefting her mace, but my mom held up a hand. "No," she said simply. "This isn't just bounty hunting. It's training. Shane. You and your friends'll take care of these." I shrugged, stepping up to call for my staff. It landed in my hands with a reassuring thump, but before I could activate a form, my mom continued sharply. "With no abilities."


I froze, turning to raise an eyebrow at her. The imp things were gathering at the edge of the pool of light from the staircase. The tenth level was a massive cavernous hall made of dark stone, filled with tall columns and cloaked in complete shadow. I only even knew they were Void spawn because of the eerie blue glow of the eyes. It was a very distinctive glow. "I assume you want all of us to do the same?" She nodded, and I sighed. "Any reason why?"


"You're too clever," she said bluntly. "I know you have tricks to handle any occasion, and that's good. Preparation is always a smart move. But at some point, you'll fight something tricks don't work on. You need enough strength of arms to hold your own when you're on even ground."


Despite her hard tone, I could see the worry on her face. She had clearly been more shaken by being stuck here while we dealt with the void than expected. I could understand that. I just sighed, then turned to call out for a familiar face. "Bella!" I shouted for my apprentice. "Front and center."


My apprentice's red hair had grown out since I'd seen her last. It was staggering to think she'd been essentially locked up in Bethy's Domain since we arrived on this planet. I felt a little bad, because I was supposed to be teaching her, but it was just so damned dangerous.


"Aye aye, master!" She shouted energetically as she snapped off a crisp salute. "What do you need?"


I nodded to the imps. "I need a sparring partner. Assuming my wife doesn't mind me checking on your progress?" I cocked my head at Callie, who rolled her eyes but still shook her head. Grinning, I turned back to my disciple. "Then head out. It's time for me to see the results of your training. Go on, I'll be right behind you."


She looked a bit nervous, but she moved forward. Benny, Jessie, Daysia, Dayna, and all the others spread out with him. By seeming unspoken agreement, we sent the weaker combatants out first. Well, weaker in melee. Dayna was a Heaven Murder Elf, and was dangerous in any kind of battle, but she preferred a bow.


While my mom clearly wanted us to take care of this personally to see my progress, I had my own concerns. To her credit she didn't complain about it, just raised an eyebrow and watched. After all, like I'd told Bella, I was right behind her.


It was…kind of amazing, really. To see her whirl her staff into action, striking out with different forms. Mephistopheles to destroy, Mornax to defend. Seeing the results of my training, of her obviously constant practice, brought a swell of pride to my chest. She spun and stomped and cleaved through the imps with brutal efficiency, bringing the goetia staff art to bear at what I was pretty sure was a high Expert level.


Of course, she needed some help. Once she killed a few, the imps swarmed, rushing her in a screeching wave of hate and stubby claws. My own staff spun out to meet them, flickering between her strikes and around her spinning form, slipping through minute gaps in her attacks as I threaded the needle with expert precision.


More than my enhanced stats, I was just much more experienced in the staff. Especially THIS staff. The art was my creation, and I could read it like a map. It almost felt like I was using Belial, honestly, like I was conducting a symphony of spilt blood and shattered skulls using my apprentice as my instrument.


Bella moved like a precision machine for about twenty minutes…but eventually she started to flag. I stepped past her, hooking my staff in front of her and pushing her back gently, with Callie stepping up to escort her away. "You did good, kid," I called to her as she retreated. "Now watch close. This is what you're aiming for." And then I lost myself in the flow of battle.


I wasn't a conductor anymore, I was a dancer, and my weapon was a part of my body. Imps shattered and broke against me like the tide crashing against the rocks. Some of them got through, scraping my neck or wrists or just raking my skin between gaps in my armor. But it didn't matter. Even without Mornax active, my Impact was higher than a normal D-ranker. They didn't have the power to deal real damage.


I heard myself laugh as if from far away, releasing all the pent up stress and aggression that I usually held in. No plans, no tricks, just violence. Pure, simple, uncomplicated force, brought to bear as I enacted my will on the world around me. The music was over. I wasn't dancing anymore, I was exterminating. Smashing insects in droves as I cackled my glee into the overwhelming darkness.


Until, suddenly, I wasn't. I froze, my breath was coming heavy, blood dripping through the crevices in my plate, and my muscles were burning. The heavier Impact, combined with the raw speed and ferocity of my movements had pushed my body to a level I hadn't felt recently aside from that fight with Fade's champion.


"You doin ok, love?" my wife asked in amusement from off to the side. I glanced down to find the ground torn up by my footwork, and the bodies of the imps all gone, cleansed by a rolling carpet of blue black flame.


"Thanks for the tidy," I told her with a laugh as I leaned on my staff for support. "Got a little carried away there, I think. But it was nothing too serious. I was still processing everything, just got a little tunnel vision." I knew Callie would wake me from that trance through the bond if needed, and it felt good to cut loose.


Bella appeared next to me, bouncing and clapping excitedly. "Holy SHIT master, that was AMAZING! I could barely SEE you move. Your staff was crushing them so fast it looked like one continuous motion! Do you think I'll be able to do that someday?"


"I think you could do that NOW with some work," I laughed. "I wasn't using any abilities, just the staff stances. That was pure physical combat. My stats are higher, granted, but still, no reason you couldn't do the same thing." I made sure my tone was supportive and reassuring. While tough love for the apprentice WAS good, it wasn't the only kind of reinforcement. Sometimes a positive comment could be helpful too. Bella had done well with her demo.


My comment was still ringing in the air when a blur flashed in front of my face, only to be deflected by a familiar steel sword. I nodded cheerfully to my strongest B-ranker. "Hey, thank Fade. That would have been awkward. Nothing like having your head explode to ruin a pleasant conversation."


He snorted. "Your parents wouldn't have allowed that. The only reason I was even able to deflect it was because they're treating this like a training trip. I got a tap on the shoulder from your uncle as a warning when he noticed it coming."


Despite his comments being for me, he didn't take his eyes off the enemy in front of him as Faustryche appeared before us. The man was tall. Like…unnaturally tall. Eight feet maybe. His limbs were long and spindly, and his fingers were spidery tendrils coming off too small palms. His eyes glowed that Void blue, and his mouth was full of too sharp teeth so thickly packed in that when he spoke, it was muffled. "Heretic," he slurred, eyes flicking to the still burning flame that had consumed the imps. "Surrender your life."


"Void lackey," I said in a deep voice to mimic his. "Invest in dental care." I heard a snort from behind me and turned to grin at my wife as I stepped back, letting Fade take his position opposite the vessel. Just to be safe though, I withdrew a sphere of heretic fire and tossed it to him. "Here, just in case."


He snatched it from behind him without looking, slipping it under his cloak. "Thanks, but I don't think I'm going to need it. Honestly, I don't want to risk taking the fun out of this fight." He grinned, his form flickering as he appeared in front of the vessel.


The motion was…odd. Unlike anything I'd seen him do up to now. He was moving strangely, like he had drawn himself from a scabbard and swung himself at his enemy. Every move Fade made was always in tune with his path, everything about him was reminiscent of a blade. But despite always having something of the sword about him, this was different.


While most of his movements were swordlike, this was the first time I'd seen him…DRAWN. Like he hadn't ever bared his edge before. His body twisted, aligning every muscle and hair along a razor sharp boundary as he attacked. His blade flickered, attacks sweeping in from all sides so fast they looked like they were occupying the same space.


And then…he was done. The drawn sword was sheathed, and Fade was turning away from Faustryche. Who proceeded to literally fall apart like a jigsaw puzzle.


I raised an eyebrow, staring down at the remains of the vessel with a low whistle. "Damn. Rest in pieces, I guess." I turned to my mother, and even she looked vaguely impressed. "So…you have any more bounties for us? Also, do we have to bring back a piece of him or something?"


She snorted, turning to glare at my dad. "He gets this from you, you know. Always needs to be dramatic and get the last word in."


"Of course," he said dryly. "It's all my fault dear, sorry dear."


He couldn't have sounded less sincere if he'd made air quotes, but she just rolled her eyes with a smile before turning back to me. "We have ten more bounties on this level. You're making good time, we might even be able to get to all of them. Well done with your little display earlier. I think next we'll find you a C-ranker to fight." My face went pale, but she didn't notice, turning to stroll off into the depths of the level. Maybe we should have taken our time.

 

[Bezarius]

Did you send the wrong chapter because there is no chapter 971?

 

[Quenster06]

Did you send the wrong chapter because there is no chapter 971?

Click to shrink...

This chapter says it's 971, and the previous one says 970. Not sure if it was edited or if you're confused.

 

[Bezarius]

This chapter says it's 971, and the previous one says 970. Not sure if it was edited or if you're confused.

Click to shrink...

It's been edited.