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

[Malcolm Tent]

"So," Stanley said as we took our seats across from him. "We have your meeting scheduled for the Moonfiend Grotto. We're not on the best terms with the owner, but he's not EXACTLY an enemy. You'll need to pay the entrance fee yourselves, but without us, you'd never have gotten the chance."

I nodded. "The Moonfiend Grotto is one of the four? What about the other three? The ones you CAN get us into."

Personally, I doubted the Moonfiend Grotto fit the bill, given the whole trees thing, but Stanley knew what he was doing. He seemed to notice the brief hesitation, but didn't mention it, moving on to answering my question. "Autumn Dusk, Red Desert, and The Burning Plains. That's what WE call them, anyway. Most of them are HUGE, mind, but they all have trees somewhere in them. Regardless, those three are held by allied forces. Moonfiend Grotto is owned by the Bad Doctor, and he's no friend of ours, but like I said, we got you in to see him."

I cocked my head. "The Bad Doctor?"

"He owns the local hospital," my father said grimly. "Not that anyone goes there on purpose. It's the kind of place you take people who are probably going to die anyway. Sometimes he saves them. Sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes the former is worse."

"Sounds lovely," I said dryly. "Are we going to have problems if we go in there?"

He shook his head. "The Doctor is a scavenger. He takes people who can't fight back, but he tends to avoid dealing with the healthy. He CAN do it, mind, and it's messy when he does, he just considers it a waste of his valuable time."

I grimaced. "Got it. So what does this have to do with a gala?"

"A formal dinner," Stanley corrected sternly. "It's ostensibly a fundraiser for the hospital, but in reality, he holds them to identify potential subjects for his experiments. It's not unusual for an offer of expensive materials or medical aid to be tendered in response to him spotting a subject he takes a shine to."

"And people just LET him do this?" I asked in disgust. "No one stops him?"

Stanley grimaced. "Bloodcrest is…fraught. Danger around every turn. But more than that, it is a place of darkness and despair. In such venues, certain in demand skillsets can be difficult to come by."

Violetta rolled her eyes. "He means healers don't stick around. The Bad Doctor is a Bad doctor, but he's still a doctor. They're in short supply here. Alienate the Doctor and maybe the next time you get sick you don't get better. Maybe you die of your next injury. Maybe while you're IN the hospital. Or maybe you don't and just wish you had."

I gritted my teeth. That was horrible. Holding medical treatment over a whole town like that. I had the urge to take him out myself, but given the rest of them didn't bother, I was assuming that it would just make things worse. I'd just need to make my deal with him and be on my way. For now. On the way BACK however…well, that was a whole other ballgame. "So, when is this dinner?"

"He has them regularly," Stanley shrugged. "But the one we got you into is tonight. That was why I asked you down here. If you're going to be attending, there's a certain…dress code. I'm afraid your current apparel is unacceptable."

I scowled, looking down at my armor. The seal was an important part of my kit, though it was in dire need of an upgrade. I supposed I didn't need to have it on me, in any case. I could store it in Gehenna and still get the benefits. "How much are these clothes going to run me?" I asked him cautiously.

"Not much," he assured me. "My tailor is under contract, and she can just adjust some of my formalwear. Shouldn't be more than…six crystals?"

Without moving my head, I glanced over at my dad, who shook his head minutely. I let out a snort. "Six? I wasn't born yesterday. I think we can do a little better than that, don't you?" I left him hanging on purpose, since I had no idea of the actual value I was aiming for.

He chuckled at that. "Just testing. How about five?" Another head shake. I shut him down again. Finally, he sighed. "Four," he said with a sour look. "And you can keep the clothes after." That got a nod, so I agreed, and we shook on it. After that, I was sent upstairs to a cramped room with drapes along the walls and too many mirrors. An elderly woman who was so thin she looked like a skeleton with a cloth draped over it. I was kind of shocked, because she was A-rank, and that level of aging meant she was OLD, but I didn't say anything, just letting her poke and prod me for about twenty minutes.

She stuck me with way too many needles for someone who had to be rocking at least a Mythic skill in tailoring, but I kept my mouth shut and let her do her thing. Finally, when it was over, she quickly slipped me into the new clothes and showed me to the mirror.

I stared at myself in the reflection with interest, turning back and forth to get a good angle. "I look hot," I said smugly.

"Are you done?" Crell groaned from behind me. "Because we need to go or we're going to be late. Not that I mind the idea of not spending more time with the creepy murder doctor, but I'm pretty sure we want to make a good impression."

Sighing, I nodded along, following him downstairs. Outside the manor, to my surprise, a vehicle waited. Not a car or anything, but rather an honest to gods horse and buggy style stagecoach. It was a handsome vehicle, made of dark wood with gilded edges, and the horses hooked up to it were strong and fierce.

The whole thing was B-rank, obviously, because what lunatic would make an A or S-rank mode of transport that only moved on land for short distances, but still, it was a stylish way to travel to our destination.

"This is pretty nice," Crell noted as we climbed in. "I could get used to this."

"I don't disagree," I admitted. "I might look into getting one of these for the WCP. Could you imagine me rolling up in this thing to an elder's council meeting? Just tell the guards to watch my horses as I swagger inside."

"Yeah, the elders seem like the kind of guys who love finding horse crap in their hallway," Crell said dryly.

I shrugged. "Well then they'd better not keep me in the meeting too long, then. It's like a built in timer for any social events I have to attend. It's genius. I wonder how hard it is to drive these. Hey, driver, how-" I leaned over, pulling back the curtain of the window separating the padded interior box from the front of the coach and froze.

"Um…is that a dog?" I asked dumbly.

Blinking, Crell leaned around me, staring for a moment, then nodded. "It is. It's a dog." The dog in question, a small terrier of some kind, nodded to us calmly, a pair of reins in its mouth. As it did, its big floppy hat slid forward slightly, though it stayed mostly in place.

"Sorry," I said politely. The dog gave a short bark and a nod, then turned back to the front of the coach. I closed the curtain. "So we're just going to pretend that didn't happen," I told Crell bluntly. "Because I'm very confused and I don't think that dog can answer my questions. Anyway, you remember the plan?"

He groaned, but nodded anyway. "We need access to the Moonfiend Grotto. The Bad Doctor controls the gates."

"Yeah, did anyone say WHY he does that?" I asked after a moment. "Because I feel like the Moonfiend Grotto doesn't seem very medical. Like what exactly does he use the place for? Or does he just sell access?"

"Nope, he uses it," Crell grimaced. "I asked Stanley about that while you were off getting fitted. Apparently there are several venomous sea creatures in the grotto's ocean area that produce toxins the Doctor uses. Paralytics, pain relievers, even a few mutagens. Shady stuff, and he pays people to collect it for him. Charges samples for the exit."

I grimaced. "Great, the ocean. My favorite place. And that'll be in the opposite direction of any trees I assume, which is annoying." I didn't know Callie was near trees, but I didn't know exactly how near them she'd be if she was. I had no real way to check because Callie, in her messages, had revealed that she was currently inside of a large castle complex and wasn't really allowed outside the walls.

Belsara claimed it was for her and the babies' safety, but Callie was pretty sure she was just being held hostage. She didn't seem to mind though, because the babies WERE safe, and she was gaining a lot of stats from it as she waited.

We were still discussing what to do exactly when we arrived when the coach stopped. I frowned at Crell, then pulled the curtain to find the dog gone. Sighing, I climbed out, patted the nearest horse, then gestured for Crell to follow me. We headed up to the door of the large, creepy looking building, greeting the guards. "We're here for the formal dinner," I told them bluntly.

The first guard, a large red haired man with a nasty scar over one eye and what looked like a permanent scowl on his face, raised an eyebrow. "You got an invite?"

Crell did, it turned out. He reached into his coat and handed the man a piece of dirty grey paper. The guard read it, scowled, and then handed it back. "Fine. Go in then. No fighting and don't touch the wisps."

I had no idea what that meant, but I nodded anyway, and we slipped past them to hurry inside.

When we got there, I realized that the whole 'don't touch the wisps' thing was self explanatory. The building was ancient, covered in mold and rotting wooden boards, but the lights were coming from floating clouds of multicolored gas that cast the whole thing in an eerie, almost haunting spectrum.

"Which way do we go?" I asked worriedly, looking around for some sort of guide.

As if summoned (and maybe it had been), a flash of grey light the exact color of our invitation flitted up to hover in front of me. It circled me three times then zipped away, only to come back when I didn't follow. It waited impatiently, and then as soon as I started moving toward it the little thing zipped off, just slow enough to be kept in sight. "Nevermind," I said dryly. "I think I got it."

We trailed after the wisp for about ten minutes, trying to stick together in the twisting run down hallways. Finally, we reached a large open room with a dining table, red carpets, and chandelier. As soon as we entered, the lights flared, transforming the world around us from a creepy run down hospital to a well lit party. Even the air was warmer. I shot Crell a look and noticed he looked as unsettled as I felt.

"Ah, our guests," came a booming, amused voice. "Welcome." We turned to find a man standing up from the table. "I've been looking forward to meeting you." The man was huge, face covered with a long beaked mask that hid his eyes behind blank, birdlike lenses. This, I realized, was the Bad Doctor. "Please," he said, gesturing us inside. "Come and sit. Come and eat. We have so much to discuss, you and I." I grimaced, but eventually nodded. I had a feeling this wasn't going to be much fun. Best to get it over with so we could get going. Callie was waiting.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The formal dinner was unsettling. We were offered seats of honor next to the Doctor, which was odd on its own because he shouldn't have even known who we were beyond 'friends of Stanley'. Despite that, though, he was fawning over us as politely as possible, making it clear he recognized us as important for some reason. I didn't like it.

Luckily I wasn't here alone. Crell was infinitely better at this game than I was. The former spymaster of a ruthless despot who ruled over a sealed world, and who planned a coup against said despot which we helped pull off, Crell was a political beast, and I knew I could trust him to handle this.

Unfortunately, the Doctor himself hadn't gotten the memo.

"We're so pleased to have you here," he said silkily, pouring me a glass of wine I definitely didn't trust him enough to drink. "I admit, when I heard the son of Elijah Wyndham was in the city, I didn't quite believe it."

Ah, that was it then. He didn't know who I was, exactly, he just knew my dad.

"Did he really make that big of an impression last time he was here?" I asked, genuine curiosity in my voice.

My dad had clearly done some impressive things in Bloodcrest, but I hadn't really had the time or inclination to ask about them. Judging by the Doctor's attitude though, my dad's antipathy was…well, maybe it WAS still shared, but there was clearly a one sided respect there. I couldn't help but be curious what he'd done to deserve that.

The Doctor, it seemed,wanted to avoid talking about what my dad had done almost as much as I wanted to hear about it. He smoothly changed the subject. "So, you're hoping to gain access to the Moonfiend Grotto?" He asked casually. "What might you be searching for inside?"

"Fish," I answered immediately. "There's a very rare type of trout we've heard about in there. The Fiendwrack Trout. I'm told it can directly strengthen Impact."

We'd done a bit of research on the place before coming here, because we all agreed it was a bad idea to confide in the Doctor. The Fiendwrack Trout was real, in fact, though not worth enough for me to bother searching for. Impact was great, but it wasn't getting my wife back.

The Doctor chuckled. "You haven't touched your wine. Please, try some. It's my favorite vintage."

I frowned behind my mask, but decided it was better to be accommodating. Of course, I wasn't an idiot. I reached for Zagan silently, and as I picked up the cup and tilted it toward my mouth, I breathed a long stream of green flame into it. The flame hit the wine silently, rolling through it and purifying the drink. Not just of toxins, but of all poison, essentially turning it to clear water. I tipped it back, draining the glass in one pull before slamming it back down. I smiled at him through the gap that had opened in my mask. "Delicious. Now, we're hoping to get access to the Grotto sooner rather than later. Can you tell me what you'd require to let us do that?"

He nodded cheerfully. "Of course, I'd be happy to share that information with you. But first, I hope that you might be willing to help me with a small project."

"We don't really have time for a project," I said bluntly. "We really need to go, maybe when we come back we can help. We can leave as soon as we contact my friends. They're waiting for us now so I don't want to leave them hanging."

He chuckled again, but this time there was something ominous about it. "Why, I don't think that will do. You see, the wisps have faded. You need a guide to get out again. I'm afraid the halls can be a tad confusing. You know, I was so excited to hear Elijah brought his brat here. His power was so…fascinating. But unfortunately his relationship with the Ralkyne was too complex. You, however, have no such protection. I half expected you to bring guards, but instead, you just brought this diplomatic fop."

"Hey!" snapped Crell. "I'll have you know that I can be very impressive!"

I grimaced at the Doctor. "What the hell do you want? Don't think we're so easy to contain. I can leave here anytime I want."

"Oh I wouldn't be so sure," The Doctor grinned. "You see, I've prepared rather thoroughly for this little game. You came here to request entry to the Grotto? Well you'll be pleased to know you need look no further. You entered the Grotto minutes after passing the front door. Outside realspace you have no hope of spatial shifts or recovery artifacts returning you to your previous position."

"So what?" I spat. "You turn us into one of your little experiments? I heard all about those."

Laughing, he just shook his head. "Silly child," he cooed. "I'm not going to turn you into anything. You're ALREADY one of my experiments. You have been since you entered. Drinking the wine I gave you was simply the icing on the cake, as it were. But don't worry. The paralytic you ingested will slowly penetrate your bloodstream as you run from the monsters currently coming to catch you, and only once you've completely collapsed will they finally retrieve you and bring me to me for study."

I blinked at him. "You…you're not nearly as smart as people seem to think, huh?"

He just sneered. "Enjoy your false confidence while it lasts, boy. Even an S-ranker would fall before that toxin. It's only a matter of time before-" He was cut off by the thump of my staff smashing into his mouth, sending his mask spinning off into the distance. Glancing behind me, I casually released ten of my A-rank demons. "Kill the monsters he mentioned, and capture any of the experiments that seem like they might still be people."

Crell just snorted as I turned back to the Doctor. "So, I didn't drink your paralytic," I said conversationally. "And as far as I can tell, you leaned WAY too hard into Focus. I could almost see you getting lost in your own thoughts just then. You have no chance of beating me in a fight under almost any circumstances." I had almost as much effective Might as I had TOTAL stat points thanks to my triple point bonus, not to mention my Vitality and the power of my Domain.

The Doctor stared at me in horror, his expression empty and shocked. Crell laughed as he stepped up beside me. "You know, I was half expecting this to turn into some kind of locked room escape trial when he started talking."

"Nobody has time for that shit," I said coldly. "I have a wife to rescue. The Doctor here is going to be as helpful and friendly as possible in accommodating us, because if he's not, I'm going to beat him nearly to death with my staff, then heal him up and do it again until my arms get tired. And I have very strong arms."

He glared up at me bitterly. "What do you want to know?" he gritted out.

"I want to know where the entrance to this place is," I said immediately. "I'm letting some people inside. Then you're going to take me to the nearest forest inside the Grotto." I needed to use Yama, but I REALLY didn't want to look at the karmic lines inside this hospital. Karma was more than just a map, it was a reflection of the world as it was, and I had a feeling the karma in here was not particularly pleasant to look at.

Obviously, the smart move would be to wait to get to the actual woods before checking on the chain. If Callie was here, I would see it immediately and be close enough to search, if she wasn't the chain would lead me right back to the exit, most likely. Seemed like a win win.

The Doctor staggered to his feet, glaring, but didn't dare to try anything. Instead, he turned and skulked out of the room. I shot Crell a look and followed, trailing behind the malicious medic as we were led through the seemingly endless hallways. I silently cursed myself for not activating Dantalion on the way. The wisp had distracted me by moving JUST fast enough to force me to hurry, which I suspected was the point.

This time I didn't make that mistake, I triggered my information demon, not bothering to boost it with my staff, because A-rank was plenty for this. It didn't take long to arrive at the front door. When we did, I glared at the Doctor, considering what to do…but eventually I remembered what Stanley had said. I cracked him upside the head, knocking him unconscious as I stepped past him to push the door to the outside open. The chill air of Bloodcrest hit my face as I noticed the pair of guards from earlier rushing me for an attack.

My staff snapped out, crashing into them like a meteor and putting them both down temporarily. Knocking people out at A-rank wasn't easy, exactly, but having more than my normal share of Impact helped give my attacks that little bit of extra heft. The two of them dropped and I reached for my scan ring, placing a quick call.

Within twenty minutes, reinforcements arrived. My whole crew as well as Stanley, who had come in person. He glanced at the unconscious guards and Doctor with a grimace. "Well at least they're alive," he sighed. "I assume this was a trap?"

"Apprently he remembered my dad," I said dryly. "Making friends wherever you go, huh old man?"

My father sniffed loftily. "Lions do not concern themselves with the opinions of sheep."

"Do they concern themselves with sleeping on the couch?" my mother asked sweetly. "Because I can have a den made up for his highness if that's his preference."

I snickered at their antics, then turned back to Stanley. "So, did you know the hospital was IN the gate? This place is a shallowing apparently. Once we entered we ended up trapped in some labyrinth we didn't even realize was part of the Grotto. Dr. Dumbass there used wisps to disguise the spatial distortions by pretending it was all part of the dinner. Then he tried to poison me."

"You have a life nova bloodline," my mom said in disbelief. "You could just burn it clean in a second if you wanted to."

"If he'd gotten me," I pointed out. "Which he didn't even manage. I used Zagan to breathe fire into the cup. Ended up drinking pure water. Once he was convinced I'd been drugged, he lapsed into the stereotypical villain speech, so I smacked him in the head with a stick and made him bring me to the door to get you guys."

She grinned at me. "That's my boy. So, have you checked if this is the right place yet?"

"I don't think using Yama inside that place is a good idea," I grimaced. "He's going to bring us out into the woods and I'll check from there. If we're at the right place it'll give me a line right to her, if not the chain will lead back to the entrance."

"Except," my dad sighed. "If there's another gate in there. Remember the land of endless summer is a Webworld. It's connected, even broken. Don't take for granted that this will be the last stop. Chances are good we're only on the first step of the journey. Even that requires us to confirm we're in the right spot though." He turned to glare down at the Doctor. "Hey, jackass. Wake up and bring us inside. We've got places to be." I tried not to laugh at the twitch when he heard my dad's voice. Admittedly, I didn't try very hard.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Entering the Moonfiend Grotto was definitely an experience. One moment we were in the spiraling hallways of the labyrinthine hospital, and the next we were emerging onto a small, dark sanded beach.

The grotto, or at least the part of it we'd stepped into wasn't exactly what I'd expected. I'd pictured a big open shoal like the ones back where I'd met Crell, but the beach we stood on was a relatively cramped affair, just ten feet or so of curved shore wrapped around a tiny cove that was pushing inward.

"It's this way," Stanley said, gesturing inland. "The woods are in that direction."

"How do you know all this, anyway?" I asked as I glanced around. "And why did my dad specifically come to you to be our guide? I admit, it seems weird that you decided to tag along given your position."

Stanley chuckled as he led us away from the shore. "He came to me BECAUSE of my position. I've currently all but accepted leadership of Ralkyne, but back in the day, I was still just the heir. I used my clout to fund and enable my hobby of exploration, and I've been through more of the gates of Bloodcrest and explored more deeply than anyone else in the city."

"He means he used to be a lazy good for nothing who spends all his time running away from home," my dad added wryly. "Though he DID manage to make it sound really impressive."

"If I was good for nothing," Stanley replied loftily. "You wouldn't have hired me."

My dad shrugged. "True, but 'good for only one specific thing and mostly ass at everything else' doesn't really roll off the tongue the same way." He grinned at the other man, clearly teasing, and Stanley just rolled his eyes.

The walk to the forest was surprisingly pretty uneventful. We didn't get attacked or stopped by anything, which kind of shocked me. When we arrived at the treeline, I had everyone step back and I reached out for Yama. To my delight, the chain from my chest did NOT lead back the way we came. It led off into the distance, heading mostly northwest. "What's that way?" I asked, pointing toward the spot in question.

He grimaced. "A nest," he said slowly. "And one that I really would have preferred to avoid if possible. That's where we need to go?"

I didn't love the sound of that, honestly. "A nest?" I prodded. "Of what, exactly?"

"They're called Alakriyas," he winced. "Imagine a hyena mixed with a scorpion, with the jaws of an alligator and the talons of an eagle. They're highly territorial, so most people just avoid them, but they're VERY dangerous. They nest in large groups, kind of like colonies. They build their nests on veins of infinity crystal and similar items, weaving the spatial energy into complicated constructions. They also EAT the stuff, and it makes their armor freakishly hard to pierce."

I groaned. Of course there were space eating monsters nesting on top of the spot where Callie was. Or rather, the spot that could get me there. Because while it WAS possible that my chain was just leading far past the nest, his introduction made it clear there was another, more likely possibility. There was another gate deeper into the Webworld, and the Alakriyas had built their nest on it.

"How many of these things are there?" I asked grimly. "And what rank?"

"The queens are S-rank," he grimaced. "The soldiers are A-rank, and the workers are B-rank. The nest has been there for a while. People don't go down there much, the Alakriyas mostly eat spatial energy, but Domain capable Ascendants are FULL of that, so they've been known to grab and immobilize travelers and drag them down into the nest. To my knowledge, no one has ever come back."

"Well now," Lark said excitedly. "What an interesting species. I'd love to capture a few. I'm something of a taming hobbyist, you know."

I had not known that, but I DID know his daughter, so it didn't surprise me at all. "How many queens are there?" I asked worriedly. Lark was a monster, and I was sure he could take care of himself against almost any number of those things, but I was less sure he could hold them all back at once if there were too many. If they went around him and got to us we'd all be screwed.

"About a dozen," Stanley grimaced. "There's a reason no one has cleaned the nest out after all these years. It's not worth the cost."

I glanced at Lark, and he nodded casually. "Well, maybe we can help with that," I said slyly. "If we can, would you be willing to make an arrangement with us to take over this place. I have a feeling the Doctor won't fight us too much on gate ownership. And if he does…well, my dad is always looking to make a deal. Leaving him alive doesn't mean leaving him active."

He blinked at me. "Wait…you're proposing you CLEAR the nest and hand it over to Ralkyne as an asset?"

I shrugged. "I mean, I'm not planning to use it for anything, and I try to make good use of effort when possible. If we have to clear the place anyway, I don't see why I wouldn't want to make some money on it. Assuming you have assets you want from them and things you're willing to trade. Crell can take care of the details, he IS my master of contracts."

Of course, this assumed that the nest was our actual destination, but given the way my life worked, I kind of figured it would be. Lark didn't seem to care one way or the other, and my dad looked pleased, so I guessed he was happy I'd considered it.

We headed off in the direction of the chain, moving through the forest quietly so as not to arouse the Alakriya before we arrived. Finally, we came to a cliff overlooking a large rocky valley. I grimaced at the site. Where the surrounding area was full of trees and greenery, the valley was the polar opposite. Barren and desolate, even the rocks it was made of looked dead, crumbling away into dust the blew desolately over the flat expanse of nothing at the bottom.

"This is where the nest is?" I asked, eyes scanning the valley. I didn't see any nests. Or animals. Or anything except dust.

"Beneath this place," he corrected. "The destruction is from the constant microquakes that accompany their construction. They reinforce the substructure but the ground around it gets quaked into powder. Careful with it. If you fall in you'll pass through the dust like air. At first. Once you sink a bit it covers you up and suffocates you."

Frowning, I slipped into Yama, checking on my connection to Callie and the twins. Sure enough, the chains led right down into the valley. I eyeballed the exact spot, checking the angles. Using Dantalion and some clever motion to triangulate based on the changes in the chains, I was able to estimate how far down the gate was. "Alright, give me a minute. I need to check some things before we start this off."

Dantalion, boosted to S-rank, allowed me to slowly map the nest, discovering exactly where the majority of the Alakriya were. "He was right about there being twelve of the queens," I noted. "And…damn, about a thousand soldiers. I can't even count the workers, but they're B-rank so it basically doesn't matter."

"So how do we draw them out?" Stanley said, scanning the deceptively smooth floor of the valley. "If we drop in we'll be vulnerable. They can move through the dust like its water, and see in it too."

I smirked, reaching into myself for access to Brad's power. My staff surged with strength, pushing the demon a tier higher, and I held a hand out dramatically. "What dust?"

There was a SURGE of energy as Brad's power slammed down on the valley like an orbital strike. All the others could see was a cylinder of bare space driven into the dust like some angry god pounded it in with a mallet. Between one breath and the next, a huge open hole was exposing the interior of the valley.

It looked weird. Loops of twisted space reinforced with crystalling fractures of infinity crystal and hard packed dirt spiralled in shapes that defied explanation. I followed the chain down to the bottom of the pit, where the twisting tunnels got denser until the condensed into a sphere of pulsing spatial energy, crystal, and rock. From the empty space, screams echoed out. Deep within the pit I could see the strange skittering forms of the Alakriya emerging. I grimaced. Stanley hadn't been wrong about the description, but he'd undersold how weird they looked.

"Lark," I told Morgan casually as a series of the monsters exploded up toward us. Grinning, the vampire exploded into a TORRENT of bats, the creatures wrapping around the S-rank monsters and whisking them away to another battlefield. The rest of them were still coming toward us, but rather than wait for my say so, Abel took it upon himself to act.

A blood red ocean burst out to cover the space in front of us, intercepting the beasts, and I heard their screams as they were subsumed. To my shock, even as I watched they started to decompose, dissolving into even more blood to feed Abel's Infinite Blood Sea.

"Domain," I said as I stared. "You created your Domain. Why didn't you mention it?"

He shrugged. "Just more of the same. No reason to brag. It'll hold them for a bit. I assume we're heading for that rock orb?"

"We are," I nodded. "But I'll get us there. Keep them off me." He agreed, and I focused on the paths between us and the entrance to the gate. Cosmic Waltz emerged, and I pushed myself a little by elevating it to S-rank. I was able to handle the strain a bit better because of the powerful strength of my igniting blood as I tapped into the Cosmic bloodline.

Rather than focus only on that though, I also called up Yama. I'd had an idea I wanted to test for a possible Archdemon. Sure enough, as I watched the threads of karma manifest, I was pleased to see the paths of space followed them surprisingly closely.

"I've got us a path," I said absently. "I'll open it up." Cosmic Waltz wasn't really meant for this, but I was hoping the combination would enable me to create a stable way to connect two points so my friends could move safely. I raised a hand, focusing, and grabbed hold of the connection between me and the gate (my target). With a heave of effort, I flooded the strand with Cosmic Fire.

The link caught ablaze, coating it with the spatial flame, and I gritted my teeth and HAULED on the fire. Slowly, like a line expanding into a straw, the flame began to open, tearing a tunnel through the world. I clamped down on the groan of effort with a heroic burst of willpower as I tore the tunnel open wide enough to fit a person. "Go," I spat, gesturing to the now open portal in front of us. Through the circle, I could see another door, sitting in the middle of a stone chamber waiting for us.

The others nodded, beginning to file through. I held it as long as I could, but eventually the strain was too much. "LARK!" I bellowed up into the sky. "Let's GO, we're leaving!"

A maniacal cackle rose over the valley as a swarm of bats funneled into the gap in reality. I watched until the last bat was through, and then, without pausing, I hurled myself into the gap, not letting up until I fell out the other side of the spatial pathway, hitting the ground with a loud grunt. I groaned as I lay there, head swimming. I was NOT doing that again without an Archdemon form. Still, proof of concept. I couldn't wait to tell Callie.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Shane, you ok?" Abel called as he stood guard in front of the gate. The others had fanned out, securing the entrances to the chamber, and he was the closest to me personally. "That was…really impressive actually. And trust me, I know what I'm talking about. I know enough about space to be shocked you pulled that off."

"New trick," I gasped. "Work in progress." Honestly, the fact that I could SEE the destination physically and that it was close enough was the only reason that had worked at all. I had MASSIVELY underestimated how much effort that would take.

My mom knelt down next to me. "You know, just because Calliope isn't here to yell at you for attempting dangerous experimental moves in combat doesn't mean you should DO it. I'll be telling her about this, and I'd expect to be yelled at. Which you deserve, you self destructive idiot."

"Sorry Ma," I grimaced. "It's been a long time since I hit a wall like that. Gotten used to pulling off my nonsense on the first try."

"That's not as reassuring as you seem to think it is," she huffed as she helped my to my feet.

Chuckling, I triggered my life nova bloodline, burning nine drops to flood my body with energy. "Lark," I called to the vampire. "How did you do? I know I cut off your fight early, but did you manage to take out any of the queens?"

"Ten of them, actually," he said cheerfully. "I only had two left when you told me to disengage. They were injured though. I kept seven of the ones I beat, and even grabbed a couple workers. Lovely little monsters, I'm planning to start a breeding farm on one of my empty planets. I'm curious to see what they'll do with a full planet to terraform."

"Well that seems safe," I said dryly. "But sure, go nuts. Just maybe make sure the planet in question is at least a galaxy away from me or anyone I know."

He sneered. "Back in my day, we had more spine than that."

"Probably because you had to keep growing them back after people ripped them out when you did something stupid." I pointed out dryly.

"That's not…" he trailed off. "That didn't happen that often. My spine has only been ripped out like…eight times. Nine tops. But hey, we're getting off track. Shouldn't we be going through this creepy giant door? It seems fun. What do you say guide-man, do you know where this goes?" He shot Stanley an arch look.

The other man shook his head. "Not even close," he said bluntly. "I told you no one has been down here. The nest is too dangerous. Actually, should WE be down here? We might want to leave, if they come back-"

"They won't," Zeke, my dad, Lark, and I said at the same time. We all locked eyes with a chuckle at the unintentional echo.

"They won't," I repeated. "They lost eighty percent of their main combat force. More, technically, but still The last two queens are injured, and they'll be retreating to gather their strength. Besides which they're animals. Animals don't attack a superior predator when they're injured. Lark kicked their asses up and down the valley with ease. They're S-rank creatures. They're smart enough to know when they're beat."

My mom nodded. "It's true, we're safe for now. But don't underestimate the territorial instincts of a prideful beast. We shouldn't stick around too long. Even if you don't know exactly where that door leads, can you make any guesses? Maybe based on some other gate that looks similar? Anything is better than nothing."

Stanley grimaced, but nodded. "I can take a look. The gates do tend to reflect their interiors. Reading them can be a bit of an artform, but I daresay no one has seen more of them than I."

I frowned. I hadn't really considered that. In fact, I hadn't known the gates were all doors. I hadn't seen one for this place when we came through the hospital, but to be fair, they might have just left it open. We hadn't noticed where the breakpoint was at all, so use missing the entry was understandable.

Stanley stepped forward running his hand over the carved white surface of the door. Despite being down here in this literal mudhole, the door was pristine, almost glowing, and it had delicate scrollwork and designs carved over every inch of it.

"A city," he said slowly. "A huge and beautiful city of gold. That's all I can find."

"Better than nothing," I smiled, patting his shoulder. "We appreciate the help. Are you coming along with us? If not, I can have Lark run you home. You've lived up to your end of the bargain and then some, and you still need to make arrangements to take custody of this place."

The Ralkyne weren't all A-rank, they couldn't have held onto power without someone at the peak. Stanley's father was an S-ranker, albeit one that rarely showed his face, and I was sure he would come out of retirement to take control of this gate. To my surprise, he shook his head. "No," he said firmly. "I've spent my life exploring the gates of Bloodcrest. I'm not missing the chance to be the first one through a newly discovered gate."

That shocked a laugh out of me. "Wow, I wasn't expecting that. But fair enough. Everyone get ready, we're moving out as soon as possible. We need to explore beyond the gate. Lark and I will be going through." With Mornax bumped up to A-rank (he hadn't hit tier nine yet), I would be the most durable person here besides Lark, and that was without my armor. It was safest for the two of us to be the first ones in. "The rest of you will be here waiting in case we run into trouble. Post up and prepare to fight if we end up retreating."

My mom looked unhappy, but surprisingly didn't argue. I was glad she trusted me enough to let me do what I needed to do. I nodded to Lark, who stepped up next to me, and we moved toward the door carefully. I incarnated Mornax, releasing my hold on Brad to push him a rank higher. It wasn't much of a strain since Mornax was only tier eight, a rank higher was easy to withstand.

Grabbing the door, we pushed it open, stepping inside. I had my hands up, staff summoned, and was ready to fight, but to my surprise, when I stepped through, I found that there was no one inside. In fact, based on the dust patterns, it looked like there hadn't been anyone here for a very long time. I looked around slowly, studying the place. It was massive. Huge vaulted ceilings, white marble floors veined with gold, it had a deeply sacred look to it, aside from the dilapidated appearance.

"Blood," Lark said immediately, nostrils flaring. "I smell blood. And lots of it."

My staff snapped up as I let Dantalion gather information. "Which way?" I asked him slowly. "I think we should check it out."

He gestured off to the side. "Through there," he said, eyes locked on that spot.

We crept forward, door still open and friends still waiting there just in case. When we reached the corner, I leaned around. What I found on the other side confused me at first, then made me sick. A splash of gold was painted across the wall. It was splattered across the surface, some of it tossed like liquid, some of it sprayed in an almost arterial fashion.

Which was what gave it away. The golden blood. There was no body there, nothing besides Lark's word and the pattern, but I trusted Lark to know blood. I swallowed hard. "What is it?" I asked quietly. "What did it come from?"

He sniffed lightly. "Smells like angel," he said in a casual tone. "Big boy too. That's a lot of bird juice."

"Charming," I grimaced. "Can you tell how long ago it's from? It doesn't look recent."

He shook his head. "I'm good, but I can't date blood spatter by smell. There are a few scent markers that denote age, but they're very general, and after a certain point they degrade too much to be usable at all. This is from at least five hundred years ago. I can't tell you any more than that."

"Do you smell any more?" I asked, almost afraid of the answer. Stanley had said this was a city, and we'd only seen one small part of it. If no one had been here to clean up the blood, chances were good this wasn't the only abandoned spot. Maybe the whole city was abandoned. Or maybe it wasn't and whatever had killed this angel was still here.

He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. "I'm getting…something. Not close."

Turning, he started walking, past the corner, the door, and into a hallway. I hurried to catch up, staff at the ready. He led me down a long corridor with colossal vaulted ceilings and high stained glass windows, emerging into another, even larger chamber.

This one…well, I didn't wonder what the gold stuff was. It was clearly blood. And it was dripping from the corpses of angels.

Impaled against columns, slumped against walls, some lying on the ground seeming crawling for the doors. Easily a dozen angels, and all of them at least A-rank. I could still feel their Impact, trapped in their bodies in a way I hadn't seen before. "Huh," Lark said cheerfully. "Someone should fire their decorator."

Rolling my eyes, I turned to glare at him. "Can we not make fun of the mass murder site?" I asked. "Like I get being disaffected, but there should be a limit. These are angels."

"Rats with wings," he said bluntly. "But I'll forgive your ignorance because you're so young. Trust me kid, angels are just flying people, and they suck just as much. But fine, I'll be…nice. I assume you're about to ask me how long ago this happened?"

"I was going to guess five hundred plus years," I shrugged.

He snorted. "Pretty much. Again, no solid timeframe, but I can assume that they were killed around the same time. That's obvious. Now tell me what isn't. You're spinning up that information power right now, right? Use it. Tell me what you don't see."

I frowned at him. That was surprisingly…generous. For him at least. But I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I decided to humor him. My eyes scanned the room, looking for commonalities, information, or like he said, gaps. I saw nothing but death. Corpses scattered around willy nilly, all in different-

"The bodies," I said in surprise. "They're all dead, and mostly in dramatic ways. But there's no damage around them. No blood that isn't theirs. At least I don't think."

"Show your work," he prompted.

I pointed at the nearest corpse. "All the blood near that one is coating his chest and wings. It pooled under him, but it's in close proximity. Not to mention-" I cut myself off, unwilling to continue the thought.

Lark wasn't having it. "Not to mention?"

"All the blood in here is angelic," I finished. "And most of it is around the bodies. That means one of two things. Either the person who did this was ALSO an angel…or they butchered all these high ranking warriors without taking a scratch in return. Judging by the condition of the bodies and the lack of structural damage my guess is the latter. This wasn't a fight. It was a slaughter. Whatever did this was MUCH stronger than the angels in this room."

He nodded in satisfaction. "We have a winner. The question becomes, when you add that to the earlier scene, why did it do this at all? Why was that body missing when these are still here…and where is the creature that committed the murders." I swallowed hard, eyes scanning the room around me. I wanted to know that myself. Because if it was still here, I had a feeling we needed to find it before it found us.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We headed back to the doorway slowly, keeping watch for any surprises. When we arrived, we found my parents waiting there for us. They hadn't come across, but they were posted up inside the door, my mother's body flickering with white flame and my father sheathed in a mirror plating that told me he'd manifested a powerful soul to use.

"Shane, thank the gods," my mom breathed out in relief when she saw us. "I was a little worried. What happened?"

Grimacing, I told her about what we'd found, our suspicions, and more importantly, what I'd learned after. She winced. "So Yama confirmed that this is the right place? But we need to enter the city to get to the next gate?"

"Not SURE it's a gate," I admitted. "But Dan helped me get a rough distance estimate based on the changing angles of the chains and triangulation. Whatever I'm connecting to is about a hundred miles in that direction. Based on what we caught through some of the windows, this city IS huge, and that would be well within the city limits. So yes, I'm assuming it's a gate to the next fragment in the Webworld."

"What are the chances the danger is still relevant?" my dad asked, staring through the doorway cautiously, ready to fight.

Before I could answer, Lark cut in. "One hundred percent," he said immediately. "I've been feeling it out while we were over there. It was kind of subtle, like a frog boiling, but the longer we stayed there the more I caught the scent of a predator. As soon as we crossed back it became obvious by its absence. Something is still over there. Whether that's one thing or a bunch of things I can't say. But whatever it is, it's a threat, even to me."

"Beyond that, I have concerns about the city," I said apologetically. "Mostly, the residents. The angels who died…they were preserved in an odd way. The Impact was locked inside the body. I've never seen it before, but-"

"But things like that are rarely good," my dad sighed. "You think it's some kind of ritual?"

I shrugged. "I don't know what it is. I do know that there might still be some of them alive. And I know my wife would never forgive me if I abandoned a bunch of her distant relatives to be butchered by some horrible monster. The fact that if it IS using a ritual it might become a problem for us later is almost academic."

"Almost," he agreed. "But fine. This is your show. What are we doing then, oh fearless leader?"

"Waiting," I told him with a grimace. "I sent Beelzebub to look around. I'm worried about possible deaths, and regenerating demons is a pain. Beel makes clones that are a lot more disposable. He's exploring the nearby area to find a safe path and when he reports back we move out. I'm planning to have us all under Murmur. Boosted as high as possible."

My Stealth field was nearly impenetrable at the same rank, but if this thing made Lark wary it might be too big of a gap to bridge. Still, it would minimize our chances of running into trouble, and that was probably the best I could do in this situation. Any way we could stack the deck would be helpful. I was about to continue when I heard a fluttering of clothes. Someone was running, my guard went up, staff coming to bear as I waited to see what was on the way.

Beel turned the corner at a sprint. He pushed off the ground as he came into view, whipping his body into a flip that tucked him up and over the whistling scythe blade coated in black flame that had come scything across the hallway, hooking around the corner as it tried to bisect him. Beel snarled, whirling his staff to smash into the haft of the scythe, sending it off to one side.

Before the scythe could retract, Lark was there, hand locked around the handle of the weapon like an iron vise. He tugged contemptuously, pulling the figure behind the scythe around the corner and tossing it into the wall.

It hit with bonerattling force, cratering the stone slightly, then bounced to its feet, ready to attack. As it did, I was finally able to get a good look at the monster, and I frowned in confusion.

"A scarecrow?" I asked in disbelief. At my words, its head whirled to stare at me, turning a full one hundred eighty degrees at the neck without moving its body. The thing's pumpkin her glowed darkly, menacing black fire flickering within that matched the scythe it had been swinging. Its triangular eyes were sharp and menacing, and its jaggedly carved mouth bared in a rictus of razor sharp carved fangs.

It lunged at me, but Lark appeared, grabbing it with that iron grip, holding it up by the scruff like a naughty puppy. It writhed and snapped, neck spinning in a way that was frankly disturbing to watch, but it couldn't get loose. A-rank. Surprisingly strong for it, but still A-rank. Enough to menace Beel and maybe me if I wasn't ready, but it was basically a baby in front of Lark.

"I assume this isn't the predator you sensed?" I asked as I stared at the snarling monster.

He shook his head. "Nope," he confirmed. "But it's not NOT the predator, either. In fact, it doesn't feel like anything at all. Some kind of construct. I have a feeling whatever that thing watching us was, it knows what this thing knows." He leaned down to glare into its eyes. "You listening to me, rat? Why not come out and face me directly. Why send these pathetic little wind up toys after me?"

The monster began to struggle harder, screaming like a dying thing as the flames flared. Lark rolled his eyes, flicking his wrist and sending it hurtling down the hall. It exploded in a cloud of black fire before reaching the end, and he huffed with annoyance. "I hate the squirrely ones."

"Well that was dramatic," I said as I stepped up next to him to stare down the hall at the smoke cloud. "I don't suppose you were able to tell what that thing WAS? The controlling entity, not the scarecrow."

He shook his head. "Like I said, squirrely. I got a bit of a tang off the flame explosion though. I think I tasted corruption, maybe incorporeality."

I sighed. If anyone else had said that I'd have been annoyed or disbelieving, but I'd seen Bethy do stuff like that too. "Any idea where it might BE?" I asked dryly. "Like can you track it from the scent?"

"I'm a VAMPIRE," he said scathingly. "Not a bloodhound…" he paused. "Although, some vampires can turn into wolves. And we do smell blood." I was halfway sure he was going to try to actually do it for a second, but sadly it was not to be. He shook his head. "No, I'm not turning into a dog. I won't-"

"I'LL DO IT!" Bethy squealed excitedly as she bolted through the door, appearing beside us in an energetic blur. "Oh PLEASE daddy, please let me be a dog. I'll be the bestest puppy in the whole universe, I'll sniff out all the bad guys and then go fetch!"

Rolling his eyes again, he flicked her on the forehead. "Are you insane?" he demanded. "I JUST told him that this thing is squirrely. I'm not letting you run off after it. Besides, chances are good it'll lay low now. It got a look at me, and it clearly didn't feel up to picking a fight. I imagine Shane has a plan anyway. One that doesn't involve you becoming a canine."

I snorted, turning to Beel. "What did you find?"

"We checked a few passages," he said immediately. "About half of us died immediately, then another two within ten minutes. I narrowed it down to four and met back up with the others, and that thing jumped us and butchered them. I took the chance to escape, because I knew that you needed to hear what we found."

"Angels?" I asked with interest. "Did you find some still living?"

He shook his head. "Not that. It's hard to explain, I have to show you. Come on." He gestured for me to follow and headed back the way he came. I nodded to Lark and Bethy, who followed on my heels. We walked for about fifteen minutes, taking turns left and right, until we finally came to a small alcove. When we reached it, he stepped aside and gestured me in. I frowned, but since it was one of my demons pushing me along I didn't have a reason to refuse.

The alcove was about the size of a walk in closet, covered with a mosaic of colorful pictures. Angels with wings and flames of all different colors, a rainbow of powerful warriors sallying forth across the universe to do battle. But that wasn't what he wanted me to see. What he wanted me to see was what was BEHIND them. Or rather, who.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I groaned as I stared at the image. "What are the chances of that?"

The being standing behind the angels in the mosaic wasn't too surprising. It was Belsara, and considering we were in her Webworld, the fact that she had angels on tap wasn't a surprise. What WAS a surprise, however, was what she was holding in her hands. The image of Belsara stood behind the figures, red hair blazing, and above her head she held aloft a cup.

I'd never seen the cup before. Not exactly. But I'd seen something that looked alot like it. Something much bigger and more terrifying than the chalice in the image. The Angel Tower.

I thought back to my meeting with Isaac, the S-rank Throne in charge of the Tower. He'd told me that the tower was a cup that had belonged to the god who originally created the angel species. I thought back to Atlas and his easy creation of the Archangel trait. Sure, gods used angels as messengers and minions, but I'd met a whole bunch of gods and not that many angels in their service. In retrospect, it wasn't quite as common as Atlas's explanation had made it seem.

This was complicated. For one, it meant that we needed to warn the Tower. If that cup was one of Belsara's objects of power, retrieving it would allow her to restore some of her lost power. And that was a normal foundational object. The tower had been the angel home base for centuries, if not longer. They constantly fed and strengthened it.

More than that though, it confirmed my desire to find any angels around here. Because in a very real sense they WERE Callie's relatives. We needed to find them and help them get away from whatever this monster was. Callie wouldn't have it any other way.

Grimacing, I called out Dantalion. "Scan it," I told him immediately. "Get every second, and I want you working this. Mine it for every bit of information you can find end then study the data."

"Of course," he nodded. "I'll need cover."

Without missing a beat, I called Mornax and Sammael out. "Keep an eye on him," I told them, pushing them both to S-rank with a flex of my will. Using the staff twice in a row was tough, but it was necessary. I turned back to Beel. "That all you found? You mentioned a route."

He nodded. "This way," he gestured past the alcove. "My clone got about a mile up the path before he noticed something weird and came back. Pretty sure there's something up there, but it didn't attack, unlike the others. We weren't sure why but we figured you'd want to know."

I nodded, eyes focused on the chain I could now see as I incarnated Yama. Right down the path. Of course. Sighing, I pushed my will to the brink, using the staff one more time as I incarnated Murmur. Then I sat and waited as he gathered information. I wanted to be as thorough as possible with this. It would be dangerous enough as it was. After an hour or so it was finally time, I sent Lark to get everyone and when they got back, we all set off. Time to find the angels.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We kept the trip slow as we made our way down the hallway that Beel had located for us. It was a long hall, made longer by the sense of creeping dread and the slow pace we needed to keep Murmur effective, and the distance wasn't helped by the deafening silence of our group as we moved.

The halls of the city felt…haunted. Not by ghosts, but by tragedy. It felt like this place had been profaned in a way that precluded speech. Like the perversion of this holy space was so complete that speaking words here would only add to the abominable events, and worse, make us a part of that bloody legacy. I was still ruminating on that when I felt a hand smack me upside the back of the head.

I flinched, spinning around, staff coming up to point at…Abel. "I figured Callie wasn't here to do that, so it fell to me by default," my mentor said blithely. "Get out of your head, Shane. It's dangerous to be in there instead of out here."

Snorting, I rubbed my head, even though it hadn't really hurt. I appreciated the wakeup call, though I would obviously never admit that to him. I was about to respond when I felt…something. Only a flash, a split second disturbance I'd have missed if it hadn't twigged the edge of my Murmur field.

I spun on my heel, eyes snapping to the spot I'd felt. I caught Lark's eye. "You felt that?"

He nodded slowly. "Barely. Whatever it was, it was fast, and damned sneaky. I've got better senses than most and I couldn't get a proper lock. I'm surprised you picked it up at all, honestly. But it only went one way. It's still there."

Our eyes turned to the small alcove the disturbance had been heading to, waiting, watching, and finally, a sigh rang out. As we watched, a slight form emerged, a small girl, only fifteen or sixteen by the look of it. She was strong. A-rank. And she was an angel, with wings of crystal clear glass.

Her eyes were an unsettling glasslike sheen, hair like crystal filaments, and the whole thing, combined with her fragility and the pallor of her skin, made her look like the slightest jostle would break her to pieces.

Of course, I knew better. Aside from the absurdity of her being A-rank at such a young age, I knew that an angel's wings and eyes were reflections of their power. The unique angelic flame that each angel possessed, each able to perform strange feats that defined their capabilities. I was betting the glass wings had something to do with stealth, if she could hide from an S-rank Murmur and Lark's senses.

"Who are you?" she asked, in a voice like the whisper of wind through glass chimes. "And how are you here?"

"My name is Shane," I told her kindly. "And this is my family and my friends. We came looking for someone. We thought we might be able to find her here." I tried not to talk too fast, this kid was squirrely, and I was almost worried she'd pop like a soap bubble if I wasn't careful. Just a flicker and then gone for good. She had information we needed, she had to.

She shook her head. "There's no answers here. No people you would know. Only death lives here. You should go."

"We can't do that," I said apologetically. "The person we're looking for is my wife. She's pregnant, actually. I'm trying to find her and my babies. Are you sure you can't help us…sorry, I forgot to ask your name."

"It's Amandine," she said softly. "But my dad calls me Amy. You're looking for your babies?"

I nodded. "I am. They haven't been born yet, but I'm really excited to meet them. We all are. I'm worried about them though. Do you think you can help at all? Anything you can tell use about this place would be useful."

"Shane," Lark said quietly. "Why is she out here?"

I frowned at him. "She's just…" I trailed off. "Actually that's true, why ARE you out here? You must have a safe place to hide, right? Why come out and risk being attacked by those things? Shouldn't you be with your dad? Is he still around?"

"You're looking for food," Lark said quietly. "You're hungry, aren't you?"

She tensed, eyes going wide. "I…no, I don't know what you mean. There's no food here! Leave me alone!" She spun, looking ready to bolt, but she was stopped in her tracks by the familiar foreboding castle in the distance. She might be sneaky, but I'd seen Lark's Domain hold a hundred enemy S-rankers. She wasn't going anywhere.

"Whoa!" I said quickly, holding up my hands defensively. "Don't run! It's fine, we're not going to take your food."

"She's not afraid of that," Bethy said quietly, her tone more somber than I'd heard from her in a long time. "She's afraid we're going to kill her when you find out what she's been eating. Think about it, Shane. She's a little kid. How is she so strong? How is she so high rank at such a young age?"

I frowned. "I don't know, she probably has a bloodline, or a mirror soul or…" I trailed off, floundering for anything that might explain it.

"Think it through," Lark murmured. "Think about what we've seen."

I frowned, considering what had happened since we got here. We'd seen the monster. Seen the bodies. Well, except that fir- I froze. "The body we didn't find," I said in slowly dawning horror. "And the growth. Their Impact was stored in their flesh. Somehow. I don't know how that happened, but…you ate them." She wilted under my horror, curling around herself like she was waiting to be attacked, and I flinched back, horrified at myself this time. "That's not…it's ok, I won't hurt you."

"I didn't mean it," she sobbed, her eyes spilling crystalline, sparkling tears. "I didn't want to do it, but I was so hungry. Daddy said I had to. He said it was the only way I could be strong enough to survive."

Bethy was there, from one blink to the next, putting her arms around the girl. "It's ok," she murmured, stroking Amandine's hair. "They were already gone. You didn't hurt them. You just did what you needed to survive. No one is mad. Can I see your teeth?" Amandine looked scared, but she nodded, baring her teeth.

"Ghouling," Lark said distastefully. "That's not optimal."

"It's not advanced," Bethy said dismissively. "Her nails aren't blackened yet. Her trait isn't corrupted, it's still in the body." She glanced over at my mom. "Sasha, do you think you could help?"

I raised a hand. "Ok, so…what's happening? She's an angel, not a ghoul."

"Ghoul is more of an umbrella term," Bethy corrected. "There are a lot of kinds of ghoul, but it's not really a species as much as it's a condition. If you eat enough the ghouling process corrupts your trait. You turn into a ghoul, though what KIND of ghoul varies. Some really desperate people do it on purpose for power, but ghouls are extremely low level undead so only idiots bother."

My mom stepped forward, stepping in front of Amandine. "Sweetie," she said softly. "Do you mind if I help you? My power is for purification. It's fire, so it might be a little scary, but it won't hurt you. It's just going to help repair your body a little."

The girl sniffled, but nodded. My mom gave her a kind, encouraging smile, raising her hand to begin the purification. While she did, I decided to press on with the questioning. "I'm sorry you're hungry," I told Amandine warmly. "I'll go ahead and cook you something once you're finished washing up, ok? While we wait though, do you think you could tell me about this place? You live here with your dad?"

"Yeah," she whimpered. "My mom got lost a few years ago. It happens sometimes. People go missing. One by one, they all vanish. There aren't a lot of us left. Most of us are kids. The monsters don't target the kids. We're too small and weak. We don't have whatever it is they want."

I winced. That was…horrible. They'd been stuck here long enough to have GENERATIONAL fear of these things. That was heinous. I reached into my Domain, manifesting a version of me to task Cooking to put together a meal for this girl.

Then I refocused. "Alright. Can you take us to your dad? Once you've eaten I mean. We'd like to talk to him."

She looked scared, but eventually nodded, and I turned to talk to Lark as Bethy and my mom took care of her. "So, what do you think?" I asked him quietly. We were still inside Murmur, so concealing the conversation was easy enough.

"I think there's a lot going on here and very little of it has to do with her," he said bluntly. "Her being forced to eat bodies is unpleasant, but the fact that it caused her to get STRONGER is concerning. Especially at this rate. Ghouls eat flesh for power, but as I said, it's an imperfect path. You can't just EAT a person's Impact. If you could everyone would do it."

"Do you think it has to do with the condition of the corpses?" I asked worriedly. "The Impact being preserved?"

He grimaced. "I do. Which is very bad. Because the fact that they're looking for something and leaving behind something as valuable as easily harvestable Impact means that I believe I know what they're looking for. They're harvesting Domains."

"You can do that?" I asked in an appalled voice.

"Not easily," he corrected. "Or safely. Your Domain is…it's part of who you are. There are methods to strengthen a Domain, but harvesting Domains from the dead implies they're attempting grafts. Domain grafting is a stupid, perverse, thankless process. You stitch together a patchwork monstrosity of a Domain, then you force yourself up a rank and let the resulting boost sublimate the result. Or you die. Which is what happen ninety nine percent of the time."

I grimaced. "Then why even do it?"

"The Domain connects to the soul," he explained. "If you can integrate the pieces, it forcibly elevates your soul past the stable state. It's a last resort measure for high rankers who failed to break their shackles. Based on the situation here, I would guess that something horrifying is on the other side of that gate, and whatever is stalking these halls is trying to gather enough power to get past it."

"You got all that from a few random factoids?" I asked in disbelief.

He shrugged. "You get a feel for these kinds of incidents. What causes them, where they're heading. It's just pattern recognition. Regardless, if the gate guardian requires a grafted Domain to handle, I suspect it's probably Demigod strength, at least. I doubt it's a full deity, otherwise it wouldn't have stuck around. But if it's a problem for this thing, it'll be a problem for us too. I can probably handle it, but it might be smart to make sure."

Sighing, I nodded along. "Agreed. Besides, we're not done here. I wanted to save Callie's people, and I still do. We're not leaving without helping. I'll take them out personally if need be."

"Alright," my mom said from nearby, a tone of false cheer in her voice. "You're all set. Let me see those teeth?" Amandine bared her teeth, which were now white and straight and NOT razor sharp like a shark. "There we go, perfect smile."

I smiled as I approached, withdrawing a plate from my Domain that Cooking had prepared. "Hey, you said you were hungry, so I thought I'd make you something. Just some pasta with alfredo sauce, you ever had that?" She shook her head, and I passed her the bowl. She tore into it, and I smiled, letting her eat. Once she was done we'd get back to the questions and then she could take us to her dad. Hopefully he'd have some of the answers we needed.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Amandine (my mom insisted on calling her Amy) led us back through the hallways with a shocking level of speed and familiarity. No wonder her dad had her out looking for food on her own, between her stealth and this level of skill, anything short of me or Lark wouldn't have had a chance at catching her.

It didn't take us long to arrive at a blank stretch of wall a few miles from the alcove where we met Amy. She stopped in front of the white and gold marble, eyes cutting either way in a gesture so obviously ingrained I doubted she noticed it even happened, and then she raised her hands and conjured a shimmering, glasslike flame. She pressed it into the stone in a few places, and as it made contact, runes lit up across each of the stones she touched.

Before our eyes, the runes, burning with glass fire, began to move across the surface of the wall, assembling into an archway shape. When they had formed up, they pulsed once, and the flames spread, consuming the wall and burning away the visible stone to leave only a smooth glasslike portal.

We stepped inside quickly, and Amy flicked her fingers, letting the runes go out and the wall return to normal. "Ok," she said quietly. "We're safe now. They can't get in here."

I looked around, expecting to see more of the same open cavernous architecture of the vaulted halls outside, instead, I was shocked at how small and cramped the space was. It wasn't exactly a tiny area, mind, it was just that compared to the exterior, it seemed almost claustrophobic. Lots of sharp corners, dark marble, and thick carpet.

The place wasn't dirty, either. But it was worn. The carpet was threadbare, the walls were scuffed. I dropped Murmur as I looked around, taking Amy at her word about our safety. I was more interested in taking in the walls. They'd obviously been polished or washed recently, but the wear and tear of constant use or exposure had taken the shine off them and ground away some spots, leaving indents and dips. "Amandine!" came a shout. We turned to watch a towering, gaunt looking angel with a tattered set of blood red wings racing toward us.

He stopped about ten feet out, eyes narrowing. His irises were that same bloody scarlet, and without a second of hesitation, he reached behind him and drew a long, jagged looking red sword that flickered to life with crimson fire. "Who are you and what are you doing with my daughter?" he snarled, taking up a guard stance.

"Daddy, wait!" Amy said frantically, stepping between us and her father. "They're my friends! They found me wandering around and fed me. They even helped get rid of…" she trailed off, wilting slightly.

"Getting rid of what?" he asked quickly. "Amandine, were you-"

She looked away. "I didn't want to tell you. I thought I could fight it off. But I was getting so hungry. I needed more and more food. And I couldn't stay at home, because everyone started to…smell. Like food."

"Ghouls," Lark grimaced. "Sounds like her trait was taking to it bad. She was turning into one of the rabid ones."

My mom glared at him. "There's no need to scare her," she snapped. "We purified her body. She's fine now. No use speculating over something that didn't happen." She paused uncertainly. "I take it she wouldn't have been the first?"

Her father looked shocked and horrified. "I…no. No not the first. It happens sometimes. The transformation. But mostly it's just cosmetic. Sometimes though, they turn bad. Wrong."

"Ghouling is a trait modification," Lark shrugged. "Not all traits are made to withstand it. Even the same species has trait differences. It's why you have different hair and eyes. Why your wings and flames are odd colors. But I'm surprised it didn't happen to you. Inborn traits are combinations of the parent's, if she was-" he cut off that sentence immediately, but everyone's eyes snapped to him.

I sighed. "Amy's mom didn't just get lost, did she?" I asked her dad. "She started turning the same way Amy was. Why did it take so long, though?"

"Adults eat less," he said gruffly, eyes doing their best to avoid his daughter. "We don't need as much sustenance. Delia and I have been here since before the city fell. Our Vitality was already high enough that we only had to feed once or twice a century. Besides, even when it happens, it's not immediate. Not always. One day you just wake up and it's like a switch got flipped."

Sighing, I called out Cooking. "Feed everyone here," I told him firmly. "Everyone. Pasta again. Let's avoid meat for the time being. Amy, can you show him where to set up his cooking station?"

She blinked, eyes looking lost and hurt, and then nodded, leading the demon away. I blew out a breath as I turned back to the man. "Sorry, that wasn't intentional. I imagine you've been keeping that to yourself for a while. I'm Shane, by the way. We're here looking for someone. My wife is missing, and she's carrying my kids, so it's kind of time sensitive."

He just sighed. "Explains why Amandine chose to help. She's always been a sucker for a sob story. But it's fine. She was bound to find out someday. I'm surprised she hasn't already. Though I suppose the things IT makes out of those ghouls aren't exactly recognizable. Maybe I wouldn't even know if I met my Delia again."

"Wait…" I blinked. "That scarecrow we met was a former ANGEL?"

"It corrupts their flame after they've turned," he said sadly. "They're unrecognizable as who they once were. But yes. They are our kind."

Lark cursed. "That's not good," he said sourly. "Rabid ghouls aren't unknown, but there shouldn't be a way to convert them after. Not easily. That implies that the corruption isn't natural. Have you noticed the incidence of the rabid ones increasing?"

Amy's father nodded. "I have," he said hesitantly. "We weren't sure why. It's still not common, mind. There aren't many of us, but it's still fairly rare even then."

"How many exactly?" I asked, looking around. "I don't see more than thirty or forty."

"We don't tend to congregate," he smiled grimly. "There have been a few too many incidents of the corrupted ones going on rampages. Better to spread ourselves out. There are a few dozen places like this. Some bigger. Some smaller. We don't interact much. The city is big enough that we don't run into each other too often."

He turned, gesturing for us to follow. He led us deeper into the refuge, seating us at a table. "I'm Connell, by the way. Thank you, for helping Amandine. She's…since I lost Delia she's all I have. I should have realized she was corrupting, but honestly I'm glad I didn't. I don't know what I would have done. There are still a few angels with purification flames, but they're not nearby, and they tend to be protected fiercely."

I tried to imagine living with the knowledge of a slow, creeping rot spreading through your people that sometimes turned them into ravenous murderers. It sounded like all of them dealt with ghouling, albeit at different speeds for the adults, but the added terror of the corrupted was another layer of hell.

"Tell us about the thing you called 'it'," I said slowly. "You mentioned earlier that 'it' turns the corrupted into those things we saw. What is it?"

"That's somewhat complicated," he said with a sigh. "But the broad strokes are simple enough to share. Basically…it's an angel. Or it used to be. I don't know its name. No one does anymore. It killed the ones who knew it first. But I've heard the stories. A few people passed down the tale, and word of mouth has kept it alive."

I winced. "Are you ok sharing it?"

He shrugged. "It's not my story. Doesn't bother me to tell it. So, the way I heard, it started a few millennia ago. This was back in the heyday of the city. Heliovant was the shining jewel of the land of endless summer. People came from all over to walk its halls. Angels were born in a rainbow of colors and with all the powers under the sun. We were adored, shining beacons of power, culture, and wisdom."

My head snapped up at his use of the term for this Webworld that Atlas had mentioned,, but I let it be for now. The story seemed more important. "The creature was born to a small family of angels. A father who was a local counselor, a mother who was active in the community. It had three siblings, all older.

"At first, its parents were thrilled," he said, eyes losing focus as he remembered a story I was sure he'd repeated in his head ad nauseum. "It was born sickly, pale and fragile, but they didn't care. Angel parents are fiercely protective, as are most childbearing species. They cared for the child, raised it, nurtured it. They tried everything to restore its health, but nothing they did worked. Food, magic, it all did nothing. As if the creature was just MEANT to be frail.

"The child grew up sheltered by his family, at first, and didn't interact with any other children. They wanted to fix it before they let it socialize." He shuddered at some mental image I couldn't guess at. "Eventually, when all else failed, they chose to allow it to interact."

Despite having not been there, it was clear he was very invested in the events. "The creature follow its siblings out to play that day. And it met other children for the first time. It was unusual looking. Its wings were ragged and made of bone, its eyes a pale, milky white. But angel children aren't known to be particularly mean spirited. They welcomed it with open arms.

"It was three weeks before the first child got sick," he said that part coldly. "Nothing serious. Just a cold. But it happened to another soon after. One by one, they all started to fall ill. Meanwhile, the creature was, for the first time in its life, beginning to recover. Its wings started to fill out, its fragile body strengthened. The only thing that made it different from the other children was its flame. Despite now being a decade old, the creature had never shown any signs of an angelic flame.

"Still, when it started to recover, its parents were thrilled, their child was going to be whole." His chuckle was sad and bitter at the same time. "They didn't even think about the rash of illnesses. Why would they? Their child had no power."

I grimaced as I figured out what was coming. From the outside, the story was obvious. But I let him continue. "The first child died later that month. Then the next. They started going missing. The bodies were never found. No one suspected the creature. It was normal enough now. Its sickly pallor faded, its wings healthy and strong. It was quiet and unobtrusive, and spent most of its time with its siblings."

"Its parents found it killing them on its eleventh birthday," he said in a haunted voice. "It decided it wanted a treat. It drained them of their flame, siphoning away the very fire that gave them life. It was draining the oldest when they found it. The other two lying unmarred, Impact still preserved within their bodies."

"So that's how it destroyed the city?" I asked in horror. "It just, what, got loose and started hunting people down?"

He shook his head. "Oh not at all. The creature didn't destroy the city. It was just the weapon used to do the deed. When they caught it, it was young enough to be subdued. They captured it and locked it away beneath their home, walling it up in the basement where it couldn't hurt anyone else. It was still waiting there when the traitor dug it up a thousand years later. And that day was the beginning of the end of Heliovant."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Ok back up," I held up a hand. "What traitor? We need to know more about the city before this is going to make sense, I think. What happened here? What is the land of endless summer you mentioned?" I tried not to show my fixation on that last question. I knew some things, but not enough, and playing dumb might help me dig up some information I might not otherwise have been able to get.

"It's a long story," he sighed. "The land of endless summer is the name of the world this city used to be part of. Or is part of? It's hard to say, really. No one has been able to leave the city since the Lady died. The lockdown protocols sealed us inside. There are only two doors out of this place, and the creature guards one. The other is unprotected, but no one who has gone in has ever come out."

I nodded. I assumed that was the one we came through, the nest having taken care of anyone who came through from this side. With their scattered state, it was even more unlikely they were ever going to make it through that mess.

"How long has it been since the fall?" I asked. The timeline was odd, because Belsara had fallen ages ago, but the Webworld was clearly still coherent, so it was possible it had remained functional for some time after her death. Still, having some idea when all this happened might help us understand the scale of the threat better.

Sadly it wasn't to be. "I honestly don't even know anymore." sighed the broken down man. "It feels like eternity. The fall was…well, slow and fast at the same time. It started a while before the actual events took place, but the final destruction of Heliovant, at least to its current state, took a matter of weeks. As for the traitor, it's not too complicated. After the death of our Lady, the city was ruled by council for generations. The traitor obtained a seat and decided it wasn't enough. He unearthed the creature to wield it against us."

"You seem more sure about this part," I pointed out. "Did you happen to know him?"

"We weren't close, but yes," he nodded. "In fact, he was my wife's brother. His name was Niles, and he was a fool. He died early in the collapse."

Lark spoke up. "If you knew him, then you might know more about this creature than you think. He must have mentioned it at some point? Anything you know about how it functions would be helpful. We can infer a bit based on what you've told us so far, but the more information we can gather the better our chances at taking this thing out."

"Take it out?" he said sharply, eyes snapping up to meet Lark's. "You think you can destroy it?"

"I think we don't have another choice," I cut in. "It's guarding the gate. We need to get through the gate." We also needed to know what was on the other side, but I decided to stay focused. "Now, you were going to tell us more about the creature? What happened when your brother in law unearthed it?"

He grimaced at that, but decided to answer. "Nothing at first. Like I said, the fall took some time to enter the final phases. We managed to piece some of it together after the fact. From what we can tell, he found and dug up the creature, but it was very weak. It had been starving for years, unable to feed its disgusting hunger. He brought it food, kidnapping angels to nurse it back to health."

"How does that work, exactly?" I asked. "The feeding. It takes the flame and leaves the Impact lodged in the flesh? Why?"

"We don't know," he admitted. "But I've heard some theories. Most people believe the creature was born…Empty. It came into being with a hole inside it, one that desperately needed to be filled. It has no flame because the flame is an expression of the spirit, and it has no spirit. It has a SOUL, mind, but it isn't whole. You see it in certain kinds of Ascendant sometimes. Spiritual damage wears away at the soul, depriving it of all feeling."

I thought about Felicity, my cousin who had been tortured to make the perfect warrior. I wondered if it was like that. "So he absorbs the flame to feed himself, and he never developed one of his own. I imagine he gets strong fast when he's well fed?"

"He is an emptiness in the world," the other man said. "I know of no limits on his hunger. He grows unchecked."

"Not unchecked," Lark said immediately. "If he grew unchecked he'd have become a god and left. I imagine he's run into an issue at S-rank. His Saga is most likely unfinished or unbalanced because of the predatory nature of his growth. Shortcuts are fine, but at some point you need to know what you're doing. His Domain is most likely incapable of bearing the weight of his Saga combining with his physical body."

I frowned at him. "So…what's the move? Obviously we need him gone, and if we can free and restore the corrupted all the better."

"That still bothers me," he said slowly. "The corrupted don't fit. Not based on that story. There needs to be reciprocity if he's influencing them. Something they're taking in. You can't take in lack of flames." He froze. "Unless there isn't a lack at all. Maybe the flames are there. Maybe they're just…invisible."

It took me a second to get it, but my dad didn't have any problem. "The kid," he said in understanding. "You said her flames let her walk in perfect stealth. You and Morgan were the only ones who even noticed her. Her flames are glass, not invisible, but if they're related somehow…" his eyes narrowed at Connell. "IS she related to that thing?"

He averted his scarlet eyes. "Yes," he admitted. "That was how the traitor knew where to find the creature. He was descended from the oldest surviving brother. The one who didn't die. And so was my wife."

"I really hate Ascendant bullshit," I sighed. "Why does everything have to bend over backwards to be as dramatic as possible?" I glanced at Lark. "So what does that do for us? Knowing her flame is probably related to the creature? Can we study it, use it to prepare?" Because if that thing had a scaled up version of Amy's stealth, we were gonna have a VERY rough time killing it.

"It doesn't always work like that," Lark said skeptically. "But it's not impossible. With the right analysis ability. You might manage it. I have to admit, seeing what the girl can do makes me wary about facing that thing. I doubt it can do anything to me, but I'm a bit worried about what it could do to the rest of you. Just because it can't stop me doesn't mean it can't get past me. And the rest of you would be screwed if it got its hooks in you."

I frowned, but there was still one more thing we needed to know. The political drama of the traitor was interesting but not relevant. What WAS relevant was the second door. And more specifically what the hell was on the other side. "What's through the door?" I asked finally. "And why is the creature afraid of it?"

He froze. "It's…that's not…" he sighed. "We don't know," he admitted. "No one knows. No one has tried to go through it for so long. When the Lady died, the city sealed itself. All of our vaunted wisdom, culture, and kindness, thrown away. We kept up the pretense, but it wasn't the same. We were isolated. Alone. And the longer we were kept separate the more the facade started to crack. Endurance became stagnation, wisdom became arrogance. We walled ourselves off inside this place and declared it our kingdom, and that we need never leave."

"That's why your brother in law really tried to overthrow the council?" I asked, reading between the lines.

"No," he snapped. "He was an idiot. There were better ways. Safer ways. Declan was an arrogant, entitled pissant who only cared about himself. His death was the first useful thing he ever did for the world."

I snorted in amusement. "Tell us how you really feel," I said dryly. "But fine. So you have no idea what's over there? Because Lark seems pretty sure that it's got to be at least Demigod level or else the creature wouldn't be bothering with all this buildup." I was starting to get hungry, honestly, and the pasta smelled good.

"What I don't get," Zeke cut in. "Is why convert the corrupted instead of eating them? Like it eats angel flame, right? Why keep them around and alive instead of just…doing that?"

"Probably a hard limit," said Lark with a shrug. "It's not uncommon with consumption powers. They have to have limits and drawbacks or else the user would have already become a god. I'd imagine he can only feed on pure angels. Most of the remaining ones are infected with ghoul, right? Hell, he's probably starving at this point. Maybe that's why the Domain is taking so long. He can't finalize it until he pushed into S-rank proper for the Impact surge. He needs a meal to push him over the edge."

I snorted. "Well, now I know not to bring Callie back through here until we get rid of him. Lucky the rest of us aren't angels, at least aside from Sam, and I'll keep him hidden away until we leave."

After so long trapped in this enormous terrarium, the creature had no food sources left if he couldn't feed on ghouls or ghouls adjacent species. The only cleansed angel in the whole place was…I froze. My instincts were screaming at me to pay attention, that something was wrong, and my eyes snapped up, looking for Amy.

"Where's Amy?" I asked, disrupting the talks. "She was with Cooking helping set up dinner, right? Where did she go?"

Connell looked around frantically, then yelled for a nearby angel boy with moss green wings and hair. "Devlin," he said as the boy approached. "Where is Amandine? Have you seen her anywhere?"

"Amy?" the boy said. "Oh, she went out to get Clover. She left recently to hunt, so it shouldn't take long, but Amy didn't want her to miss the meal."

My face went pale. "What happens," I asked Lark quietly. "If the creature manages to consume the flames of an A-rank relative who has the stealth capability to nearly sneak past US?" My blood was ice in my veins as I waited for his answer, not only because of the danger, but because of my fear for that poor girl.

"Let me put it this way," he said quietly. "If he ranks up and sublimates that pathwork Domain into a stable one, and if he merges his Saga with his body, he's going to be strong enough to take on a Demigod. And with the matchup as it is, I don't think I'd be able to stop him."

My mom shot to her feet, eyes wide with panic. "Forget the creature, we have to save Amy. That poor girl has already been through so much, we can't let that monster eat her like he did those others." Her eyes filled with tears at the thought of the kid ending up like those still, unmarked corpses we had seen, and I wasn't far off.

I stood, turning to the others. "She won't," I said firmly. "She'll be fine, because we're going to make her fine. Everyone get ready, we're going out on a hunt of our own. We'll find her before that thing does, and once we do, we'll learn EXACTLY how to kill it." One way or another, this city would be free by the time we left.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I used Dantalion to track her, obviously. But it wasn't fast or easy. Her flame was VERY impressive, and while I'd been able to catch her inside Murmur's radius, tracking her through an abandoned hallway was a lot less viable. I could still do it, obviously, but it wasn't exactly a walk in the park.

"So, who is Clover?" I asked as I stared down at the floor, searching for traces of Amandine. It was probably smart of her to be under stealth when she was out, but it was making this a lot harder than it should be.

"Clover is Amandine's best friend," he said quietly. "She's been…agitated lately. I didn't think much of it, but now that I know what Amandine was going through, I suspect Clover may also be undergoing corruption. Rather than just finding her for food, it stands to reason she hopes you might be able to cleanse her friend as you did her."

I grimaced. That made a lot more sense. Running off for some snacks seemed stupid, and Amy hadn't struck me as an idiot. But if her friend was in danger and might be saved…that I could see.

Oddly, that little bit of information seemed to help. Dantalion was filtering the info from our surroundings, using all the parameters he had access to, including our interactions with her and her time spent inside Murmur's radius. This was new information though, and any little bit of that was helpful for narrowing down our parameters.

As I watched the floor, I was able to see a slight flicker. I'd been slowly excavating footsteps one by one as we went, and despite how easy that sounded, it had been taking all my considerable focus to achieve it.

Now though, it was like a subtle wave of force rolled across the floor, blowing a layer of dust away that suddenly revealed the clear impressions of small feet on the marble. "Got her," I hissed. Reaching into myself, I pulled on Bennu, the five colored fire flooding my body as I clad myself in phoenix flame for protection. Wings unfolded from my back, and without a second of hesitation I took off in the direction of the footsteps.

Despite the absurd level of stealth it might be capable of, I didn't think the creature could take me at this level of power. The staff had bumped me to early S-rank, and given the five colored fire's outstanding properties, I was pretty sure that would be plenty to take that bastard on.

Luckily, I wasn't an angel, despite Sammael giving me a bump in that direction at times. Given what we'd surmised about the ghouls (still a guess admittedly, but one that made sense the more I thought about it), my phoenix bloodline would make me a firm no thank you for the creature's devouring ability.

I took the hallways in a blur, staff raised and power gathering to strike. I was ready to cut loose on anything I saw attacking Amy, but I was forced to slow down and then stop when I finally came around the corner and found her. She was sitting on the ground, legs curled under her, glassy eyes trained on a strange creature in front of her, tears running down her face.

"Amy?" I asked as I touched down and hurried over. "Are you alright? What's going on?"

She didn't answer, just stared in horrified despair at the thing in front of her. Paying closer attention, it looked…odd. It was small and sort of ethereal. The top half had a blank, smooth face with a flicker of black flame coming up from the head, and it transition down to legs covered by that seemed to be an inverted flower blossom.

That was what made it click for me, oddly. The flower blossom skirt. Which was absurd, because Clovers aren't even a flower. I sighed, putting a hand on her shoulder. "This is Clover, isn't it?" I asked quietly.

She nodded, eyes horrified. "She just…changed. I don't know how it happened. She caught fire and I couldn't put it out. Why couldn't I put it out?"

"Because it wasn't something that just happened out of nowhere," I said sadly. "It was something it did on purpose. It wanted you to see. I assume it was hoping you would be vulnerable and easy to take if you were distracted. Which means-" I whirled on my heel, Dantalion having detected SOMETHING behind me, and smashed down with my staff as hard as I could.

There was a ripple in the air, a coughing roar, and an explosion of flame as the creature was forced backward, losing its stealth as it blurred backward to crouch against the wall above us, glaring down hatefully.

I grimaced up at the monster, hands tightening on my staff. It was…disgusting, honestly. It was skeletally thin and gaunt as wax paper, its hair was long and lank, looking almost dead as it hung from its patchy scalp. Its fingers had twisted and elongated into what looked like syringes, and its mouth was less a mouth and more a large jagged tear in its face lined with ragged badly aligned teeth.

The worst part though, was the eyes. They were almost pretty. Large and blank white, with long lashes and a calm, peaceful look in them that belied its screaming visage. I imagine those were the eyes of the fragile little boy that had tricked his parents into letting him go out to play with the other kids.

Behind it, wings of jagged bone stretched out behind it, casting disturbing shadows on the wall behind it as the light passed weirdly through the nearly invisible clear feathers I could see as the phoenix fire danced over it.

"You thought that was going to work?" I said coldly. "You'll need to do a bit better than that. Why don't you-" the monster vanished, and I cursed as Lark appeared where it had just been, swinging a large, cruciform black sword I had never seen before. I blinked in shock as the thing sheared through the marble wall with a screech, leaving behind a line of red hot melting stone. "You MISSED?" I demanded in frustration. "How the hell did you MISS?"

"Because it wasn't really there," he spat in annoyance. "It was a Domain clone."

That brought me up short. "You can make clones with your Domain?" I gaped. "Why the hell didn't anyone tell me that?"

"Because it's stupid and wasteful and no one does it," he grunted as he touched down. "You have to tear off a portion of your Domain. It's kind of a halfway step to forming a Domain seed. I'm guessing it left one behind to take that hit when you noticed it and then ran. The clone was unstable anyway, it fell apart after a few seconds. Probably because it used a fragment of scavenged Domain to make the damn thing. Like I said, squirrely."

I groaned. "Damn it. I thought we had it."

"Good instincts keeping it distracted," he complimented. "I would have hit it sooner but I had to lock it down with my Domain without it noticing. It's harder when they're paying attention."

I knew that the monster's absurd overstacked Domain had probably played a role as well. Still it was frustrating it had run so quickly. I had a feeling that sword wasn't something it would have walked away from. "What IS that sword, by the way?" I asked with interest.

Lark raised an eyebrow, gesturing with empty hands. "What sword?" he asked innocently.

My guess was that it was probably a foundational object, but I wasn't going to push if he didn't want to share. Instead I turned to where Amy was still huddled, staring at the flowery flaming form of her former friend. I gripped her shoulder. "I'm sorry," I told her in a soft voice. "I might be able to help, if you want me to try?"

Her head jerked up. "What? You can…you know what happened to her? You can fix it?"

"I can TRY," I stressed again. "I do know what happened, and I think I might have a fix. But it won't be quick or easy. And it might not work at all." Based on what Connell had said, the corruption process seemed to be based of the rabid ghouling, which reminded me of Felicity's situation. I had a soul repair demon who could work on that, and Zagan was the best at purification.

She stared at me in a mixture of confusion and suspicion, before finally nodding. "I…I want you to try."

I glanced at Lark. "Any chance this will ALSO help us figure out how its power works?"

He shrugged. "Can't hurt. How are you planning to contain that thing anyway? Keeping experimental subjects on hand is only viable if you're WAY more powerful than they are. Especially ones you're trying not to hurt."

Focusing on the world around me, I projected Gehenna. Amy stilled, while Lark raised an eyebrow. I glanced at the flower creature calmly, then I reached into the dust below it and flexed my connection to Brad. There was a flicker and a pit opened up. The creature fell in, and before it had a chance to even process, I clamped down with the sealing power I'd eaten from Deveskane, then shut the pit behind it, leaving the creature trapped in absolute confinement.

"Huh," Lark said with interest. "What did you just do? That felt strange. Where did that pit come from?"

I grinned at him wolfishly, even though he couldn't see it behind my mask. "What pit?"

He burst out laughing at that. "Well played, kid. Well played. Oh hey, the rest of them caught up. I was wondering when they'd finish killing all those goblins that attacked us. Hey, you idiots missed all the fun!"

Bethy appeared in a swirl of bats, saw Amy sobbing, and swept her up in a tight hug, cooing to her softly. "What did you do?" she demanded of her father. "Nothing YOU think is fun is anything a child should be exposed to." She glared at me. "Did he say something to her? He can be so blunt sometimes."

Lark threw up his hands indignantly. "What the hell? I didn't say anything to the kid."

"He didn't," I assured her. "We saw the creature." I nodded to my parents, Abel, Fade, Connell, Alanna, Stanley, and Crell as they arrived. Then I filled them all in on what happened while they were lagging behind. "So basically we need to head back so I can look into this. If I can really reverse the process…"

I let that hand, but everyone knew what I meant. Connell in particular looked awestruck. His wife was still alive out there somewhere, and if we could reverse the transformations, he might be able to get her back. When I explained about Clover, I saw him flinch as he stared at Amy. I suspected there was a long conversation in their future. Amy had already learned the truth about the corruption, so I was assuming she'd mostly figured it out, but I still didn't envy him that talk.

We took up a defensive position around Amy as we made our way back, unwilling to risk her given the danger she was in. Once we reached the wall she opened it and we stepped inside.

I said goodnight to everyone, then headed for a corner to curl up in, and once I was alone, I wrote out a note and slipped it into my ring. Once Callie confirmed she was there, I wrote out a much longer explanation and sent it to her. I knew she would want to hear about all this, about her people and their history and the state they were in. She wrote back a few times, and I enjoyed the chance to spend time with my wife, even via writing. Finally, I settled in and went to sleep. Tomorrow would be soon enough to begin my attempts to cure a spiritual contagion.