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

[Malcolm Tent]

They didn't notice me returning after my conversation with Azazel, not that I'd expected otherwise. My parallel had been keeping my body functioning as normal, which mostly meant drinking tea and eating cookies. Once I returned, I let myself slip into the conversation so I knew what was going on, and once I was caught up, I interjected. "Well, I'm excited to see this new bed when it's done," I said brightly. "But I was actually wondering if you could show us around the town a bit more. Not that I don't adore the library, but this wonderful tea has me in the mood to stretch my legs a bit."

Gordon chuckled. "I find tea has the same effect on me on occasion. Is there something in particular you were hoping to see?"

"I was interested in taking a walk in nature," I said with a smile. "Is there a park near here we could take in?" There was, according to the books, exactly one park in Sunshineville, and it was at the center of town. INSIDE that park, meanwhile, was a very mysterious hedge maze that no one in town had planted or took care of. It wasn't a sure thing, but it was a strong contender for the location of the Domain holder.

Gordon looked excited. "Of course, we can take a walk around Pleasant Park!" I almost winced at the name. The Demigod who made this place clearly had a very particular naming sense. More than that though, I was in awe of how REAL this place was. This was a Domain, a projection like Gehenna was for me, but this felt so…solid. I imagined part of that was because we were inside a Domain that had been merged with a body. The Saga contained the Domain, and when the Saga became part of an Ascendant, so did the Domain.

Of course, that wasn't going to stop us from finding this person. Just like I had a moment ago, he could manifest inside his Domain directly. Projecting a Saga infused Domain wasn't something I knew much about, though I'd seen Lark do it several times. All I could say for sure was that a post Saga Domain was stronger and more real, like this one.

It was, quite frankly, intoxicating to think about. How much I could learn from the Demigod who had created this place. I'd been floundering around on my own for a while now. I knew they wouldn't be able to give me one to one instructions, but I'd been blazing my own trail for so long now. Ever since I established Gehenna, I'd been slowly diverging further and further from common sense. Dean Gibbons, the Old Man, Atlas, there were plenty of people who gave me advice and helped me with things like mythcrafting, but my Domain had been just odd enough that they couldn't really help.

Seeing the animal people here, the town itself, and how real and solid everything was, I couldn't help but get excited. This Domain was anchored to the fragment we were in somehow, this wasn't a projection, it was a PLACE. I didn't know how they'd done it, but Dantalion was telling me clearly that we were in stable space in a way that wouldn't be the case in a normal Domain, even one like Lark's.

I was so caught up in my giddiness I almost missed Saunders asking me a question. In fact, I did miss it, but my mom roused my with a quick kick to the ankle as we followed them out the door. "Sorry, got distracted, what was that?" I asked sheepishly.

Saunders laughed. "I asked if you two were hungry? We have an amazing steakhouse in town, we could visit."

Considering we were standing in a town of what I suspected were anthropomorphized skills and most of the ones we'd seen so far were Divine rank (probably), I couldn't deny that I was thrilled at the prospect. Sadly, now wasn't the time, so I had to defer. "That does sound great, maybe after our walk in the park?"

"Sounds like a plan," he chuckled. "Hold up, Gordon needs to lock up the library so he can come with us."

I turned to see the Goat man closing up the library, locking it with a large brass key hanging around his neck that I hadn't seen until he grabbed it. "Oh, Gordon's coming along? That's wonderful, the more the merrier, I say."

Something about Sunshineville just made me want to act…pleasant. I wasn't sure if it was how nice everyone was or something about the Domain, but it was almost irresistible despite being very subtle. It wasn't just words either, everything about the place was mild and nice. The weather was JUST warm enough, with a cool breeze to balance it that carried the scent of pine and flowers, and even the street felt comfortable under my feet somehow.

I was so caught up in the spell I barely noticed we'd walked for a mile until we reached the park, and when we did, I stopped short as I stared ahead. "Um…that's a nice maze," I said slowly.

It wasn't. It was, to be frank, horrifying. The maze was constructed of bushes, which should have been inoffensive, but somehow the bushes were projecting some kind of force of malice. They were towering and terrible, with jagged dark branches and razor sharp serrated black leaves. The shadow they projected was much too large, and they gave the impression of looming hungrily over us like a great beast waiting to pounce.

"Isn't the park lovely?" Saunders said cheerfully. "I always feel so refreshed walking through here."

"You pass the maze often?" I asked, noting how he and Gordon seemed to be skirting around it without ever actually looking at it. He'd also ignored my mention of it a moment ago, which seemed a bit suspicious.

Saunders blinked at me. "The park?"

"The maze," I clarified.

"Oh, I love the park, isn't it lovely? I always feel so refreshed walking through here," his tone was identical to what it had been when he said the same thing just a moment earlier.

My mom put a hand on my shoulder. "It's warded," she clarified. "They can't see it. I don't think anyone in this town can. I've seen five or six other residents walk by and none of them have even glanced at it. One of them dropped something and chased it around the corner of the maze. Like it was luring him past. Something is keeping them away. I don't even think they can hear us talking about it."

Sure enough, when I glanced at them, I was surprised to see the two of them had turned and wandered off, chattering to each other…and to us, despite our not being there anymore. "Well, that's deeply unsettling," I said, staring at them in discomfort.

"Agreed, now what are we looking for here?" my mom said as we walked toward the towering twisted branches.

I told her, filling her in on everything I'd learned. She frowned at that. "Are you sure they're like your demons? You said they have Divine ranked skills, right? Wouldn't they be S-rank then, if they worked the same?"

"They would," I said slowly. "But they might not work the same. I mean, I can almost guarantee they don't actually. For one thing, my demons all look like different versions of me. The residents here are friendly animal people. The skills all seem to be lifestyle stuff. Teamaking, furniture crafting, baking. It seems like this person is focused on the enjoyment of life."

"You think that makes a difference?" she asked with interest.

I shrugged. "I don't know. In fact, I don't know what I don't know. Whoever they are, they've clearly gone MUCH further down this path than I have. I won't know anything until I talk to them about it. Which brings us to…" I gestured at the entrance to the hedge maze we'd stopped in front of.

"This place," she said grimly. "I don't love it. You really think they're in there?"

"Maybe," I admitted. "Theres a few places in the Domain they might be. But this one feels right to me. I can't say why, it just seems…likely. Maybe it's my fate sense, or maybe it's the similarities. Whatever the case, we need to go inside. Even if the Domain holder isn't there, we might find some clues to the missing townsfolk."

She nodded, then paused. "Actually…where are the others? Should we be letting them wander off on their own?"

"It's fine," I shrugged. "Bethy seems to like everyone, and if Mordu has anyone in town, they'll be paying attention to them and not us. Mostly because I sent a clone after them before we entered the library, so she'll think them IS us. If nothing else, it'll give us an excuse to look around without drawing any attention. Or it would if this place wasn't apparently some kind of cognitohazard for the locals. That was not part of my plan."

She snorted, but despite her amusement, she tried to step forward into the maze. I held out an arm. "I'm wearing S-rank armor," I said dryly. "And I have a powerful defensive form." I activated Mornax, boosting it with my staff before stepping forward. "I'll go first, and you can back me up." I grinned at her from behind my mask. "Just sit tight old timer, I'll keep you safe."

Her eye roll was undermined by her slightly exasperated grin. "All grown up and too big to let your mom protect you now, huh?"

I chuckled as I called for my staff, stepping into the maze. "What can I say, I've come a long way." Despite the joking tone though, my words lost a lot of their strength as I stepped into the maze. It was the strangest feeling, one second I was out in the town where the weather was perfect, albeit under the shadow of the branches, and then I stepped over the threshold and the air went icy cold.

Under my feet, dead leaves crunched, branches rustled around us, and off in the distance I heard a murder of crows squawking loudly. "Well," my mom said worriedly. "That was dramatic."

"It feels like another world," I frowned. "It feels like…" I paused to consider. "Like the citadel. Shit. You think this place is already compromised? We should have brought Lark along. In fact…" I closed my eyes, reaching for the clone I'd sent, and redirected it to my location. I made sure it knew to bring Lark along, and I gestured for my mom to wait. "Hold on." I warned her. "We're waiting."

I wasn't sure if the Demigod was here, but if they were, and if they were corrupted, I'd be screwed without Lark to help. To my surprise, it didn't take him long to find us, and as I stepped out of the maze to meet him, I was surprised to see him jump slightly. That added a bit of credence to the whole other world theory.

"What do you need?" Lark said, obviously bored. "It's usually good manners to send that in the message. Not just 'come here, will you?' Just for future reference." He didn't seem too put out, but I winced anyway.

"Sorry," I sighed. "There's a lot going on." I filled him in on the various bits of information, the theories, and everything we know or suspected. "Basically, we need you to come with us into this creepy haunted maze where no one can hear us scream." I shot him a grin to let him know that while I WAS joking, I was also being very serious.

He just rolled his eyes. "Fine," he groaned. "I guess I'm interested to see what's in there." He turned and walked away. He strode through the opening in the bushes and vanished, and after a quick shared look with my mom, I trailed after him. I had a feeling we didn't want him to get away.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

AN:// Ok, quick note. Over the last few months I've been running more stories, and I've been necessarily scaling back my output. I've found that the resulting chapters, with more time breathe and percolate, have been coming out much better. Therefore, as some of my patrons may already be aware, I'm going to be scaling back WUTS chapters to MWF. The patreon is still 20 chapters ahead, but I feel like this is the best way to make sure the last two books of the series are going to be as great as I want them to be.

The inside of the maze really felt like another world. Sunshineville, even around the hedge maze, had this underlying sense of stability and safety, but this place was different. Here, everything felt kind of…vague. Like I was lost from the moment I stepped inside. My mom frowned as she sensed it herself. "Shit," she said softly. At my confused look, she sighed, explaining. "This isn't a maze."

Lark nodded. "Labyrinth," he said in a flat voice.

"What's the difference, exactly?" I asked in confusion. "A labyrinth is the same thing as a maze, isn't it?"

"Mazes are two sided," she corrected. "They have an entrance and an exit, but their purpose is to be navigable. Mazes have a bunch of paths, but they also have an entrance and an exit. A labyrinth doesn't. It has an entrance and a center, but there's only one real path to get to that center."

I nodded slowly. "You're talking about that weird sense of unreality."

"It's called directional vertigo," Lark grimaced. "It's a labyrinth thing. They've got recursion about getting lost. Also monsters waiting inside, usually. Not sure that this one will have that, it might not fit the vibe, but then again maybe it does. I don't know enough about the Domain holder to say. Just keep an eye out."

I nodded absently. "Of course. This place is definitely not the nice little hamlet Sunshineville is. It's pretty gloomy. I wonder if the Domain holder found some way to concentrate all the negativity into this small space? Maybe something to do with his Path? Like how my Domain could seal and bind. Whatever the case, we were here now, and I was no longer wondering if this was the right place. I could feel that we were getting close to the source of this place.

Gripping my staff, I stepped around the corner, ready to take on anything. I still had Mornax at S-rank. I was sure that in his armor, Lark was tougher than I was, and possibly out of it given he was a Demigod, but my gear wasn't anything to sneeze at either, and I was confident leading from the front in this case. I was ready to hold my ground no matter what I found, ready to handle whatever came my way…until I saw what was actually there and froze in my tracks, gaping at the sight in front of me.

It was…haunted. Not in the grim, terrible sense, though it had some of that too. More in the sense that it looked like a haunted house. Tombstones and cobwebs, spiders and spooky pumpkins, not to mention skeletons standing around with swords and shields.

Everything here was a threat, mind, but it was the most stereotypical creepy setting imaginable, to the point that it created a sense of dissonance. This stuff shouldn't BE scary, not really, but it was and I didn't really understand how. There was even a big hexagonal box with a cross on it that I knew was a coffin, and as we came around the corner, it began to open slowly, the noise of its creaking splitting the still air as mist began to usher forth from under the lid.

Lark's head snapped up, red eyes glaring at the coffin, and the creepily opening lid froze mid swing. The Vampire stared daggers at the box, and the mist was sucked slowly back inside, the coffin lid easing itself closed. The second it was shut I heard a series of clicks, like someone had just thrown a bunch of dead bolts, and the box went still. Lark looked like he was debating ripping it open anyway, but eventually snorted and turned to leave. I swear I heard the box sigh in relief.

I raised a brow at Lark, but he didn't bother to turn back, and after a suspicious look of my own at the box, I shook my head and followed him, assuming he'd picked up some kind of direction somehow. We walked off down another hallway and the graveyard fell away, revealing another room, this one appearing to be a spooky laboratory.

"This place is weird," I said slowly as I looked around the room. "But it feels different than the last one. Any ideas why?"

Lark nodded. "Because we found the labyrinth guardian," he said calmly. He gestured to the center of the room, where a table was reclined at about forty five degrees. It took me a second to figure out what he meant, because there was a sheet over it, but as I watched, the figure on the table sat up, the sheet falling away to reveal a truly colossal man.

The man was pale, his deep set eyes flat and black all the way through like dark glass, his face was sharp, with hard edges and a blocky jaw, and I could feel the staggering power coming off him in waves. This was a Demigod level being, and not a weak one. His eyes bored into Lark's and I could almost feel the pressure crackling on the air between them as the man climbed off the table.

His physique was strange, his body proportions unsettling, as if he was built from parts that were all slightly too big for their bodies, and the overall effect was far from harmonious. I could see stitching on his exposed flesh, a clear indication that this was a necromantic construct, though one that felt much different than Rawhead and Bloody Bones. This one wasn't leaking the same terrifying corruption as the last. This being felt…scary. But in a protective way. Like someone had weaponized bad dreams as a shield against evil.

I wasn't sure what gave me that vibe, but I had it, and I knew that I should follow it. So I did. I stepped forward, between the two Demigods, interrupting Lark before he could attack. "Hello," I said to the large man. "I'm here to speak to your creator. Is he available?"

The menacing momentum building throughout the chamber sputtered, the atmosphere fading as both of them just stared at me in disbelief. The large man spoke, his voice like the rumble of a thousand crashing landslides. "You wish…to talk?" He sounded almost incredulous. I was pretty sure. It was hard to tell with that baritone.

"I didn't come here to make an enemy," I shrugged. "We're here to help. The Blood Witch has been taking your citizens and using them to corrupt this Domain. We want to take away her power, and that coincides with your needs. There's no reason to fight about this. In fact, I have a lot of questions for your creator, not just about this issue, but about several other things we have in common. So…yeah. I'd like to talk. Will he meet with me?"

Lark looked like he'd bitten into a lemon, but my mom was grinning like a loon. I could understand his position, to be honest. I'd only been Wishmaster for a year or two now, and I'd already gotten used to acting from a position of strength. Someone like Lark would have been a million times more used to getting his way or fighting.

But honestly, I didn't WANT every single interaction with everyone to be a battle. I wanted to work with the Domain holder, and if that meant exercising a little politeness, I didn't mind bowing my head a bit.

The big man stared at me for a moment, finally nodding. "I will extend your offer," he rumbled diplomatically. "My Master will make the determination for himself."

"I appreciate that, Mr…what do I call you, exactly?" I kept my tone polite and pleasant.

"Stein," he boomed. "My Master calls me Stein. I would ask that you wait as I seek his counsel. Similarly, I wish for you to restrain your…associate. He appears quite eager to shed blood, and we have residents within these walls who fear his potential reprisal." I wasn't sure how he knew that, but it confirmed that there had been some kind of Vampire in that coffin, and that Lark understandably terrified the poor thing.

I shot Lark a look and he grimaced, but nodded. "I haven't seen any confirmed instances of anything I would be forced to react to with violence." He said casually. "So long as that continues to be the case, I don't see why I couldn't remain here peacefully while you get in touch with your boss." Translation: keep your vampire out of my sight and I won't have to kill it.

Which made me wonder how exactly the meeting between him and Alara would go. Had gone? Had they met already? I knew she'd had friction with Bethy, which had then been smoothed over, but I hadn't heard anything specific about her interacting with Lark that I could remember. How much did his reputation as a vampire scourge control his actions? Clearly he could choose not to cause problems if he wanted to, but was that request not to see the other vampire a kindness or a necessity? Would he go crazy if he caught sight of them?

Whatever the case, he clearly wasn't crazy now, and he leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms as Stein walked past us, keeping a close eye on the large construct. Once he was gone, he turned to look at me critically. "You sure you want to do it this way?"

I was surprised he sounded so measured. "You're not going to call me an idiot?"

"I told you," he said bluntly. "Do everything you do all the way. You clearly want to make peace, and this is a good tone to start with. Just because it's not how I'd choose to proceed doesn't make it a bad strategy. Plus your mom beaming at you over my shoulder is bound to undercut and criticisms I make, so I won't waste my breath."

My mom laughed. "What can I see, you and my husband may be the shoot first questions later type, but I still like to take a diplomatic approach when possible. I'm proud that my son got at least that much restraint from me. Besides which I suspect my daughter in law is going to be just as pleased when I tell her about this. Especially if this ends up netting us another ally for the upcoming conflict. That Stein person seems formidable."

"He does," Lark admitted. "He feels…heavy. And I get the feeling he'd be a better match for me than most. I almost want to start a fight anyway to see what he can do. I won't, obviously, I'm here on business, but it was tempting."

"Well I appreciate your forbearance," I said dryly. "It's nice to know you're committed enough to the current job not to randomly attack strong people because you're bored."

He nodded graciously. "As long as you know. I'm giving up a lot here."

I rolled my eyes, because I knew there was no way I was winning this argument with Bethy's dad of all people. He might be less wacky in the day to day, but she'd learned her nonsense from him. Still, it was nice to know he was in our corner, even when he had interests elsewhere, I hadn't really been sarcastic about that part. He could have started a fight and there wouldn't have been much I could do.

We stood and waited there for about ten minutes, and eventually, I heard a steady thump in the hall outside. I blinked, looking up to see Stein enter the room. He was moving with purpose, and when he spotted me, he nodded deeply.

"My Master has heard your request for parlay," he said formally. "And decided to grant it. You may follow me to his location." I nodded, expecting him to continue, but he just turned and wandered back out. I glanced at my mom, then at Lark, and then I shrugged and followed behind him. Guess it was time to meet the big boss.

 

[Verdthandi]

Do what you gotta do! I'm thoroughly enjoying whatever updates come across my path, here.

Regarding this chapter:
* Poor vampire!
* Always nice when someone actually tries diplomacy.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Stein led us deeper into the labyrinth with the kind of unnatural dexterity you'd expect from a necromantic construct. Beyond that, he also knew exactly where to go, despite the hedges seemingly moving to block off certain paths as we walked, and it didn't take long for us to emerge from the passages into a small, forested clearing.

The center of the clearing contained a small, cozy looking log cabin, a chimney above it puffing away. In front of the cabin, sitting on a rocking chair and puffing on a pipe, was…well, an old man. He wasn't small or wrinkled, mind, his skin was healthy and mostly unlined, but his silver hair was long and bald on top, and he had a great flowing beard and ruddy cheeks that seemed at odds with his unusually burly physique.

Seeing him, I couldn't help but suck in air in terror. This guy was OLD. I remembered back at the beginning of my journey, when someone had told me that high ranking Ascendants looking either very young or very old made them terrifying. As a powerful Demigod, this guy had a probably lifespan approaching a hundred thousand years, the fact that he looked this old meant he'd been here for a VERY long time. I swallowed hard. "Greetings," I said with a casual wave. "I'm Shane Wyndham, nice to meet you."

The old man looked up, his eyes burning like the embers of a banked fire, irises smouldering a low red black. He reached up to remove the pipe, puffing out a small cloud of black smoke. "Hello," he said lazily, before replacing the pipe.

I waited for him to continue, but he didn't seem inclined, so I stepped closer, clearing my throat. "I was hoping we could talk," I said in a cautious but optimistic tone.

"Aren't we?" he blinked, clearly surprised by the statement.

"I…guess we are," I admitted. "But I mean about some more specific things. Your vanishing citizens, this Domain, the Blood Witch. Are you aware of the Blood Witch?" I assumed he was, given the kidnappings, but I didn't want to move forward with nothing but guesswork.

His eyes flared, the banked flames glowing to life as if someone had stirred the fire. "I am," he said coldly. "What do you want?"

"To help you," I said immediately. "And be helped in return. I'm on something of a quest to get my wife back, she was kidnapped, though not by the Blood Witch. I was hoping if I help you retrieve your kidnapping victims you could help with mine. I have the ability to cleanse the corruption from her magic, which means if she is using Blood Puppets to convert this place like we expect, I can help you fix it."

He took another puff, staring at me hard. "And in return, you want me to help you retrieve your wife from…who?"

"Belsara," I said immediately. I saw a flicker of surprise in those glowing eyes, but he got it under control fast. "She'll probably be open to negotiation by the time we get there, if that helps."

He sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Perhaps," he said thoughtfully. "But I'd need more than just a casual promise of repair. Especially if you're looking for more involved instruction. You ARE hoping to gain a better understanding of anthropomorphic Domains, aren't you?"

My eyes lit up. "Is that what they're called? And you can tell just by looking at me?"

That got a snort. "I've got good eyes," he said in an amused voice. "Though I have to say, you're a bit of a mess in terms of manifestations. How many do you have?"

"Seventy two," I admitted. At his wince, I just shrugged. "It was part of my path concept, and it seems to be working out for me. Is it really that bad?" I didn't know how any of this really worked but I couldn't see the downside to my method based on my past experience, maybe he could tell me what I was doing wrong.

He hummed contemplatively. "Maybe, maybe not," he admitted. "I'm not sure how your Domain hasn't collapsed under the weight. Or your soul, for that matter. Or rather, I can see some of it, but the fact that you've lasted so long means you've clearly managed your own take on things. No two Domains are quite the same, so it makes sense you'd have your own unique quirks when it comes to yours, I suppose."

That told me he might not have exactly the answers that I needed. But that didn't mean he couldn't teach me anything, I was sure I could learn a lot from interacting with the Demigod in front of me, if he was willing to teach. "Will you help me?" I asked, not bothering to prevaricate. He'd have made his decision already, so there was no use dragging it out.

"Maybe," he said slowly. "If you can show me you can really deliver. I'll need to see this purification you mentioned at work. If I can retrieve one of my citizens as you call them, will you make the attempt in front of me?"

It was a reasonable ask. I was sure he could probably reverse engineer some aspect of my flame by watching. Maybe not all of it, but if his power was as versatile as mine nothing was off the table. That said, I couldn't worry about stronger Ascendants being able to overlap my capabilities or I'd go crazy.

"Do you even have one of the kidnapping victims?" I asked him suspiciously. "I kind of assumed you had nothing to do with that."

"I don't," he confirmed. "But I can find one of them. This is still my Domain, and I can find anything within its confines. All I have to do is send Stein to retrieve one of my friends for you to check over. But I want your agreement to let me observe before I do so."

I got the impression that it wouldn't be quite as effortless as he was making it seem, or he'd have done it earlier, but I didn't doubt he was capable of it. "If you're open to helping me rescue my wife, I'm open to demonstrating my purification for you."

Nodding, he glanced at Stein, eyes flaring like banked suns for a moment before cooling again. Stein turned and left, and those eyes flicked back to me. "Well, if we're going to do this, then I should probably know your name. I can hardly just keep calling you 'the Domain owner' in my head, after all."

He snorted softly. "You can call me Dabrock. I'm not sure if that's my name, to be honest. It's been so long since I've used one I'm a bit hazy on what mine is. I suspect it's the name of SOMETHING, at least. Maybe a home or town. It should serve as well as anything, in either case. Now, I suppose while we wait, I can give you a bit of instruction in the use of your anthropomorphic Domain. First, though, I should ask what you know about such things."

"I mean, nothing?" I said with a shrug. "Or everything, I guess. It's hard to say, really. I know everything about mine, but I've never really seen anyone who had the same type of Domain as I do. Even my ancestor hasn't and he's a god."

"It's a rare subtype," he admitted. "Similar to the Webworld we stand in even now. The circumstances of its creation are less defined, admittedly, but its power is no less potent. As I'm sure you've already discovered, there is a magic in the manifestation of a living being that is unequalled by mere repetition"

I thought back to Sunshineville, to the various Divine grade skills of his animal friends. I hadn't even considered how far I could push one demon. Maybe he was right about me being spread thin. Maybe if I had fewer demons I would already have a tier 10.

"How do I help them improve faster?" I asked quietly. I had put a lot of effort into some of my demons, but others remained stalled.

"Embodiment," he said with a shrug. "While training and repetition CAN help them improve, the true power of a manifestation is in their mythology. They're constructs of song and story, and their truth is to live those legends. The more their lives are in line with their purpose, the more quickly they grow."

I blinked. That made perfect sense. It also explained why demons like Cooking ranked up so fast while Piano and Singing made no progress. Aside from me ignoring them to make reincarnation easier, I also didn't use them, or let them do anything related to their purpose. I considered how I might contribute to their growth, but it seemed like a long term project, so I decided to get back to my questions.

"How did you do…this?" I gestured around. "Merging this thing into a fragment of the Webworld? It seems so real in here."

He waved that question away. "An advanced application of projection," he clarified. "Nothing to do with my type of Domain, simply a powerful enough Domain to project, and quite a few millennia of practice doing so."

"How much help can you give me?" I asked after a moment. "You said you can see a lot about me, can you tell me if you can actually help me improve?"

"I can," he confirmed. "Though less than you might hope. You've already gone down a path that is unfamiliar to me. There are similarities, little lessons I can help with, but you've walked your own road quite a bit further than most your age. I wasn't as deep into this life as you are when I reached my first century. How did you manage to improve so quickly?"

I shrugged. "Are you familiar with the Wishmaster?"

He was less than a hundred thousand, so chances were good he'd at least heard of my ancestor. I had no idea how he'd gotten in here, but he wasn't like Mordu, who was kept alive by the magic of entropy. He was old in a way that I had context for, and clearly he knew the power players outside the Void.

Raising a brow, he nodded in confirmation. "That would do it. You've been chosen as the sitting Wishmaster? That's quite an accomplishment at your age. Even with your prodigious growth rate, you must have taken quite a few strange turns to reach your current step. Especially given the nature of your Domain. I fail to see how one would manifest a Wish ability in such a way. I take it you've got a second ability?"

"I picked it up in the Ruined Soul Temple," I confirmed. "Got myself a soul physique that lets me have two."

"That thing is still around?" he asked in surprise. "It's surprisingly sturdy for such a run down location. It was already ruined back when I was young. You would think it might have fallen apart by this point, given how roughly it tends to be utilized. I suppose whoever created it did a good job with construction."

I was about to respond, but before I could, I was interrupted by the sight of Stein stepping back into the clearing. I was expecting him to be escorting someone, but instead, he was carrying a small doll.

I recognized the doll, of course. A Blood Puppet. It was just like the one I'd seen back in the Foundry. He brought it forward, laying it down in front of me, and Dabrock nodded happily. "Lovely, you found one. Well done, Stein. Mr. Wyndham, as you can see, your test materials have arrived. Are you prepared to begin experimentation?"

Of course, I wasn't planning to experiment, but I decided not to mention that. I just sighed and nodded. "Do you have a place I can use for this, at least?" I had a feeling this would be a lot noisier than the last time I'd done this. Not that it would stop me. In fact, I was looking forward to it. I just had to prove my worth, it shouldn't be too complicated.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The place Dabrock provided was the inside of his cabin. I'd expected it to be huge and expansive on the inside like most places of Ascendant make, but to my surprise it was actually pretty modest. Modest for a Demigod, mind, so it wasn't small, but rather than a palace it was more like a fairly sizable hunting lodge with a nice bearskin rug and a cozy fire burning in the stone hearth.

"Nice place," I said appreciatively as I followed Stein inside. He was carrying the puppet gently, clearly trying not to damage it. I remembered what my mom had said about the Blood Puppets, and wondered for the first time if I COULD fix this.

Realistically, I was better suited for this than Black Sorrow or the Red Revenant had been at the time. My six colored fire had several attributes that directly restrained and refuted this process, and I had studied it in several instances and managed to reverse them where others might not have. The question became, would it be enough to undo the completed link.

The way I saw it, I had a few things going for me. Firstly, the link wasn't EXACTLY completed. The manifestations weren't discrete entities, exactly, they were part of Sunshineville, which was why this whole thing could even work. That meant that while the individual might have been subsumed, the final link had not been forged. Second, we were inside the Domain of the man who created this being, and he was here to help.

"Before we start," I said slowly. "I need information." I triggered Dantalion at S-rank, letting him begin his scan, but I also glanced at Stein and Dabrock. "Can you tell me about this person when they were still in their proper shape?" I paused. "Also can you send Lark back out to watch my friends. Seeing this makes me worry a bit about whoever Mordu has in here."

Dabrock nodded to Stein, who left the house. My mom was outside with Lark, and he let her in when Lark left, but she didn't say anything, just moving to stand by the wall and let me work. Dabrock ignored her, turning his eyes back to me. "His name was Timothy," he said simply. "He was a mouse, and he had a fondness for making clocks." His expression as he looked at the puppet was sad. "I based him off a pet I had as a child, and he was one of my first manifestations. He was kind and brave, and he adored chocolate. He was chronically late to almost everything, and he insisted on napping in the sun whenever the weather permitted."

I blinked at that. He sounded so…sad. And tired. It occurred to me that unlike my demons, which were all just variations of me, his manifestations were more like friends. It made me feel a little ashamed of how I treated my own residents. Had I been taking my demons for granted? Should I do more to learn about them?

I had already made the decision that I needed to invest more time into learning about them so I could get stronger faster, but this made me just as determined to learn about them as people. Regardless of the faces they wore, they were their own beings, and they deserved the chance to have lives and wishes outside of my own.

Rather than lapse back into silence, I let Dabrock continue. He began to tell stories of Timothy, about his habits and his passions and who he was as a person. How he was beloved by children and would always sneak them sweets when their parents weren't watching. How he was lazy and constantly tried to trick other people into doing his work for him. How he was one of the few manifestations who had seen real battle, and was from the time before Sunshineville's current iteration when Dabrock had created residents for war rather than just simple living, and how he had been so relieved to lay down his knives to open a clock shop.

The more he talked, the more complete the picture Dantalion was able to build of Timothy, and the more exact he could be in undoing the link. With a more comprehensive schematic to work from, he could design a more specific countermeasure. I even considered creating another set of shears, but this was beyond that particular device. No, this was a completed link, or at least something like one. The flame was needed.

But rather than just apply it with brute force, I started to consider my options. There were mechanisms, structures that I could use that would empower the flame. A technique. It had been quite some time since I'd made one on the spot rather than just using my demons. But I still could. I had that power.

So I considered my sources of inspiration. Things I could use, ways I could apply my strength. I had fire, and that meant I needed…and then I stopped. Fire. Fire used for purification. I had something for that, actually. Something recent.

I closed my eyes, beginning to trace back my sight. Back to a dark series of stone chambers lit at the center by a Summer fire. The Phoenix Foundry, where an element of my six colored flame had been central in the smelting and purification of ore. I held out a hand, focusing on the puppet, and it floated up into the air. I called Bennu to me through the throne, and he came, sliding over my skin like I was shrugging on a cloak.

Once I had the flame at my command, I lit the spark. Six colored fire flickered beneath the puppet, guttering to life below it like the open flame on a stove. Once that was done, I began my mental inventory.

First I took the basic materials. Timothy the mouse. I considered what I knew of him, what I'd been told, what I'd sensed, what Dan had discovered, and even what I imagined. But not just him. I considered his friends, his neighbors, his fellow residents. I added them like seasoning, modifying and perfecting my vision of him.

Once I had his connections to others, I added in the other materials. The memories, the quirks, the flaws. Timothy wasn't just a single unblemished whole, he was a composite, an alloy. Timothy was made up of lots of different materials, and I needed to add as many of them as possible during this stage. I could refine the puppet back into the whole, but if I didn't have enough material, I wouldn't be able to complete the smelting.

With each bit of information, the fire flickered and grew. This was creation, crafting and building in ways that I wouldn't have been capable of until I saw Belphegor making that armor. I had an understanding of materials now, of the composites of creation, and even if I wasn't making metal right now, I WAS smelting. It helped that I had the blueprint, of course. The puppet was more than just materials. It was the true form of Timothy. It was his core and his heart. It might have changed, but it still REMEMBERED being him. And that could be used.

So for my next ingredient, I smelted TIME. Time, after all, was the fire in which we burned. My Ruin flame was the embodiment of that concept, and it could burn all things. I'd seen that already, seen what conceptual destruction like Ruin could do if applied properly. Entropy could be used to preserve life, and Ruin could be used to restore it.

I burned away the years, burned away the changes, and restored Timothy to what he was. Without the rest of the materials it wouldn't have worked. It would have been an empty shell with nothing inside, but with them, I was able to begin to fill in the mold.

More than that, it wasn't just me. From around us, I could feel memory and emotion and love flowing into the fire, stoking it higher and higher. Dabrock remembered, which meant Sunshineville remembered. All the residents in their homes and their shops remembered their goofy, lazy mouse friend, and they all wanted him to come home.

The Summer fire kindled higher, the flame of the hearth that burned in a loving home blazing up to smelt the good memories and happy times of the residents of Sunshineville into the heart of Timothy the mouse. As it did, the flames consumed the puppet, burning away the tiny sad looking ragdoll. Rather than dissolve into ash, though, the doll began to melt, changing in composition as it became molten and began to twist and warp.

Golden particles began to pour into the fire from around us, flowing into the lodge from outside. More memories, more friendship, more love. The things that made up a person, the things that connected us to the world.

As the golden motes poured in, the molten worldstuff that the puppet had become began to grow, the amount increasing as the memories were smelted into the being I was restoring. Not to life, because he hadn't died, but restoring to truth. To home.

The melted substance began to shape in the air, guided by the memories and the hope and my own image of the mouse. It formed a shape. A pair of squat legs, broad shoulders, tiny, beady eyes. Big floppy ears and a cute little muzzle and a set of luxurious clothes including a burgundy waistcoat and a green velvet vest.

Finally, when the shape had finished forming, there was a roar as the fire blazed up, ignited as if by some kind of accelerant. The golden motes from around us poured into the flame, and the last of the smelting was completed. Before the end, the motes gathered above the form in a giant floating blob and, once the flames guttered out, poured over the top of the being I had reconstituted, tempering him in the will of this world as he was baptized back into being by the very Demigod who created him, using the power of his Domain in a way I found very similar to my ability to seal and bind.

I staggered as Timothy dropped to the floor neatly, landing in a graceful crouch. He stood, looking around and blinking, whiskers twitching. "Well," he said in casual surprise. "This certainly doesn't look like my cellar."

Dabrock was staring, his eyes wide with disbelief, shining with suppressed emotion as he stepped forward and hugged his friend. "You silly old mouse," he said hoarsely. "Look what you've gone and gotten yourself into. You'll be lucky if I even let you move back into your house. I have half a mind to put you up under guard in the town hall."

Timothy snickered. "They'd go mad within days and let me escape for a reprieve."

"I've never heard anyone sound so proud of being an inconvenience," Dabrock said with an eyeroll. "You'd think it was a cultivated skill rather than something you were born with."

"Well, if I was born with it that makes it your fault," Timothy pointed out cheerfully. "Now what exactly is going on? How long have I been gone, that we have humans in Sunshineville? It's been millennia since the last visitors."

Dabrock turned to look at us, and for the first time, I saw a spark of genuine happiness in his eyes. He smiled warmly. "This is Shane Wyndham and his mother Sasha. They're our guests. No. More than that. They're our friends." He held out a hand for me to shake. "They're here for our help, to recover some people who are very important to Shane, and we're going to get them back. His wife and child have been taken and are in danger."

Timothy's face, despite being a mouse's visage, became cold and determined. "Well, why didn't you just say so? I suppose I should go dig up the old knives." He gave me a firm nod. "Don't worry Shane, we're here to help. You'll be back with your family soon." And the funny part was? I believed him.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I spent the next few days returning puppets to life. It was exhausting, time consuming, and probably the most difficult thing I'd done since I started my journey…and I loved every second of it. Something about interacting with Dabrock's manifestations just made me feel like I could do anything. Like as long as they were along we could win.

There were five of them, by the end. At least five who had been around since the early years and knew war. Timothy, the mouse, used knives of course. Carrie the badger used a cudgel, Sal the porcupine used a bow, Martin the bear used a staff, and Dean the Raven a spear.

Martin, in particular, hadn't been one of the puppets, and when called to meet with us had come immediately. He'd offered to help train my Goetia Staff Art demon (who preferred to be called Eddie), and had been working with him during my puppet rescue sessions. Eddie had already been pushed to tier nine, and had been learning a lot about using a staff from his new mentor.

It was a clear example of what Dabrock had told me. Eddie was the manifestation of a staff art, but he was also a genuine staff fanatic. He loved practicing, and he was thrilled to work with Martin. I wasn't sure what rank Martin's skill with a staff was, or if that was the skill he was manifested from, but unlike some of the manifestations we'd met in town, Martin and Dean were both S-rank, and it was clear Martin's staff art was profound.

During the days of work, I stopped periodically to check in with Callie. My wife had been hard at work training as best she could, mostly working with her vault and staying off her feet during the pregnancy, but her abilities had become pretty celebrated among Belsara's court, and she'd been gaining notoriety at a rapid rate. She was sure she could reach A-rank before the babies came, and after confirming that ranking up not only wouldn't hurt the twins but would actually help them, had put all her effort into making sure it happened in time.

Which meant she was enshrining items in the vault, creating permanent inversions for people to promote herself, and was even working with some crafters to make it happen. I could tell she was working hard, but I reminded her consistently to pace herself, and she promised she was, so I wasn't too worried. Or at least, that was what I told myself.

Dabrock, for his part, had become something of a confidant. Between smeltings, he shared his memories and impressions of the manifestations we were restoring, but he also gave me advice and listened to my problems. The old Demigod was a font of wisdom that I hadn't expected, not just because of his age, but because of his unique perspective. Dabrock was an Ascendant who had truly outgrown the trappings of fame and renown long before reaching godhood. He didn't care about notoriety or gaining power, he just enjoyed living his life with his friends and searching for inner truth.

In fact, that turned out to be the answer to a question I'd had since meeting Gordon. "So, how are your manifestations using Divine level skills while still being A-rank?" I asked as we sat by the fireplace in the lodge between sessions.

"Let me guess," he chuckled as he sipped a mug of hot apple cider. "Your demons increase in tier as they rank up, inseparable from their skills?"

I nodded. "Of course, why wouldn't I want them to do that? I mean, I didn't know it was possible to bypass that feature, but even if I had I'm not sure why I would want to. Isn't it better for them to become stronger?"

"From a certain perspective," he nodded. "It is surely convenient, but as I'm sure you know, you can't push too many of them to S-rank or even Demigod while you're still at A-rank. The strain won't be survivable. They know that, and of course they won't do anything to harm you, so they restrain themselves once they reach that point. More than that though, linking the two factors shows something about why you value them."

I considered that. "So you're saying that if I allow them to continue to improve their skills independent of their tier, it'll show trust? That I'll be letting them be their own people and decide how they grow?"

"It is my experience," Dabrock said with a warm smile. "That there are kinds of growth beyond the numerical. Most Ascendants prioritize gains and losses above everything else. That is a path, but not the only path. Investing in emotion, cultivating friendships and loyalty. There are no numbers that tell you what a person feels, but you know very well the lengths a person can go to for love. Friendship is no less powerful a force than romance, and it can push us to heights otherwise impossible to achieve. Taking a short term loss can result in unimaginable benefits. And even if it doesn't, it shows people the kind of man you are, and that's a value of its own."

That brought me up short, because he was right. That was how I'd always done things, really. Keeping Benny and Jessie with me all these years, even when I knew they were lagging behind. Because they meant more to me than numbers on a page. And when Callie fell behind me, I did my best to help her catch up.

So why had I not applied that same reasoning to my demons? The shameful truth was that it was because somewhere deep down I didn't see them as people. Oh, some of them I considered real. I'd bonded with Brad, who had been reincarnated from an external source. But the rest of them just felt like extensions of me. Like parts of my power. I had never treated them like friends or supporters, even though that was objectively what they were. They were my court, yes, but they were also my family, in a very real way. My brothers, in a sense.

"I get it," I admitted. "And you're right. But how do I even do that? It shouldn't be possible, right? They're manifestations of my skills, the skill goes up and they get stronger. How do I uncouple them from the core mechanic of their existence?"

He chuckled. "It's both simpler and more complicated than you might think. You are aware of a Domain Seed, yes?" I nodded, because who wasn't? "Well, the Domain Seed is simply one of the many wonders of Ascendancy. There are other paths to power, other facets of development. I've made a career of studying these various paths and avenues, and I've learned many unusual tricks. One of them is what I like to call a Soul Seed."

"Is that what it sounds like?" I asked warily. "Because if so…how does that even work?"

"The same way most things do," he shrugged. "Your soul is a part of you, and you use it every day. Every technique, every ability, every skill. Your soul strains and recovers, grows stronger and supports you, just like your Domain. And just as you can learn to create a seed of a new Domain, essentially forging a second self that acts as a multiplier for your Domain and power, you can create a seed of soul, giving of your spirit to help foster a new being's true autonomy."

I blew out a breath. That was heavy. Giving someone a soul sounded complicated. But then again, how much difference would it really make? And was I really GIVING them a soul? They felt like they already had them, I was just helping make them a little more self sufficient.

"If it helps, this ALSO grants them a substantially more robust presence outside of your Domain," he chuckled. "They can extricate themselves for longer without worry of reprisal. It's a benefit of extending your trust, the increased autonomy is its own reward, in a way. Of course, they ARE still a part of you, and your ability to access their powers and make changes to them remains, though I think you'll find yourself less willing to make those changes quite as casually as you do now."

That was actually somewhat worrying, because a lot of my current strategy for growth involved those changes. But then again, I knew that my demons often preferred that, and since it was their own choice I didn't think it would be necessary to refuse. I could work around it even if I did end up feeling compelled to turn down a request to change, the throne gave me more options in that regard.

"Ok, but how do I make the seed?" I finally asked after making up my mind. "Like…what's the process? If it was something simple I imagine more people would do it." Though maybe not, after all, it was useful mostly in this specific situation, it was possible nobody else NEEDED to make a Soul Seed.

"The process is complicated and difficult," he admitted. "For most. If you have another person who has already accomplished it, however, there are ways around that. I've witnessed you forming those blueprints of yours several times within the bounds of my own Domain, I should be able to do something similar, create a mold for a Soul Seed that you can just fill. Once that's done…"

I nodded excitedly. "Dantalion can recreate the process," I said immediately, catching on to his plan. Dan was all about studying phenomena and recreating them, and he'd done so in front of Dabrock more than enough times for the old man to know it. "How long will this take, exactly?" I asked worriedly. "Do we have time to do it alongside the current smeltings?"

"It's not a short process," he admitted. "But it shouldn't be too difficult to do at the same time. You're unlikely to have trouble multitasking, after all. I'd estimate it should take a couple of days, but once you've completed the step it'll be easy to set aside until such time as you can dedicate yourself to it. There's another benefit to it, as well. Soul Seeds allow autonomy, as I mentioned, and that means they can operate at a much larger distance. If you're as intelligent as I suspect, it should then be obvious that-"

"They can help me farm renown," I said in awe. "Like having alternate identities, if my demons can range out away from me, that means they can live their lives the way they want and improve faster, but it also means they bring me more points and help me rank up faster."

Which was going to be critical going forward. A-rank was already marking a massive slowdown, and when I hit S-rank it would get even worse. If I wanted any chance of hitting Demigod, much less god in the near future, this would be a crucial step to take.

"Alright," I said with a nod. "You convinced me. Show me how to make a Soul Seed." I could almost feel the shift in myself as I said it, the winds of destiny changing course as I made a decision that would forever alter my path as an Ascendant.

Oddly though, I wasn't worried. In fact, I was thrilled. This was just one more step down a path I'd been walking for years. I made hard calls all the time, important decisions that potentially decided the life and death of millions in some cases. I was used to putting it all on the line, and I had found that as long as I believed in what I was doing, things would all work out. And I did believe in this, for more reasons than just the benefits. I believed in it because this was the kind of person I wanted to be, and there was no turning away from that.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The preparations for forming the Soul Seed weren't complicated at all. Since he'd seen me made my blueprint so many times, and since we were inside his Domain, Dabrock was more than capable of forming a mold for the Soul Seed using the Domain itself as a mechanism. It was, oddly, sort of like the Domain version of a technique, and it involved manipulating the Worldforce in a way that I hadn't seen before.

I remembered what my friend Sorwen had told me back at the Frozen Moment Academy when she was explaining Mythcrafting to me. Worldforce was kind of like a technique but not. Seeing the way he applied his Worldforce, I could see what she meant. It wasn't the same thing, but the freedom involved was similar. Worldforce opened up the ability to truly influence reality in ways that related to its composition. The same way techniques could be used to essentially bully realspace into doing what you wanted, Worldforce could do the same to the Domain, but on a MUCH deeper level.

Which meant whatever the Worldforce was that Dabrock had created, it was probably related to the soul or more likely to life. As a Demigod, Dabrock was able to form his Worldforce already, and given his age it wasn't surprising he had, but it was clear he'd had access for a long time, because he was quite proficient in its use.

Still, despite not knowing the specifics, it was kind of amazing to watch him work. The same golden motes from earlier had begun to come together, and I could see that he'd been helping me so much more than I'd expected. This was his Worldforce, the crystallization of his power and the mortar of the bricks he would use to build his divinity when and if he took that step. With this completed, I wondered if he was capable of making that final step already, or if he still needed more time. Maybe he had to create more Domain Seeds or objects of power.

Now wasn't the time to worry about that though, instead, I focused on the mold for the Soul Seed. It had begun about two hours ago, the motes gathering slowly together, forming a shape that I couldn't really put into words. Despite looking right at it, it seemed to be functionally impossible to define or understand. Like an inside out mobius strip in the shape of a hypercube. It physically hurt to look at it for too long, and that was with MY Focus.

After what felt like an eternity watching it form in short bursts, not to mention Dantalion studying it with his senses as we waited, it was finally time to begin the process. "Now, this is going to be painful and difficult," Dabrock said as he stared at the mold. "More than just the soul strain, this is going to feel strange. You'll need to force your power into the mold, then through it, the further it goes the more attributes and mythology will be stripped away, until finally only soul energy will remain."

"That does sound exhausting," I admitted. "How much power will that take?"

"Oh, that isn't the hard part," he clarified. "The hard part is controlling the soul energy once it's been exposed. If I had to compare it to something, it would be trying to flex a muscle that you've never used before, and in fact were not aware existed before now, and not just flex it, flex it in a complicated rhythm to a defined beat at high speeds."

I grimaced at that. It sounded miserable, but I knew I'd have to put in the work. I'd never been afraid of pain or effort, even when I probably should have. This sounded a bit different, but not too much different than some of the things I'd done on Rakham for the trials.

Taking a deep breath, I focused on the mold. Trying to extend energy was…hard. It was a strange sensation, not using a skill or a technique. Just effort and will. It was almost a technique, which helped, my natural Mythcrafting talent made it possible in a short time I think, and had I not been who I was I would have probably spent days learning to do that, but finally, I managed to rouse my energy and push it towards the mold hanging in front of me in the air.

Behind me, I felt Bennu working on the next puppet. I'd manifested the Archdemon to work on the smelting while I focused on this, and I was glad I'd decided to go that route, because there would have been no way I'd have managed otherwise.

The energy permeated the air, saturating the space in front of me in a way that made it hard to conclusively say anything was happening. It was a lot like trying to herd fog by moving my hands really fast. Finally, the strange potential energy met with the mold and was siphoned in, and I felt a sort of barrier being broken. Much like Dabrock had said, it got harder from there. I gritted my teeth, forcing my full attention into moving the power forward.

It was impossibly difficult. Not exerting the force, but trying not to DO something with it. It was like someone had told me not to think about pink elephants. My power wanted to be expressed in some way, and every time I thought about it my mind tried to wander and manifest a skill or a demon. A flame, a pit, any one of a dozen different paths I was consciously choosing not to take. Finally, after what felt like days but was probably hours, I finished the first circuit. The attributes I'd been ignoring and suppressing vanished, and I was suddenly driving pure soul force forward.

I wasn't sure how I KNEW that's what it was, because I did know, in a way much deeper than you can being told something. But I did know. I could feel it, feel the part of me that had never been anywhere else inside the strange mindbending shape, and feel that it was still part of me despite no longer exactly being connected.

One would think that getting rid of the outside influences would have been helpful, made it easier to move the soul force because I could focus, but it was strangely just the opposite. Now that I didn't have the distractions, I could focus entirely on the energy itself, and rather than make things easier, it was making it even harder to control. Like trying not to spill the contents of a very full cup, thinking too much about it made my control even more slipshod, and the energy became about twenty times harder to hold onto, slipping through my mental grip like I was trying to keep hold of a buttered up fish.

My head hurt, my soul ached, my teeth might have cracked slightly from the pressure. I didn't care. Because while I couldn't say I'd ever done this before, couldn't claim to understand what was going on, I had a reference point for this.

The feeling of my soul existing outside my body wasn't new to me. It had been doing that for years. My wife was my soul. My heart and my meaning. And thinking about that made any inconvenience or difficulty just melt away like snow in the hot sun. This wasn't just for me, or for the demons, it was for Callie. For our children. This would help me get stronger, and more importantly, this was the right thing to do. Callie would be thrilled to hear about this decision. She would be so proud that I'd chosen to remain true to who I was, to the person she loved.

And that was enough to give me metaphorical wings in the process. My mind clamped down on the slippery energy, an iron grip of mental effort fixing it in place before I started feeding it into the mold faster and faster. It moved through the twisting channels of the mold, thread through a needle until it met up with itself on the other side. Then again, and again, and again.

The more I pushed it through, the faster it moved, beginning to rotate on its own without any of my effort. As it sped up, it started to do more than just self sustain, it started to draw soul energy out of me. Not enough to be alarming, but enough to be noticeable. Dantalion tracked every single loop and whorl, every inch of progress and speck of soul, noting it all down for later so we could recreate this on our own.

It took another three hours before it finished, and the golden energy of the mold shattered as the seed actualized. The soul energy had been dispersed through the shape, but when that last step was taken, a wave of force erupted from the seed, shattering the golden motes as the glasslike soulstuff snapped into a smaller, more condensed shape.

I reached out and caught the small crystal walnut that fell from the air, staring down at it in disbelief. "Was that…was that it?" I asked Dabrock. "You said it was going to take a day or something, right?"

"Shane," he chuckled. "It took three. You've been standing there working for as long as we had been going to begin with. Bennu has already finished the rest of the puppets, in fact. The corruption the Blood Witch was attempting to press into my Domain has been cleansed, and we can leave at any time."

I blinked at him. Three days? That was…how did I not notice that? I stared down at the crystalline walnut. "So this is a Soul Seed?" I asked, ignoring the ache in my chest and head as I let myself feel pride in my accomplishment.

"It is," he nodded. "Though I confess I'm surprised you manifested a physical object. I expected you to summon a demon and imbue it directly. Do you often use physical totems for your manifestations?" He sounded more intrigued than judgemental, and I suspected he was as interested in our differences as I was.

"I do," I confirmed. "I have a demon imbued with Worldforce from a god I've never met. He was created from a broken piece of an object of power, and his ability lets him do strange things with holes and pits. He can open up conceptual entrances to things that let me interact in a physical way with metaphysical concepts. Combined with the fact that my Mythcrafting skill is based on clockmaking and involves physical manifestations of watch pieces, physical objects are kind of ideal for me."

Besides which, Callie could contribute to my Domain more easily that way, and I liked when we did things together. Being able to share in my growth with her was always a happy thing for me, and considering those times made me miss her even more. I couldn't wait until we could get to the castle and get her out.

Speaking of which, I turned to look at Dabrock. "If we're finished the smeltings, then we can head out soon, right?" I asked cautiously. "We're not going to be going straight there, because we need to cleanse a few more of the fragments before we arrive, I think, but the sooner we leave the sooner we get there." Of course, I was exhausted, but I didn't care about that, not if I could finally get back on the road.

Which of course, I couldn't. "You need to recover," he said mildly. "We'll spend a night in Sunshineville proper. While I'm not a known quantity, my friends are, and their return will be celebrated. After we've had a good meal and some rest, we'll set off tomorrow." He said it in a tone that brooked no argument, so I didn't try to make one, I just sighed and nodded. One more day then, and we'd be on the way once more. One step closer to rescuing my wife and children.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Two weeks. Two weeks of travel, of combat, of searching and purifying and generally miserable nonsense. We'd cleansed six fragments during that time, helped by Dabrock and the five heroes, and I was sick of it.

Not that I would say that. I was grateful for their help, and for everything Dabrock had been teaching me. I'd given the soul seed to Azazel, who had been spending his new freedom excitedly helping with our quest and getting to know the others, and Dabrock had been teaching me plenty of new and exciting ways to bring my power to bear that I hadn't even considered.

But the fact remained that I was still away from my wife. Two weeks wasn't quite the one to five ratio it had been, since we'd been getting closer and closer, but it was still a month and a half. Callie had lost touch, ostensibly because she was busy trying to complete her breakthrough to A-rank and didn't have time to talk, but realistically because she was about to have the twins and knew how much it would hurt me not to be there.

I appreciated her efforts, even if they made me feel like a scumbag for not being around for my own kid's births. Sadly, I couldn't do anything about it. This was the best way to make sure they were safe from Mordu's eventual attack, and I knew intellectually they wouldn't remember any of this anyway. The important thing was making sure they'd be safe in the future, so I just had to suck it up and put in the work.

Enduring pain was kind of my bag, even if this was a lot more emotional than my usual agony, so I was well equipped to lock in and push myself, at least, and the weeks of progress had, if nothing else, yielded impressive results for me stat wise.

I'd broken the seven hundred fifty million mark on my stats, firmly stepping into the last quarter of my needed progress, most likely because of Dabrock's good regard and because of all the S-rank enemies we'd been hunting, and had even completed the Summer Phoenix bloodline, and pushed my per scroll stat number to seventy five thousand, as well as netting a nice times three bonus to Fantasy. I was officially out of scrolls, sadly, having used them all in my most recent bout of improvement, but still, by any metric I had been making amazing progress.

I just didn't CARE about any of that. "You need to rest," my mother said with a sad sigh as she sat down next to me. "She wouldn't want you doing this to yourself. You look like a ghost. You've been pushing nonstop since we left Sunshineville. Have you even slept?"

"Don't need it," I grunted. "Zagan takes care of the fatigue."

"Yeah, because that's healthy," she said sarcastically. "I'm putting my foot down then. You need to sleep. Dabrock says we should be entering Belsara's court next. This was the last fragment in the line we picked. We've put a huge dent in Mordu's power, but this next part requires you to be of sound mind, not half insane with worry and stress. Go to bed, Shane."

I shot her a glare. "That's not your call to make," I snapped. "I'm not a child anymore, in case you missed it, and you don't get to send me to my room like I am. You didn't earn that."

She flinched, and I felt a little bad, because I shouldn't have said that, but I stood by the sentiment. She didn't get to act like my mom now, not after everything. Not in that way. I was an adult who made my own decisions.

"I probably deserve that," she said softly, in a way that made me even more sure she hadn't. "And you're probably right that I'm overstepping. But I don't actually care. You're my son and you're killing yourself. So you WILL go the fuck to sleep, Shane Wyndham, or so help me gods I will call your wife myself and tell her what you're doing, and we'll see if you're as cavalier about brushing HER off. We're close enough that I bet a scan ring could get through directly without your ring space, and if it can't it will when we enter the same fragment."

That one brought me up short, like ice water dumped over my head. "You can't do that," I protested. "She's giving BIRTH, or maybe just did, she shouldn't be worried…about…me-"

"The stupidity of that sentiment took a second to sink in, huh?" she said with a gentle smile.

"It's not stupid," I retorted hotly. She raised an eyebrow. "It's NOT! It's just maybe slightly hypocritical." I groaned, burying my face in my hands. "I don't want to sleep," I admitted. "I have bad dreams. I'm not used to being without her this long, and the longer it goes the more my imagination runs wild. I can't rest for more than a few minutes. It's fine though, I'll be fine when we get to her. Everything will be fine when we get to her." I repeated it to myself sharply, forcing my aching mind to believe it.

Because it DID ache. I was so tired. A-rankers didn't need a lot of sleep, but we needed some, and what was more we needed REST. Mental fatigue buildup was real, even with Zagan patching me up, and I'd been going nonstop for weeks now. I was blurry around the ages, my soul was aching, and I could barely think.

I wasn't stupid. I knew this was a bad way to approach Belsara, to get into the ring with Mordu or even to see Callie, but there was nothing I could do about it. I just needed to make it the last bit. I was in the home stretch, and once I reached Callie everything would be better.

"Oh, Shane," my mom said sadly. "You could have told us. You can always ask for help."

"Told you what?" I snorted. "That I, a grown man, am having nightmares and I needed my mommy to fix it? What could you even do to help? I'm handling it, I just have to tough it out. We're almost there."

My mask was off, lying on the ground next to where I sat, and I realized blearily that no one else was around. My mom must have sent them away. I had enough presence of mind to be grateful for that, at least. They didn't need to see me like this. I was just glad Jessie and Benny weren't here, they'd been coming down on me for this same thing before I left. Sometimes I really was useless on my own.

My mom sighed, reaching up to put her hands on either side of my head. She pulled me into a hug, rubbing my temples, and I sighed as I felt her purification flame flow into my mind, soothing warmth coming over my thoughts as it pulsed into my skull. I remembered her saying my grandfather could do something like that, but I honestly hadn't considered that it was possible in this case, after all, I had Zagan, and I couldn't get rid of this headache.

She noticed my confusion and laughed. "I'm not relieving the stress, not really, but I can purify your thoughts, keep the dreams away. There IS in fact, something your mommy can do to scare off the bad dreams. I hope that's humiliating, you kind of deserve it."

I snorted out a laugh at that. "Just a little," I admitted. I sat in the silence for a moment, then offered. "I'm sorry, mom. That thing about you not having the right to tell me to rest was out of line. I don't hold any of that against you anymore, you know that. And you don't deserve me taking my frustration out on you, no matter what it feels like. That was childish and shitty and I'm sorry."

"You weren't wrong," she said sadly. "I wasn't around. But I'm not letting my son hurt himself if I can help it. I don't care how much you resent me for it. You'll feel the same way about the twins when you meet them. Just because I couldn't be with you, doesn't mean I love you any less. You and Chelsea are everything to me."

"I know," I said firmly. "I've always known that. Since pretty much the first time I met you. Circumstances and resentment aside, I could always tell how much you loved me. I don't doubt it for a second. Besides, how am I supposed to hold it against you when I'm doing the same damned thing?" I laughed bitterly. "It's not like I'm around for my kids being born. I mean, you definitely didn't miss that, so I'm pretty sure you're coming out ahead already."

I meant it as a stupid joke, pointing out how she couldn't have been absent at the start, but it came out a lot more truthful than I intended. Without missing a beat, my mom's hand came off my right temple and slapped me upside the back of the head, just like I'd seen her do to my dad.

"You watch your mouth, young man," she snapped, real anger on her face. "You are NOT doing what I did. You're a bit late to meeting them, but they won't remember this. The truth is, you aren't going to be there. You might not even be around for a while after. Once we get to them, I'm sure you'll need to head off to deal with this three witches nonsense, and Morwenna is a problem that needs solving."

"So, I'm going to be the same as-" I started belligerently.

She cut me off with another smack. "You are going to do what NEEDS doing. I will not allow you to take any longer than necessary. Because that's the difference. You're not ALONE, Shane. You've brought all of us together in a way your father and I never could. Your babies might not have you around in the beginning, but they'll have me, and your father, and my parents, and we'll take care of them and love them and on the very unlikely chance that you aren't back from taking care of this mess by the time they can understand what's going on, we'll tell them how much you love them and miss them, and how you'll be coming home soon."

I stared at her in shock. Because…she was right. I'd been thinking about this as an all or nothing kind of thing. Once we had the kids our lives WOULD change, but that didn't mean we'd suddenly be cast adrift on a sea of isolation. I had friends, family, and a support system.

My parents had been screwed over by Black Sorrow's anger about my grandmother, but that obstacle was gone. Hell she was excited to meet the twins, as was my grandma, Callie's mother, and everyone else. Even my ancestor was looking forward to greeting them, and the old man rarely spoke to anyone except the current Wishmaster.

I felt my eyes tear up a bit, and I lowered my head so my mom wouldn't see. She, in turn, pretended that worked as her hand went back to my temple, and the soothing pulse of purifying warmth resumed. This time, I didn't speak as it did its work. She was right. I needed rest to be at my best to help my wife. I leaned my head against my mom's shoulder as she rubbed my temples, letting sleep finally catch up and claim me as my eyes fluttered closed.

I wasn't alone, and I wasn't going to be. Neither would Callie or the kids. We had people in our lives who were there for us, and for the first time since she'd been taken, I could look at the situation and see that it wasn't just MY job to save her. We'd all do it together, and knowing that, how was I supposed to keep worrying so much? I drifted off with a calm smile on my face, my heart easing in a way it hadn't in a long time.