Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 852
🕑 Added 2025-03-28 00:08:24 +0000 UTCThe next day we headed to the capital. Veldran got in touch with the Ghost Bone Tower Boss and arranged for our passage. Across the Shoals, the call went out to all the C-rankers we could reach, as well as all the D-rank members of Silent Sorrow, all of us gathering for a conclave at the central Tower to prepare to make a break for the exit.
I was worried about being in the city where Skartaris was based, but I was assured that the Tower Master had the capability to keep us from being discovered. While Skartaris WAS in charge, the Ghost Bone Tower was basically a state within a state, and operated at a similar scale. Silent Sorrow had established themselves deeply within the capital and knew all the right palms to grease to get us in without notice.
I was a bit worried about the trip, but Veldran was insistent it was safe. “You won’t run into any problems with Carmichael there,” he assured me as he saw us off. “He’s one of the Tower’s strongest.”
That brought me up short. “Wait…he is? But back in the shallow he pretty much broke even with that ice lady.”
He blinked at me. “Ice…you mean DIRE FROST? One of the most terrifying servants of the Abyssal Lords? A peak C-ranker with a high level racial trait? Yeah, drawing with her is terrifying. She’s almost impossible to pin down in a fight.”
Come to think of it, that made a lot of sense. Racial traits were often OP. I’d gotten so used to being around Bethy I had started to think of them as normal. “Well, what makes him so strong?”
“He has a Legendary Boxing Skill,” he said bluntly. “Makes him almost unstoppable.”
That surprised me. I hadn’t heard of anyone who focused enough on a secondary Skill to rank it up ahead past D-rank. It just wasn’t a decent use of time when you could be raising a Skill that could become part of your Path or Chronicle. Thinking about it though, a place like the Shoals was EXACTLY the kind of place people would feel driven to do something like that.
Apparently it was difficult to manage though, if Carmichael was famous for being just one rank up.
The man in question arrived next to me. “Alright, I’ve gotten in touch with Chandra, and he’s agreed to lend us one of his candle buggies. It should make the trip much smoother. Dawnrend is a bit of a trip.” I noticed Dez was gone, joining her mother and Caldewen in Bonehook. Carmichael had insisted she stay behind to protect her family, and despite her obvious anger at being left back, she couldn’t really argue with the necessity. Dez had a scroll with her still, from our earlier deal, so she was her mother and sister’s ticket out if the void break happened early.
I glanced around, spotting one of those old fashioned looking cars with the anti mist candles on them. I’d seen a few candles since we got back, and they’d all been flaring up about five inches into the air, looking more like a torch than a candle flame. At the reminder, I glanced up at the slowly descending line of black water. The rain had dropped even closer, infecting the world as it approached. At this rate, we were looking at maybe a week. It seemed to have slowed down as it got lower, but not enough to be a hopeful sign.
We all filed into the car, the inside of which was a spatially expanded room with a bunch of cozy couches, the walls covered with red silk drapes. I turned to Argaunt. “So, how goes the recruiting? The other two Verdyn godchildren onboard?”
He sighed. “Darwen agreed, but Selvara is holding out. I think she wants to get you in a room to try to squeeze you for better terms. She’s always been kind of cagey. Dayna would be a better choice to convince her, they grew up together.”
Dayna sighed. “Vara is stubborn. Losing and swearing fealty to Lady Bethy would be unforgivable to her. Bringing me up will make you LESS likely to sway her. Not more.”
“She’s pigheaded, not stupid,” Argaunt corrected. “And she was PISSED about being hung out to dry. She was supposed to be a seed for Temple Daughter. One of the strongest of all of us for her rank. Being forced to act as disposable cannon fodder on a mission like this was a massive insult to her. Delenda arranged it, I think.”
Dayna grimaced, then noticed our blank expressions. “Peak D-rankers sent here were considered disposable. Too many things could go wrong and leave them stranded. It’s why you have a chance to turn some of them. Some of them were sent because they’re weak, but some were sent because of politics. The various godchildren all have different positions and duties. The Temple Children are considered the right hand of their god, the ones who pass on their divine decrees. It’s an extremely relaxed position, and very sought after. Only the strongest can earn the right to commune with their deity regularly.”
“Exactly,” said Argaunt. “And Selvara was in the running for that position. But Selvara and Dayna are both orphans from rare species, while Delenda has a powerful family backing her. Delenda pulled some shady shit and got Selvara assigned to sacrificial duty. I don’t think anyone expected the void break to come this soon. Raxus is double dealing behind everyone’s back, which is admittedly no surprise.”
From the look of it, I wasn’t even sure Dayna had been warned about the void break at all, or maybe she just found the whole thing distasteful. I couldn’t remember what she’d said about the whole thing, and my head was starting to hurt trying to keep track of all the labyrinthine plots.
I pushed it aside. I needed to focus on my OWN plots. What the gods were doing and why was too far above my level to bother with. I needed to stay alive and worry about that shit later.
Callie slumped down into the seat next to me, leaning over against my side. “You’re overthinking everything again. Just take a breath and focus on the next step. We need to get to Dawnrend and head to the main Ghost Bone Tower. One thing at a time. Speaking of, it might be nice to know where we’re going when we arrive. Do any of you have a map or anything? We’ve been flying blind for a while now.”
Carmichael nodded. “Veldran assumed you’d want one. So I borrowed a mirror map.”
Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a mirror. “I have to give this one back, so be careful.” He set it down on a coffee table between the couches, and there was a low flash and then…a city was there. It was a hologram, projected from the mirror to float in front of us like a scale model of the gaudiest collection of buildings I’d ever laid eyes on.
Dawnrend was made of gold. All of it. The whole place looked like a normal city that someone had dumped molten metal across, coating the buildings with the stuff. No windows, few doors.
I whistled. “That’s…pretty hideous. Did Skartaris build that?”
Carmichael waggled a hand. “Kind of? He took an existing ruin and plated it with the most durable metal he could find. Abyssal Gold. That’s a C-rank metal mined from the depths of the ocean, and one of the sturdiest. Despite the ugly appearance, it’s never been successfully sieged. And people have tried. We think that the agreement to supply that gold was one of the earliest cooperations between Skartaris and the Abyssal Lords.”
He pointed to a spire on the left hand side of the projection, then to a gate beyond it. “This is the Ghost Bone Tower. We’ll be entering the city through the undergate. For every entrance, there’s a matching access point below ground. The boss had them installed to enable some of the smuggling operations that both sides benefit from, though we get more use out of them. The undergate will be guarded by Silent Sorrow personnel, so your entry will go unremarked.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be in TOO much danger,” I said thoughtfully. “While the godchildren are looking for me, I think half the reason they moved up the void break was so they could just send some C-rankers in en masse to shake me down. I’m sure they’d still kill me if they could, but I doubt I’m a priority, even for them.
“Skartaris, meanwhile, has even less reason to care about me,” I grimaced at how over my head I was, thinking about the local monarch. “My scrolls are valuable, so I’m not a non-entity, but I doubt I’m a focus with so much going on. Especially not if Silent Sorrow are making their move.”
Carmichael nodded. “The boss has always been a problem for him. But the layers of secrecy and compartmentalization in place makes discovering which of his inner circle is in charge untenable, and peak C-rankers can’t be so easily replaced. The council are the strongest Ascendants in the shoals, so just getting rid of them all is off the table. With the boss ready to come out of the shadows, even with backup inbound once the void break happens, he must be floundering.”
I tried to decide if that was an ocean pun, but ignored it to focus on his comments. “That means the conclave itself will be a huge danger, doesn’t it? Like what if they catch us and lay siege to the Tower?”
“Won’t work,” said Argaunt, cutting in. “You’re thinking too logically. Skartaris is a despot. The whole reason the Tower Master managed to put together this force is because people are sick of his shit. If he brings the fight out into the open, he’s immediately calling due every debt and contract, assuming that things will shake out on his side. Any of his people who were on the fence will be forced to pick a side, and they might not pick his.”
Carmichael made a noise of agreement. “Exactly. As long as he lets it drag out, no one draws a line in the sand. Then, when the Void Children show up, all the hedgers will see the way the wind is blowing and fall in line. Lets him maintain his forces at maximum capacity when the Void Children arrive. He’s not an idiot, so he doesn’t TRUST them, and he’ll want as many of his C-rankers as possible to try to smooth over the transition of power.
“After that, he’ll probably just LEAVE, since C-rankers won’t be sealed here, and as a peak C-ranker, he can break through as soon as he’s out, as can many of his people,” he grimaced at the mental image. “An army of B-rankers would be a welcome force in many factions, I would assume.”
I nodded. “Definitely. The five faction alliance might raise a fuss about the void, but, the vanished gods won’t. Hell they were INVOLVED. I’d be shocked if one or more of the godchildren isn’t courting them in expectation of that breakthrough.”
Which meant the connection between them might be deeper than expected. That was a scary thought.
We discussed our entrance, going over a few contingencies in case we were noticed. Just because I didn’t expect trouble didn’t mean I shouldn’t prepare for it. After an hour, we had it all settled, and Carmichael put away the map, obviously relieved by the fact that it wasn’t at risk anymore. I wondered if he also borrowed that from Chandra. If so, that guy must be pretty scary.
With the planning done, all that was left was to wait. I closed my eyes, entering my library to resume work on Callie’s new racial trait. I still had a ways to go, but I was hoping to finish it before everything went wrong. I wanted her to be as safe as possible for what was coming.
