Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 843
🕑 Added 2025-03-14 23:36:39 +0000 UTCStanding at the bottom of an empty sea bed as dark water poured from the sky was a bit surreal. I’d expected to be coated and submerged in moments, but the downpour didn’t seem to be touching the ground. There was a strange effect where the drops were hitting the air itself. Not like there was a platform or an invisible wall, but like every piece of sky was solid until struck and then returned to being normal air.
It created a stilted, jagged visual distortion that gave me a headache to look at, but it was pretty clear what we were watching.
“This is the void corrupting the dungeon. It’s still pretty high up, probably because it’s spread across the sky, but it’s dropping reasonably fast. I’d give it a day or two at that speed,” I took the risk of flexing Dantalion, and while it couldn’t extend enough to map what was happening, I was able to use its calculating powers to do a quick timing check.
“They probably used the void shattering that ejected us into the Shallow to trigger this,” Callie said grimly. “Creating a negative pressure on the other side of the Dungeon’s dimensional barrier to attract the void energy in the ocean even through the barrier. It’s like when an explosion displaces as air and it all rushes back in to fill the hole.”
“Shit,” I cursed. I turned to Dayna. “How will the other godchildren react to this? Some of them are stuck in here, they can’t be ok with the Void doing this while they’re still inside. C-rank void army or not.”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t be. Nor would most of Lord Verdyn’s flock. The Wild Hunt is sacred, not to be disturbed. Raxus and Hatescream are another matter. Stralthrem, the god of Dread Fabrication, is fairly mercenary, and will work with anyone that benefits him. If any of the gods were involved it would be those three.”
I grimaced. I’d had very little contact with Stralthrem’s worshippers, but none of it had been good. From what I’d seen, the Vanished Gods were mostly remote and kind of dickish. Delthrys and the Lady seemed like they might be decent, and I hadn’t seen much of Verdyn, but he seemed like he might be tolerable. Hatescream and Raxus were huge assholes who deserved to die, and Stralthrem was apparently a divine sociopath, joy.
We didn’t have time to worry about that though. I reached into my ring, pulling out the mirror, but my attempt to use it fell flat. With the void distortion around us, we had no contact methods. I grimaced and turned to Callie, whose current unsettling void connection was our only source of information.
“What do we do?” I asked her directly. “I don’t know enough about this situation to make a plan. I need some kind of heading, some semblance of a clue for how we get out of this. Do you have any ideas?”
She frowned, pressing her fingers to her temples to rub them, and I stepped closer anxiously, worried I was pushing her to hurt herself. She realized what she was doing and jerked her hands away, shooting me a wince that I was sure was supposed to be a reassuring smile. “Use Piece of Mind,” I told her worriedly. “A few parallels will help process. It’s too much, right? Lots of diffuse information and its hitting you all at once?” I could feel a bit of what she was experiencing through the bond.
Nodding, she closed her eyes and I felt her trigger Piece of Mind twice. With three active versions of her brain processing the pressure seemed to ease. Her soul was under a bit of strain, but at our level, two parallels was child’s play.
After she triggered the skill, she took a minute to sort it out. “We came in sideways,” she eventually said. “Used a portal Celia made. But there should be an exit. An actual departure point. If I had to guess, it’ll be in the main city, under the control of Skartaris the Weeper. Skartaris who has literally a hundred C-rankers working for him.”
I cursed. I’d been afraid of that. I scoured my mind for any details that might be important, anything we could use to escape. Any reason I could find not to give in to the thought that I’d just doomed everyone I love to becoming void snacks. Finally I remembered something. I turned to look at Carmichael. “Why were you fighting the Abyssal Lord? Skartaris puts on a front, but he seems like he’s well aware of the Void's influence here. Why fight with them? You weren’t a City Lord right?”
He shot me a sharp look, studying my mask, but since it was blank wood he didn’t see anything, and he eventually shook his head. “No. I don’t work for Skartaris. I work for Silent Sorrow.”
Dezcarta gasped. “The Resistance? Dad what the fuck? Do you know what they would have done to use if they found out? How the hell are we alive right now? And how did you know?” Her tone was demanding as she spun on me. “You didn’t seem surprised he said that.”
“This place fucking sucks,” I said bluntly. “It’s a literal misery factory. I’d have bet my left arm that someone here was trying to stand up for the people Skartaris is torturing. But I also had a bit of a hint. The Ghost Bone Tranquility Tower. The tower master helped us, despite being ostensibly on Skartaris’s side. We were actively working against the void, even if we didn’t really know it yet. The Tower is a front for your group, isn’t it?”
Carmichael grinned. “Smart boy. Normally I’d have had to kill you for figuring that out, but given the circumstances I think I can let it go.”
It hadn’t been me, really. Or not entirely. Dantalion had been active multiple times during this trip. Even when I didn’t come to direct conclusions, I still internalized the data gathered, and the form helped me process data I’d already had. It had been hampered by the void energy and the fact that I couldn’t use it much given the distortion, but it had still been plugging away at little details and problems I hadn’t even realized I was thinking about.
He turned back to his daughter. “As for how you’re alive, I imagine the boss swept my involvement under the rug. C-rankers are hard to come by here, and ones like me outside the general system are even harder to find. It DOES happen, even if it’s rare, and he used me for a lot of sensitive missions. It would be just like him to watch your back after I was gone. I’m guessing your appointment to City Lord was much smoother than most others. You’re young for a CL.”
She frowned, presumably at the idea that she didn’t earn her position, and he waved a hand. “Not saying you got a handout. C-rank isn’t something everyone can do. Solid Paths are a pain in the ass. I’m just saying he might’ve put a thumb on the scale.”
“So…we need to head to the tower?” I asked, getting him back on track. “You made it sound like external C-rankers aren’t the only ones on the payroll. How many of the generals does Silent Sorrow have access to.” I was starting to come up with a plan, but I needed to know if it was doable.
“Not enough,” he said bluntly. “Maybe thirty. Could have fluctuated a bit in either direction, I’ve been gone a while, but the protocols for flipping a C-ranker or turning a potential are exhaustive. If Skartaris got word of what the boss is doing, a lot of people would die.”
I noted that despite the tower being confirmed as a hub, Carmichael had never actually said the NAME of the tower master. In fact, I hadn’t heard it anywhere. I’d heard that he was Skartaris’s right hand, but it was possible they meant he was part of some kind of inner circle. Maybe they didn’t even KNOW who was in charge.
But thirty C-rankers, while substantial, wouldn’t be enough to take down sixty. At least not NORMAL C-rankers. I grimaced, considering my options. “I think we need to find the godchildren.” I said after a minute of reflection.
“You want to flip them,” Callie said skeptically. “You really think we can?”
“I think asking them all to spend their lives in here and asking them all to lock themselves in with an army of void creatures are different things,” I said with a shrug. “I get the feeling Raxus didn’t exactly share the immediacy of his plans with them. At least not all of them.”
Chelsea cut in. “Ok, but why would they help us? They can’t leave. If they do, they’ll die, so if they side with us they’re risking turning the central authority here against them, not to mention pissing off the Void Child and its spawn.” She was right. We were operating on incomplete information. We didn’t know what was going to happen when the Shallow consumed the dungeon. Maybe they would be welcomed by the Abyssal Lords and the incoming Void Children as the army grew.
Hell the C-rank Void Children would need to be able to escape, so maybe the Shallow would stabilize to let them out. But we had another card to play. Several S-rankers waiting outside for a big fight. If they came out with the Void Children they were risking death.
I reached into my ring and pulled out a scroll. “Yes, leaving here is impossible,” I said smugly. “Or at least, it should be. We’ve seen powerful Ascendants drop and then regain Impact before. I can’t trade Impact unless the other person has an excess, but I bet I can suppress it. We give them a way out. A clean exit and a job working for us. They won’t be able to double cross us if they use their employment as payment. Two birds, one stone.”
She froze, staring at the scroll, and her face lit up. “That’s brilliant! I didn’t even think of that. It also solves your recruiting problem in the same stroke. We still need a sizable chunk of C-rankers for the succession war. Thirty to forty should be MORE than enough. With all your A-rank slots filled we just need to find some more B-rankers.”
“We can help with that,” Sable said. “If you have that many C-rankers on the payroll, my grandmother will definitely sign up.”
Dom nodded. “My ancestor too. And he might even commit a few other high ranking clan members. Plus you still have your intro with the popsicles. This actually might turn out to be a lucky break. Getting enough people in a short time would have been tough. You might get as big a bump off pulling this off as you would killing that C-ranker.”
I had to make some time to leak that information, actually. The Ghost Bone Tranquility Tower could probably help with that. I hadn’t gotten an influx of points in a while, and I was betting all this would net me some serious income. I was going to need it. I had almost given up hope of breaking through to C-rank during this mess, but I could still prepare to do it during the succession war.
“So, I guess we need to head for the nearest Ghost Bone Tower then,” I said as I looked around. “I do have one question though. Does anyone know where the actual fuck we are? Because this whole area used to be ocean, and I have no clue how to get a heading here.”
Everyone looked around in helpless confusion, and I sighed heavily. “Yeah, I was afraid of that. Let’s head for the tallest nearby landmark, hopefully we can find something tall enough to catch site of the shore.” And hopefully we didn’t run into any horrible Abyssal sea creatures waiting out in the sands. Desert and ocean all in one, lovely.
Comments
Malcolm Tent
Nah. Killing up at higher ranks is hard but not impossible. Doing it across the watershed (from E to D) by himself might have done that, but D to C doesn't. It's worth remembering that Lark has fought a GOD across a watershed. Callie's circumstances are unique because dead gods don't show up often in a killable state. It's like finding an evil unicorn. And then beating it to death. With sasquatch.
Void
Would this count towards a unique title associated to him that is equal to Callie's god slayer title?
