Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 839
🕑 Added 2025-03-11 00:35:39 +0000 UTCThe next morning, after I stored my wishes, we got ready to descend. Callie, who had been distracted all night, called everyone to a stop before we did. “Everyone needs to be careful. The void is a place without real space, and space and time are connected. Temporal anomalies are common in Void Shallows. In fact, the rules or reality themselves can be extremely malleable here. If this challow has a master, we might run into some strange laws we have to follow.”
“Did my grandmother really teach you all this when you were training with her?” I asked her worriedly. I could tell from her tone that Callie didn’t feel confident in this information. Not that she didn’t know if it was true, but more that she didn’t know where it was COMING from. Which wasn’t ideal.
Callie looked nervous. “Not…all of it. I keep remembering things. Things I shouldn’t be remembering. I think it’s from some of the Abyssal energy I incorporated into my Path. I wasn’t going to mention it until we were safe, but…it’s kind of worrying me.”
I could tell. She’d been occluding our bond a bit, but just enough to shroud the details. I knew her well enough to feel when she was concerned, even with only vague emotions coming through. “Just…try not to engage,” I said worriedly. “Abel and I will take the front. You and Bethy can hang back and recuperate.”
“Lame! That sounds boring,” Bethy chirped as she skipped up behind Callie, throwing an arm over her shoulder. “We’re totally tough enough to deal with some stupid brain darkness. Don’t worry Cal, I’ll help you keep it out. I’m good at that kind of thing. You can fight as much as you want.”
Callie’s eyes moistened, and I could see how much it touched her that Bethy was willing to stand with her when she was such a potential danger. She expected it from me, we were married, but Bethy…our vampire friend never ceased to amaze me with her courage, at least when she wasn’t befuddling me with all the other aspects of her personality. We all beamed, confident as we descended the plateau to reach the archway of the ruined city.
There were no guards, no gates, no barriers at all. Just a single sign hanging next to the arch that said “Don’t use the letter Y”.
Callie grimaced. “I was afraid of that.” She said worriedly. “There’s a Void Official. Someone is manifesting laws with intent instead of leaving them to the natural functions of the void. Once we cross the arch, we have to follow the rules.”
“Otherwise…” I asked slowly, pretty sure I already knew.
“Otherwise we get shunted out of the Shallow and into the Void proper,” she said grimly. “Space and time don’t exist in the void, like I said, which means moving there, at least without a specific ability to control it, shifts you in ways unrelated to realspace. You might move an inch and end up falling into an S-rank star going supernova halfway across the universe once you’re out.”
I grimaced. “Alright people, look sharp, don’t use that letter.” I could already tell that was going to be annoying, but it wouldn’t be TOO big of a problem.
Everyone nodded, and we lined up shoulder to shoulder, in a curved line that would let us more easily keep track of our surroundings. With that done, we entered the city. As soon as we stepped across the arch, the world became…heavier. Everything got cold and hollow, like any solid object we saw was just an egg shaped like what that thing was supposed to be, and any interaction would cause it to hatch and slaughter us.
Besides us though, I could see other people now. They were faint, more ghosts than anything, but they walked through the streets around us, passing through my friends. One of them seemed to notice me, but before I could say anything, Callie grabbed my head and yanked it around, pointing me at a sign. “Don’t speak to anything without any eyes.”
I quickly realized the ghost I’d been about to address had a blurry, faded face, with only a mouth visible. I swallowed hard, then nodded a thank you at my wife. “Alright people,” I said again. “Mind the signs. Don’t use the letter, and don’t speak to beings without optical orbs.”
Figuring out how to say that without using the letter Y was harder than I’d expected, but more annoying that difficult. With my Focus, it wasn’t a problem, and just to be safe, I split off a parallel to focus exclusively on that. Callie stared hard at the ghosts. “Be careful,” she warned. “These ghosts might not all be harmless.”
Everyone tensed, but no one said anything. The easiest way to avoid slipping up was not to talk. We had to find the exit, and we were pretty sure that was in the center of the city, in the giant temple complex we could see from outside.
This, I was pretty sure, was the underwater city Abraham had mentioned in his sermon. I wasn’t even remotely surprised that it turned out to be a hellscape full of dead people, he’d been that kind of guy. We walked on, ignoring the ghosts, even the ones that tried to get in our way and speak to us. Especially me. I realized after a few steps that I might count as not having eyes, and I mentally messaged Callie, having her pass that on just in case.
After about twenty minutes, we came to a crossroads. A sign hung in the middle from a post. “Walk, don’t run.”
Reaching up, I pulled my mask off before addressing my friends. Without the mask it should be safe for them to respond. I was glad none of them had replied verbally to my first instructions. These signs were trickier than I had first assumed. “All of us should bunch up. I don’t like being so spread out. Clump together.”
I’d dropped all my forms except Sammael and Mornax. I’d tried to keep Dantalion active, but the whole are had some sort of interference buzzing through it. It cascaded through my senses, creating a kind of echo that continued to loop and amplify until my brain felt like it was going to explode, so I’d immediately dropped it.
We continued along the road, heading for the temple complex, but we were quickly drawn to a stop by the least expected member of the party. Dezcarta pulled up short, her eye wide as she stared at a figure standing in the center of the road. A man, middle aged and gaunt, with sunken eyes and a light stubble of salt and pepper hair. “D-dad?”
The man had been glaring down a series of ghosts surrounding him, but at her words, he turned around and raised a brow at her. “Do we know each other, miss? I’m afraid there must be some confusion. Though I have daughters, both are small children.”
“Carmichael Taggart,” she said quickly, her sole eye locked on his face. “Who disappeared eight decades ago, leaving behind a wife named Nasha and two daughters, Caladwen and Dezcarta. When I was five, I remember being carried to the baker, and we would each get an extra sweet roll. We’d eat them on the walk home without opening the box, so mom and Ad never found out.”
He blinked at her in astonishment. “...Dez? What happened?” he paused. “Wait, I disappeared eight decades ago?” He looked lost. “I don’t understand. I’ve been walking for just a short time.”
I was mildly impressed they’d managed that whole conversation without using the letter Y. I wasn’t sure I’d have remembered. Still, that wasn’t the main issue. I turned to Callie. “Like I said,” she shrugged. “Time and space don’t work the same in the void. Or in the shallow. Him being here decades ago doesn’t mean we won’t run into him. Whether he’s some kind of temporal echo like the ghosts or has been in some kind of timesink, I have no idea, but we should get out of here fast.”
“Is there some method to anchor us?” I asked worriedly. “With the Path related to this place?” Not being able to say the fucking WORD Abyss was really inconvenient. I wondered if that was intentional, a way to slowly pile on difficulties until we couldn’t function.
Callie raised her hand, and the darkness of the street around us began to pool at our feet, our shadows expanding as she focused. While she did that, I turned to Carmichael. “So…I guess we’ve got an open spot in the group. Interested?”
The ghosts behind him, all of whom had eyes, luckily, booed and hissed. The spokesperson, a large barrel chested man with a thick ghostly beard, stepped forward to sneer at me. “Fools! None shall pass our barricade. If thou wish to proceed, it shall be through our incorporeal flesh and translucent bone!”
I honestly couldn’t tell if the weird dialect was a symptom of being from an earlier time, another region, or just an affectation to avoid the letter Y, but it was irritating. I just glared back. Just to fuck with them, I slipped my mask back on before responding. “As if we’re scared to go through a few phantom wisps. Not that it would even come to that. I imagine it would be difficult to have a fight without being forced to run. We have staggering amounts of firepower.” I gestured to where Dayna (the name of the heaven murder elf Bethy had converted to our side) stood menacingly in silence, a hand in her quiver.
I’d honestly lost track of Dayna after the mess in the ocean. In my defense there were a LOT of us here, and she didn’t talk much. Apparently she had been willing to become one of Bethy’s thralls in order to keep her word, which was good because Bethy had no one to feed on in here. She could go without, but having a source of blood and points made it easier to maintain her control.
Bethy could theoretically feed on anyone, but feeding on non thralls was excruciatingly painful, and it broke her heart to subject anyone she cared about to that kind of pain. She mostly avoided eating as much as possible. Rationing blood she stole in combat through her domain. I’d felt it when she cut into me with her claws during our fight, Bethy’s “bite” was more than just what she did with her teeth.
The ghosts, seeming to notice the interplay, hesitated. “There is no passage,” hedged the leader. “Sir Delphran demands this. To allow a departure would be tantamount to rebellion.”
I frowned at that. “Delphran? Is that the name of the Lord of this Void Shallow?”
He barked out a laugh. “Though jests,” he jeered obnmoxiously. “Sir Dephran is the eldest of the spirits in this place. All who lack the flesh of the living give respect.”
Sighing, I turned to gesture for Carmicheal to come stand behind us, leaving him to catch up with his daughter. “Well, it seems we’re at an impasse,” I said with a shrug. “Move or die, we don’t have time to argue.”
Callie had tied our shadows together in some strange ritual diagram that I’d never seen before and found VERY worrying. It would apparently anchor us temporally so we didn’t end up lost in time, but she hadn’t know how to do that a minute ago. I was in a hurry and these bastards were in my way. “Abel,” I told my friend coldly. “Take a walk.”
Grinning, he cracked his neck in both directions and then started to stroll forward. At one step the air rippled, at two it started to tint, and at three steps Abel was gone and a figure made of rippling swirling blood had taken his place. The ghosts, understandably, got the hell out of the way.
Comments
Melody Haren Anderson
Curious, was this ending on a Hellsing Abridged reference? Because Alucard gets told to take a walk to release all his limiters.
Jachin Nelson
Specifically he's abridged Alucard, which fits way better
Void
Abel, this groups Alucard. Atleast he isn't as prone to enthusiastic strolls.
Malcolm Tent
She didn't use one until she entered the city. It only kicks in on entry. If I missed one let me know and I'll fix it. I did a search to try to confirm but it harder than it sounds.
Gunnar Crider
Can only one law be made at a time? Because Callie used a y. Or is she immune to it due to her path?
