Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 774
🕑 Added 2024-12-09 18:12:45 +0000 UTCThe end of the trials marked the end of my time on Rackham, but not exactly how I expected. I’d figured there would be a few days downtime and then I’d be put on a ship to somewhere. I’d also figured that we would be selecting our prizes for our trial points either in private or once we got wherever we were going.
To my surprise, that both did and didn’t happen. After the trial Bernadette had picked me up, and rather than take me to a shuttle or to some selection room, she’d escorted me across the planet to a small, dark stone temple in a secluded valley.
Once we landed, she stood back, gesturing me inside, and when I was sure I wasn’t under threat, I eventually headed inside, pushing open the double doors cautiously and stepping into a sea of endless dark. Once I was in, the doors closed, and the dark around started to shift. Small lights began to accumulate around me, and it took me a second to realize I was looking at stars.
I didn’t exactly know constellations, and even less so the ones around here, but based on the way they started to move, I kind of assumed that Rackham was the starting point of this little journey.
As I stood there, motionless in space, my consciousness rocketed through the galaxy, eventually reaching a dark spot in the sky that I recognized as a black hole. Without even slowing down, I plummeted into the depths of the tear in space, and I had the uncomfortable sensation of standing in moving darkness for a split second until the dark receded, and I found myself plummeting through a broken red sky.
Instants later I crashed into the ground, slamming down onto a circular platform with enough force that, had I been here in real life, I’d probably have died.
Since I wasn’t here (though based on the shining purple of my current avatar, I was pretty sure my soul was), I climbed to my feet unharmed as I glanced around the area to see exactly where the hell I had ended up.
I stood on a mountain peak. Or rather, above one. The dark temple I’d ended up on was sparse, just a ring of columns surrounding a flawless circular mosaic platform. The mosaic itself was spotless, as if the red dust storms whipping the desert landscape around us couldn’t touch it. As if they wouldn’t dare.
Off in the distance behind us was a colossal fortress of jagged dark glass. I had no idea why so many Ascendants favored dark and spooky imagery, though I imagined it had to do with humans being more willing to focus on the negative. Still, even among Ascendant buildings, this place was next level creepy.
“What the hell?” Asked a surprised voice. I turned to see that the other ten platforms (pillars, I was pretty sure) surrounding the central platform, were all filled with figures. Interestingly, they were normal human colors, not purple like me, so presumably the soul shade thing was only visible to the owner of the soul. I appreciated the minimal amount of privacy, at least.
The nine other residents of the platforms were…eclectic. A shirtless, wild looking guy with ragged brown hair to his back and a five o’clock shadow hunched in an animalistic crouch, golden wolf eyes scanning the area hungrily, a small girl a bit younger than me with intricately plaited red hair and bright blue eyes that reminded me of Callie’s wore an old fashioned green and gold gown and a black velvet cloak, a wicker basket hanging from one arm.
A dark skinned man with kind eyes in a robe, holding a staff of gnarled wood, stood across from a doll like, caramel skinned girl in pig tails wearing a set of functional chain mail. One of the platforms just had an actual dog on it, a small furry white animal with unusually intelligent eyes, and one had a nondescript brown haired guy in a brown leather jacket and informal brown boots over blue jeans.
A regal woman wearing a silver ball gown and a dark metal tiara stood near a hunched looking imp with mottled grey skin and small, stubby wings, and the one nearest to me, to my left, was a hooded figure I couldn’t even make out under the darkness of their voluminous robes.
The big attention suck though, was the figure in the center of platform, seated on a massive black glass throne made of jagged pieces that were almost definitely digging into flesh, sat a figure covered almost entirely in bandages, with the only exception being a tarnished silver mask reminiscent of a burial mask, and long dark hair twisted into dozens of braids, black glass hanging from the strands.
“Welcome,” said a flat, surprisingly airy voice that rose around us like the climbing gales of a slowly arriving hurricane. “To Mourne Kayze. Welcome to my realm.” The voice made me feel cold. Not physical cold, but spiritually chilled, like I was stuck in a dark world all alone. “You have been brought before me to claim the spoils of your victory. Pain may be eternal, but once endured, it makes way for new growth.”
The wolf eyed guy sneered. “Who are these losers? I figured we would get one on one time with you. I didn’t crush everyone else in my trials to share the spotlight with a bunch of wannabes.”
Tarnished silver shifted in the dim red light, turning to face him, and then…misery. Agony. Torment. Woe. And that was just what I caught of the runoff. She didn’t attack him, didn’t punish him. She just stopped doing him the courtesy of hiding what she was. It was worse.
Wolf boy didn’t scream, he was in too much pain for that. He just went pale and dropped to a knee, slamming his forehead to the mosaic of his platform hard enough to split skin. “Forgiveness,” he gritted out. “Mercy.”
The feeling vanished, leaving me feeling a little sick. Black Sorrow hadn’t been seriously trying to hurt me back on Callus. If she had been…I didn’t know what it would have done to me, but it would have been worse than a little scare. That hadn’t even been malicious or directed and I felt like my soul might have cracked if it went on much longer.
“You have been chosen,” continued the Lady of Lamentation. “You have been judged and recognized. Your pain has been endured, and you will choose your rewards. I will not bond with you. Will not coddle you. Pain has no favorites. Torment knows no preference. Agony is, above all, fair.”
Without moving at all, she did…something. A scroll appeared in front of me, unrolling in my face as it hung in the air. At the top was the name Mephistopheles, and beside it was a number, 18,347.
Below that was about a hundred tidily written options, laid out in a neat list with the name on one side and a number on the other.
As I scanned the list, I used my peripheral vision to look at the other selectees. A few things became clear. First, I didn’t know any of them. And I would have. Some of them felt dangerous. In fact, almost all of them did. I was pretty sure Rackham hasn’t been the only trial planet. These were the winners from the others.
Second, they all looked tense, and suspicious as hell. Which was fair, because we were gods knew where completely at the mercy of a deity who could snuff out our souls like birthday candles with a casual thought.
Weirdly, this helped me feel better about my mission. This wasn’t some kind of deep bond, I wasn’t becoming her personal messiah. I was a random lackey she was dealing with for a second and didn’t care about. I got the weird impression that even if she found out I turned on her, she wouldn’t care.
It wasn’t perfect, but I could at least try to ask my grandfather to try to intercede with the Revenant, see if there was a way to like…confine her back to her pocket dimension instead of shattering her soul and tossing it to the cosmic winds.
My conscience momentarily salved, I focused on the list. It was extensive. And the hundred entries seemed to be more like subheadings, because if I focused on one the list changed. I found one for missions, then jumped over to harvesting jobs (I’d be able to keep a percentage of my haul) and scrolled through until I found a name I recognized.
Fields of Strakkenthar. Six spaces open. That had to be it. It wasn’t the most expensive job to pick, but apparently there were some very valuable items in there, so it wasn’t cheap. Thirteen thousand points to take on the job. I’d be harvesting there for one month, and there was a warning about hostile natives. Great.
I selected it, and the total at the top shifted down to five thousand and change. I searched for anything else I might be able to use, and there were some interesting things. Weapons, armor, elixirs. I didn’t want any of those though, not when I saw a particular item listed.
Abyssal Rose. A cutting of a bush from the darkness below, grown in the blood of a dead god. It was listed as a Path supplement, and alchemy ingredient, and a possible weapon material. The thorns excreted an abyssal poison that could infect shadows.
It was five thousand. I didn’t even hesitate, I just grabbed it. I knew without checking that it would be helpful to Callie, both to help her form her Solid Path and as a possible weapon.
My last few hundred points I spent on a trio of Master grade skill shards. Empty ones I could try to infuse with my Goetia Staff art when I finished my last form. My friends were all pretty set in their ways combat wise, but I might be able to give them to some of the pavilion kids or something.
I had forty seven left, and I didn’t want to waste them. I bought myself a single use, C-grade dowsing rod that could locate anything I’d been in contact before, as long as it wasn’t too far away or too high rank. That cost 40, and I spent the last 7 on food, ordering a few abyssal wyvern steaks that I thought Callie and I could share.
When I finished, I looked up to find the Lady staring at me. “You are owed yet more pain,” her airy voice whispered in my ear like a cold cemetery wind. “You will stay behind when they depart. You will undergo Rebirth.”
I nodded, knowing for sure that the others couldn’t hear me. I’d been wondering about that. It seemed that I’d be heading straight for the fields when I was done on Rackham. It was honestly kind of a relief I wouldn’t have to face her in person. I wasn’t entirely convinced the mask would actually have helped.
The rest of them finished choosing,vanishing one by one. As they did, I glanced at the scroll again, still hanging there, and I blinked in surprise. All but two of the spaces allotted had been filled. Four of the others had chosen the fields as well. I wasn’t going to be alone down there.
I didn’t have time to think about it much, because the scroll turned to black dust and blew away on the wind as others vanished. Suddenly I wasn’t on the same platform anymore, now I was standing on the central platform, right in front of the lady.
“Prepare yourself,” she advised coldly. Then she snapped her fingers. Tiles from the mosaic fell away, plummeting out into a bottomless void, only for the space to suddenly fill with what looked like liquid quicksilver. Before I could ask what she meant, something hit me from the side, sending me plummeting into the pit, and my mind was consumed with agony. Well, here we went again.
Comments
CamChains
tftc
CringeWorthyStudios
Shane’s as much of a cinnamon roll as ever. Of course the first thing he spends his hard earned torture points on was for Callie. Thanks for the chapter!
Michelle Ray
Poor Shane in for more pain. 😊 Thank you for the chapter! 🤎
