Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 604
🕑 Added 2024-04-16 00:11:49 +0000 UTCStepping back onto a suppressed landmass after four months on the Necromedes was a bit jarring, but we adapted much faster than the last time. “This place is…big.” I said in awe. The continent was triangular, with each of the three main factions taking up a corner. The Church, The Empire, and the Fairyland. Each of them had their own section of town, and we were headed for the first.
“I can’t wait to see mom!” Gushed Chelsea, pulling me along. “She’s going to be so jealous I found out about the wedding first!” Zeke trailed behind us, eyes scanning the crowds lazily as if expecting an attack. I hadn’t seen him this tense outside combat.
Laughing, I pulled back, forcing her to slow down. “Might be a good idea to bring my fiance along instead of leaving her to get lost in the crowd.”
“Thanks.” Callie said as she caught up to us. “Inhuman speed is less useful in a crowd like this. Is there a way to clear a path?” She looked uncomfortable around so many powerful Ascendants, and I didn’t blame her. Everyone nearby was at LEAST E-rank, and I counted more masters than hairs on my head.
Zeke shook his head. “Not smart.” He admitted. “I could probably make a hole, but these are faction elites. Chances of one of them having a spare Arch-Bishop or Duke kicking around aren’t low, and I’m pretty new to this rank.”
Benny jumped, spinning around with his hands coming up in a fighting stance. “Someone just tried to pick my pocket.” He patted his pants and then pulled out a small rectangle. “Wait, no they put something into my pocket.” He squinted at. “Karen Carllson’s Kidney Collection.” Grimacing, he shredded the card and dropped it on the ground. The paper turned to ash on contact, and a small lightning bolt leapt up and shocked Benny who leapt back with a yelp. “What the fuck?”
“Anti-littering enchantment.” Said Zeke boredly. “Maybe don’t drop your trash on giant continents co-owned by literal deities.”
Benny glared at him. “You could have warned me?”
“I guess so.” Said my uncle innocently. “I could also warn you that fire is hot or that you can’t breathe underwater. Some things should be common sense.”
I rolled my eyes, stepping between them. “Alright that’s enough. Zeke is messing with you. Any of us could have made that same mistake.” I paused. “I mean, we didn’t, so we’re definitely all going to make fun of you for it, but we could have. Thank you for your sacrifice.”
“That started out so nice too.” Sighed Callie. “Can we get going? I’m super nervous about this meeting.” She picked at her sleeves. “Like I know she liked me fine last time, but this is totally different.” She cut off, not wanting to mention my family relation directly out in the open like this. I put an arm around her as we started walking again.
“It’ll be fine.” I told her, giving her a squeeze with the arm I had over her shoulder. “I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t be excited to have you in their family.”
Chelsea grabbed her other arm. “Definitely. You’re awesome. Isn’t she Callen?” She glanced at her D-rank guard, who nodded lazily, not bothering to speak. The big bearded swordsman wasn’t one for chatter. Gabe would have been more verbose, but he’d gone with Bethy to see her father.
That left me, Jessie, Callie, Benny, Celine, Abel, Mel, Chelsea, Zeke, and Callen. Plus assorted pets. Specifically Chalk and Randall. Ten people. It was objectively a decent sized group, but somehow it felt…small. Incomplete. Nat and Valk were missing, and they’d been a part of us. It seemed wrong.
We chattered for a while, talking about nothing, and I kept an eye on our surroundings, taking things in. As we moved toward a corner, the streets eventually started to change. Not that it was a short trip. The Tricorn was huge, and we had to take large public conveyances I hesitated to think of as busses (they were so fancy) more than a few times on the way.
Soon enough though, the streets started to change. The buildings got fancier, the construction materials used leaned more towards white stone and gold trim, with lots of columns and intricate scrollwork. Somehow I knew this was Church territory without asking.
“It’s just like home!” My sister beamed. “Oh I missed the architecture. Grandpa’s palace has the most lovely atrium, full of beautiful plants and wonderful fountains. The whole place is a karmic gathering formation the Judgement Pope designed for him and it’s supposed to bring good luck to people who walk through it.”
I couldn’t even imagine what something like that was probably worth. Considering the very brief limited good luck wish back in the scavenger hunt had been so pricey…I supposed it was harder to do things like that to more powerful Ascendants and in more powerful places, but still.
“Is his palace one of those places on higher ranked worlds where the Impact is blunted to let lower rankers walk around?” I asked curiously. “If you spent a lot of time there I’d assume he made arrangements.”
She shook her head. “No, that was considered a security risk. I had minders growing up who escorted me. You can use your own Impact to shield someone nearby from the pressure if you’ve practiced it. Sometimes it was mom, sometimes it was others. We did have our own manor in a lightened section of the city though.”
It fascinated me to hear these little tidbits about Chelsea’s life growing up. I’d heard some here and there, but she tried to avoid bringing up stuff like this because she worried I’d be jealous. I’d mostly moved past that though, the engagement helped put a lot of things in perspective. If I hadn’t had my life I wouldn’t be who or what I am now, and that sounded pretty terrible to me.
Finally, we stopped in front of a particularly fancy looking building. Chelsea checked…something on the building and then nodded. “This is it. She’ll be here.”
I was curious how that worked. “How can you tell where she is just by looking at the building? Is there some kind of energy signature there I can’t detect?” It would be useful to know more about how that worked in case we ever had to come back on our own.
“Nope.” She said cheerfully. “It’s the building itself.” She pointed up at the facade, where I could see the delicate scrollwork that graced all the buildings nearby. “Those little stylistic flourishes look decorative, but they’re actually carefully constructed and contain messages. It’s an identifier that shows what the building is for and instructions on its usage. They’re a bit complicated, and they change based on a variety of factors, but knowing how to read them makes it easier to identify important strategic locations.”
That sounded…complicated. “And you use these back in the Holy Dominion?” I wasn’t sure why anyone would need a system like that in a protected location.
Sure enough, she shook her head. “No, only in battlefield conditions. But mom insisted I learn to read facades before I went to the Ruined Soul Temple. It’s standard procedure for important officials or their family members when leaving the dominion. If you want I can teach you later, I find a lot of the symbolism fascinating.”
“That sounds fun.” I agreed. “We’re going to be here for a while probably, so being able to navigate would be helpful, not to mention it might come in handy in the future.”
Chelsea beamed at me before heading for the entrance to the building. As she approached, there was a flare of light, and a pair of lightly armored guards (both D-rankers) were suddenly standing there. “State your purpose.” One of them intoned.
“Chelsea Anders.” My sister said confidently. “Here to see the Saintess.”
I was pretty amazed at the two guards. Not because of their ranks, I’d seen D-rankers before, but because from what little I’d just seen they used stealth in a way I hadn’t seen before. I knew objectively that stealth wasn’t really elemental. It was the erasure of Perception from the senses of others to allow you to move unseen.
That said, the method of that erasure tended to be flavored by certain external characteristics. When Callie used stealth she did it with the mental image of cloaking herself in shadow, as did I because the stealth I used was hers.
The guards, however, clearly used a stealth based on LIGHT. The flash had been them allowing themselves to be seen. They bent the light around them to remove themselves from visibility. How that worked with sound or other senses I had no idea, but then, I didn’t really get how darkness could do it either, it just kind of did.
The whole thing made me seriously reconsider a lot of things about stealth. Rather than a discrete Skill, it seemed stealth was more of a meta Skill, a way of applying other Skills you had similar to a manipulation Skill like Callie had. I wondered how many other ways there were to erase presence, and if there was just a basic application of the stealth skill unflavored by others.
My sister, while I was having this epiphany, had approached the guards and handed them some papers to prove her identity. They had a quick back and forth before the guards retreated, allowing her inside, the rest of us on her heels.
When we passed the threshold we found ourselves inside a colossal palace, decorated in austere white and gold. “What was that about?” I asked as we followed Chelsea down a large hall she turned us into. “Why would mom need guards, especially D-rankers?”
“She wouldn’t.” Said my sister cheerfully. “But in order to confuse anyone trying to find and bother her, the Church put guards on every building in this district. D-rankers were the most plentiful pool of troops to draw from. If there were D-rank guards outside this building and no others it would be too obvious.”
Callie blinked at her from where she’d been taking all of this in. “Wait…your mom assigned dozens if not hundreds of MASTERS to guard duty so no one would notice she was under protection and bother her?”
“Of course.” Said my sister in confusion. “She’s meeting with her children. Family time is important, especially since we just got Shane back. Oh, and you can all talk freely here. No one can eavesdrop with mom here, at least not without her knowing about it. Now come on, she’s probably waiting for us.”
At one time I might have asked how she would know we were coming, but I knew that well enough by now. She was an A-ranker. I only barely had an idea of what that entailed or the sheer volume of stats (not to mention the methods to apply them) A-rankers had. I’d seen a glimpse of it when watching Zeke fight, but I knew my uncle was much subtler than most of his peers.
Finally, we came to a doorway that led out into a large open courtyard. Above us stretched a blue sky that shouldn’t be there, trees surrounded us and birds sang sweetly in the branches. My mother sat at a table near a small pond, set with plates heaped with sandwiches and other foods.
She beamed at Chelsea and me when we came in, and I felt…warm. Seeing her so happy to see us was new to me, but not unpleasant. I was still a bit conflicted about my mom, but nearly a year of time to reflect and contemplate the things I had in my life had allowed me to put everything in perspective.
Walking over I dropped into one of the chairs, Chelsea and Callie sitting on either side as I grinned at my mother, deciding to remove my mask completely rather than retracting the mouth. Raising an eyebrow at her, I simply asked. “Hey ma, what’s for lunch?” I guessed there was more than one way to feel like you were home.
Comments
David White
Cass and Cark stayed on the ship?
