Wish upon the Stars 1009

After rescuing Marco, I finally had all of my cabinet slots filled. Which meant my only major business, barring the big festival if it was still happening, was the trial. Thinking about that though, it reminded me of another thing I hadn’t done yet. “We should go visit Roland,” I told Callie. “We got so wrapped up in Darren’s death we didn’t even think to see how he’s doing.”

I felt bad just thinking about it. Poor Roland had been a victim of an attack same as Darren, and we hadn’t even bothered checking in.

It wasn’t hard to get directions to his place, and as soon as we did we headed out.

Unlike Darren, Roland did NOT live in the main wings reserved for high level family. Despite his talent and ability, he had a small single unit house in one of the villages. It took a surprising amount of time to make the trip, given all the twists and turns, but when we arrived and knocked on the door, a familiar face answered.

Delia looked EXHAUSTED. The oldest of my cousins from the succession war, Delia and Roland were close friends. I’d expected him to have a parent or something around, but given how good their relationship had seemed maybe she was his sister or something.

She gave us a wan smile when she saw us. “Shane, Callie, good to see you both. Are you here to see Roland?”

“Yeah,” I said sheepishly. “We would have come sooner but-”

Snorting, she waved a hand. “Everyone’s heard about the trial. You’ve got bigger problems. He’s still unconscious anyway, so it’s not like he’d have noticed. Please, come in. Can I get you something to drink?” She let us inside, and I looked around the incredibly spartan housing. Everything looked…worn. Cared for, but very well used. Couches, end tables, all of it was surprisingly low end.

My surprise must have shown in my body language, because Delia chuckled. “Roland is an atavist. You know how some Wyndham’s are born without the bloodline? Well sometimes distant relatives with no real family support develop it too. A lot of them end up in the Orphan Branches. It can be hard, because when we hit D-rank and come back, most of us meet our parents, siblings, or grandparents. Roland doesn’t have any close relatives in the clan.”

I could almost see the story play out before my eyes. Advancing as fast as I had made me pretty uniquely lucky among Wyndhams in some ways. It got me lots of attention and appreciation. Plus I didn’t hit D-rank and have to scrape out a living here among all the clan descendants. The image of Roland working his way up from D-rank, living here and barely getting by, was a rough one to swallow.

“So, you said he’s unconscious?” I asked Delia, feeling like I needed to focus. “What’s wrong with him?”

“They don’t know,” she grimaced. “Some kind of poison energy. It’s lingering in the wounds. We’re on the list for treatment, but healers who are strong enough to fix it are rare everywhere, especially the kind we can afford.”

I frowned. “Well what about the energy? Does it give any clues to who might be responsible?”

“Not that we can tell. It’s tough to say, really. This IS the WCP, and attack scrolls are always on the table. Single use wish based poisons aren’t COMMON, but they’re not rare either. So it’s impossible to tell who the attacker was. Wish, ability, consumable scroll, it could be any of them. Whatever it is, it’s nasty enough that the B-rank healer I hired couldn’t do anything about it.”

“Can you tell me more about what’s wrong?” I asked with interest. Purification and healing were two of my strongest powers. If it was a B-rank injury, combined with my Ten Demon Tree’s ability to raise the rank for a form or ability temporarily, I had a good chance at being able to clear it out. Much like Mornax, Zagan, as one of my peak forms, were basically unrivaled at the same rank.

She sighed bitterly. “Like I said, we don’t really know. The wounds are infested with some kind of lightning locust poison. It’s not an animal, but it’s not REALLY energy. It propagates, and when the healer tried to clear it out, the faster they destroyed it the stronger it got. Roland’s body seems to be keeping it in a deadlock, but any attempts to tip the balance makes it worse.”

“Can I see him?” I asked carefully. “I promise I won’t do anything without understanding the situation.”

I could use Dantalion to examine the wound before I tried anything. While I was pretty sure Zagan would be able to handle the problem, I didn’t want to make it any worse than it already was. A thorough examination was the best bet.

She stared at me, her face conflicted, but she knew I had means beyond what most people were aware of. She’d been around for the Void incursion and seen some of the stuff I’d pulled off. Plus I was the upcoming Wishmaster (probably), and that wasn’t an office you snagged without being able to walk the walk.

“Alright,” she finally said with a deep breath. “Follow me, he’s in here.” She nodded to a small wooden door in the back of the room, tucked away in a corner I might not have noticed if she hadn’t mentioned it.Pushing it open, she ushered us into the room where Roland was bedridden.

He looked TERRIBLE. Pale, sweating, hollow cheeks. Like he was being eaten alive. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and a wound on his side was buzzing with yellow energy insects made of some kind of…decomposing lightning. The yellow of the bugs was a sickening color, not like sunshine or gold, but more like pus from an infection, and just seeing it made me slightly nauseous. The energy was just BLEEDING corruption and disease.

Stepping closer, I triggered Dantalion, focusing on the wound. I winced as my senses locked onto the composition, and I started to shake. One second. Two. Then I cut it off, jerking back and turning to vomit into the corner, barely opening the mouth of my mask in time.

Callie lurched forward, but I held up a hand. “I’m good,” I rasped. “Just…a lot. First of all, that’s a rank higher than me, second of all, the design is disturbingly optimized. The parasites are evolving second to second. Every time someone tries to get rid of them, or his body tries to fight them off, they get a little stronger. I can’t trace the origins because there have already been THOUSANDS of iterations, but I can tell you based on the frankly horrifying construction, this was most likely made by a wish.”

Either that or someone who had spent their whole live refining this ability. But no one with THIS much juice in B-rank would have managed to fly under the radar, not even here. The Wish power was a unique ability in that it perfectly maximized stats. It found the absolute most effective configuration of power and created a skill that could execute that.

This attack was the result of a skill like that, I could just TELL. Which was bad. Because it meant whoever the Void had active here was a bloodline holder. Theoretically, it could be a coincidence, or just someone mad with jealousy about me becoming the Wishmaster, but given the timing and the excuse they used, my assumption was that this was Void related. It was the thing that made the most sense.

“Does that mean you can’t fix it?” Delia asked anxiously. “He’s going to die?”

“No,” I reassured her. “It just means I can’t STOP fixing it once I start. And it’s going to take a while. Callie, can you help me out with some deduction? Don’t hit it head on like I did, just focus on point of contact. I’m going to need everything concentrated on the process.”

My wife nodded, and I triggered Zagan, elevating it to B-rank with the power of my staff. Life and purifying power rolled through me, bolstering my confidence in a way I hadn’t realized I needed. The corruption of the swarm of lightningrot locusts (apparently I’d deduced a name by accident) had actually tainted my consciousness, poisoning me by association just from trying to observe them.

I reached out and took Callie’s hand, making sure to flood her with purifying fire before she began her deduction, keeping her safe. Leviathan would have worked better but she couldn’t upkeep two forms, especially not for a delicate operation like this.

Within moments, I felt information flooding the bond, and my hand shot out, clamping down over the wound. I poured a torrent of green flames into the injury, and Roland screamed, arching up off the bed. Delia, without even being asked, stepped forward and clamped her hands down on his shoulders, pinning him to the bed so he didn’t throw me off.

It was appreciated, but barely noticed because as soon as I made contact, I felt a SURGE of overwhelming disgust as the fucking parasites tried to burrow into ME even as I started burning them away. Closing my eyes, I focused on Callie’s information. The locusts were alive, and they were reacting, but with the read from Dantalion, I was able to react to their reaction, directing my power to where it was most needed.

When I’d first seen Roland my eyes had been drawn straight to the wound, but looking back I realized that wasn’t the only spot where I’d seen yellow. The locusts had climbed into his veins and were burrowing under his skin along the length of them. The hollowing of his flesh made the subtle writhing yellow of the veins stand out even more, but I’d been so distracted I’d missed them.

Now though, I wasn’t missing anything. I was following the flame through the wound and into his veins, splitting off parallels as I diverged to keep track of everything. Callie clutched my hand tightly, directing my assault, telling me where to give ground and where to double down.

It was slow. It was agonizing. And I felt like I was burning alive myself as Zagan continuously ground out the infiltrating power of the parasites as they tried to invade my body and Callie’s. One step forward, two steps back. It was a slog. Step by step, I burned away the infection, cleansing Roland’s body, and the deeper I got, the harder it became. As I moved forward, they started to adapt, resisting the cleansing fire of Zagan a little longer with each locust.

Not THAT much longer, mind, and I was still eradicating them too fast for them to make up the difference. But barely. The time dragged on, my mind splitting and groaning under the pressure. But I kept it up. I’d trained for this kind of pain. It was nothing to me.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity but according to my scan ring was more like five hours, the last of the infection was purged. I dropped Zagan immediately, collapsing to my knees in pain and stress from maintaining a B-rank form for that long. Even as a C-ranker with a Chronicle, that was NOT fun.

Callie caught me, but I could tell she was almost as tired as I was. “Holy shit,” Delia said in awe. “Is it…did you do it?”

“Yes,” I said bluntly. “Yes we did. And you’re welcome.” With a groan, Roland, who had been incoherent for the entire time we’d been here, say up, body shaking and skin too tight over his bones.

“Thank you,” he rasped. “Thank you so much.” His eyes filled with tears, and he slumped back onto the bed to cry silently. I turned away to give him privacy, and Delia pulled him into her arms for a fierce hug. And honestly, despite the strain…it felt pretty good.