Wish upon the Stars chapter 920

The rest of our trip to the C-rank zone was surprisingly mellow. After we affirmed our alliance with the Murk Elves, several of them joined up with us. We also stopped at multiple villages, towns, and even a city or two along our slightly serpentine path, and now we were arriving at the first C-rank city on the spoke we were following, Devayre.

Our forces had grown as we traveled, now up to a full seven hundred and fifty. As we approached Devayre though, I had a strong feeling that we needed to stop there, regardless of our plan. My fatewalker abilities were hit or miss, but didn’t usually steer me wrong when they did pop up, which told me that something in that city was important to us.

As we approached, I recognized a familiar figure. A tall red haired woman with golden eyes, decked out in pure golden armor with onyx inlays and wielding a colossal mace over one shoulder. She noticed me looking and smiled easily, waving cheerfully as my army marched down the stone path we’d been on for the last twenty miles or so. As we came closer, she snapped off a lazy salute. “Ellisara of Estelos at your service sir. Head of your personal guard in C-rank.”

I glanced to her side, noticing another familiar figure, an incredibly pale girl in a black dress. I grinned at her. “Hey cousin, you look like you’re doing well. Making friends I see? Aren’t you glad I fixed you up?”

Felicity snorted. “Not really. I was harder to annoy when I was a blank slate. This one never shuts up.”

Ellisara gasped, putting a hand to her chest. “Why I never. Lissy, I thought we were best friends? I was going to introduce you to my brother. You two would get along swimmingly, you’re both huge buzzkills.”

My cousin rolled her eyes. “I’ve met your brother, remember? He didn’t make a good impression.”

I snorted. “You two manage to gather any of the others, or have you been too busy taking your two woman comedy show on the road?”

Ellisara snorted. “We’ve got about thirty of them in there. We’re doing surprisingly well here, a few of the factions have tried to poach us, but between me and Liss, we’ve bounced anyone who got too shirty. Some of those C-rankers you sent in here are impressive. That archer Argaunt is a dour bastard, but he can shoot like a cannon, and he’s kind of cute.”

“Argaunt is here!” Dayna popped up next to me, excited. “That’s fantastic. He should have the other C-rankers from Verdyn’s faction with him. And we can use them to find the others. Tracking is one of our specialties.”

“That’s how we found the ones we’ve got,” Ellisara nodded. “Those pods weren’t designed to stick together. You’re lucky you had the vampire to cart your people in, or you’d have been swarming the D-rank zone trying to track down the rest of your people for days. Or wasting scrolls to do it. Regardless, I’m glad you found us first. I promised my master I’d watch your backs.”

I nodded gratefully, happy to have such a powerful guard. Ellisara was my mother’s personal disciple, and a subordinate of my grandfather. Her Solid Path was in my mom’s Stellar Flame Fist. Its ultimate transformation, the Sunsmasher Body, was a terrifying fighting state my mom had pioneered herself, and she was legendary for the whole set of techniques, earning her the epithet “Star Queen”.

I’d seen Ellisara fight before, and she was scary. Speaking of that fight. “I don’t suppose your brother is here?” I asked her. We’d originally met Ellisara and her brother back during the conclave held by the six gods (in absentia). Her brother Malkyr was an Earl with the Empire, and had a Job called Cinder Centurion, which enabled him to mold weapons out of living fire. I could think of a few uses for that power given Chelsea’s ability.

Sadly, she shook her head. “Not this time. I didn’t want him coming anyway. That was why I decided to follow him to the conclave and beat him. Dad isn’t so confident in his abilities anymore, and he was less likely to send him here. I had a bit of an inkling it might get moved up. My brother is no slouch, but he’s not ready for this kind of environment. He’s too…soft.”

“Awfully prescient of you,” I said wryly. “Because to the surprise of absolutely no one, something has gone horribly wrong.”

We filled them in on everything as we walked back to the city. Devlan, to my surprise, caught up to us despite the obvious reunion and interrupted. “I just heard from the The High Society,” he told me breathlessly. “They sent one of the local branch heads to collect the crystals here. You’ll be paid an estimate in advance, but he wants to meet with you immediately.”

I grimaced. “We’re supposed to be going to get our people. We have thirty C-rankers in town waiting around for us, can’t this wait?”

“Sorry, no,” he said bluntly. “When one of the bosses calls, we go. Trellan Saint is one of the strongest C-rankers in the zone, and a direct blood relative of our current A-rank society head. He’s fairly easygoing most of the time from what I hear, but with this much money involved, no one would be relaxed. He said now and he means now.”

Ellie’s gold eyes flashed menacingly, but I held up a hand. “No, that’s reasonable. We dragged our asses getting here, making recruitment stops left and right. I’m not surprised they sent someone to meet us, and delaying any longer would be bad manners.” I squinted at Devlan. “That said, we WILL be going in armed and ready. So if he decides to start things off with a show of force, he’s going to have a bad time. I’m assuming my people can show up within minutes if needed, and Ellie and Felicity are more than up to holding down the fort while we wait for backup.”

“If I was planning to double cross you, which I’m both not and can’t, I’d have jumped you en route,” he pointed out bluntly. “My people might not outnumber you, but there are enough of us to be seriously inconvenient in an ambush. Besides, no matter what happens, Bethany has the crystals and to get them out of her Domain we’d need her held. I don’t think even killing her would manage it, not that any of us are stupid enough to try.”

Both good points, though I thought the latter was a bit more of a factor. Still, he’d helped us out a lot, and despite how much help WE’D been, I was also his meal ticket, so I wasn’t too worried about this being a trap. That said, better safe than sorry.

We entered the city with surprisingly little resistance. Devayre was as open and inviting as Yettin was closed. Forget walls, there weren’t even gates. Just a lot of archways ringing the city that anyone could enter or leave through. We followed Ellie and Felicity down a few back streets, heading for the spot where this Trellan person was supposed to be meeting us. He’d given an address, but Devlan wasn’t familiar with the city, and while the girls weren’t local, they’d been here for a while as we’d made our way to the zone, so they knew the way.

To my surprise, we did NOT end up at a bar, or a club, or any sort of food preparation establishment. In fact, we didn’t end up at an establishment at all. We came to a stop at the end of a deserted back alley, in front of a pair of nearly horizontal angled doors in the cobbled street. Benny turned to Devlan. “You know what I love about this situation? How much of a trap it doesn’t feel like. When I think of traps, I think of any situation but one where a shady ally leads me and a mostly inferior group of my friends into a literal hole in the ground at short notice carrying a lot of expensive treasure.”

“He’s not wrong,” I told Devlan flatly. “Your contract is the only reason I’m even considering this. Next time tell your boss to pick somewhere less sketchy. If Ellie and Felicity weren’t here I’d dump your crystals on the street and leave you to cart them down one by one if needed.”

He shrugged helplessly. “Noted, but this isn’t exactly one of our strongholds. I’m sure he just needed a quiet meeting place and this was what was available.”

I rolled my eyes, letting everyone go ahead, but to my surprise, I was stopped by Benny before I could follow. I turned to him with confusion. “Hey man, what’s up? You’ve been quiet lately. That’s the first thing I’ve heard you say since we got to the zone I think. Anything I can help with?”

“Yes, actually,” he said with a grin. “I need to borrow something. Or rather, I need you to get it for me. I’ve been working on a new invention to integrate, and I need you to spot me some materials. Namely, I want one of those infinity crystals. Just one bar of the stuff, I don’t think I can work with much anyway, but I just know if I can integrate it into one of the powerful devices I’m making, I’ll be able to boost my strength by a ton.”

I vaguely remembered getting him some pieces of gear with souls in them, an axe and something else, but I had no idea what they did or any of the specifics. Still, I’d been a bit worried about my best friend. He’d done a TON of training, but since he’d come back from his trip with Sebastian he’d been sort of distant. Some of that was obviously me being stupidly busy managing hundreds of people, but I also suspected he didn’t really know how to talk to me while we were here.

Him coming to ask for help was a sign of trust and a relief to me. So of course I gave him shit about it. “Man you know how much they’re going to charge me to get one of those? I’ll probably have to eat one or two percent. That’s well outside my contract. You’re like I kind of like you sometimes.”

“If only that feeling were mutual,” he grinned, his eyes sparkling with a gratitude neither of us wanted him to articulate. “I tolerate you at best, and that’s only on your good days.”

I laughed, clapping him on the shoulder, and we turned and headed in. Nothing else needed to be said. He knew I’d do my best to get him one of those crystals, and I knew he’d use it to become as strong as possible to help me accomplish my goals. Benny and I might have been a bit distant lately, but he was still my best friend.

We stepped onto the stairs, heading down to where Callie and Celine were waiting for us, and when I explained to my wife where we’d been she rolled her eyes. To my surprise though, I saw Benny glance at us thoughtfully and then at Celine, and his face became pensive. I made a mental note to bring that up later, because I was pretty sure I knew what he was thinking.

When we got down into the weird cellar building, we passed all our people clustered in a big sort of warehouse room. Devlan was waiting, and he ushered us into a small wooden chamber where a slim blonde man with a well trimmed mustache sat at a rickety wooden table. Trellan noticed us as we entered and looked up, smiling widely. “Ah, the guests of the hour, please, do come in, we have so much to discuss.” Somehow, I didn’t think he just meant the crystals. Now I just had to figure out if that was good or bad.