Wish upon the Stars chapter 916

We hit the street like a wrecking ball of death, spinning over the ground inside the sphere so fast the outside blurred. The club was actually partially surrounded when we came out, but we shot right between a pair of groups, bounced off the wall behind them, and shot off down the road before anyone nearby could even process what had happened, our path cleared perfectly by the wish as we headed for our first destination.

“Alright, the entrance to the first cave system we need is down two streets and over to the left. It’s a Beer Hall called Dreklarskal.” Devlan said as we rolled. “The owner is a man named Sven Krang, and he and his people have reinforced the whole place. Pretty heavily. We have a straight shot in, but once we break through, we’re going to get attacked.”

I nodded. “Abel, red ball mode.” I commanded solemnly.

“We’re not calling it that,” he said waspishly. “But yeah, fine.” He narrowed his eyes and the surface of the sphere shifted, converting from clear spatial lubrication to the infinite blood sea.

We came around a corner at Devlan’s instruction. Hitting the front of the building at speed and smashing right through a weak spot in the defenses we’d arranged through a wish. The facade of the building exploded, and a dozen men surged to their feet. “ATTACK!” Howled the tallest one, a blond bearded man with an axe. Whether he was announcing that there WAS an attack or telling THEM to attack I had no idea, but as soon as he spoke, an assault began.

Slashes from weapons, blasts of energy, constructs, more that a dozen types of unique attacks rained down on the blood sphere, and we just punched right into them. There was a sort of low grinding as the energy was pulled into the rotation and shot out behind us, ejected into the crowd like dirt behind a digging dog.

Sadly, we couldn’t shed ALL of it, and the sphere flickered somewhat under the impact, even though we felt nothing inside. Abel grunted, then leaned forward, gritting his teeth as he PUSHED us onward.

The Beer Hall around us filled with screams as attacks were reflected and tossed in random directions, and Devlan screamed. “That way! Take us that way!” He pointed towards a trap door set at an angle between the floor and wall and we shot toward it, covered by the backlash of our attackers own power shredding the building.

If this had been a normal sphere, we wouldn’t have fit through the door. We were about ten feet across, and the trapped door was five, but this wasn’t a NORMAL sphere. This was spatial lubrication, and Abel could make it do almost anything. Given the motivation he could shove an army through a keyhole with this power, so stretching the sphere a bit to get us through even as we smashed in the door, then spun down the steps and off towards the back of the basement.

In the back corner, there was a large bookcase that Devlan indicated we should demolish, and once we got through it we were in a large tunnel, making our way east at Devlan's instructions. “Alright, up here we’re going to bust out into the Nightshadow Collective. It’s basically a cult. They’re going to try to tie us up with shadow ropes. It’s kind of their thing.”

We knew, from the wish session, but his warning was both appreciated and understandable. We were all just kind of sitting here doing the hurry up and wait thing, and it wasn’t shocking that he wanted to participate somehow.

Nodding, Abel took us through a shadowy black space around a corner and out into what appeared to be some kind of labyrinth. We hit the wall at speed and ramped right up it, showing it was much sturdier than some of the other stuff we’d crashed into. We bounced along the top of the labyrinth a bunch, getting some air each time, and finally hit a pair of big stairs that sent us careening up into what looked like a really somber church.

The pews were full of robed figures in dark cloth (I had no idea why evil cultists seemed to LOVE dark robes, but it was a big thing in my experience). As we crashed through the doors at the back of the church, heading for the entrance, they all rose, and contrary to the earlier encounter, they didn’t make a SOUND. 

As one, the creepy figures raised their hands to the sky, and a wave of darkness exploded from between the pews, warping into chains and ropes. It wasn’t Void shit, just dark power like Callie used to use. It hit the sphere and got sucked in, but rather than getting spit out by the rotation, it started to WRAP. We got further and further, dragging the shadows, but the closer we got to the door the more the resistance built, like we were dragging on a rubber band about to snap back.

Abel groaned, pushing us forward, upping the rotation, and I was alarmed to see a dribble of blood flow from his nose. We didn’t have a wish ready for this leg of the trip…because we didn’t need one. We’d known about these guys, and we had a natural counter. We got closer and closer to the door, the spin resisting enough to drag us onward…and then Callie flicked her fingers and a wave of shadow rose from the floor, coalescing into a giant pair of scissors.

With a snap, they closed, severing the darkness and sending us ROCKETING out into the street at a speed surpassing anything we’d enjoyed so far. Abel leaned us sideways, turning us sharply to prevent us from just smashing through the building across the road, and we took off down a major thoroughfare at top speed, rolling right over cars and sliding between groups of people. Without the wishes for this particular section of road, Abel had to be very careful, but we’d needed to use several defusing traps that had been waiting here.

Behind us, I watched a patch of frozen over tar melt back to a sticky mess made to trap us, a series of spikes jammed before they could hit the sphere, there was a platform set top spring us backwards that locked up before we went over it. Sadly, we hadn’t got ALL the possible obstacles, as thorough as we’d been.“FUCK!” Shouted Callie as she looked behind us. “Abel, what are the chances this thing is resistant to rotational counterforce?”

The physics of how this nonsense bubble worked were beyond me, but I knew it DID interact with the world around us by necessity, otherwise it couldn’t bounce, punch through things or rotate. Energy attacks seemed to blood off, but I did think counterrotation might be a gap in the defensive capabilities. Which I wasn’t worried about until I looked behind us myself…and saw the giant fucking BOULDER crashing down the road on our tail.

He flicked a glance behind us, then started cursing up a storm. “No, it is NOT resistant to that!” He spat. “If that thing hits us it’ll start grinding down our momentum until we stop and then it’ll pop this sphere like a soap bubble. Or did you not notice the fucking mist.”

Mist WAS seeping out of the stone sphere from random spots, and it took me a second to process what I was looking at. Infinity mist. “I thought we stole all of those!”

“We stole most of them!” Devlan corrected. “No ALL. They’re a major resource. Of course they have some on hand. Though how they knew to do THIS with them I have no idea.” I had one. It was probably some bullshit wish divination. Secrets were weighted, but they might have gained enough info from setting up the traps to finagle an idea about what means we’d be using to escape.

Bethy glared back at them. “These guys are dicks!” She spat, more acidically than I’ almost ever heard her talk. “We should find them and tear out their spines, then beat their still twitching bodies to death with them!”

“Love that,” I said mildly. “Love the energy, but MAYBE not the best use of time during an escape. Spine beatings will definitely go on the agenda though. For now we need to figure out how to not get crushed to death by that insane space warping boulder. Don’t suppose anyone has any ideas?”

Because we were on a straightaway path to our next cave entrance, and we couldn’t turn here. “What about the ground?” Callie asked intently. “There are caves under us, we’re heading for one, but could you like…drop out the ground into a different cave system? Maybe make a ramp?” 

I blinked. That might work. Nodding, I reached for Agares, triggering my staff’s elevation effect to take the form to C-rank. Reaching for the ground beneath us, I felt around for caves. I did find some, not all of them moving straight. “Abel! Speed up! I need a buffer!” I called to my mentor.  I found a perfect cave system to use for this, then reached for the ground and SMASHED my will into it as I dissolved it into dust behind us.

There was  a crash and a rumble as the boulder dipped below street level and slammed into the wall of the tunnel I’d chosen as it turned off. I’d wanted to curve it, but I couldn’t manage that kind of delicacy fast enough to catch it.

We heard but didn’t feel the rumbles inside the bubble, but it DID stop the boulder. We hit the next building, a cafeteria style eatery that we smashed through pretty easily, heading back under the city without much suspense.

The rest of the trip was pretty boring, aside from being in a giant spinning death ball as we fled from pursuers. We headed off most of the traps with wishes, and the remaining ones we were able to disarm with our own unique abilities. By the time we came up across from the winery, we’d basically confirmed we were free and clear, and we dismissed the sphere as we bolted into the building.

“Alright, everybody down to the tunnels!” I yelled as we bolted through the halls. “We need to hit the chasm, has anyone reached out to the others to tell them where to meet us? If nothing else they need to get away from Yettin and out of range of the long guns on the walls outside.”

“Not an issue,” Devlan assured me. “I told them to clear out far. And I just messaged them to head to the chasm entrance out further from the city to meet us. It’s out of range and then we can just go around to get further inland. There are paths around Yettin that avoid the defenses, obviously. Part of the reason it’s such a nightmare to handle is how condensed the defensive perimeter is.”

We hit the bottling plant and entered the tunnels, then it was a straight shot to the chasm. We ignored the lift and took the bridge right across, and Devlan was able to find us a heading pretty quickly given his familiarity with the area from his research over the years.

When we finally emerged from the caves to meet up with the others, we were all emotionally and mentally exhausted. In the distance, we could see Yettin, swarming with activity. I didn’t think they actually KNEW we were gone yet. We’d come out of this alive. Barely. I glowered at the locked down fortress town. “Remind me to find out who the candidate was working with the city lord’s fortress. Because I OWE them an ass kicking. Now, everyone back into the caves. I’m going to reshape us a camp so we can sleep for the night, and being surrounded by stone will give us the best defensive options.” Then we’d set off for the C-rank zone to meet up with our people. I couldn’t wait to be away from this awful city.