Wish upon the Stars chapter 915

“You better be ready to leave this shithole of a city,” I growled at Devlan as we emerged into The High Society. “Because I am absolutely do

“You better be ready to leave this shithole of a city,” I growled at Devlan as we emerged into The High Society. “Because I am absolutely done with this place.” We had accomplished…well, something, admittedly. The HUGE number of infinity crystals that Bethy had temporarily unloaded into the vault downstairs to prepare for our journey to the C-rank zone were integral to the construction of the Void Ladder.

But ultimately, there were other crystals, other possible items that could be used. We’d set the Void back a ways, but this was one small town in the weakest zone, and we’d lost any leads on anyone further up the chain.

The Filthsmith wasn’t in contact with anyone else aside from his Void contacts. He’d known about the ladder and we’d inferred the existence of the backup, but now that we’d ruined the plan here, we officially had no real task to accomplish left in the D-rank zone. At least, not unless we GOT a new task for the competition.

I was pretty sure, however, that the tasks were regional. Rather than specifically watching us, they had them set up to trigger when we reached certain areas. That was why some of them had only tagged people near town when we participated in the siege.

It also explained why we hadn’t gotten any since we arrived here, and meant that we needed to move our asses for TWO reasons, hence my extreme passion for getting the fuck out of here.

Sadly, we had nothing to wait around for in terms of support either. While we’d delayed the construction of the Void Ladder, it HAD apparently begun. My grandparents had informed me that the space surrounding the planet had already become too unstable for passage. If we didn’t stop the construction we would all be fucked, but we needed to accrue our backup the way the competition intended, so moving on to the next stage immediately was our best course of action.

“We can and should,” he agreed. “We’re heading for Drakkholm in the C-rank zone, but it’s hardly the next city on the spoke. It’s one of the central cities in that zone, similar to the biggest cities here, and there are a few smaller towns on the way. We have a stop or two to get you in touch with some local factions I think might be swayed by my opinion, but we really should leave as soon as possible.”

“Which direction is it?” I asked suspiciously. I was PRETTY sure the answer would be the one I wanted. I suspected they put my backup along the same spoke I was currently traveling down, but I needed a heading just in case, to make sure it matched up with my intended direction.

He pointed, and I sighed with relief. “Got it. So we need to get going then, right?”

“Yes, but not right away,” he cautioned. “Since your young miss had to empty her Domain to recombobulate herself, our forces won’t be able to reconvene inside while she has the crystals, at least not quickly. Therefore, I’ve taken the liberty of sending them out of the city piecemeal as we’ve been speaking. Well, before that, obviously, they didn’t all leave town during this two minute conversation.”

“Understandable, are they all gone then?” I asked with excitement. I felt so stifled here. Not just because of the time pressure, but because I was in a fucking WAR for control of my ancestral faction and I was already running behind.

He reached down to touch his scan ring, eyes flickering a bit, then nodded. “Looks like we’re all good to go. We just need to-” The ground shook, cutting him off.

I sighed loudly. “See, I’d like to assume that has nothing to do with us, but my vast life experience tells me that whatever that is just fucked us over in a colossal way. Care to check again to see what that was about?”

He was already messaging, and I didn’t love the shade of green his face was turning. “The city lord fortress has armed the defenses.” He said in stupefaction. “We’re…we’re trapped.”

My eyes narrowed at him. “I’m sorry. They armed the defenses? The defenses that require a key to arm? The key that I STOLE to get you involved in this plan in the first place?” My voice was rising as I spoke, my hands clenched into tight fists. “Are THOSE the defenses you’re talking about?”

Scrambling across the room, he dug in his desk, pulling out the black metal token, checking it, and then grabbing some books and flipping through them. “Yes! But they shouldn’t be able to do that! The key is a NECESSITY! That was the point of stealing it before the heist, to prevent THIS!”

Callie, who had been sitting in quietly, still recovering from her ordeal earlier, raised her hand. “I’m sorry, I hate to pile on, but am I to understand that you sent ALL of our people out of the city before these defenses became active? And that we are now trapped, alone, inside of a hostile fortress town strewn with powerful automated defense mechanisms that have now been activated and set to murder us?”

I pointed at her. “That! That’s a good point! We’re so FUCKED right now!”

“Not ALL of them,” he assured me in a panic. “Obviously I was planning to have our personal retainers tag along. Animal is here, as well as several members of your inner circle who wouldn’t leave.”

“Oh, ok,” I said brightly. “So we’re not trapped in a death city alone, we’re trapped here with MY SISTER AND ALL MY FRIENDS!”

“STOP YELLING AT ME THAT ISN’T HELPING!” he shrieked desperately. “I’m thinking!”

I actually did stop, because he’d been so put together and composed up to this point that seeing him dissolve into a screaming incoherent mess was actually kind of jarring. I modulated my tone. “Alright, Devlan,” I said slowly. “This is not ideal. I know you get that. So, is there anything we can DO to get out of here. Because I can’t imagine you’re any more excited about being stuck in here than us. There has to be a way out of-” I froze, my brain stalling. “A way out. Can you get us to the winery? The tunnel was made completely outside the city lord’s authority, and there’s a straight shot to the chasm in there!”

He went still. “I…I think I can,” he scrambled through the desk, pulling out maps, poring over them. “Yes. I can. But it won’t be easy. We have to take a series of tunnels and they go through a LOT of faction bases. We’re going to piss a lot of people off.”

We emerged from the room to find several people nearby. As he’d said, Benny, Jessie, Abel, Bethy, Belsara, Chelsea, Animal, and his butler whose name I could not remember for the life of me were all there, waiting for us to emerge. I stopped to explain the whole thing to them, and everyone except the butler and Animal turned to glare at Devlan.

“I don’t know what happened!” He repeated pleadingly. “This shouldn’t be possible!”

“I mean, they probably just made a copy,” Bethy said with a casual shrug. “What kind of idiot only keeps one copy of their most important key?”

Putting a hand on her shoulder, I gave her an encouraging smile. “That’s right Bethy, and let’s not get bogged down in who is or isn’t a complete moron for not thinking of that. But we have a plan to escape.” Honestly, I was pretty sure that Devlan hadn’t considered a copy possible, and we were probably being uncharitable. This WAS the succession war, which meant they had probably teamed up with one of my relatives to wish for a new one, but still, I was really annoyed he hadn’t considered that.

I wasn’t the only to think of that, Belsara raised her hand. “A wish could probably have done it. Do we know if any of our other family members have shown up in town lately?”

“Doesn’t matter. Whoever it is can scour the city for us once we’re gone,” I said firmly. “We just need to get gone. Sadly, we’re going to have to move FAST if we want to get out of here quickly. Devlan says they have some of those stealth detectors in a few of the bases we’re heading through. So we don’t do this sneaky, this is gonna be a bull rush.”

I turned to Abel. “That means you, man. You up for that? Your spatial lubrication is basically universal super speed, and it’s our best shot at moving out quickly. But we’re probably going to be tanking attacks left and right, can you keep up our exit through that?”

“Easily,” he snorted. “Who do you think I am?”

“We’ve got another problem though,” I added as I considered a new angle. “If the key came from a copy, and they locked down the city, chances are good that another candidate is behind the lockdown. They probably assume WE used wishes to rob the depot, or at least to transport the crystals. Which means there’s also a non zero chance there will be counter wishes set up for our exit. How do we tell?”

Belsara perked up. “Actually there’s a pretty easy way. Wishes become more expensive based on difficulty. If we use the stockpile you have from Natalie, we can test them as counters to possible obstacles. If they suddenly become too expensive to use, then we know there’s a DIRECT counter arranged in that specific way. That’s why despite preemptive wishing being feasible most of us save scrolls for the last minute.”

“But this IS the last minute for them,” I said, catching on. “Which gives us the initiative. In order to catch us they probably used all their wishes ensuring we couldn’t escape. And if they didn’t, we’ll be able to tell from our OWN wishes and use those to ensure we DO. Even if we’re wrong about the candidate involvement this will make it so much easier to get out of here. Also Devlan is paying for it out of his share of the crystals.” I glared at him as he opened his mouth. “Come on, it’s barely a blip, and we’re only getting ten percent anyway. I doubt the total value will even make it to eleven percent.”

I reached into my ring, pulling out all of Nats scrolls. We had about thirty of them left at this point. “And since these aren’t mine, Belsara and I can BOTH help you refine the wishes.” I carried the scroll stack over to a table and dumped them on the wood, pushing all the books around them to the side. “In fact, everyone can help. Now get your asses over here, we’ve got some wishes to make.”

We started with gaming everything out, trying to identify which wishes were most likely to discover resistance. Wishing we could make it out of the city undetected, for instance, required WAY too many stats, so that one was blocked. Same with wishing a clear path to the gate. Wishing a clear path to our next destination worked, but wishing we’d pass it undisturbed didn’t. It took us about ten tries before we got a variation of that we could live with.

Luckily the wishes told us the prices before use, otherwise we wouldn’t have had close to enough. In the end it took all thirty to ensure our safe passage to the tunnel. I suspected the other candidate (who the inflated prices had basically confirmed was in play) had used wishes to divine our route somehow and arranged resistance, otherwise I had no clue how they’d prepared for us so thoroughly.

With everything done, we all headed out to the entryway, Abel raising his hands to build a giant spatial sphere around us, something like a hamster ball. With that finished, we all prepared for the run of our lives, and then, with an explosion of sound and fury, we set off, blasting through the front of the club and out onto the open road.