Wish upon the Stars chapter 867

The cleanup took less time than expected. Of course, that might have been partially because my head was swimming the whole time it was going on. I might have blacked out a few times. My first discovery after the end of my little rampage was that I had DRAMATICALLY underestimated the toll it would take.

Namely, the fact that my fucking Chronicle was CRACKED. I hadn’t noticed it while it was happening, because the constant pressure it was under had actually held it together, but after things eased up, the cracks opened, revealing the extent of the damage.

Luckily, I could feel that it was repairing itself. Slowly. But I wouldn’t be able to do much of anything for a while. Any form besides Sammael, and definitely any Domain, would be likely to make the damage worse. Callie was beside herself when she noticed, and she hovered around me like a moon, orbiting and fussing and trying to convince me to take a nap or something.

“I’m FINE, love,” I reassured her again. I’d half expected her to be upset about the risk, but I hadn’t done anything stupid, just necessary, so she was just panicked and not pissed. I honestly would have preferred a tongue lashing, because seeing her about to cry and not even having frustration to distract her was tearing me up. I pulled her into my arms. “We’re through this, and now it’s almost time to leave. We just have to finish getting the troops in order, and then we can leave.”

Final count for our departing force was five hundred and fifty D-rankers and Sixty C-rankers. I was pretty sure at least forty more of the D-rankers would be ranking up when we left, so that was definitely good news, and some of the C-rankers were already looking like they would be hitting B-rank.

I still had more than a few B-rank slots to fill, and based on their Legendary Skills (which required a Chronicle) Crell and Carmichael were both looking at a rank up.

That wasn’t all, either. To my shock, Alanna had decided to come with us when we left. Given her speech about how dangerous it was outside and how she planned to stay and continue getting stronger, I’d expected her to be glad to see us go. But the way we’d beaten Skartaris seemed to have wounded her pride. She was content to stay when she thought she was invincible, but seeing how deep the waters could run, I suspected her apathy felt like cowardice to her now.

We had one of the spare emergency scrolls left, so we’d passed it to her. One more B-ranker wasn’t something I would turn down.

I still wasn’t sure if them pushing their Skills past the cap would hurt them in the long run. It already meant that, while strong, they wouldn’t be able to combine those Legendary Skills with their abilities. To form a Chronicle, your Solid Path had to be merged with your ability, and abilities couldn’t surpass the current rank of the wielder. That meant all those Legendary Skills were secondary Skills, like Ragam had been for Abel back in the day.

Granted, Legendary was still B-rank, so they could just combine them after they broke through. It would just be sacrificing some of the advancement the rank up would have provided naturally for those Skills.

I shook my head. That wasn’t my business. They were employees, not servants. They were free to handle their advancement however they wanted.

Groaning, I stood up, and Callie rushed over to support me, looking frantic. “I’m FINE,” I repeated with a laugh. “We’re safe and among friends. You don’t need to worry about me. Is everyone else ready to go?”

I kept my tone light, but honestly…I was terrified. We NEEDED to go. The void break was coming, and this place would be much more dangerous once it arrived. We’d be swarmed by Void Children and might never escape. But on the other side of that door…I could feel it. Danger. Danger so intense my Danger Sense was silent. Not the good kind of silent, either. The strangled, tense kind. Like it was so scared it couldn’t even muster a peep. I hadn’t known that was possible.

But whatever was waiting, it wasn’t on us. None of us would be able to do a damned thing to stop whatever was going to happen. We had to trust that my grandparents and my mom had made preparations for this. They knew the situation out there way better than we did anyway, and they were still fine. My grandmother also already suspected this was a trap by Raxus, so they had all the information I did.

Callie, despite my best efforts, frowned at me. “You’re worried,” she said bluntly. “What’s wrong?”

I glanced around at the room full of people, then shook my head. I wasn’t going to drop a lit grenade on the fragile order we’d managed to establish. It was why I hadn’t warned any of the others. They weren’t any more capable of stopping what was coming than I was, and they couldn’t stay here. Knowing what was out there would just make the process of actually moving our people out harder.

Since we had the bond though, I could and did fill her in on my suspicions telepathically. Her face went pale, and I could tell how agitated she was by the news, but within moments all sign of it disappeared, like a rock into a bottomless lake. I was impressed, if I couldn’t feel her emotions I’d have no idea she was so scared.

Smiling, I took her hand, giving it a comforting squeeze, and I felt her relax a notch, though not much, through the bond.

I turned to head over and check on my sister. She was sitting with Bethy, Gabe, the girls, and Dayna. “Hey, everyone doing ok? We didn’t lose anyone, right?” I hadn’t really been paying enough attention to the battle, given what was going on. 

“A few injuries,” my sister assured me. “But no one died. You and Skartaris mostly kept things contained, weirdly. The whole ‘keep it deadlocked’ thing saved a lot of our people. Well, except Albert. He got stabbed.”

My wife gasped. “Oh no, Albert got stabbed? But he’s so nice. And wasn’t it just his birthday?”

Chelsea nodded sadly. “I was surprised he invited us to the party. Well, not Shane, obviously. Not after what you did.”

“What?” I said in confusion. “What did I do?”

“Well don’t bring it UP,” Callie said in an appalled tone. “Honestly, honey, WAY too soon. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” 

“What is HAPPENING right now?” I sputtered. “I don’t even know this person!” They turned to walk away, and Callie shot me a wink over her shoulder. I rolled my eyes as I felt the surge of triumphant smugness through the bond, but smiled at her warmly. Trust my wife to distract me from impending doom by pranking me mercilessly. Of course, I wouldn’t bring it up out loud. The last thing we needed was Bethy deciding to get back into pranking.

Shaking off my amusement, I headed over to check in with Crell, who was sitting with Carmichael and Alanna. Delilah and Carmine were there too, and to my surprise, Waylon Dreft, the dragon ant. I was curious as to why he was with them, but once I asked them about it, they filled me in on the new arrangement, asking me to arrange the contracts.

I’d been expecting Dreft to be a problem, based on the way Carmichael described him. Oddly, he’d been one of the first to switch sides when Skartaris was gone. None of the others seemed BOTHERED by that at all, so I just kind of ignored it. Especially once I found out that he wasn’t coming out with us.

After the fight, there was a substantial number of C-rankers who had agreed to surrender, but aside from not knowing if we could trust them, we didn’t have enough scrolls left to take them all. Instead, they were planning to stay and form a new government, with the intention of helping liberate some of the locals from the Abyssal Lords.

I’d been skeptical about that being legit, but I was informed that things like this were pretty common among Ascendants. Half the reason Dreft switched sides was because he was planning to surf the wave of renown generated by all the good press from ‘liberating’ the oppressed masses here. Reputation was about making an impression, and having essentially a captive audience for their heroic redemption (they were going to be blaming everything shady on Skartaris, since he was dead) would help them all hit B-rank once the void break finished and the C-rankers could leave.

After handing over one of the two remaining scrolls we had to Dreft to set up a communication avenue with the outside world, all of us were officially ready to go.

We lined up at the door, and I insisted on being first one through. I was informed that I was an idiot, and without access to my forms I was just lining up to die. Carmichael volunteered to be first through the door and everyone agreed.  I was right behind him though, and after making sure everyone was ready and had triggered the suppression through their scrolls, we all stepped into the dark.

When we first came in, we’d come through a portal my grandmother made. I’d been expecting something kind of like that, but to my dismay, going through the void directly was…worse. Way worse. It was like I was drowning in frictionless slime that was somehow hot and cold at the same time. Pressure was undulating over my body irregularly, with some spots being crushed and some of my skin feeling like it was being suctioned off my body, and I was in a state of constantly shifting equilibrium that made me feel like I was inside of a rolling ball.

The moments stretched on as I hurtled through the space, and I felt the void starting to actively attempt to creep into me, but before it could make a serious effort, I was ejected into blessed normalcy.

I erputed from the doorway in a roll, barely avoiding Carmichael as I tumbled along the ground with a clatter. We were sitting on some kind of asteroid, the door perched in the middle. Weirdly, I could breathe fine, despite being obviously in space. I assumed it was some kind of enchantment.

Standing up, I coughed loudly, then turned to check on everyone else. “Alright, is everyone good?” I spluttered through my wheezes.

I head lots of grunts and saw a few thumbs ups, but only one person answered. “Personally, I’m excellent,” drawled a friendly voice from behind me. I froze, then turned, and saw a man I’d never met sitting on a rock. He smiled urbanely, and I furrowed my brow as I tried to figure out who he was. I didn’t know him, and he wasn’t giving me any serious pressure…and that was when it clicked.

He had no presence. No Impact. Complete and total isolation like that was something I’d only ever seen from a few people. I recognized the sense of subconscious dread creeping through me though, from the last time I’d seen my great grandmother.

“What,” asked Raxus, the god of deception. “No hello?” I felt the bottom go out of my stomach. This…this was bad. I’d been expecting problems, but I had figured it would take longer than THIS.

“My great-grandson doesn’t need to greet you, trash,” said a cool and familiar voice. I turned to see Black Sorrow standing casually next to me, smiling at Raxus with a smile that wasn’t really a smile. I took a step back, positioning myself behind her. She was here to help, but I wasn’t sure if this situation had just gotten worse or better. I supposed only time would tell. I just hoped my time wasn’t running out.