Wish upon the Stars chapter 853

I was pulled out of my work when the car stopped. Despite the interior dimension being mostly detached from the sensations of travel (thankfully), braking seemed to make an obvious impact on our trip. We emerged into a cavern of indeterminate size. The whole place was so massive I had trouble seeing the edges, although admittedly all the light came from crystals erupting from the ceiling in the center.

We’d stopped in the middle of a big open space, in front of a large spiral staircase leading up into the dark. Carmichael stared at it as we stopped. “Been a long time since I’ve been back here,” he admitted heavily. “I’d forgotten how much presence the city has.”

I recognized his complicated tone. “Are you from here?”

“I am,” he nodded. “Dez was actually born here. We left shortly after her birth. That’s how I ended up being recruited by the Tower. One of the members owns a boxing gym. Chandra and I used to go there when we were kids. I showed some talent, so Old Ramsey took me under his wing, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

“Do you want to go see the gym?” I asked him after a minute. “Between Callie and I, we can walk you right up to the place without anyone noticing.”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t count on that. Your stealth is good, but there are detection specialists in Dawnrend I would advise against underestimating. Safer to stick to the Tower and the surrounding areas. Nobody spies on the boss. Not if they want to live to tell about it.”

My sister cut in. “Good. The surrounding area thing. We need a break. Not like, downtime in the complex, but an actual few days moving around in a normal town. We’ve been either hiding or reacting since we got here. You and Callie might be fine holing up underground for date night, brother mine, but the rest of us aren’t lame old married people.” She stopped, turning to glance at Mel and Abel. “Well, most of us.”

Abel rolled his eyes. “Yes, because your social life is so rich and fulfilling.”

Holly snorted, and Chelsea shot her a betrayed look. The angel shrugged. “What, he’s not wrong. You’re just as big a loner as your brother. You still have us though. And Gabe and Bethy. And I guess Dayna now, since she kind of comes as a package deal with Bethy.”

“We could use some downtime too,” Bella spoke up. “We’ve been on the run since we freed the others. Elena wants to call her son and check on him. That IS safe, right?”

“That might need to wait, unfortunately,” I told her with a sigh. I turned to Elena, who was grouped up with Ray, Desria, Cavallo, Chess, and Daysia. They’d also sort of adopted Dom and Sable, from what I could tell, splitting the group into two separate camps. “How are you doing? I know you said you aren’t mad about being sucked into this, but I know you haven’t seen Simon in a while. How was he when you left?”

Despite the circumstances, she beamed at me. “He’s doing great. Which is worth a bit of hassle. Don’t worry about me. I’m gathering some souvenirs to bring him when I head home, and I have plenty of amazing stories. I don’t need to call him right away.”

“Yeah, our connection to the outside is pretty much nonexistent,” I said apologetically. “Otherwise we’d be able to get in touch with my grandparents.”

I turned to Argaunt, who was mostly keeping to himself. “Can you get in touch with some of the other godchildren? Not sure how you reached out to yours, but I’m sure some of them are in Dawnrend. You might be the best person to make the offer for me. Although I would avoid Raxus’s remaining two. I just don’t trust anything to do with that guy.”

“Probably smart,” he admitted. “Raxus worshippers are notoriously sadistic. His constant mind games tend to twist them pretty badly. That leaves us at fifteen total for the C-rankers, if we get all the others.”

I nodded. “Forty five most likely, including the thirty from the tower. I might see id the Tower can use the scrolls to flip some of the others.” I glanced at my wife. “Do you know how long it’ll take for the C-rankers to be able to leave once the Shallow expands to the whole dungeon? Like is it going to be instant?”

She frowned, closing her eyes and concentrating. “I think…no. Once the Shallow is complete, the void break will start, but it won’t be immediate. The dungeon will absorb the shielding around itself to fuel the conversion, and it’ll take six months or so to settle. Of course, the void connection will become active immediately. C-rankers from the void will start filing in as soon as the water reaches the ground.”

“Then we can probably turn some of them,” I nodded. “We might even be able to snag some of the peak C-rankers for ourselves and let them break through after leaving. I’m awfully short on B-rankers going into the succession war.”

Carmichael brightened. “That’s a good idea. It won’t be many. Condensing a Chronicle is HARD, and most C-rankers can’t manage. I’ve got mine, I had to before I could rank up my boxing to Legendary, but it’s not common. I can probably break through once I’m out, to be honest. And I’d be willing to work for you, assuming you can get my wife and daughters out when we leave.”

That perked me right up. “I’d be happy to. We can talk to the Tower Master about bringing them here when we have a chance. Speaking of, when am I going to meet him, exactly?”

“Not soon,” Carmichael grimaced. “The boss’s position is a bit delicate. Most of the Tower’s operations are supported by his anonymity. The inner circle has a wide range of duties and responsibilities, and the Tower intersects with most of them. By remaining in the shadows, the boss prevents Skartaris from acting directly against the Tower.”

I cocked my head. “How so?”

“Basically, any serious attempt to uproot the tower would require the involvement of several inner circle members,” he clarified. “Skartaris isn’t a general. He doesn’t DO leadership. He delegates. The boss’s position didn’t become clear until the system had been in place for a while, and Skartaris had already distributed his power too widely.”

“Oh,” I said as I figured out where he was going with that. “So he needs to use the inner council members to tap into the resources he would have to use to uproot the Tower. And if he picks the wrong one…”

He nodded. “And not just one. The boss has more than just himself on his side. Like I said before, if he forces them to pick a side and they don’t pick his, all the masks come off. And he doesn’t know what’s behind those masks. He’s a paranoid sadist, and while he DOES have people loyal to him, he doesn’t REALLY trust them. The boss has turned his entire power structure into a trap that he can’t get out of.”

“But it only works if there are shadows for him to jump at,” I nodded. “So the boss has to stay hidden until the last second, otherwise all the deterrence is gone. How is he going to leave with us then?”

“I assume he’ll request one of your scrolls,” he said with a shrug. “Do you get any sort of name or identity information when you grant wishes?”

I paused. “I…don’t, actually. I never really noticed that. I know who makes a wish because I know who I gave the scrolls to. He could make a wish, and I would be able to grant it. But it would preclude negotiation if he wanted to remain hidden. I don’t know who makes a wish, but I know the terms. He would need to arrange for several of his people to agree to identical terms to disguise who he was.”

“I’m sure he’ll figure something out,” he assured me. “The boss is a genius, otherwise he couldn’t have built this empire within Skartaris’s corrupt system.”

We had all mounted the spiral stairs and were heading up, talking as we walked. Callie seemed distracted, and I took her hand in mine, interlacing our fingers. She squeezed my hand, shooting me a warm smile as she felt the support I was pushing through the bond. “Speaking of the corrupt system, why don’t you fill us in on who we’re up against, especially the inner circle.”

“That might be a decent idea,” he said with a grimace. “You’ll be running into them eventually. But this isn’t the place. Too many ears. Wait until we get to the tower and I’ll fill you in.” We both nodded, and then focused more on our surroundings as we rose up from the ground.

The spiral staircase we’d ascended came out into a warehouse, but once we emerged, we were in for a pretty strange sight. Dawnrend looked weird from the outside, but from the inside it was actually surprisingly nice. While the gold plated buildings were still odd, the streets were set with shiny black tiles that had traceries of gold designs swirling through them. Up close, I could see that the plating had settled into complicated designs and engravings on the ruins underneath the gold.

 The swirling designs in the street tiles blended seamlessly into the building patterns, creating a strange panoramic effect that blended the street and buildings into an almost two dimensional image. The resulting effect was basically the opposite of the gimmick in movies where someone paints a really realistic picture on a wall or on the ground and someone thinks it’s a hole or tunnel.

Walking around in it was incredibly surreal, but we got used to it pretty fast, and Carmichael pointed out variations in the street patterns that he told us were designed to help you navigate. Different symbols showed us where we were and where we were going. It was pretty impressive to me that they’d managed to work that into the designs while also keeping them perfectly in balance with the ones on the buildings, which didn’t seem to have the same features.

Finally, we arrived at the spire. “Alright, we’ll all be staying here,” Carmichael told us as we came to a stop. “Like I said, you’re good to move around within range of the tower. Basically, make sure you don’t leave the section of the city where the streets have this pattern on them.” He pointed to a strange recursive loop that had worked itself into the street patterns about ten miles back.

“This is the pattern for the tower district, and nobody starts anything here,” he assured us. “The tower guard patrol the streets, and causing issues isn’t worth the trouble. Even Skartaris’s people don’t have that much time to waste.” He reached into a pocket, pulling out a small cloth bag. “These are tower tokens. Bone coins aren’t allowed in Dawnrend, which honestly should have been a red flag from the moment I heard it, but growing up it was just the way things were done.

“These should be enough spending money to amuse yourselves for the next few days while everyone gathers,” he turned to Argaunt. “You can come with me. We need to check in with the cloak to get the information you need about your targets. The rest of you…enjoy your downtime. Oh, and here.” He tossed me something, and I caught it reflexively, only noticing after I opened my hand that it was his ghost bone stone.

I furrowed my brow. “You sure I should have this?”

“I’ll get another,” he assured me. “This will let you access the tower and give you more say over where you stay. I’ll take Argaunt up to check in. Get settled in and we can talk later.” And with that, he turned and headed off through the tower door. Staring at the others, I shrugged and followed, though I turned off toward the front desk instead of following him up a set of stairs. Guess we needed to pick our rooms.