Chapter 286

I will be taking the 25th, the 29th, and the 1th off for my birthday (dec 30th) so chapters will go from the 22nd to the 5th.

***

PoA book 5, the Tournament arc is now on amazon FYI, no need to buy but its there for anyone looking for it. https://a.co/d/9yAjXsA

Audiobook is delayed until late January at the earliest. Narrator is apparently very busy.

***

Chapter 286

Leaving the mission was nothing like arriving. While the journey out and sporadic battles throughout had taken months, their return was finished in seconds.

The moment Shadow was given the nod, reality warped, and after a disorienting moment of nothing but blue, they were back in the rift.

And that was it.

It felt almost anticlimactic.

Matt clomped down the extended ramp into Camp Lightfoot and found a panting Allie lying on the ground. “No one ask me to teleport anything for the next week. Pulling that much mass that far is fucking hard.”

The others ignored her, but Aster walked over and instantly regretted it. “Aster, if you need to lose weight, I can—”

Aster didn’t let Allie get anything more out before she dumped a hill of snow on the teleporter’s face.

Matt expected Allie to teleport away, but she just sighed from under the pile. “Ah, perfect. Thanks, love!”

Aster fake pouted at getting played and stomped away, even as Allie kept talking to her as if she was still standing next to her mound.

‘Is she okay?’ he messaged Zack, and got an immediate response.

‘She’s not faking the exhaustion, but she is exaggerating it. She’ll be able to teleport herself around in an hour or two, especially after we visit the healers. But it will be a couple of days before she can do anything particularly draining.’

With his concern abated, Matt ignored the spatial Ascender and joined the rest of the group as they made their way to Kudzu. Once there, he was sent through a gamut of scanners and dispel wards, checking him for latent curses.

There did end up being a couple things which Arthur and Liz had missed in their respective healings, including a weirdly persistent transmutation curse centered in his lower spine, designed to transform his bones into a particular metal alloy. Why exactly it tried to do that they weren’t able to discern, but with the curse lifted, he didn’t need to worry about it outside of a follow-up scheduled for a few days later. Comparatively, Liz was positively riddled with suppressed and dormant spell effects, but that just meant she would be kept around for a few more hours before an initial release.

Of them, Ai’la was the only one with an actually obvious injury. Arthur had done a great job patching them up after each battle, and while Kudzu did re-heal Sebastian’s hand, Ai’la’s blindness was the only injury that hadn’t already been addressed in some way. Matt, of course, had [Regeneration] running the entire time he’d been out and was in mostly perfect physical condition as a result. The one exception was a minor bit of internal bruising that the spell had preserved since before they’d left the rift, and Matt made a mental note to get checked out by a healer before he next restarted the spell, once its cooldown was up.

Currently, most of Team Zero was unwinding in a very comfortable lounge area, basking in the almost mind-numbing degree of relaxation they were fully immersed in as their remaining teammates were still being treated.

Allie dropped onto the armrest of Aster’s chair. “So what are you going to do?”

Aster shrugged. “Go nap in my own bed?”

Allie blew a raspberry and started to stretch. “Want to go on a scone run?”

“What happened to being too tired to teleport?”

“Teleport heavy stuff. A few scones, retrieved from the Capital? Easy-peasy.”

“And how am I supposed to come with, exactly? Bringing people is hard on you, isn’t it?”

“I can manage one jump. Healer said it would be fine!”

“Did they?”

“Promise!” Allie clasped her hand over where the heart usually sat, but had her fingers very obviously crossed.

“Just make sure you’re battle-ready by the end of the week,” General Darrow sighed.

“Of course, boss-man!”

Nominally, they weren’t scheduled for another operation for two and a half months of in-rift time, but that could and likely would get cut short if an eligible emergency showed up. But standard procedure meant they had the first week, or a bit less than a day outside the rift, completely off-duty, no need to stay in contact.

While Aster mulled over the offer, Matt was distracted by Morgan being delivered a bottle of water and a moist towel. He had seen Pace, her personal aide, around before, and as Ascenders, they had been offered the same thing, but that was a slow process he wasn’t sure he wanted. A noble aide was a position akin to a lifelong partner who you trusted with everything and anything.

Not everyone used one; in fact, the position was falling out of favor with even the nobles. But it was still a useful one, as was evident by the immediate assistance Morgan was given the moment she arrived back.

He had asked Morgan about the woman who was like her personal shadow and had been given a condensed version of her story. Apparently, Pace had done a Minkalla run and gotten Folded Reflections. She had failed a life where she had been Morgan's personal aide, and when she left Minkalla she had found Morgan was a noble and freshly graduated academy student, just like in her Minkalla life. From there she had, through Morgan's description, used the false memories to arrange a meeting where she wanted to continue the life she had been living in Minkalla.

He still thought Morgan was a little crazy for accepting the other woman into her service and life like that, but it seemed to work for them.

Strange, but who was he to judge?

Once Liz was released by the healers, they returned to their quarters. In the end, they’d decided to keep their portable house attached to Team Zero’s group compound, rather than setting up somewhere way in the distance, like what Light had done. Sometimes they would like the extra privacy, but at the moment, he was glad that he and Liz had a much shorter walk before they could crash in their now room-sized shower. They didn’t fool around or have too much fun, simply enjoying each other’s company..

They did, however, enjoy each other a little more deeply after a small nap.

With their limited time, they went for a nice long walk where they said nothing.

The weight of their actions had settled on both of them.

They had officially joined the war.

They weren’t depressed or anything, but the two of them did want to get away for a few hours and so went to a ‘hidden glade’ Dena and Eric had told them about just a few dozen miles away from Camp Lightfoot. It was a pretty spot where couples often went to spend some alone time.

After they settled in with some snack food they spent a calm few hours together.

Once they had their fill of quiet solitude and snacks, they returned to base and went to the Group Cloud set of buildings. There, they found a quiet corner and enjoyed a private meal prepared by high-Tier chefs. The food was delicious, but after that small reprieve, they were ready to get back to work. Together, they went to check on their armors, but on the way there, they were interrupted by the rift entrance rippling.

They turned to see who was entering, but froze when Duke Waters stumbled into the rift alongside a rift breaker Matt didn’t recognize. A few moments later, the rift breaker exited the Fort, but the Ascender waved at them, ignoring the guards moving to support him.

“Hey, kids! Good to see you—” He coughed out a mouthful of purple, bubbling blood before spitting to clear his mouth. “Walk with me and we can chat. How’s the new title? Actually, how is Camp Light Fuckers treating you?”

If Matt’s spiritual perception couldn’t see the massive hole in his chest and the purpling along Aiden’s limbs, he would think the duke had just stubbed his toe.

Before they could say anything, a team of healers materialized, doing their best to pull Duke Waters along to Kudzu, but he kept waving them off. He didn’t stop them from casting an array of diagnostic and preliminary healing spells on him though, but slowly walked towards Kudzu’s main building.

Liz was smarter than Matt though, and started to speed up her walk, which forced Duke Waters to move faster to keep up. “What the fuck happened to you, Uncle Waters?”

Aiden shrugged. “Eh, got ambushed. Shit happens.”

Matt managed to lean forward and ask, “Who could do this to you?”

Duke Waters shrugged with one arm, setting off a series of magical ripples and muscle convulsions that didn’t reach his face. “Buncha Everborn graduates. Half-dozen of them hit me from behind, lead by Yuvgret Mestila.”

Their senior Ascender apparently mistook Matt’s expression for not understanding. “Top Republic elites, basically equivalent to our Academy Graduates. Yuvgret’s a particularly notable leadership Elite. Well, was. Took out her and Blake Snow, put two more in serious recovery, but the last couple got away. Still, I think I count it a win overall.”

General Bell, one of the Tier 35 generals stationed in the rift, suddenly appeared and asked, “Do you have confirmation for the first two deaths?”

Duke Waters waved the man off. “Buzz off, I’m having a good conversation here. I’ll report in when I’m he—”

The general didn’t take the dismissal well and started to step forward, but he was suddenly gone. Matt would have thought he’d simply left, were it not for the human-sized hole in the far wall that had appeared.

“Now that's better. Where was I?”

Liz smirked. “Getting strung up for insubordination? Killing a superior officer?”

Aiden waved away her concern. “Eh, it's fine. Bell is made of sterner stuff than that. Besides, he knew what was coming, just forgot to not interrupt me.”

Matt peered through the hole, and saw the general simply brushing off a bit of dust, before vanishing once again.

Seeing that, he nodded and was about to remind the Duke to keep talking, but as the healers finally got Aiden onto a healing table they started to surround him. Or, they started to surround him until he frowned when a healer blocked his view of Matt and Liz. That was all he had to do for the healer to quickly move to the other side.

“You were talking about the team?”

Aiden nodded. “Yeah, that. So they’re a team of peak Tier 35s. I was happily finishing off the generals of the siege when Yuvgret's team came out of some spatial fold thing and landed a combination attack on me from behind. The fight went to shit from there. I was already pretty tired from fighting the generals, but they got me good.”

Matt nodded in appreciation. Granted, fighting off an ambush designed to counter you when you were exhausted and distracted was simply what was expected of Ascenders, and he had no doubt that he’d be in a similar situation someday. It was just doing it when at a four Tier distantage that made it so crazy.

The elites Duke Waters was talking about were like Maven, or even the rest of Team Zero, fighters just below an Ascender in power. While not a match for an Ascender normally, they came prepared to counter an Ascender’s best tricks, attack in groups when their targets were vulnerable,  and came in with a plan already half-executed by the time they struck.

It was about the only halfway reliable way to take an Ascender out of commission for any appreciable amount of time, even if it had only ended in an actual kill less than a half-dozen times in recorded history. Even those kills tended to precede the loss of the war itself, as between the losses sustained while scoring the kill, the loss of the battlefields those elites would have been stationed at, and the fact people usually only went for the full kill when they were already behind, the ‘victorious’ Great Power usually didn’t last long afterwards.

It was much better to simply try and wear down an Ascender, push them to Domain exhaustion and or healing overload, and press the advantage when the Ascenders were down. That tactic was something Team Zero had been created to actively combat.

Liz shook her head. “Did they trap you there or something?”

“No, why?”

Liz raised her hands. “So you chose to stand and fight instead of running after getting ambushed?”

Aiden shrugged on the table. “Yeah, but I knew I could take them. I would have—”

Matt leaned to the side to see between two healers as Duke Waters was about to start boasting again, but before he could see much, Duke Waters stopped talking and flipped off the table and started gasping, arm extended.

Matt thought the man was dying, but the healers didn’t seem concerned, and his confusion was answered when Melinda walked into the healing room.

“Ah Melinda I—” Aiden coughed up a mouthful of blood, which interrupted him. “I need your valiant assistance. Assistance only you can provide. The pain is unbearable. I can hardly speak for the agony. I plead for the grace of the saintess… No! A full goddess in her own right, to bless her benevolent supplicants with her divine light. Please, fair lady, spare my suffering with your—”

Whatever else he was going to say was interrupted by Melinda crouching down over his grasping hand and inspecting the purple damage on his chest.

She poked his exposed wounds with a scalpel even as she asked, “What did you bring me today? This one is unique if I don’t miss my guess. And get back on the table. It's rude to the other healers.” She punctuated her command with a poke to his forehead.

Matt expected Melinda to get tossed through a wall, but Duke Waters appeared back on the table without missing a beat.

Standing up, Melinda waved to Matt and Liz and ignored the gasping Duke Waters. “Hey guys! I heard you just got back, but you weren’t at your house by the time I got off my shift.”

Liz opened her arms for a hug, but a woman Matt hadn’t paid attention to stepped forward with an outstretched hand, just to be waved back by Melinda. “Evie, these are some of my oldest friends. You don't need to worry about them. Also, I don't think you could stop them, but let's not test it, please.” As she hugged Liz and moved in to hug Matt, she explained, “Evie is my personal bodyguard and she takes her job seriously, so don’t hate her.”

After he hugged his long-time friend, her attention was pulled back to Duke Waters, who gasped his ‘last breath’ half a dozen times, each more theatrical than the last.

Turning with a bemused smirk, Melinda turned back around. “What did you do, Aiden? This is worse than usual, but I won’t say no to pushing my Talent. Give me something to work with though. What hit you, who hit you, and what does it feel like?”

Duke Waters happily answered each of Melinda’s questions without complaint, something he had refused to do with the other healers, who Matt could see were irritated at the situation. But to his surprise, Melinda seemed to have a firm handle on Duke Waters.

The man had chucked a General through a wall for asking a question, had refused to even remove his shirt for the other healers, but did all of that and more when Melinda asked.

Even as she poked around at the still purple wound in Duke Waters body, Melinda turned to the higher-Tier healers and started talking about healing jargon that went over Matt’s head.

Liz poked Aiden’s cheek to get his attention. He tried to bite her finger but missed by an inch. “So you listen to Melinda? I don’t know if I should be surprised, bemused, or tell your wife?”

Melinda smirked but didn’t turn around.

Aiden gasped as if he was insulted. “I would never besmirch the sanctity of the relationship between a fighter and his healer with something as vulgar as you suggest. Besides, Madea would love to mother her.”

Melinda poked a wound, and while Aiden gasped, he didn’t play it up. The healers chatted for a few more minutes, but Matt didn’t understand much beyond the fact the wound was infected with a curse that had latched onto Aiden’s physical body like a spider's venom.

It seemed like a weird analogy, but the healers, Melinda included, nodded along as the lead healer described the damage like that made any sense.

Then the lead healer turned to Matt and Liz and started to say, “We need you to step o—” Before Melinda interrupted him.

“They know my Talent.”

The lead healer turned a disapproving expression to Melinda, who just rolled her eyes as she explained, “What? They’re on Team Zero, they’re cleared. Besides, Matt was there when I reached Tier 3 and got a call from the Emperor himself, and Liz has been with him since Tier 4. Let alone the fact that she is his wife, while also being one of my best friends. Healer Lifesprig, I understand the need for secrecy, but these are my friends and they have been for most of my life.”

Healer Lifesprig looked like he wanted to say something, but a glare from Duke Waters, Matt, and Liz caused him to stop speaking with a shake of the head.

Eventually, Melinda settled down, and at a nod from the other healer, cast a healing spell on the Duke. Golden-green energy flooded through the medical equipment, focused into a single point of mana, and shot down into the purplish curse like a miniature [Mana Beam] lancing a magical boil.

It did absolutely nothing.

Matt’s instincts warred. On the one hand, he was surprised that Melinda had cast a spell that lanced into the cursed wound only to be wholesale swallowed up by it. On the other, there had only been a couple thousand mana involved, and while Matt would readily admit to not being the best judge at how much mana a specialist would need to accomplish a task, that felt awfully low.

The Tier 45 healer nodded. “A good start, but [Cure Curse] was focused on the wrong point. Remember, you’re dealing with spider venom, not snake blood. You want to hook it through the subtemptuous node and feed it through the focals in order, not a blanket smother. Kataramenous wounds like this are easy to push into dormancy instead of properly breaking them if you’re not thorough enough. Now, with me.”

This time, when Melinda cast her spell, Matt saw and felt the other healers do much the same, the simple presence of their Domains invigorating him as once more the machines lit up, and multicolored light lanced into the purple abyss. This time, a black miasma exploded outwards with an ear-wrenching screech, but was swiftly contained and siphoned away by one of the Tier 35 healers not already acting.

From there, the team steadily moved between a truly shocking number of effects which needed their attention. Each time Melinda would cast a spell to no effect, she’d get some feedback, then would work in a group to actually heal Duke Waters. When his chest was back in one piece and his lungs were formed, Matt got to watch as they inflated and the Duke sighed. “Oh, that's so much better. I can’t stand having to use [Air Manipulation] to move air through my vocal cords. Someone needs to make a water version of the spell.”

Turning to Matt, he blinked up hopefully.

“Are you trying to flutter your eyelashes?” Matt couldn’t help but ask.

“Trying? No, I’m succeeding.”

“No, you aren’t.” Liz ruthlessly shut her uncle down.

“You two are no fun. So anyway, tell me about your first mission. Then I can tell you how much better I was as a fresh Ascender.”

Matt rolled his eyes but happily joined Liz as they chatted with their senior Ascender as he was healed.

After the first hour, the conversation had died down enough and the healing had gotten intense enough that Matt and Liz bid their farewells to actually check on the status of their new kits. Matt was quite pleased to see the progress made on his armor, and while he found that it restricted his movement a bit, the crafters assured him that it was temporary. Apparently, their normal flexibility enchantments had a habit of permanently transmuting whatever they were attached to to liquid at the power levels his armor would be running at, and they were currently investigating alternatives.

Matt was in the middle of creating a new set of mana crystals for his armor team when Duke Waters burst through the door, Melinda and Liz already in tow. The man still wasn’t fully healed, but his body seemed mostly intact.“Come on and let's chat some,” the man waved him down. “I can take you to the Team Sippy Cup headquarters.”

Matt finished off the mana crystal he was creating and waved goodbye to the crafters. Then, turning his attention back to his fellow Ascender, he laughed. “Wait, you call it Team Sippy Cup? I heard you’re just Team Six.”

Duke Waters snorted. “Yeah, and that's a boring ass name. Team Sippy Cup is far more threatening.”

Matt raised an eyebrow as he processed that but didn’t comment. Liz did that for him. “That's fucking stupid.”

“And Team Zero is cooler? No way.”

“How is a sippy cup threatening or cool? It's something children use because they can’t use a real cup.”

“It's threatening because anyone who fights me will be drinking out of one if they are lucky enough to survive. It makes perfect sense, and Allie agrees with me. Besides, we are here.”

Matt knew this wasn’t the headquarters of Team Sippy Cup, because it was Allie’s house. Instead of knocking, Duke Waters kicked the front door off its hinges and waltzed inside, calling out, “Yo Fetchess, I want snacks.”

Allie turned from where she and Aster were watching a horror movie and screamed, “You fucking whale! Can’t you knock?”

“I did knock. I knocked with my foot, but your door is too weak and crumpled. Like my enemies before my might!”

Allie growled as a scone floated over to Aiden, who started snacking on it. “Stop coming into my house and eating my scones! Now I need to make another scone run.”

Aiden shrugged. “Win-win. You really should keep some of Tony’s bagels around when you know I’m coming by. While you’re out, make sure to grab some.”

“I’m not getting you bagels, you stupid wet blanket. Besides, losers don’t deserve snacks, and I heard you got your ass kicked.”

“Pshh. I walked out of—”

Matt tuned out the duo of headstrong Ascenders as they bickered and walked over to where Aster was still trying to watch her movie.

Seeing she had a pile of snacks, he reached down and stole an oatmeal raisin cookie. Chewing, he nodded. It was fantastic.

“These are really good. Where did you guys go?”

Aster waved aside his words. “We just stayed on the Capital, so it’s not as good as it could be, but the scones are from this great place called the Sixth Corner Nook that I really want to go back to. Make sure you try a sandwich, those are great.”

Matt did so and was taken aback by the flavors present. Despite physically only being a simple turkey sandwich, the mana profile in it was… incredible. He wouldn’t have thought that rust mana would ever taste good in food, but it managed to provide a faintly spicy undertone that elevated the entire experience. Even thinking about how to replicate it left him unsure if it was possible for him to do so. He certainly didn’t have the skills required, let alone any Talents or Domains utilized in the process.

He was still munching when the world around him whirred past, and he found himself on a sandy beach with an incredible view of an ocean-sized lake. Behind them was an open-style building that had everything a house needed with the addition of everything a command structure needed, but the latter seemed incongruous compared to the beach. A moment later, Allie popped in, glaring at Duke Waters.

The man ignored her and sighed. “A home away from home. Hey Allie, can you go get my wife?”

Allie kicked sand at him from where she’d sat down with a beer in her hand. “No way!”

Their fellow Ascender gave her a pitying look, spoiled only slightly by a lock of his hair drifting in front of his eyes, but Allie held firm. ”No! Not after the ass-chewing I got last time. Besides, it knocked me out of commission for ages last time, and I need to be combat-capable in five days so I’m still on bed rest. No tentacle snooki for you.”

Aiden sighed even as he sat down next to the teleporter and ruffled her hair. “How have you been, little Allie?”

“I was doing better when I was hoping you would die from your wounds.”

“That's so sweet of y—”

Matt turned out their bickering to turn to Aster and Melinda.

He corrected himself with a start. Melinda and her bodyguard, who seemed to blend into the background of any situation. She appeared as if beyond notice, all while keeping a close eye on his friend, who didn’t seem even remotely bothered.

Taking his cue from her, he asked, “So how was your break?”

Melinda sighed as she sat down. “Fantastic. A full six real months break was needed. But we are back to the grind now. You know, he's gotten quite good with his skills, having spent the last century here with me. He might be able to slap you around Matt.”

Matt patted her shoulder, even as Aster handed her a cookie. “I’m sure he can. I imagine there isn't a ton for him to do here otherwise.”

Melinda took the cookie and laughed. “Thanks, Aster. But it’s fine. Honestly, we’re fortunate that this one has as much traffic as it does, otherwise we wouldn’t have even gotten our break. We might get a couple more over time, but the confidentiality contingencies are… intense. Like we were only able to stay in the Capital and if one of the Royals wasn’t there we would have had to cut our break short. It's kinda rough as a low Tier.”

Liz nodded. “That makes sense.” Clearly trying to change the subject, she asked, “The healers seem to respect you. Are you a leader or something?”

Melinda cocked her head before laughing so hard she fell into the sand. “Not even close. I’m more of an apprentice there to watch and learn. But Aiden refuses to be healed by anyone but me, and he likes to mess with the other healers, so it works out.”

The water mage in question turned and winked at them. “Melinda understands that I’m harmless.”

Melinda snorted. “And stop threatening Lifesprig. I didn’t miss you doing that. He’s still my supervisor, and he's trying to help me grow my Talent.”

Duke Waters pursed his lips but looked away without responding.

Matt was once more surprised at how well Melinda got the Ascender to listen to her, but he thought he understood.

Ascenders loved to fight, and meeting someone like Melinda, who could heal any physical wounds in an instant, with no healing cooldown, would be like meeting their new best friend. If he recalled correctly, Rusty had had a similar reaction.

That, and Melinda was a genuinely kind person who, despite being kind, didn’t stand for bullshit.

The six of them were joined by the rest of Team Zero and Mathew thanks to Allie, which was when Matt learned that this lake was actually clear on the other side of the rift from the base camp and closer to the exit than the entrance distortion.

Allie just made such distances meaningless so long as the person she was teleporting didn’t out Tier her, like Duke Waters.

Despite knowing the rift had been professionally cleared of Tiered monsters, he was glad Duke Waters was there in case a stray Tier 35 monster managed to escape notice. Matt was a good fighter, but he couldn’t do anything with a ten Tier gap. You never knew who had done the clearing of this rift, and if they missed something, Matt would rather find out back at Camp Lightfoot where Luna was there to squish anything that high Tier.

The impromptu gathering turned into a barbecue where even General Darrow relaxed enough to chat with Matt and Dena about growing up in a more normal background.

That didn’t mean things didn’t turn violent.

Duke Waters challenged everyone to a fight, despite his body just being healed and his still stressed spirit and Domain, and he still kicked everyone's ass.

Not in a fight, Duke Waters tried to fight them but Melinda told him under no uncertain terms he was on bed rest from fighting for the next two days. That left them with only nonviolent games to play, but the party games didn’t remain safe for long. They were all competitive, and balls were thrown with Tier 25 strength and speeds, as no one could stand losing, which meant those not at that Tier were left on the sidelines. Duke Waters proved he wasn’t just good at combat, but a master of party games as well.

Duke Waters also showed Matt, Liz, and Aster his most prized possession. A portable day night cycle formation he had had set up around his headquarters so they got to experience an almost natural looking sunset.

It was nice until Ai'la started pointing out the flaws in the illusion and got dunked for her efforts. She took that as a challenge and used her constructs to force everyone else into the water, where they relaxed until it was ‘morning’ in the formation.