Wish upon the Stars chapter 1151 (Patreon)

We approached the Chamber relatively quickly. We touched down in a small clearing on top of a literal mountain of junk, and I glanced around to try to spot the details or the nearby landscape of the canyon.

First thing I noticed was where we appeared to be. The canyon extended in all directions, so I couldn’t say for sure, but I THOUGHT we might be in the center of it all. It certainly felt like the center. Of the canyon. Of the universe. It was…heavy. I could feel the power weighing on me, beating on the air like the heartbeat of a colossal giant whose very blood had a gravity to match a thousand suns.

There was a hole not far away. A single dark square surrounded by a rim of innocuous grey stone. Carvings covered the rock, almost invisible from wear and time, if not for the subtle blue glow emanating from within the lines.

“This is the Chamber?” I said, trying not to let my voice shake. “It’s certainly…impressive.”

The guard just smiled. “It’s funny. So many people have come here to see this. They come for the unique opportunities, or the items, or the project. Ultimately, they come for the power. But so many of them miss the obvious truth. Power isn’t an abstract. It’s a truth. A destination as well as a journey. I’ve seen many places in this academy, but this is the only place where I’ve seen this particular phenomena. Do you understand what I mean?”

I swallowed as I stared into the hole. “Power is an attribute,” I said slowly. “This place has so much energy it embodies the CONCEPT of energy. That’s part of what the Dean is making here, isn’t it?”

He let out a laugh. “A byproduct,” he admitted.

I turned to look at him directly. “I never asked your name,” I said accusingly. “And you didn’t offer it.”

“Both of those statements are very true,” he said with a wide grin. Too wide, actually. In fact, a lot of things about him were slightly off. He was too tall, his shoulders too wide, his eyes had no whites, just endless seas of green. How had I not noticed that. It was so obvious in retrospect, but I just…hadn’t seen it.

Which made me pretty sure who I was talking to. “Dean Harper, I presume,” I said with a sigh. “The Monstrosity?”

He let out a barking laugh. Literally, it sounded like a barking dog. “Well, I kind of gave it to you, but I suppose being willing to admit it so easily is its own kind of impressive. You’re not upset about my little joke, are you?”

Callie was frozen, staring at him as she realized what I had not ten seconds before. “You’re an Overgod,” she said slowly. “You…why are you here? What is someone like you doing guarding the canyon? Don’t you have better things to do?” Her voice was shaky, and I could feel a bit of panic through the bond, though I returned it with my own reassurance to try to help her through it.

“He’s not a guard,” I said immediately, sure of that fact. “I bet there’s only ever one guard here, and it was the other guy. I’m more curious how you knew we were coming, and why you’d bother meeting with us. We’re not in your department.”

He shrugged. “You’re interesting. I sensed something unique about you two. Something deadly. Not to me, obviously, but we hunters of the Void can smell our own. I suspected you might have something to contribute to my little case study here, and I wanted to see what it might be.”

“But how did you know we’d even be here?” I asked cautiously. “Are you watching this place at all times or something?”

“In a certain sense,” he said casually. “It’s more…primal than that. I am, at my core, a beast. What kind I shan’t say, but a beast I was, and that comes with certain instincts. Once you reach the heights I’ve attained, those instincts cease to be bound by things like time or causality. You could consider it a form of precognition, or you could consider it the exact opposite. It depends heavily on perspective. I knew you would be here because you came here, and you probably came here because I knew you would. Cause and effect tend to warp around creatures like myself.”

I grimaced. “I bet the Dean loves that.”

“Why do you think he created this academy?” he said dryly. “The chance to study Overgods in our natural environment is hardly commonplace, and the intersection of so much fate is a contradictory soup of temporal inconsistency. We each have our own peculiarities in that regard, and we study each other as often as the students who arrive.”

I glanced back at the entrance. “So you wanted us to come here. To see what we could do to the Void Child. You think we have something you’ve never seen before?”

“Possibly,” he said with a shrug. “I am very old, but my lifespan is not infinite. There are indeed things in creation I haven’t seen. Admittedly, their number grows fewer every year, but I don’t suppose the supply has dwindled completely just yet.”

Callie stared at him suspiciously. “You’re in charge of Bethy’s department,” she said slowly. “Did she tell you about us?”

That did sound like her, but I didn’t think so in this case. This wasn’t about Bethy, this was about us, and our relationship with the Void. Sure enough, Dean Harper chuckled. “The Hybrid? No, she and I haven’t had time to speak one on one. Her kind is rare, admittedly. Especially spawned from such a potent vampiric bloodline. But I’ve seen Maenad Vampire hybrids before. If she seeks me out I may see fit to gift her an opportunity, but she isn’t interesting enough to warrant a personal visit. You, however…your power is fascinating.”

“The Heretic Flame came from my father,” she corrected. “He was-”

“A Void Vessel who rebelled,” he said impatiently. “Obviously. I’m not an idiot, girl. But I’m not talking about that. Your other aspect is more interesting. An Anti-Void perhaps? It’s difficult to describe. Not simply an attribute, but the foundation of a state of being. An inversion, maybe, or perhaps a divergent reflection. A twisted mirror of the emptiness between realms. And the opposite of emptiness should be fullness, but that’s not what you possess.”

She frowned. “It’s not…it’s not a reflection. Not really. It’s a shadow. My vault is reflective, and based on the same principles, but it’s not the same. The Adherent Fire is something else. It’s the result of the opposite of me, not of the Void. The opposite of a Heretic. The opposite of Void destruction, but not the true Void.”

He nodded with interest. “Doppleganger,” he said, like he was chewing the word. “Shadow self. You’ve had quite a few strange encounters. But then, you’d have had to. Unique things only come from the collision of coincidence.”

“Why do you WANT her Adherent Fire?” I asked. “It doesn’t really destroy the Void. Not like the Heretic Flame does.”

“Children,” he sniffed. “So impatient. “It’s a foundation, boy. A seed. A possibility of something new. A Void that is not a Void. A space that is not a space. Tell me, boy, with such a parent, what children might emerge from such an abyss? What creatures might come forth?”

I knew what he meant, kind of. Callie had done something like that one, in The Quiet Room during my trial. Created a sort of false Void that ran beside a space so isolated that even gods couldn’t get inside. It had been an impossible, ridiculous thing, but at the time it had seemed less important than everything else going on.

As for his second question…I hadn’t considered that. But thinking about it, I wondered if he might be right. Because the Adherent Fire was the opposite of the Heretic Fire, but like Callie said, it wasn’t a real reflection. There was a seed of the original deep inside, a spot of black in all that cobalt blue. If her not Void germinated Not-Void Children, would they inherit that Heretic nature. Would they be a natural counter to the Void Children?

“So, what do you want, exactly?” Callie asked suspiciously. “Just a sample of the flame?”

He snorted. “Nothing so crude.” He snapped his fingers and a strange object appeared. It was almost perfectly round, but looking close I could see that it wasn’t smooth. It was some sort of multi sided prism with so many sides it both was and wasn’t spherical. “I want a spark. A seed to germinate. The start of the downfall of the creatures I so despise. In all Chaos there is Cosmos, after all. What is the beginning but the precursor to an end?”

I glanced at Callie, wondering what she would say. “What will you give us for it?” she said slowly. “Aside from contribution points. Will you tell us more about the Void? About what it is and how to fight it?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I suppose that wouldn’t be out of the question,” he said slowly. “Though it will diminish the contribution points I might grant for accomplishing my task. Not to mention I don’t know exactly what might come of this experiment. It’s a fascinating potential path, but potential is inherently unrealized until it ceases to be.”

We shared a look, but it wasn’t needed. The Void was our biggest problem back home. If we could learn new weapons to use against them, it would help Atlas defeat Morwenna, which would tip the god war entirely back in our favor.

“Fine,” she said slowly. “But rather than contribution points, I want you to help me pick a few useful items that will work well with my Vault. Let’s say three of them. No price paid, I get them free and clear.” She was gambling a bit there, but not much. Dean Harper was an Overgod, and this was his project, if anyone knew the items inside it would be him, especially given what he’s just told us about his potential precognitive abilities.

He shrugged. “Very well, my aid picking three treasures from my collection. I can even help you suppress any of the ones that might be too dangerous. Do we have a deal?”

I got the impression we were getting the short end of the stick here, and I knew Callie felt it too. But it didn’t matter at this point. Even if the flames were worth an immeasurable amount, they would only have value like this to Dean Harper. Callie had been around the Dean of the spatial department multiple times, and he’d never expressed an interest in her Adherent Fire. The Monstrosity had some kind of issue with the Void, and it was the only reason we’d been approached.

Callie nodded, and he grinned that too wide grin. “Lovely,” he said, tossing her the sphere. “I trust I don’t need to instruct you on the process?”

“I’ve done it before,” she said simply, focusing her eyes on the orb.

A flame kindled inside it, and she focused on the point of light to the exclusion of all else. Dean Harper nodded in satisfaction, then turned to me. “So, how about you,” he said casually. “I got the impression you might have something interesting to share.”

I considered my options, knowing he’d have seen most of them, probably. I considered Mephistopheles, but the candle had been bought here at the exchange, so I doubted it was that. I went with my first instinct, and incarnated Leviathan. He watched with interest as the demon descended into my body.

“Nothing ground breaking,” he said after a moment. “But a reasonable defensive attribute. I’ll give you a hundred contribution points for it.”

I hesitated for a second, then nodded. “Fine,” I said. “Now tell me what I can get with those.” If possible his grin got even wider, and I couldn’t help but think I’d just made a mistake. It was too late to back out now, I supposed. All I could do was stay the course.