Wish upon the Stars chapter 1195 (Patreon)

“Well, that was dramatic,” I said as we headed for the dining hall after my sister’s big bloodline upgrade. I had to admit, it was kind of nice knowing my friends and family were as capably bullshit as me sometimes. I couldn’t have integrated that fire into my bloodline like that, and while Chelsea’s Path might not be as grandiose or expansive as mine, it was clear it had some real kick where it counted.

Callie snorted. “Well, she is YOUR sister,” she said wryly.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you could possibly mean by that,” I lied with dignity. “Anyway, are you excited about dinner? I love wellington, but it’s SUCH a pain to make. I mean, I guess I could have Cooking do it for us, so that’s something to consider.”

Callie’s eyes lit up. “Wait, you could have Cook follow me around all the time! Why haven’t you been doing that since the beginning?”

I paused, thinking about that. “Honestly…I kind of didn’t think of it. Mostly, I just like cooking for you. Food has always been something we enjoyed doing together, and I guess I didn’t want to give that up. I guess I subconsciously avoided considering the topic because I didn’t want to give up one of the most important ways we spend time together.”

Staring at me, her eyes shook slightly as she swallowed hard. “That was the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me,” she said softly. “I love you so much, Shane.”

Leaning down, I gave her a quick, gentle kiss. “I love you too, Cal. But I was being silly. I know you need food more than I can be around. I’ll send Cook to follow you around, he’s tier nine anyway, so you can consider him a multi purpose body guard until you hit A-rank.” I grinned as I added the last part, enjoying her pout as she expressed her annoyance at my overprotective nature.

“I don’t NEED a bodyguard,” she moaned, though she snuggled up under my arm as we walked, so she wasn’t that upset.

“Just give it up,” I laughed. “Until you have the baby, everyone is going to fuss over you. We're going to be alive for tens of thousands of years at the lowest, a few months of hovering won’t kill you. Now, you see any new flames you’re interested in checking out? Some of them are bound into objects, so you might find something interesting to use with the vault.”

Distracting Callie with loot was a time honored tradition in our marriage, and the secret to my successful survival in many of our fights. Sure enough, she lit up with excitement. “We passed a few of those on the way. Most of them are those suppressed spheres, and most of the item bound fires are too high rank, but I DID spot a few that were interesting. Like there was one flame that could turn your body semi incorporeal like the wind to make you lighter. It was bound to a pair of shoes.”

“That’s awesome,” I said with interest. “So the inverted version would be a density enhancement? Like the one Benny has?” I hadn’t seen my friend use that ability in a while, but it was one of his more devastating powers when we’d been starting out.

The comment seemed to catch my friend’s attention from nearby where he was talking to Abel.  He turned to look at us solemnly. “If it is, you should be careful with it,” he warned. “I did a lot of damage to my body messing with my density back in the day. Nothing I didn’t heal from, but just because the material your body is made of becomes denser doesn’t mean you’re prepared to deal with the difference in the forces you use it to channel.”

I shot Callie a worried glance and she rolled her eyes. “I’ll use a shadow double to test it,” she assured me. “I swear, I’m going to be so reckless after I have this baby. You won’t have any idea how to handle all my nonsense.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked dryly. “Punch a god?”

“Worse,” she said smugly. “I’m going to act like YOU. Just you wait, I’ll run around like a maniac starting fights and getting sucked into complicated plots.”

I snorted. “You’re not going to leave the baby to run off and wreak havoc. I doubt even I’ll be starting much trouble until she’s older. Face it, love, we’re about to become old married people. Sitting at home making smart choices for our future and not doing anything that could get us killed. It sounds like hell.”

She deflated. “You’re right, I hadn’t thought about that. Do you really think it’ll be like that?”

“Probably not,” I reassured her, making it clear I’d been teasing. “Don’t forget we’ve got a large support system. And ultimately, our ranks are still important. The stronger we are, the safer the baby will be. I was just kidding. You can run off and go crazy after the baby is born. We’ll leave her with my mom and you can come along when I’m creating that forward operating base in the Void. We can use the starpluck bangle to check in and visit regularly. It’ll be great, you’ll see.”

I took her hand, squeezing it gently, and she squeezed back. I hadn’t realized until I made the joke how worried she was about this. I’d taken for granted that she would be ready to go back out into the field with me after she had the baby, but this really WAS going to change our lives in ways I couldn’t imagine.

Still, I was sure we could manage, plenty of people managed to be parents and also have careers, and most of them couldn’t make a dozen copies of themselves on command or summon a legion of seventy two loyal demons with a variety of useful powers.

We arrived at the dining hall pretty quickly, and Terry ushered us inside happily. “Welcome, welcome, I’m so glad to have you here with me for this visit.” He glanced at my grandfather scathingly. “Most of you, anyway. Honestly, I hope you’ll think of me the same way you think of Moon, as a member of the family. Maybe asking you to call me Uncle Terrence is a bit much, but feel free to make yourselves at home.” His smile was warm and sincere as he spoke directly to Chelsea and me. Of course, I already knew he and my grandmother were close growing up, so I wasn’t too surprised, but it was still a nice thing to hear. I was mostly past the point of needing more S-rank protection, but I’d never turn down more family members, especially ones important to the ones I already had.

My grandmother smiled warmly at him. “We’re so thankful for your hospitality, Terry. ALL of us,” she narrowed her eyes at my grandfather.

Sighing, he pasted on a big fake smile. “Yup. Happy to be here. Best day ever.”

As we sat down and got our plates, I turned to Terry with interest. “So I was talking to Callie about some of the flames anchored to items? She’s always on the lookout for new ones, and I personally plan to study as many of them as possible with Dantalion to try to put together a proper design for a Peaceflame carrier. But I was curious about your thoughts on the design. I haven’t locked down anything specific, though I was thinking about something like a suit of armor?”

He shook his head. “I recommend against that. When you’re making anchoring items, you need to take multiple different limitations into account. Obviously, we can create more well structured armor, but we’re looking at mass production. Which means material cost is going to be a factor.”

Bethy snorted as she bit into her wellington, talking with her mouth full as she said. “Why don’t you just make a watch? You said you’re good at those, right?”

I froze. “That…is a REALLY good point,” I said slowly. “I mean, I’d need to make some tweaks to the process. I can’t use Agares for construction because he’s based partially on Belial, and the attribute for the magma underlying that whole material is counter to the attribute of the Peaceflame.” I mulled over the problem. “Except I might be able to work around that. If Callie can enshrine a completed watch, I would be able to have Dantalion deconstruct the template. We can just charge it with Peaceflame directly. Maybe have Brad help.”

It would be a complicated process, but my experience in watchmaking SHOULD be up to the task. In fact, this would be a perfect project to begin my watchmaking demon creation on. I could use the first completed watch as a foundational object to create the new demon. Actually, my earlier Piano idea wasn’t necessary OR optimal from that perspective. I could use Dust Construction himself as a base. That particular demon wasn’t based on Belial, so creating watches with him should be cleaner, especially with the Peaceflame as a template.

“I know that look,” Callie laughed as she swallowed a bite of wellington. “You’ve got some crazy scheme in mind that will let you do something ridiculous.”

I waggled a hand as I put a bite of my own into my mouth. Chewing and swallowing, I elaborated. “I don’t think so. I mean yes, eventually. Once he hits tier nine I can use the staff to boost him to S-rank, basically, though only the VERY earliest point of it. But that’s a ways off, the demon I picked is still tier six. It’ll make the reincarnation easier, especially with Brad helping, but I’ll need to do some serious training with him to get him up to snuff.”

“Honey,” my wife said kindly. “No one has any clue what you’re talking about right now.”

I paused, glancing up to see everyone staring. “Right,” I said dryly. “Focus. Way higher than Perception. Sorry, everyone. I guess we also need to find a flame that can help with that, if you don’t mind,” I said with a sheepish wince.

Terry grinned. “I’m a researcher, boy, do you honestly think I’ve never been caught in a Focus fugue?”

Elonwy laughed at that. “He’s right, it happens to all of us at some point. Why do you think my car is such a mess?” She paused. “Well, I also operate in multiple timelines simultaneously which obviously doesn’t help. But my Focus is a big contributor.”

Nearby, Benny was nodding along, obviously well aware of the problems with being a researcher. I laughed, feeling a bit better for their support. “Thanks,” I told them all gratefully. “But…yeah, I’d really like to at least try to balance things out.” Of course, I might be able to find a flame that could boost two stats, since I only needed Perception to be about double. I hadn’t considered that as an option.

But all that could wait til later. I forced my mind to calm, asserting my will on my brain to make sure I could be in the moment with my friends and family, then I cut a small bite and ate it. I nodded to Terry. “The food is excellent, by the way, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he chuckled. “Tomorrow morning we can find your new phoenix template. I suspect your research will be easier once your stats are a bit more balanced. After that…well, I believe I was promised one of these watches, and I have to admit I’m enthused to see what you might come up with.”

Honestly, so was I. I had some big plans for this, and I couldn’t wait to see them come to fruition. But before any of that, he was right. Tomorrow we would need to finally track down my next flame. Now if only I could figure out exactly what I wanted to pick.