Chapter 307 - Night Skies

Nate sat at the meeting table below deck on the Solaris. Wulfgar and Kiri stared at him intently waiting for Nate to reveal the outcome of his meeting with the Starbreaking Guild.

Nate glanced at the polished wooden door that led above deck to where Frick guided them through the skies on the heading that Nate had given everyone the moment he appeared back on board.

“We need more crew,” he commented absently.

“What? What’s that got to do with the meeting you had?” asked Kiri.

“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking that Frick should be a part of this meeting and not having a few more members is kind of hindering us.”

“Still better than having Jemima around,” muttered Wulfgar.

Nate couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment.

“True as that is, Kiri’s right. I was getting off topic. The meeting with the Starbreaking Guild. I didn’t get Dorin like we planned. Instead the wily dwarf left immediately to bring in their Head Merchant, Wu To’sama.”

“He’s on the leaderboard,” interjected Wulfgar, the old warrior’s eyes glazing over for a second as he was clearly reading the latest leaderboard output.

Nate matched him, doing the same, after all it had been a few days.

Individual Leaderboard (Top 12)

1. Nathaniel Weber - Risen Sun Sect (1259)

2. Kiri Beaufoy - Risen Sun Sect (978)

3. Wulfgar Bjornson - Risen Sun Sect (642)

4. Kalin Silverscale - Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent (194)

5. Kole Darkscale - Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent (191)

6. Perenthia Illari’svell - Severing Blade Sect (185)

7. Sel’kin Might - Flux Industries (182)

8. Captain Borin Vaughn - The Golden Tide (173)

9. Drim Hall - The Eternium (167)

10. Wu To’sama - The Starbreaking Guild (162)

11. Gee’k Dumma - Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent (158)

12. Lunar Sylvin - Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent (151)

“Your girlfriend is losing her spot. Wonder if it’s because she’s spending too much time pining after you,” quipped Kiri.

Nate raised an eyebrow at his sister and she had the good sense to look chagrined.

“Okay, yeah, my bad. That was a bit tasteless. Your stalker is probably pouring her energy and time into finding you which is why she’s slipping,” said Kiri apologetically.

“Don’t stick your dick in crazy kid. Take it from me. It’s oh so good but the price ain’t worth it!” added Wulfgar.

“I wasn’t planning too. Can we get back on topic though?” asked Nate, a note of pleading in his voice. The last thing he wanted to do was discuss Perenthia and her extremely disconcerting fixation with him.

“Right. Head Merchant Wu To’sama. Currently number ten on the leaderboard. Do we trust him?” asked Kiri.

“I don’t think we trust anyone not on this ship,” commented Nate. “But I suspect they were telling the truth. Seems that after seeing some of our equipment, capability and an awareness of what we accomplished in the Team System Challenge, they’re looking to back us as the most likely candidates to win. I don’t know if they were being honest, but apparently they were already blocking purchasing information on us by pricing the information so high that no one in their right mind would pay for it.”

“Isn’t that going to interfere with the plan?” asked Wulfgar.

“Probably not,” interjected Kiri before Nate could answer. “If it was me and I wanted to sow some discord I would just have someone appear to go rogue and sell the information for a lower, but still inflated, price. Make it look like individual greed won out but, since they were taking a risk, they would still charge a premium.”

Nate shrugged, “It’ll probably be something like that. The point is, they’re going to spread the information quietly the next time one of the teams asking for it shows up. But, that might not be for a few days. Maybe even a week or two. Depends how long they’re out doing other things like System Challenges or just collecting the Divine Artifacts littering this planet.”

“So, what are we going to do with our time? You had a heading when you arrived back on board so I gotta assume we’re going somewhere specific. And I am just itchin’ to use the Cannon of Heaven’s Fist,” stated Wulfgar, a hungry look in his eyes.

Nate nodded.

“We do have a heading. There are two more System Challenges in this direction, though they’re further from Starbreaking Guild Bazaar this time. Five days to get to the first and another three to get to the second. The second is where we will make our stand. But since we’ve got some time and a head start I figured we’d stop and pick up every artifact we can find along the way.”

“No objections from me,” said Kiri with a grunt. “I’m still waiting for us to find an appropriate Peak-Grade for me.”

“About that,” replied Nate, producing a large metal cube from his spatial zone.

The cube looked like shiny steel but in Nate’s Conceptual Sight he could see the Concepts of Connection and Space bleeding off it. The cube itself had no walls, just metal struts and a base plate so you could see into the item from any angle except below. Gems embedded in the steel structure were for filling the item with mana and a small glass screen had the basic options of activating or deactivating the item.

“Is that… ?”

“It is,” said Nate with a smile. “Wu To’sama gave it to me so we could trade with the Bazaar without returning to it. Along with this.”

Nate produced a communication tome. That was what Wu had called it. Nate simply thought of it as an Information Mirror item, as always assigning the name based on the Concepts most heavily involved in the creation.

“He carries this one personally, apparently. We can just write down what we’re going to send and what we want in return and can exchange with the Bazaar at any time. I am supposed to return these items at the end of the World Reaping though.”

Kiri grinned, a small glint of the same avarice Nate had seen in Wu’s eyes now mirrored in those of his sister.

“Well, what are we waiting for then? Let’s go find some Divine artifacts.”

Wulfgar voiced his agreement and Nate joined his companions back on the deck of the Solaris as they sailed through the skies at a fast clip. Nate attended to his other creation, the Bowl of Divine Seeking, using the item to identify nearby locations to raid.

The next few days blurred into each other as they raided one location after another. Nate lamented the fact that no new Peak-Grade artifacts were found on the various forays but then he knew the things didn’t grow on trees. Well, except when they did. 

Funnily enough, the only High-Grade artifact they found held the Concept of Mirror and had been at the heart of a crystalline forest. The guardian had been a silver cat-like beast that wasn’t even as long as one of Nate’s arms. It had however given both Kiri and Wulfgar a ridiculous amount of grief as it used the mirror surfaces of the crystals to traverse the forest, constantly harassing them.

Nate had been focusing on improving the three cannons while also working on his own cannon aboard the Solaris and had simply watched the battle from on high. Kiri and Wulfgar had never been in any sort of danger from the little silver cat but its ability to evade them while also moving the artifact around had caused a great deal of frustration and Kiri had spent that night in the spatial zone taking a bath with Frick reprising his role as butler.

Nate had enjoyed the peace and quiet for a moment as he’d piloted the Solaris himself. He knew he needed to talk to Frick soon about how his Path was influencing his mentality. Kiri had made that clear upon his return. Nate just wasn’t sure how to go about it. 

No, Nate told himself. That was a lie. He had a pretty good idea of what the problem was. He just didn’t like the idea of the solution. Frick was clearly unbalanced. Kiri and Wulfgar seemed to think it was because of the Chaos Concept in Frick’s Path. But if that were the case, he should be getting better. Not worse. The Peak-Grade Demon’s Heart that Frick so heavily coveted focused on the other half of Frick’s Path. Consumption. 

The thing that was most likely unbalancing Frick was Nate himself. Or more specifically, the Familiar Contract. It had served him well, and even now, with Frick ever-so-slightly in his head, Nate felt a sense of comfort. After all, Frick had been with him from almost the very start. Nate was close to Frick. That closeness was different to Nate’s relationship with Kiri, but it was still important to him. Giving it up was not an easy decision to make. But that was almost certainly what he was going to have to do.

The actual problem, as Nate could see it, was how his own Path intersected with Frick’s. Frick was Chaos and Consumption, which should be fine so long as Frick had some control over what he was consuming. But that was where the problem arose. Rather than feeding on Chaos, he was feeding on Nate’s Path to a small extent. And Nate was Conceptual. All Concepts. Chaos was being overloaded with all the various things Nate learned and detected and, in so doing, it was overloading Frick, leading him to be even more chaotic. Too chaotic.

Nate decided he’d broach the subject with Frick in the morning. With Frick no longer being partly within the Spirit Realm, they should be able to sever the contract and Frick could move his anchor to something here. Something they could hide in Nate’s spatial zone and then Frick could go be wild and free, while hopefully a tad less crazy.

Nate smiled as his mind settled and returned to the problems with ‘the plan.’ The main problem he was foreseeing was Perenthia. Maybe it was arrogant, but Nate wasn’t that threatened by the other teams. Even if they banded together, he doubted they would be able to do anything about his preparations. If they came to a place where Nate had set the battlefield and prepared it, they were already doomed. In Nate’s eyes that was simply a fact, or at least it had been, until he met Perenthia. Facing someone who could alter Reality in a similar fashion to himself was the mother of all wrenches in his plans for preparation. Worse, Perenthia would definitely find out. 

The team had already swapped from going dark on their soul energy exchange with the Spirit Realm to now having the exchange send what was effectively junk information. The simple fact was, Perenthia would now find them through the other teams. The moment they got wind of Nate and co’s destination was the same moment Perenthia would get that information. Given what Nate had seen of her, she would follow like an arrow destined for its target.

Which meant ‘the plan’ needed to account for that. Kiri’s suggestion had been simple enough. Let her deal with Perenthia. And Nate was considering agreeing to it because keeping Perenthia away from the battlefield was a better outcome for him, probably. He had toyed with the idea of letting her show up since she seemed quite intent on him making it out of this World Reaping alive. There was a possibility that she might turn on the other teams for trying to kill him. Then again, she might also help them soften him up first so that she could swoop in and kidnap him. Because that was exactly what it sounded like she wanted to do.

He continued refining the rune design before him as he considered his options. Knowing he’d be going over them for the next few hours he split off part of his mind to make other plans. In his System Status, only one set of Skills remained that had not yet been converted into an Ability and carved into his Divine Vessel. The final piece to his transition before he could seriously consider removing his Class Core. His Spatial Skills. Conceptual Spatial Authority, Spatial Creation, Spatial Doors and Spatial Network. Though the former Skill aided all forms of the Space Concept, the other three were primarily focused on creating and connecting spatially expanded zones. 

He had a pretty good idea of how he wanted those to factor into his Divine Vessel and Nate had enough self awareness and introspection to acknowledge he was basically stealing the idea from the Worldforger Sect. His spatial zone was.., after all, already connected to him and he had a second, albeit smaller, one in the form of his Regalia. Combining that idea he would make his body, his Divine Vessel, into the connection to his spatial zone and transfer the connection away from his Class Core Skill. 

The conversion would be a delicate process but Nate was confident it was doable. The problem was he suspected it would take a little longer to accomplish than normal. At least a day, he suspected. The time required was largely driven by the need to not only combine the four Skills into one Ability, which was already a feat of runecrafting, but the need to transfer the connections for his spatial zone piece by piece so that the space didn’t destabilise or drift off into the ether. 

The sun was finally rising as Nate was drawing the finishing touches on what he suspected would be the runic structure for his new Ability. He’d have to run some tests first. Kiri joined him on deck, placing a plate of food and a glass of juice in front of him.

Nate nodded his thanks for the food, stepping away from the Solaris’s control panel, as his eyes roamed over his rune design when the Bowl of Divine Seeking lit up with almost a dozen lights.

Nate grunted to get Kiri’s attention.

Glancing at the Bowl, Kiri’s eyebrows went up.

“Another team?” she suggested.

“Or two,” agreed Nate. “Let’s check it out.”

Kiri grinned and the ship tilted to the side as it cut through the clouds making for the hot spot of activity.

Nate used Conceptual Sight and a rune in his Regalia that Connected his Sight to a place in the distance before almost choking on the fried eggs he’d just put in his mouth. The egg ended up spattered across the deck, some of it flying off the back of the ship as the wind got a hold of it.

“What is it?” demanded Kiri.

“It’s Jak, Gwen and Fili,” answered Nate. “Seem’s they’re in a spot of trouble. Feel like playing hero in front of your casual fling?”

Kiri's face lit up. Giving up her spot at the control panel for the Solaris she headed for the front of the ship as Nate slid into the spot she had vacated and aimed the Solaris just above the trees. Not that he expected Kiri to wait till they got that close to make her entrance - after all it wasn’t every day you got to rescue someone you were, in Kiri’s own words, incredibly attracted to. For a moment, Nate thought of Britt, then his mind focused back on the problem in front of them and he began preparing for a potential fight. One way or another, they were going to save Jak, Gwen, and Fili.