Wish upon the Stars chapter 510

There were, predictably NOT a giant set of stars sitting in empty  space when we reached the site on the map. But there was something. A  squat, dark building of matte black stone in a big clearing. And of  course, surrounding the building was a fucking army of dark cloaked  figures. Once again I was stumped by how they had so many here. There  were only two hundred or so people by the end of fifth trial, and even  if they all got brought over, they couldn't ALL be BMP.

"Ok,  so the place is crawling with people." I said in annoyance as we stared  out from the treeline. "I'm hoping that we can catch Felix in there,  but if it's an exit chances are good he's already gone."

Benny's  eyes went wide from where he stood next to me. "Shit, should we go  after him? If he destroys it behind him we might be stuck. It would make  sense to follow him through." He looked back into the distance. "And  what about the others? Callen and Travis and them. Are we leaving them?"

"Nope."  I said firmly. "And we're not following him either. Wherever that thing  is aimed, it isn't going to be the same place we came in. I don't care  how diabolical your plan is, dropping into the middle of all those  A-rankers is suicide. Each and every force who had people in the trial  is probably rabid with fury over us vanishing. If they pop up, they'll  be under suspicion at least. Especially coming without any of us. Too  big a chance someone will search them and take the cup."

Callie  nodded. "He'll probably have a secondary exit point. Maybe another one  of the temples. They might not function any more but they could have  gotten the teleportation points working. They were able to subvert the  one here, so clearly they know how it works."

"If  there's a way out in that building, we need to hit them as he goes  through. Stop him if we can, but the big priority is making sure none of  them can wreck it behind him." I said firmly. "As much as I want to  stop the rise of a bunch of evil gods, our priority is not being stuck  here to be eaten by wolfhornigators."

Callie  sighed, pinching her nose. "We aren't calling them wolfhornigators.  That's a ridiculous name. They're...lizardwolfdeer, shit that's harder  than it seems." She'd been feeling a lot better since we met up with  Biscuit, cuddling the big squirrel, distracting herself from the guilt,  but she only managed to joke around for a second before she remembered  what she'd done and shot a guilty glance at Nat.

For  her part, my cousin wasn't paying attention to Callie. She was staring  daggers at the hooded figures. It was clear she blamed the translocator  for Perit's death (as she should) probably at least partly to avoid  focusing that anger on a friend. I knew that had to be hard, but I  thought it was probably the healthiest way to go about it.

"Anyway."  I said, getting us back on track. "We need to figure out some way to  get eyes in there. Bethy, can you send in one of your flying squirrels  to canvas the place? They'd be perfect for recon here. We need to get  eyes on Felix if he's still there. If not...well fingers crossed we can  cobble together a fix for whatever they did to the teleporter after he  left, assuming there's enough left TO fix."

She  nodded, closing her eyes, and when she opened they were glowing red.  She flicked a hand and a squirrel appeared, sitting on her palm...as she  sat on a squirrel. My life was so weird sometimes.

As  the squirrel went in, Chelsea spoke up. "I'm concerned. This next  bit...fighting is great most of the time. But we just can't waste the  minutes mixing it up. We need to take them out fast even if it's only  temporary. Otherwise there's too big a chance they'll destroy the thing,  whatever it might be. That's assuming there's even anything in there.  Lot of maybe's here."

"Agreed."  I said with a sigh. "But we're in a time crunch. And I'd rather flail  around half assed and have a chance of pulling something out of a hat  then wait and lose our shot. We're working off ten different assumptions  on this one, but I'm willing to be an ass if it means we get home. If  we fuck it up we're in no worse a situation than we would be from just  not trying."

Callie  squeezed my hand. "You're right. But so is she, at least about needing  to take them out fast. This isn't the time for an all out brawl. We  shouldn't engage them at all if possible, and if we have to, we need to  wrap them up fast in traps."

She  had a point. Normally, I'd have asked her to take some of them out  subtly. Pick off the stragglers with a knife in the back. She was our  best infiltrator by far. But at the moment I just couldn't bring myself  to mention it. Not knowing how awful she felt about killing Perit. So I  turned to our next best hope. "Hey Bethy you hear me still?" She nodded  absently. "Alright, once your squirrel gets back can you slip in and off  a few of them. Try to thin the herd?"

Bethy  didn't want to be a monster. But her definition of that word was pretty  specific. Monsters killed innocents for no reason. Annoying Bethy was a  reason, and these guys had gone well past that. She paused for a  second, eyes remote and glowing red. "Sure. I can take out the ones that  let their guard down. But it won't be all of them, not if I don't want  to be noticed."

"We'll  take care of that." I said in relief. "Don't move yet though. Tell me  about the inside. Is there an exit in there? Is Felix still around?"

Still  staring distractedly, Bethy nodded. "I see him. He's standing in front  of some sort of huge box made of black marble. It's covered with  symbols, and there are a bunch of dials on it. He's messing with one of  them. There's a big glowing portal on top of the box, and as he flips  the dial the portal is changing. He's moving it slowly though, sometimes  stuff comes out and the others attack it before it can hurt him. Every  couple of turns he keeps dumping more Lamentation Liquid on it."

"Perfect!"  I said in excitement. "That's exactly what we need. I'm guessing the  portal is some kind of maintenance thing for the testing sites. He must  be looking for the right one. I guess his crazy juice wears off quick.  That means it'll probably take a bit."

I  considered what we needed. I had a vague idea of how to do this. "Gabe.  Take Biscuit and Abel back and help the others. Get them here as quick  as possible. Here's hoping there's enough of that liquid left to get us  home. Callie, you're with me. I have an idea for a trap setup that  should do the trick, but it's going to be tough."

We  needed to take them out either all at once or too fast to react. Which  meant we needed some way to get the drop on them. Callie nodded,  following me off to one side as I tasked Mel with keeping an eye out and  the others with watching her. Once we were a bit back from the treeline  I looked down, concentrated, and triggered Pit of Despair. Callie  squeaked as we fell, but I grabbed her, triggering Ripple running to  stop our fall.

Once  I had a stable footing, I dipped a hand into the pit and dumped all the  dust into my spatial ring. I let us drop, and we were standing at the  bottom of a ten foot pit. Then I did it again. When we were twenty feet  down, I triggered Eye of Revelation and Song of the Soil. "Alright,  follow my lead here." I said as I knelt and put a hand against the  tunnel. "I'm going to use Pit of Despair horizontally. I need you to  reinforce the tunnel with shadows before I remove the dust."

"Alright."  She said pensively. "Not sure what you're going for, but I'm game." I  triggered the skill and she reinforced it, then I drained the dust. I  sculpted the pit this time, doubling the distance by halving the  diameter. Twenty feet deep but only five across. Then I repeated.  Following Song of the Soil, I led us to just short of the building, and I  created a couple tunnels to allow movement underneath the clearing.

Then,  hunching down quite a bit (damned tunnels were so short) I looked at  Callie. "Ok, step two of the plan. I'm going to make more pits. Not all  the way up though. Just to a few inches short of the surface. Then I  need you to reinforce the ground there. Not enough to hold up under a  person's weight. Just enough so that the grass doesn't collapse."

Her  eyes brightened. "Pitfall traps. Nice. I can do that. It's getting  strenuous to hold so many constructs, but I didn't get all that soul  work in for nothing. I can make a few of these." Once I got her go  ahead, I made a series of pits, each one reaching up to about two inches  shy of the surface, and when she reinforced them, I absorbed all the  sand. I wasn't sure what was going to happen to it when it came back  out, but that was a problem for future me.

Once  we had a line of the things stretched out in front of the building, I  let out a deep breath. "Ok Cal. Here's the not so nice part. I need  spikes. Big sharp fucking things lining the bottoms. All pointed  straight up."

She  flinched. "I...Shane that's not...look. I don't mind killing them. Even  after Perit. ESPECIALLY after Perit. But pitfalls are so dangerous.  Anyone can fall into them. What if one of our friends drops in. I don't  think I could take something like that happening again."

"And  it won't." I said soothingly. "I'm the one on bait detail for this.  That's the plan. You'll see, I know exactly what to do, and since I know  they're there it'll be zero danger for me." I reached out and grabbed  her hand. "I know this is a lot." I said softly. "You're hurting. And  it's not fair. I should be giving you time to grieve, to work through  what you're feeling. But in order to give you that we need to get home.  And that means I need you to be strong for me for just a little bit  longer."

She  swallowed hard, closing her eyes and squeezing my hand. "I can do that."  She murmured. "I keep seeing her face Shane. The look in her eyes as  the light faded. The hurt and the confusion. We weren't that close, but  she was still one of ours, you know? One of our people. I'm supposed to  protect them. We all protect each other. And I killed her."

"You  did not." I said firmly. "I mean that. But I know I won't convince you.  So dedicate yourself to making amends. Helping me bring her back. And  protecting those that are left."

Nodding  slowly, she opened her eyes. "I can do that. I'll keep the rest of our  friends safe. Even if it means killing all those hooded assholes to the  last man." She waved a hand, and a wave of darkness flooded the floor of  the pit nearest us, spiking up into large jagged spikes.

"Perfect."  I complimented her with a grin. "And just to add a bit of zing." I  snapped my fingers, pulling out some of the wolfhornigator venom. "A bit  of special sauce." I smeared a bit onto each spike, and then we moved  on to do the other pits. These assholes wouldn't know what hit them.