Wish upon the Stars chapter 37

My palms were sweaty as we made our final approach. I hadn't been  super nervous on the way over, honestly, but now that we were here I was  poleaxed. The sheer SCALE of the city was so alien to me I could barely  process it. Not just the hundred BILLION people in it either. This was  the oldest city on the planet, the first city settled by the  Conglomerate on Callus, which meant it had the most time to grow, to  evolve.

The  first thing I noticed was the architecture. I'd expected it to be stable  and uniform. One style of building just slapped across the skyline. And  there was some of that, a kind of base style, but interspersed  throughout the city were skyscrapers of different styles. Odd twisting  buildings, strange edifices of warped glass styled like misshapen  sculptures in ways I was pretty sure required some kind of enchanting as  a cheat.

It was strange really.  Looking at them individually you would have expected them to look  unusual mashed together like that. But somehow the individuality of  those strange disparate elements blended together to make the city  something exotic and beautiful. A mosaic in the form of a city, with  little chips of different cultures and architecture styles mixed  together into a whole greater than that sum of it's parts. I got so  wrapped up in watching the buildings go by that I didn't even notice the  descent until we were at ground level and Shadowthorn was stepping out  of the air shuttle.

Hopping  down myself I took in the city a second time, except now my point of  view was at ground level. It was...less overwhelming, but still a lot to  take in. The number of random pedestrians was staggering, and as I'd  seen from the shuttle there were a LOT of Skyrides. Which made sense  because normal streets would have gotten clogged quickly with the sheer  volume of traffic here. The weirdest part was that the city was so big  that despite being in the presence of more people than I'd ever seen it  didn't feel crowded.

Callie  and Jessie were both almost as in awe as Benny and I. Callie gave a low  whistle. "Damn. I forgot how overwhelming this place can be. I admit I  thought some of it was just bias from being here as a kid, but nope,  this is a truly ridiculous sight." She pointed ahead of us. "Especially  that." I turned to look at the building she was point to, and then I  looked up. And up. And up. Because hold shit was it tall. A massive  tower of stone and metal.

I  had trouble processing the thing. It looked like someone had taken  pieces of a white marble castle with golden veins and  suspended them in  the air with gaps between them. The white stone was held up within a  frame of what looked like literal gold, and between the gaps there were  sections of glass and gold that looked like normal skyscraper segments.  The whole building gave the appearance of some kind of weird tower of  mismatched blocks made of the most expensive possible materials.

It  kind of worked somehow though, the style of the castle segments changed  subtly from the bottom up, starting more rustic and old fashioned  before shifting slowly into a futuristic edifice of white stone and  glass at the top that blended the types of segments perfectly into one  harmonic gestalt. I blinked. The gold supports along that building were  almost definitely not normal gold. The stuff wasn't strong enough to  build a structure like that from. It had to be either Ascendant gold or  enchanted, probably both.

Callie  smirked at my shock. "That's the Callus headquarters for the Unity.  It's a literal building from the main branch. It's pretty much a city  made of buildings like that from what I know, and when they open a new  branch they transport one of the skyscrapers to the new planet. I don't  actually know why, but a lot of people theorize it has to do with the  nature of the Unity, and the nature of Unity himself."

Unity  was...kind of a mystery. Everyone in the Conglomerate knew him, it was  hard not to with the organization named after him so prevalent  everywhere, but actual details about the Strongest Hero, were few and  far between. Whatever the deal with him was, he was strong enough that  his organization gave the Conglomerate the right to be considered a  member of the five faction alliance. Getting answers about him was  weirdly hard though, because everyone acted like the man and the guild  were basically the same thing.

Shadowthorn  was gazing fondly up at the staggering mass of metal and stone. "It  never gets less beautiful, I must admit. Its nice to be home." She  turned to regard us all seriously, her smile stiffening as she saw  Callie's glare, but still holding. "Well, welcome to the Callus main  headquarters. We offer temporary housing until you can find a place to  live, or in the event of a rank up to a sufficient level, even  permanently. After we get you settled in we'll take you to visit the  Academy, but given the size of that undertaking it probably won't happen  until tomorrow."

She  gestured for us to follow her into the towering edifice, and all of us  trekked behind her into the massive tower. As we entered, I was  flabbergasted by the sheer scale of the inside. The entryway is a sort  of atrium that seems to be one long hollow in the middle of the tower  all the way to the top. Literal waterfalls pour from some of the floors  into small pools jutting out into the atrium that pour the water back  into the walls even as it fills them. Some floors have trees you can see  hanging over the edge or dangling vines and the floor itself is a  series of literally golden cobblestones on the bottom floor.

It's...a  paradise. A crazy mixed up cacophony of beauty and life and noise and  freedom. It's arguably even more jaw dropping than the outside, and the  small glimpse into each floor as you gaze further up that massive empty  space in the middle made me desperately want to visit every single floor  of this crazy place. As we took it all in, hundreds of people in  costumes walked past, heading to different floors via stairs or  elevators around the edges of the atrium. Tall and short, fat and thin,  every color I could imagine and some I couldn't it was like watching a  parade.

A  small group of people walked by and waved to Shadowthorn, who waved back  excitedly. A small woman with black hair and hazel eyes dressed in all  white, a redhead in blue with green eyes, a towering dark skinned man  with brown eyes and gold clothes and a smaller man with olive skin whose  eyes were literally ORANGE dressed in bright shades of red. They seemed  excited to see our guide and the woman in white tapped her scan ring  meaningfully at Shadowthorn who laughed and nodded back.

She  turned to us, still chuckling. "Sorry about that, one of the teams I  patrol with sometimes. We're heading for the seventy fifth floor so it's  a good idea to take the elevator. We can grab the one over here. You'll  be in VIP housing for the moment since it's just temporary." She  escorted us over to the elevator, a glass cylinder with golden edges and  a white marble floor. Once we stepped in she hit a button on the panel  along one of the strips of gold holding the glass together and we  started to rise.

The  glass elevator carried us up into the atrium, letting us look out on  the staggeringly large building. I was pretty sure there was some  Fantasy and Creation runework on whatever that gold was, because this  place seemed bigger than it was supposed to be based on how it looked  from outside, which was already absolutely massive. If the air shuttle  trip had been too surreal to scare us with heights, this one definitely  wasn't and watching the cobbled floor of the entrance hall fall away as  we rose up through the atrium was as dizzying as it was electrifying.

Shadowthorn  cleared her throat as we rose. "Calliope. I was...wondering if you  could do something for me?" Callie shot the woman an incredulous look  that drew a visible wince from her. "Well, not me specifically. Eric and  I live in the VIP housing, since Paul is the guild master, he likes to  keep us close so he knows we're safe." She paused a moment, as if unsure  whether to keep going. "I...can you please try to be nice to Eric? I  know you haven't seen him since he was a baby and you have a lot  of...anger, aimed at us, but that isn't his fault."

I  expected Callie to snap, and she definitely tensed up, but after a  minute she relaxed. She sighed. "I'm not an asshole Annie. I know none  if this is on him. He's two. I'm not going to verbally abuse a  toddler, even if I can understand why you would worry about it. Dear old  dad was never very patient with kids, was he?" That got a bigger wince,  and it made me even more predisposed to hate Callie's dad. I didn't  think he was actually abusive, or the dynamic would be much different  here. Callie wasn't the kind of person to ignore something like that.  But he was pretty obviously a giant dick.

Once  again I hoped that he tried to mess with me personally. Zeke could and  would curb stomp the bastard if he interfered with me directly, since  being E ranked made him more than two ranks above me. He'd still be two  up once I hit G rank, and I was pretty sure I'd still be protected. I  hadn't noticed before but Zeke had purposefully skipped over mentioning F  ranked threats despite them being two ranks up, which I suspected was a  way to add some urgency to my training.

We  made the rest of the trip in silence, with Jessie shifting  uncomfortably at being stuck in a glass tube with two people who hated  each other. Out botanist wasn't really build for emotional conflict, and  preferred to keep things light. A sentiment I understood but sadly not  one I had any impact over, so I just went back to staring at the  absolutely staggering view out the side of the elevator as we shot up  into the upper reaches of the building. It really was dizzying to see  all those floors race by, and this thing definitely didn't move slowly.

Finally  we pulled to a stop and turned around to exit the elevator. The walls  of the floor around the elevator were clear from the outside but were  normal white marble after we got off and looked back. One way stone. Yet  another insane twist to this building that I kind of loved. This was  hands down the most amazing place I'd ever been, and I really hoped they  let us explore it once we were checked in. It also made me even more  curious about the local WCP and the Academy. I couldn't imagine the  Palace letting the Unity outdo them. They certainly hadn't back in  Velan.

Shadowthorn  led us out of the hallway near the elevator and into a large spacious  lounge area about the size of an opera hall. The walls were lined with  individual doors but the center area was a communal living space with a  scan box and a series of couches. Shadowthorn fished out a few keys from  her pockets and passed them to us. "Your room numbers are on the keys,  feel free to look around the floor as long as you don't try to get  through any locked doors." She slumped slightly when she finished  talking, as if finally putting down a burden. "Now if you'll excuse me.  I'm going to go see my son."