Wish upon the Stars chapter 30

Seeing Callie viciously wolf down the cheese fries at the cafeteria  made me smile. She was eating the starchy food like she was trying to  exact vengeance, and apparently she wasn't satisfied because she glared  down at it. "This sucks. I forgot why I stopped eating in the normal  cafeteria." She took a swig of soda and looked at the two of us, both  staring at her. "Next time I'll take you guys up to the executive lounge  again. The food up there is way better. Still, thanks for inviting me,  desk duty has me ready to throw a brick through someone's window."

Jessie  and I exchanged smirks as we enjoyed our own meals, a steak for me and a  huge bowl of spaghetti for her. We were eating in the employee  cafeteria at the guild, the normal one that wasn't perched on clouds  overlooking an endless ocean. Despite the lacking wow factor though the  food was actually pretty good, at least by my standards. Granted I  wasn't used to eating meals prepared by a master chef every day so I  might have been a bit biased. I took a bite of my ribeye and raised an  eyebrow at Callie. "What was that about a skyscraper."

She  rolled her eyes. "Just yet another in a long list of minor errors I've  made over the past few days. Stricture is an anal retentive ass. He has  incredibly complicated and detailed rules for everything, and if you get  confused by some random bit of overlap he acts like you're incompetent  and berates you for an hour. If he wasn't such a wizard at accounting  and paperwork no one would put up with him. As it mostly everyone just  avoids him unless they run into trouble, so I don't even have visitors  to distract from how unbearable he is."

She  shook off her annoyance, shooting us both a worn smile. "Anyway how  have you two been?" Her lips quirked up in a smirk. "I heard Ian took  you out to the Jerk's territory for patrol today. I don't have the  details but considering the constant barrage of weird those guys are  capable of I'm guessing that was an...experience." She was clearly  trying hard not to laugh, shoving more fries into her mouth to push down  her giggles.

I  glared. "You could have warned me. HE could have warned me. Literally  anyone could have given me SOME kind of warning about what I was walking  into. That whole section of town is a mix between a bad mob comedy and a  damn cartoon. If I never go back there it'll be too soon. Does  recursion effect whole areas or are there just so many of the jerks  being pushed to weirdness that it spills over."

Her  eyebrows went up in surprise. "That's...a very insightful question.  There are places that are...Ascendant territories for lack of a better  term, but they don't exist on a planet this small. They call them  dungeons. They develop a profile similar to an ability and can gain  stats as they gain renown. Great places to farm resources. They have a  much higher incidence of Ascendant materials. Like I said though, those  don't show up in places like this. In this case it's just a bunch of  idiots too stupid to avoid recursion caught in a weirdness spiral."

She  waved off any more questions. "The Jerks are best ignored as much as  possible. They get too much attention as it is. Anyway, I was going to  come looking for you. We ran into some luck. The guild master managed to  get in touch with Harlequin and negotiated for the use of one of their  best Inventors. They're having him sent over from the capital branch to  try to get into that ring, so we might have a lead to follow sooner  rather than later." She sounded excited for some progress and I was  happy to hear it myself.

I  was in an unfortunate position at the moment in terms of getting help  from my uncle. Because of the rules about candidates he couldn't do more  than answer general questions or give me access to things I had the  money to pay for. In some ways despite knowing Zeke better someone like  Stella was in a better position to get help from him than I was. I'd  been considering asking him about the killer, but then I remembered he  wasn't allowed to provide any help against anyone below E rank, and that  would go up to D when I ranked up.

I  finished my steak in companionable silence as the girls talked over  recent goings on. Callie filled us in on some of the more absurd damage  forms she'd filled out recently and Jessie showed off her new wand  proudly, which got me a raised eyebrow from Callie. She didn't actually  comment on it, though I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not  because I was curious what the hell that look meant. Finally I finished  my food and decided to ask something I'd been meaning to bring up. "So,  Callie, would you be willing to help me with some training?"

She  looked stunned. "I mean...you mean like sparring? Because I promise you  Shane, that is not going to work out well for you. Fighting up ranks is  only done if you have an extremely powerful combat ability and a heavy  favoring of the relevant stats to bridge the gap. There's no real  formula for it but with a crafting ability and your relatively even  starting stats there's no possible way you're going to manage it." She  looked like she thought I was an idiot for even asking. Which was fine,  because I was pretty sure anyone else would be.

Luckily  for me I WANTED her to be basically immune to my attacks. I'd been  itching to test out one of my rogue abilities and I still had once  attack left with my DS Mastery today to use for it. I gave her a wry  grin. "I have a new move I want to test out but it's too dangerous to  use on someone my own rank. Since you're so much stronger than I am it  should be totally safe to test it on you, and I want to see what kind of  output I can get from it." I was jittering with excitement to be able  to test my rogue skills, I'd avoid the poisons just in case but I had so  many great moves she could help with.

She  raised an eyebrow at the obvious glee in my voice but shrugged. "I  mean, as long as you know you're in for a total asskicking, sure. I'm  curious to see what kind of crazy enchantment you came up with that  makes you worry for the safety of people your own rank." She stood up,  stretching a bit to work out the stiffness I assumed came from sitting  behind a desk all day. She was dressed in a black sweater and black  slacks, clearly prioritizing comfort while on desk duty and not caring  at all about guild rules about being in costume.

A  loud crack echoed from her neck as she pushed her head to either side,  popping the joints and then rolling her head in a circle on her  shoulders. "Ok, lets do this then. Follow me to the training room and we  can see what you've got." She turned and strolled out of the cafeteria,  past sturdy wood tables full of other capes eating together and by the  long metal counter where the food was served in the use cafeteria style.

I got up to  follow, thinking about all the powerful rogue moves I knew. In reality  my options were limited. Poison, as stated was out, stealth was a no go  since Callie's Perception was in the triple digits given she was in the  mid to upper G ranks with her cap in elixir stats already maxed.  Anything with shadow was out, as was anything past the first tier of the  skill tree. Luckily rogue was the heaviest part of my build so I had a  few options still. Jessie followed behind us as we headed for the  training room and I thought over what I should do.

I  was pretty sure she was going to tank it, because if she felt like  dodging with her Might it wouldn't be an issue. So I decided to go with a  blitz attack. I had a blow called Mercy Kill that dealt a hundred and  fifty percent damage in exchange for emptying stamina, and that one  should be perfect for this situation. That skill tree has some other  really interesting moves further down, but Mercy Kill was the only first  tier blitz attack I had so it would have to do. I reached into the bag  and pulled out my bat with a grin.

I  had no illusions I could hurt Callie with this attack. It wasn't about  that, in fact that was better. I wanted to see what it looked like when I  went all out. How much damage I could do. Six might worth or pure  force, three more from the bat, with a hundred fifty percent damage on  top was twenty two or twenty three points of Might. More than twenty  times the force that a peak mortal athlete could manage. Even if it  didn't bridge the gap it would sure as hell make her take notice of what  I could do.

We  reached the training room and she took off the sweater, revealing a  white tank top under it as she kicked off her shoes and walked to the  center of the mat. She grinned at me. "With a ten point Impact lead and  probably more than ten times your Vitality I'm not going to bother  defending, but if you make me take a step I'll get you an all access  pass to the executive lounge. Just to make things interesting." She was  bouncing on the balls of her feet, making it easier for me, but she  still looked confident.

I  nodded seriously. Reaching inside, I resonated my Minor Enchanting  Mastery with my Lesser Doom Sovereign Mastery, along with my Fantasy, my  Might, my Vitality, my Perception and my Focus just to be thorough. I  wanted this blow to land at exactly the right angle. Granted she could  easily dodge it no matter what stats I used, but she wouldn't. I bent my  knees, gripping the bat, and wound up for a shot. I did my best to  engage my back, my shoulders, my hips, every possible part of my body as  I stacked Mercy Kill onto my weapon and swung right at her jaw.

I  felt the backlash slam into my hands as I hit her. Callie had more than  six TIMES the Impact I did, and even with all the various boosts and  amplifications I absolutely could not hurt her, but I caught her as she  was bouncing, and when she came down, her back foot slid just an inch  back to steady her. She blinked at me. I was a bit busy holding my  hands, which I was pretty sure only avoided breakage because of the  shock absorbers in my suit. I doubled over, hissing in pain at using  more force than my body could really safely handle, but still proud.

I  dropped the bat, which pretty much crumbled to dust when it hit the  ground, and I winced a bit before smiling up at her. She rubbed her jaw a  bit, it wasn't even red, but she looked impressed. "Damn. I think even  Cap would have a problem throwing a punch like that. Whatever that was,  it's pretty damned impressive. You were right to test it on me, because  that probably would have killed most H rankers." She grinned at me. "The  question is, can you do it again? Because if you can do that in a fight  more than once we might make an actual combatant out of you."