Malcolm Tent

Call of the Void chapter 7

Wish upon the Stars chapter 1019

I woke up groaning. Callie was sitting next to me, looking concerned, and my mom and sister were behind her. Zeke was napping in a chair nearby, and my dad was leaning against a wall looking away, though the effect was kind of spoiled by him shooting glances back at me. “You’re up,” Callie said with a relieved smile. “Did you get it all repaired?”

After Callie helped clear all the lamentation liquid out of my soul space, she’d returned to reality while I continued trying to ...

Secret Ending chapter 130

Wish upon the Stars chapter 1018

 The first thing I asked for after hearing the story was to examine the scene. My mom wasn’t happy about it, but my reasons were sound, so she brought Callie and I along to the blasted area where the liquid lamentation had been seeping into the earth of the Wishworld.

It probably seemed like an unnecessary bit of theater to the high rankers, but I was sure we could glean something useful from the data. Callie and I were probably some of the most familiar Ascendants with the energ...

Secret Ending chapter 129

Wish upon the Stars chapter 1017

The invasion ended with a whimper, not a bang, and it put my teeth on edge. Something had happened here, something I hadn’t seen yet, and we were all missing it. The timing of the attack was too coincidental, too perfectly staged. The Void invasion striking when the old man would be distracted by the Vanished Gods was obviously intentional.

But I just couldn’t see the POINT. Devon’s attack implied this partially involved me and the trial, but none of it made SENSE. The Void being ...

Call of the Void chapter 6

Wish upon the Stars chapter 1016

I’d expected Devon, based on my weaselly impression of him, to be incompetent or pathetic. I was surprised to see that wasn’t even remotely the case. Devon moved through the Void Spawn like a wheat thresher, mowing down monsters with the curved daggers. No wonder he felt robbed of the Wishmaster position, he might have had a legitimate shot at it based on this display.

Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t a dick, but I wasn’t going to let my cousin bleed to death if I could h...

Secret Ending chapter 128

Nsfw mind the tags

Wish upon the Stars chapter 1015

I was panicking. Liquid Lamentation. I had some bad memories regarding that stuff. Hatescream had used it to corrupt the ruined soul temple to gain access to the ruins of Aetherbright Academy, and even a small amount of it (and not very high ranked either) had enabled his people to hijack a trial that was considered sacrosanct by most of the known universe.

Of course, I’d said none of this out loud, but my distress was obvious, so my mom immediately asked what was wrong. I filled them...

Call of the Void chapter 5

Wish upon the Stars chapter 1014

The Sword Dance Symposium was in full swing, pun intended. And our particular target was at the center of the action. Looking…very bored. The Moonlight Pope, or ‘Uncle Moon’ as my mom called him, was a tall stately man with grey hair. Not the grey of old age, but the silvery white-grey of moonlight off polished steel, a uniform color that told me his hair was naturally that color, or that he dyed it frequently.

His expression wasn’t half as bright as his hair color as he sat on ...

Secret Ending chapter 127

Wish upon the Stars chapter 1013

The trip to the Back Palace was surprisingly fast, but it was also kind of weird. We headed out into the hallways, making our way down into the underlayer, and then along the underlayer until we reached a large sort of enclosed tunnel. The tunnel was kind of a half roof over a descending stairway, and when we walked down it, we emerged into a large sort of domed atrium.

Aside from being vast, the whole place felt kind of empty. Most of it was tile, with an overhanging walkway of weirdly...

Secret Ending chapter 126

Wish upon the Stars chapter 1012

My speech was honestly kind of underwhelming. But…well, I could TALK, so I was doing better than Devon. Whatever that sanction had done to him hadn’t been gentle, and his own attempt at an opening statement had been even more rambling and incoherent than MOST of the shit he’d been saying since I’d met him.

His mother looked thoroughly infuriated, but under the pressure of the triumvirate of former Wishmasters she had almost no room to object. Crell and I made it out unscathed an...

Call of the Void chapter 4

Wish upon the Stars chapter 1011

After I woke up, I did my usual daily stockpiling of scrolls and then went to find Crell. He’d caught a few hours, but managed to read through a huge chunk of the charter, including the necessary sections. The fact that he hadn’t managed to finish it demonstrated exactly how densely the damn thing had been encrypted.

I picked up one of the black books, opening the stone cover carelessly and flipping the thin slate pages quickly as I perused one at random. Books that could be used fo...

Secret Ending chapter 125

Wish upon the Stars chapter 1010

Roland, to my dismay, didn't know much about what happened. “It was kind of sudden,” he said fuzzily. “Like I wasn't expecting to be attacked like that so I wasn't really aware of what was happening. I know that's frustrating but I don't have any more to tell you.”

I grimaced. I'd been afraid of that. “It’s fine, I helped because you’re a friend. I’m just glad you’re ok.” My face fell. “Derran wasn’t so lucky.”

Roland’s brow furrowed. “Something happe...

Call of the Void chapter 3

Wish upon the Stars 1009

After rescuing Marco, I finally had all of my cabinet slots filled. Which meant my only major business, barring the big festival if it was still happening, was the trial. Thinking about that though, it reminded me of another thing I hadn’t done yet. “We should go visit Roland,” I told Callie. “We got so wrapped up in Darren’s death we didn’t even think to see how he’s doing.”

I felt bad just thinking about it. Poor Roland had been a victim of an attack same as Darren, an...

Secret Ending chapter 124

Wish upon the Stars chapter 1008

Walking among the employees at LeClair’s compound as LeClair would have been just asking to get approached, so as soon as I was around the corner, I did a quick switch to another random employee who had left around the same time. I’d gotten a pretty decent catalog of potential forms from the stakeout, given Dantalion’s range and the time I’d spent.

The new guy, Bill, was an unobtrusive porter. He didn’t talk to anyone and was pretty much always moving around the complex, so I ...

Secret Ending chapter 123

Wish upon the Stars chapter 1007

After I completed Astaroth, I headed for LeClaire’s headquarters under Murmur. In order to use my new form, I needed to study LeClaire and his people. An understanding of the person I was mimicking was pretty much required.

Dantalion was all but made for this kind of thing, so as I settled in for my stakeout, I only had to create a parallel to manage things as I took stock of my new domain.

Astaroth had been complicated to create. Mainly because I needed to construct a complete ...

Call of the Void chapter 2

Wish upon the Stars chapter 1006

I had been wrong about him being a good negotiator. Peter was difficult to talk to, but not because he was sharp or focused. He was difficult to talk to because he was incredibly distracted and had almost zero interest in the conversation. Holly, of course, was VERY intrigued by the idea of Peter being a cabinet member, obviously excited to see her husband embarking on a project that suited his interests and would present such a huge challenge. But Peter himself seemed mostly ambivalent.

Secret Ending chapter 122

Wish upon the Stars chapter 1005

The Kingdom Siege pit was expansive, even if it wasn’t that big. Because we all had incredibly high Perception, they were able to pack a lot of detail into a very small area. Despite the pit being probably a hundred feet around tops, there was what looked like a scale of thousands of miles packed into it, and I was able to pick up the details of even singular blades of grass as the waved in phantom winds too faint for us to even notice outside the pit.

Peter, whose village we were wat...