Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 1021
🕑 Added 2025-11-20 03:04:46 +0000 UTCWe contacted Wulf through Ellie, who had been watching his back during his investigation into Derran’s death. Derran’s death was definitely within the scope of our investigative direction, so we didn’t exactly refocus, but we did have him expand his scope of inquiry a bit. Sadly, he didn’t have anything on hand immediately, so I ended up going to sleep and trying to sleep off my cold, which worked pretty well.
When I woke up the next morning and stocked up on scrolls, I emerged from my cave feeling refreshed and excited. My soul damage had healed up pretty well during my rest and I was feeling almost bouncy after my forced downtime. So, of course, someone had to ruin it.
“We have a problem,” Crell said as he dropped into the chair across from me. I met his eyes directly, staring him down as I shoveled a spoonful of oatmeal into my mouth, waiting for him to continue. Taking me silence as an invitation, he slammed down a familiar dark stone book, one of the ones I’d constructed for downloading the charter into. “Look at THIS!” He pointed to the nearest page.
I leaned forward, swallowing before reading aloud. “If the accused shall enter the presence of the tribunal on the fifth day of the seventh month, only then shall the material used for foot covering be transposed to natural fibers, forbidding all animal hides and disallowing manmade materials, save for the use of weaving or stitching.”
He paused, turning the book around. “Ah, sorry, wrong page,” he cleared his throat in embarrassment, flipping around a bit before turning it around to point at the page.”
I refocused. “Should the accuser die under suspicious circumstances, or fear for their life from outside forces, the prosecution may invoke the rite of Signatum Judicium, or sealed judgement, at which time the accuser and accused will be sealed together with the witnesses in an unbreachable space until the final verdict is reached. Signatum Judicium may only be invoked on the final day of the trial, or in the event of the accuser’s untimely death, at which time the burden of proof will fall to the first witness.”
Frowning down at the book, I put my spoon down, picking it up to flip to the next page. I studied the subclauses related to the Signatum Judicium carefully, then looked back up at Crell. “Explain.”
He growled in annoyance. “Basically, it’s a clause to be invoked in the event of outside interference. Given the character witness phase, and the importance of the office of Wishmaster, there were concerns that outside forces might attempt to subvert the trial to install their own candidate. The Wishmaster, that is, the original Wishmaster, constructed a special room to ensure the sanctity of the verdict. The Quiet Room.
“The Quiet Room is a Divine Level defensive emplacement with wards out the ass,” he continued. “Even a god couldn’t breach it with any sort of expedience. It’s been slowly improved over millennia by every subsequent Wishmaster, and is considered to be the safest place in the entire Wishworld, to the point that there are several backup plans in place to use it as a fallout shelter in case of a mass attack. And I don’t mean a small one like the other day, I mean full on ‘the sky is falling’ type of shit.”
I frowned at him, drumming my fingers. “So you think Devon is planning to invoke the Signatum Judicium?” I mused on the idea. “I mean…maybe? But to what end? Does he think I’m planning to tamper with the trial? Or is this a direct trap? Like is he going to try to kill me in there? Because I’ll be honest, I am NOT scared of him. Especially not with Callie there.” I focused on the potential dangers. “Who is the first witness?”
“We don’t know,” Crell snarled. “I’ve been looking into it, but after the attempt on his life Devon is invoking some obscure double blind jury statute in the charter. He says he’s worried you’ll kill his witness.”
“WHAT?” I snapped, slamming my hands on the table. “That ungrateful little asshole! I SAVED HIS LIFE!”
He shrugged. “He doesn’t see it that way. No fixing stupid.”
“So, since the invocation can be done in the event of his death or an attack, I’m guessing this was the desired outcome. Which means whoever that witness is, they’re almost definitely going to be some kind of assassin.”
Sighing, I nodded. “Yeah. There’s a limit though, right? No A-rankers or S-rankers were involved in the succession war, at least not anywhere near me. The witness isn’t going to be some high ranking badass. It’ll be someone closer to our level. B-ranker, I’d bet.” Which made me feel a LITTLE better. Aside from Callie, I was going in there with Roland, who was notably the strongest B-ranker in the family as far as I knew.
Of course, that assumed they’d fight fair, which I seriously doubted. Some kind of consumable attack method like my stored attacks maybe? Or a powerful artifact. But it wasn’t like they could bring a whole arsenal. And between Callie and I we had two defensive charges that could tank a blow from a god.
Apostate. That had to be involved. I wasn’t sure WHY or how, but it would be part of this. The prophecy had involved lots of people too, but prophecies were notoriously vague. The people might have represented everyone watching the trial.
I needed some sort of countermeasure to Apostate. Something that could let me shrug off that horrible corrosion. I still wasn’t sure what it WAS, exactly, but I’d been exposed, and I could use that exposure to create some kind of defense. Maybe study the field from the defensive charge the old man gave me. Whatever that was, it had purified all the danger effortlessly. That was probably a factor of power more than anything, but the old man’s power was all about efficiency. Whatever the book had done, it had done it PERFECTLY, I was sure, and if I could mimic that, I could create a method of shutting down Apostate before it had a chance to get its hooks in me.
This would be my last pseudo-Domain. The last ingredient in…whatever I was building. Which meant I had a lot of work to do. Lots of research and experimenting. “Hey, are you listening to me?” demanded Crell. “Because I’m not going to be allowed into that room with you, you know? This is a big problem for us!”
“I know,” I said mildly. “I was thinking, Crell. Don’t worry. I’ve got some ideas. Thank you, by the way. For finding this. If we hadn’t known…” I wasn’t sure WHAT they wanted us in that room for, but it couldn’t be anything good. Forewarned was forearmed, especially once I got a bit more info about exactly what Apostate was and how it worked. “Before I double down on counter strategies though, any chance we can get OUT of this? Some move we can make to head him off?”
He shook his head. “Nothing reliable. This isn’t some tactic. This is a break glass in case of emergency kind of strategy. In order to be in this position, the person in question had to have willingly offered up their soul for complete annihilation if they’re found guilty. The presumption is that no one in that situation WANTS an objective and fair trial unless they’re actually in the right, and an attempt on their life implies that you, the defendant, has something to hide.”
“Except I didn’t MAKE an attempt on his fucking life!” I groaned. “I saved it. It’s not my fault my cousin lacks the basic deductive skills to differentiate a rescue from attempted murder.”
Crell frowned, leaning back and steepling his fingers. “Honestly…I think you’re underestimating him. Based on what you’ve been telling me, Devon isn’t stupid. He’s not SMART, but he isn’t an idiot. It’s not that he’s imagining things. Someone is making him see things that aren’t there. Someone subtle, and very good.”
I focused on him intently. Crell was a hell of a manipulator. I’d found him in a dungeon, running an insurgency from inside of the current ruling dynasty of the whole place, having essentially maneuvered the ruler into a position where he’d almost definitely known who Crell was and couldn’t do anything about it, despite Crell himself being part of the man’s ruling council. He knew how to talk people in circles.
Gesturing for him to continue, I listened. He nodded, continuing his train of thought. “You think this is about intelligence. It isn’t. When you manipulate someone, you don’t pit yourself against their intellect. That’s not manipulation at all. It’s just lying outright. The trick is to figure out the way a person sees the world, and shift their viewpoint JUST a bit. Not identifying their blind spot, but making them look just the right way so their blind spot lands EXACTLY where you want it.”
“So, what?” I asked in annoyance. “You’re saying my cousin is motivated to buy into this shit? I knew that, they’re playing on his ego.”
He shook his head. “You’re not listening. Playing on his ego is part of it. But more than making someone right, if you want them to buy into a deception, you need to make them JUSTIFIED. Don’t just tell them something and make them believe it, let them figure it out for themselves. Set the stage so they discover the plot, because then they’re in the thick of it. They’re invested. He’s not just saving his family, he’s saving them from a traitor only he discovered.”
That made sense, but I still didn’t see his point. “Ok…and?”
“And I just told you he’s not stupid,” he said in exasperation. “Which means the narrative has to have teeth. It has to be believable, and not just to him, it has to be something he thinks he can demonstrate to others, which means-”
“He has proof,” I concluded with a frown. “Good proof. Concrete evidence. But there’s no evidence THERE. I didn’t do it. So what kind of proof does he have and where did he get it?”
He shrugged. “A few options. But if we’re talking something damning, only two places. Us or them. Someone involved has to have something compelling. Either another candidate, or some Void being who convinced him that you were working with them the whole time. At that point it mostly becomes a shifting gradient of bullshit. What can they sell, how much will he buy? It’s delicate. Like I said, if they feed it to him it won’t set right. They’d have had to tease him into discovering it. And if it was a Void entity…”
“It must have happened on the Heirworld,” I frowned thoughtfully. “But that’s…we hadn’t won yet. And I don’t think anyone expected us to. Why would someone start laying groundwork for a loss like that when it was such a long shot?”
“Could just be someone careful,” he said with a contemplative hum. “Hedging their bets? Or someone who put their thumb on the scale. Helped you win without it being obvious. But for him to believe it, it has to be someone who has some kind of connection to you. Someone you met at some point. Someone with a reason to know.”
I sifted through faces. I’d interacted with a lot of people on the heirworld, and I couldn’t remember all of them. If it was a Void entity that narrowed it down, not many had survived contact. It could be a candidate, I supposed, but anyone with access could have killed me ages ago and completely sidestepped this whole mess. If one of the other candidates didn’t want me to be Wishmaster they could have just taken me out and claimed it was an accident. I shook my head with a sigh. I’d wait until Wulf’s information package came in. Then I’d reevaluate. Until then…after breakfast I would start on my final pseudo-Domain. It needed to be a doozie.
