Malcolm Tent
patreon
Wish upon the Stars chapter 1020
🕑 Added 2025-11-19 03:12:05 +0000 UTCAfter adding the fifty four hundred points to Callie’s Creation stat (she paid with ten charges of Adherent Fire, which I couldn’t access through the bond and was VERY interested in researching) and binding her first page, Callie and I decided to take the rest of the night off. It had been a big day, and we were both exhausted. We fell asleep pretty quickly, and the next morning woke up eager to start the day. For some values of eagerness.
“I wish I was dead,” I moaned loudly, burying my face in a pillow. “Kill me and put me out of my misery.”
My wife snorted. “How were you chosen by an actual goddess of torment to receive her favor, have been LEGITIMATELY tortured by experts, and only last night endured the most painful soul baptism anyone we know has ever heard of, but THIS is where you hit your limit?”
“But it’s so UNCOMFORTABLE,” I whined. “My head is buzzing, and my throat is scratchy, and the roof of my mouth feels like it got kicked by a horse.”
Yes, I, Solomon, future Wishmaster of the Wish Curse Palace, was sick. I had no idea how or WHERE I had caught it, and I’d been briefly worried it might be some sequelae from last night’s Apostate adventure, but it turned out, I’d been overthinking it.
As soon as I’d woken up, Callie, who had also been worried, had run off to find my parents, who had promptly informed her…that I had the cold.
I’d tried everything to fix it. Purification, healing, even enhancement. Nothing worked. According to my mother, the common cold had such a reputation as an invincible bane on anyone it touched, that it had recursively mutated to become an invincible super bug. It didn’t kill people, at least not ones with a decent amount of Vitality, but it DID wreck anyone who caught it. Basically, the cold had a reputation for making anyone who got infected JUST miserable enough to want to die, but not actually finishing the job. Lucky me.
Even more obnoxiously, Callie was apparently IMMUNE. Recursion turned the cold into a superbug when it came to even Ascendants, but it didn’t apply to beings perceived as ‘nonhuman’. Callie’s racial trait apparently rendered her completely impervious to the dreaded virus, while my own part-time angel status meant nothing.
I was miserable. It didn’t even really hurt. Like it did, but it was more of a bone deep ache. Everything was more sensitive, and I was shaky and weak, and my eyes were tearing up and the tears felt like someone was pouring boiling oil down my face. I hated every second of it.
Seeing how genuinely upset I was, Callie dropped her teasing, her face twisting in sympathy. “I know, hon. I can feel it, just…try not to think about it ok? Do you want me to get you some soup?” There was a knock on the door, and I groaned in pain as I wrapped my pillow tight around my ears to block out the loud sound. “I’ll get that,” she sighed.
“Hey Callie,” my mom’s voice echoed loudly from the door. So loudly. Like she must have been screaming. Even though it kind of sounded like she was trying to whisper. “How is he?”
My beloved snickered. “He’s a whining pile of aches and complaining. Please tell me there’s something you can do?” I peeked out from under my pillow helmet, glaring at her reproachfully, but winced and retreated because the light from the hallway was getting in my eyes. We’d been keeping the room dark because it helped my headache.
Sighing, my mother made a noise of sympathy. “Not really. The cold is…complicated. Recursion means you can’t really beat it, just endure it. Some things kind of help. Soup, tea, it varies person to person. I actually had my mom make some hot soup for him, I wanted to deliver it in person but given what he’s got…”
“Yeah, best leave it with me,” Callie agreed. “Don’t worry, I’ll look after him. Here pass it over.”
There was an obnoxiously loud clank of glass on wood, and then my mom called. “Feel better ok sweetie? If it helps, everyone knows the worst colds are always twenty four hour bugs, so that’s the form it always takes for us. Just tough it out for a day and you’ll be fine.”
Callie thanked her and closed the door, walking over to sit on the bed next to me. “Shane? Honey I need you to stick your head out so you can eat this soup.”
“No it’s cold!” I whined, burrowing deeper into the pillow helmet.
“The soup is hot, though, it’ll help warm you up,” she coaxed gently, reaching over to wriggle the pillow away from me.
I retreated quickly. “No, it’ll burn me!” I whined.
Internally, I winced at my whiny tone. I wasn’t PROUD of my demeanor, admittedly. But I’d forgotten how much it SUCKED being sick. Pain was just…different when you were ill. Like even the toughest person would become a whimpering sack of meat when they were under the influence of the dreaded cold. I wondered if this was ALSO recursive. Like maybe this exact phenomena gave the cold some kind of pain tolerance bypass ability.
Sighing, my absolute saint of a wife cleared her throat, then scooped up a spoonful of clear, brothy soup, and began to blow on it. I poked my head out, looking at her suspiciously. She rolled her eyes and then offered it to me. I took the spoon carefully, sitting up, and then swallowed it. She raised an eyebrow. I shrugged sulkily. “S’good,” I admitted.
Scoffing disgustedly, she held out the bowl itself. “I’m not feeding you bite by bite. I love you, but there are limits.” I took the bowl, sniffing in offense (or as best I could), and then slowly started to eat. She let out a sigh of relief. “Is it helping?”
Despite my current suffering, I forced myself to clamp down on my whiny knee-jerk response, pasting a smile on my face. She was really worried, and I didn’t want to make this harder on her. “It’s helping,” I said, trying to ignore the faint slur in my voice from the post nasal drip. “Feels good to eat something hot.”
She smiled softly at me. “No it’s not, but it’s sweet that you’re trying. I’m sorry you’re in so much pain, baby, I wish I could help. On the upside, your mom says it’s really rare. It’s kind of a shock you caught it.”
“I’m guessing something about the attack from the lamentation liquid softened me up,” I grimaced as I burned my tongue. Not enough to cause damage, but all my sensations were heightened now in the worst way, and with my Perception so high, that was unbearable, especially since it didn’t seem to affect my Focus at all, so there was no balance. It felt like my whole body was a raw nerve.
“Maybe,” she hedged. “You did get hit pretty bad. But that’s more of a soul thing, and the cold is physical. Mostly. I guess maybe there’s a soul aspect. Since the damned thing DID mutate from recursion, who knows?”
I snorted, hot soup going up my nose, which set me off on a coughing fit. “Yeah,” I wheezed. “Who knows? How much does it suck that we live in a universe where viruses can evolve to higher ranks?” I was just lucky that common wisdom claimed that the cold wasn’t fatal, because I had no clue what rank this virus WAS but I was pretty sure it was powerful enough to kick my bucket if it hadn’t been against the rules.
“It DOES suck,” she allowed. “But I’m also kind of glad.” I glared at her and she just laughed. “Not that you’re hurting, obviously. But I know you. After what we saw, your first instinct would be to charge off into the unknown and look for any traces of Apostate here. Whatever the hell that is.”
“And?” I said sharply. Or, well…dully. I didn’t think it was possible to sound sharp when your head feels like it’s full of bees. “We need to know what’s going on, Cal, people are dying and-”
“And I’d prefer you not become one of them!” she snarled. “Damn it Shane, you don’t THINK! This stupid trail of breadcrumbs is basically custom made for you. Step by step, someone is leading you off into the dark to get slaughtered. I know Darren dying shook you. He was family, even if you didn’t know him that well, but you can’t just run off to investigate without thinking about how it might work out!”
She was crying. I hadn’t seen her cry in a long time. I hated it when she cried. “I…” I stammered, not sure what to say. “I’m fine-”
“You sounded like you were DYING you idiot!” she snapped, eyes blazing. “The screaming…I’ve heard your SOUL crack, and it wasn’t that bad. That was…I was so SCARED, Shane. You don’t make sounds like that. Not in years. Not even during the Lady’s trials. So can you just…take a beat? Take one minute to process and heal and THINK before you run off and get yourself KILLED. Which, in case you forgot, we were recently told might kill ME too if you need any more motivation than my literal begging.”
That stopped me cold. Because she was right. I’d been told her life might be tied to mine and I’d almost gotten my fucking soul destroyed less than an HOUR later. “I can’t just let this go,” I said stubbornly. “It’s not even about my own desire to look into it, something is going on, and we might be in danger. If we ignore this I have a feeling it’ll come back to bite me in the ass hard.”
“Did I SAY to ignore it?” she asked archly. “Did you not just spend days recruiting a small council of people with a variety of useful skillsets specifically designed to make sure you don’t need to do everything yourself? Maybe call Wulf back from that stupid goose chase you sent him on and have him do some actual work.”
I blinked, because…she was right. I could have done that to start. I was so used to running off to handle shit myself that I’d ignored plenty of important assets. I wasn’t convinced Wulf could have found anything from the lamentation liquid, but I’d been planning to chase the lead myself, and that WAS what he was there for. She put her hands on my face, resting her forehead against mine. It felt cool against my overheated skin.
“I’m not mad,” she clarified. “I’m afraid. Not of me dying, but of losing you. It means a lot that you’re thinking it through now though. I know that it’s hard for us to change. All that recursion pushing you down the same road. You’re putting in the effort and that’s all I’m asking for. Do you want me to contact Wulf for you? And don’t say you want me to call him here, if he gets sick he won’t be productive, and we don’t have the day to waste on a prank.”
I grinned at her. “You know me so well. Yeah, have him put feelers out. Anything to do with Apostate, the Void, Morwenna, or the Vanished gods. Cast a wide net. And tell him to report ALL of it. Rumors, whispers, snippets of conversation. I don’t care if his girlfriend’s cousin’s sister’s husband’s great aunt’s hairdresser thought he saw something vaguely void shaped in his TOAST, I want to know.”
With Dantalion, I could parse tons of data, but I needed some data to parse. Since I was sick anyway, I might as well do something productive. I tried not to think about the buzzing in my head as I considered processing all that information. This was not going to be a fun day.
Comments
Redeyes Eclipse
Did you give viruses ranks and stats omg you are evil wow this could go wrong in many situations
Celas
The common cold. Natural Divine grade nuisance.
