Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 901
🕑 Added 2025-06-04 23:54:32 +0000 UTCWe reached the next floor quickly, then the one above that, keeping to the unused passages. The trick was finding passages that connected to each other in the way we needed that weren’t commonly traveled, and even then we almost ran into a few people. Murmur prevented us from being discovered, but when we reached the sixth floor, we ran into a big problem, and one I hadn’t foreseen at all.
“Shit,” I said as I stopped at the exit to our current batch of tunnels. “We have a problem.”
Callie stepped up next to me, trying to spot what I was talking about. “What is it?” I think she assumed the door was busted or something, given where I was looking. Of course, that would have been far preferable to what I’d ACTUALLY found.
“The hallway ahead of us has…I don’t know exactly how to describe it. Maybe a stealth canceller?”
I’d never seen any enchantment or device like this, so I was kind of stumped. It hadn’t shown up on my scan because it was pretty deeply embedded, and it was sort of passive rather than active. Chelsea frowned at me. “How does it work?”
“You know how stealth functions, it’s information warfare. You identify your traces and then erase them.” I grimaced as I puzzled out how it functioned. “This thing uses a massive array of constantly shifting detection types to basically overwhelm any stealth skill. There are too many types of traces to identify and erase, and eventually the canceller trips you up and you get detected.”
My sister looked worried. “But Murmur can handle it right? It’s a domain. And Dantalion is perfect for that kind of battle.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “And I could break through eventually, but I’d have to exhaust the entire gamut of detection methods, which means casing this place for days if not weeks. We don’t have the time. We can’t go into that hallway in stealth.”
Bethy’s eyes lit up. “Does that mean…”
I grimaced. “It DOES. But you can’t go overboard, ok? We’re doing this to save time. You saw the people down in the city right? Is that enough information?”
“What are you talking about?” Abel asked nervously. “What does it mean?”
Reaching out for me and Callie, Bethy opened her Domain, sucking all of us inside. Rather than end up on the black grass, we actually manifested INSIDE the castle. Specifically, in a palatial bedroom covered in black drapery and sporting a colossal canopy bed. “It means it’s time for a FASHION SHOW!” Bethy cheered triumphantly. “We need to blend in which means everyone gets a new outfit! You get a new outfit! You get a new outfit! You have wings and you look great anyway so you can keep that on, but probably lose the mask.”
She’d pointed at my sister, Dayna, and Callie respectively. I just groaned. Bethy loved fashion. It was one of her favorite hobbies, and she’d talk about it for HOURS if we let her. Which we didn’t, because none of us cared that much about clothes beyond initial costume design. Sometimes Benny or Chelsea would chat with her about it, it was her passion and we weren’t assholes who deprived our friends of joy, but we strictly limited how much she brought it up, because otherwise she’d be dressing all of us in something new every day.
“We’re in your hands, Bethy,” I told her solemnly. “Only your fashion sense can save us.”
She squealed with delight, literally bouncing up and down in excitement, and then blurred across the room to throw open a pair of huge doors. Inside was a massive closet full to bursting with racks and dressers all overflowing with different styles of clothing. Bethy arrive in front of one, opened it up, and then started digging around inside, throwing things over her shoulder to land in a big pile behind her back. “Too gaudy, too frilly, that one is possessed,” she muttered under her breath as she sorted.
“Sorry what was that last one?” I called worriedly.
“Too frilly,” she called back distractedly. “No talking, I’m trying to find something that will work. I can’t just slap you all in tals and cufflinks and have you pass. Fashion is like a fingerprint. Every unique region has little flourishes and accentuations that make them stand out. Now, I obviously don’t have anything from this region, BUT if I cobble together a few different pieces…” she snagged a bunch of articles of clothing, and to my surprise, started cutting them apart, using her nails as stitch rippers.
Once that was done, she waved an arm and it dissolved into bats at the elbow. The bats swept down and snagged a bunch of needles and thread and started zooming back and forth, sewing together pieces and clothing elements she’d shredded.
Finally, she finished, her arm reforming, and she turned to beam at me. “Shane! You’re up first. Lose the mask and the armor.”
I did, stashing both in my ring. I was wearing my usual silk boxers, so i wasn’t worried about exposure, and once I’d stripped she blurred over, practically shoving me into a frilly button up shirt, then a coat, and then some pants and boots. She clipped several chains, a bunch of adornments, and few pieces of jewelry onto me, adjusted my lapels, and then stepped back, stroking her chin as she made a speculative hum.
Then she yanked off the jacket and marched back into the closet to root around. “So…I don’t think I knew you could enter your own Domain,” I said slowly. “How are you in here and out there at the same time, or do you not need to be present to hold the domain together.”
“Not how it works,” she said absently. “Domains are anchored in the dimensional fabric. I can enter my own Domain, though while I’m in here, the Domain itself is fixed in place. It becomes a bit like a spatially expanded space in a building. I wouldn’t normally do it, but since we were in an abandoned secret passage, it seemed safe to come in.”
I nodded, watching absently as she worked on the clothes. “I was wondering about something. You’re really into fashion and you’re a big fan of clothes and things like that. It doesn’t seem like something that would come up on that creepy ship your dad lives on.”
“You’re be surprised,” she said with a faint smile. “But my dad wasn’t the one who got me interested in clothes. My mother was the one who taught me how to sew when I was a little girl. She would make me outfits to try on, and she was always making clothes for the maids in the castle.” Her smile wilted. “She did that less and less as I grew up. I haven’t seen her pick up a needle in a long time. But I still like it.”
I remembered the story about her mother, and how her dad had come to get her when the woman gradually abandoned her. Meanads, I knew, had a lot of problems with wine. Bethy could make very powerful wine that could help people get stronger at an incredible rate, but she didn’t like to use that ability.
Letting her get back into her sewing, I waited and then got into my new outfit. I felt naked without my mask, but Callie stepped up to study me appraisingly, and from her approving smile, she liked what she saw. She smoothed down my lapels. “Well, don’t you look handsome. I think we make quite the pair.” She reached down to pinch her ball gown with her fingers, then spun in a circle, spinning her cloak and dress. I caught a faint flicker of wings as she did, and smiled at her softly.
“Once again, not an appropriate time for mooning over each other,” Chelsea said helpfully. At my raised eyebrow she shrugged. “Usually Benny is the one who yanks you two out of your own little world when you get all doe eyed, but he’s not here, and I’d rather not accidentally step on a bear trap or something because you’re distracted.”
“I do NOT get distracted,” I protested. “I am laser…” I paused and then glanced at my wife. “Sorry, I spaced, what were we talking about?”
Callie snickered and my sister rolled her eyes before being yanked off to try on a dress Bethy had just modified. Before long, we were all dressed up with nowhere to go. Except we had somewhere to go. To the vault. I wondered if the outfits would make it harder to break in, but that thought didn’t seem efficient, so I pushed it down, nodding at Bethy to let us out.
She did, or at least she let a few of us out. Me, Callie, her, Abel. The rest stayed in the Domain, although they complained about it because Bethy hadn’t seen fit to mention that they’d be staying behind before dressing them up in outfits they apparently didn’t need.
We stepped out into the hallway casually, looking around to see if anyone was nearby. Since stealth was out of the question we were going with the “act like you belong there” defense. This fortress was huge, and there were tens of thousands of people in it. No way anyone we ran into would know everyone who was supposed to be here, and if they did…we’d handle that if it came up.
Setting off for the next passage, we kept up a brisk walk. The trick with looking unobtrusive is to walk fast enough to look busy but not fast enough to seem like you’re hurrying. Hurrying is interesting, even if it isn’t always suspicious.
Sadly, things rarely go according to plan, and as we walked quickly through the halls, a series of voices reached our ears. I briefly considered hiding or moving, but that would be suspicious, so we just shifted aside a bit as a large group of loud young men and women came bustling down the hall.
They were all dressed like we were, and a few of the guys were stumbling backwards ahead of the group of ten or twenty, doing or at least attempting dumb stunts to impress the girls who were mostly ignoring them. The whole crowd stank of wine so strongly I could smell it from down the hall. One of the stumblers, a short red haired guy with a patchy beard and bright green eyes, was trying to do a flip to impress a dark haired girl in purple when he accidentally slammed into me.
Naturally, being six foot four and pretty high in D-rank, I wasn’t much affected, but the guy bounced off me awkwardly, slamming into the wall with a groan. He turned to look at me blearily. I half expected him to flip out and challenge me to a duel or something but he just beamed at me.
“Friends!” He cheered. “Meeting like this is naturally fate! Come, you must join us in celebrating Lady Hilary’s birthday. We had a lovely cask of DeVost Red in the ballroom, but we seem to have misplaced the majority of it…” he giggled drunkenly. “In my belly!”
The girl in the purple sighed. “I’m sorry about Wendell. He’s an obnoxious drunk. I don’t mean to hold up your night. You’re free to join us, of course, but feel no pressure.”
I nodded gratefully, and I was about to move past her, when Callie’s hand snapped out to catch my arm. “We don’t have anywhere to be.” My wife said cheerfully. “We’d love to help you celebrate your special day.” I raised an eyebrow at her, but didn’t disagree, she obviously had a reason for doing that.
As we fell into step with the group and started chatting, Callie’s voice sounded in my head. “Don’t react. We need to follow these people. I’m not sure which one it is, but one of them is a Priest of the Void.” My blood went cold. I glanced casually at the people surrounding us, and I felt a knot form in my stomach. She was right, we couldn’t ignore that. They might be involved in the attempted shallow in the caves. Even if this would waste our time we had to check. I sighed internally. Great. I hated parties.
Comments
CringeWorthyStudios
100 chips on red five, you say? Oh, look, it’s an eldritch horror!
Anime Problem
Once again having two siblings of Triple Diety descent in the same location and one of them having a significant amount of fate based powers makes their luck a fucking roulette wheel.
