The Star 26

Orison came to staring up at a starry sky through a semi transparent dome that slightly distorted it.

"Don't move. Thank Troy that I didn't immediately kill you for trying to possess me," an angry man's voice said.

Barely able to speak through his hoarse and dry voice box, the young mage said, "You were a gateway. I had no intentions of possessing you."

Thinking back, he tried to organize his thoughts. Once his sprite form hit a special relic in the abyss he'd popped out at, he had immediately used the cumulative 'micro transaction' spiritual sacrifices he had made to it along his Darkened Road journey. The 'wish' was simple and it lead to him safely popping out of the man's spiritual seat.

He had hoped that he'd awaken while the collection of strangers were still going through the 'other world summon test' that brought them together but the journey had taken too much out of him. It mortified him that it was their generosity that kept him from being murdered by the few hellish beginner trials he'd slept through. But, he'd be able to compensate them soon enough.

"I need to get some distance between us as soon as possible. Whichever one of your companions that touched me in sprite form, could they walk me to the resource collection box outside the safe zone?" he informed the man before him.

"Why?" the man responded simply.

Almost desperate but too weak to insist on anything, Orison responded, "I'm going to get sick in a spectacular way. I'd like to get something for it instead of losing it all to the air and ground. Please, holding it in til I get there is going to be hard enough."

The man sighed and shouted, "Troy, get up. Your charity case needs you to get him to a box a few hundred feet past the barrier on the west path."

A young man wearing shorts and a ratty tee hobbled through a trap door hidden in the ground. He wasn't overly happy about it, not being to up to snuff himself, but helped the young mage up.

Breaking out in a cold sweat from the exertion after a recent healing, the obnoxiously jock-like young man leveled gray-green eyes at him and said, "Boy did you sleep through a hell of a show... Sorry you had to wake up with nothing to wear. Lily and Mr. Tidren had a lot of stuff with them but extra changes of clothes weren't a part of that."

Orison reassured the young man that he was thankful enough to just be alive.

Chuckling, Troy added, "Well, Lily did have a spare change of undies on her but..."

"Oh, lawd. I'd rather be naked," the young mage said with a shudder.

The unintended shudder added to his act well but the effort of keeping his space from rupturing out of his chest was the real culprit.

"So, do you remember anything from when you popped out of Mr. Tidren's head when we were still in the white room?" the jock said.

Clinging feebly to the guy as they inched along, he said, "I kind of remember trying to make my way to the only female in the vicinity before getting smacked by an arm cast... There wasn't anything perverted about my reasons. I just wanted to have a male form and I kind of take on the form that most appeals... Kudos for completing your trial while still practically an invalid, by the way.

"Please don't drop me. I don't think I could take that right now. Look, I don't really care what you're into. I'm just a little unstable at the moment. And the more people who touch me, the more weakened my default pattern will become."

Looking pale and a little sickly himself, Troy said, "So, are you like a shapeshifter?"

Orison chuckled. "You mean, am I like a succubus, er, incubus? No. I have an outsider spiritual bloodline. That won't mean anything to you but it means I am highly adaptable. Most people are a fairly balanced blend of body, consciousness and soul. I favor soul a lot more. It means I kind of wear, more than am, my body.

"If it freaks you out that I expose something you'd rather keep to yourself, it's not like I plan on telling anyone. I'm only being a chatterbox with you because you're helping me. It's only fair.

"And... I think it's pretty chivalrous that you'd put yourself in potential harm's way to protect a girl. Especially when you're, you know, not really into her. I respect the hell out of that.

"Getting haymaker-ed by a plaster wrapped arm when I was the size of a grape, not so much. That was like being hit by a tree trunk baseball bat... Hey, talking my memories through helped me pull out a little more."

Troy's supporting hand, that had started wandering a little too frivolously while receiving complements, suddenly became respectable again. The young mage had no idea what Troy expected to accomplish beyond a few cheap gropes when neither one of them were up to more than a good rest but he didn't want to find out. And while the jock picked up the lagging conversation to talk about himself, Orison focused more intently on holding in the contents of his overburdened space.

The situation had become critical by the time Orison's sweaty and panting form shakily pointed towards a spot behind a bush off the trail. Exercising the pitiful amount of magic reserve he had to open a safe channel for expelling the overabundance of things in his space had him seeing black spots. Using his intent to move the barely intact snow globe to the back finished him off.

Before fainting, he breathed out, " System, record for administrative review... Let me stay he-."

He woke back up slightly before dawn. After checking the blue screen of the spiritually binding system grafted to his soul like an unwanted parasite, he realized it was the beginning of the day that should have just ended. As predicted by the obelisk, an 'on site' subordinate of the administrators holding the second portion of the 'other world summon trials' had tried to do something shady.

Seeing the load of resource collection credits he'd earned despite just arriving, it was perfectly natural to investigate but the person in question wanted to do something a lot more nefarious than that. According to the review of his system recording, the man had tried to violate Orison with a damaging probe of spiritual intent. In his fragile state, the young mage almost died.

To cover up his abuse of power and the violent assault of Troy for answers afterward, the subordinate logged suspicious activity and popped an emergency 'reset'. The day started again but Orison had resistance to causality effects, especially in a low dimension sandbox setting. Administration got to review the whole thing. The shady subordinate wouldn't get the chance to ambush the young mage before he could reach the resource box as the man had intended. Instead, the subordinate was 'terminated' from his position.

Orison was cleared of suspicion but additional compensation was denied. He had been labeled an 'acceptable infraction of potential nepotism'. Essentially, he was considered to be a descendant of some staff member added to the roster of summons. Apparently, such things weren't looked into that closely. Depending on how high up the chain the violator was, the administrator might be the one in hot water for being 'unnecessarily nosy'. That suited the young mage just fine.

With his credits, he exchanged for the best allowed system download on magic theory, a tier three mage starter kit and a minor soul healing item. After doling out some anonymous credits to Lily, Troy and Mr. Tidren, he spent the last bit of credit cushion on a couple of recovery potions. Once he was suited up, he chewed down the minor soul healing item to smooth over the burrs of his severely diminished spirit and started alternating between sips of potion and basic magic practice at the safe zone.

A few minutes before the group would arrive again, Orison paid to be transported as close as he could to the only place on the planet that he was personally interested in. Due to the nature of that place, its very danger conversely made it one of the safest places to be. There were natural deposits of radioactive material close to the surface all around a swath of relatively barren and lifeless stony ground. Close to the center was an open air temple with a menhir, a large standing stone, in it.

He sighed at the sight. "I'll get killed by the wraiths that guard that place before I could even get close to the menhir. What a pity. I could skip a huge part of headaches if I could. I'd be perfectly happy screwing the natural order of events here for that kind of shortcut.

"It might have mattered once but the things that happen in this dying Greater Reality won't really affect me or the Lily I know. Who knows how it could change a whole lot of other things, though... Better to not risk it.

"I still can't believe my, er, Al's great grandfather was a freaking maelstrom born climber. If it wasn't a completely mortal bloodline, it would have explained so much. Not that Mr. Tidren's spiritual father would care but that technically makes me the great-great grandson of a soon to be tier eight existence. But hell, entities at that level can barely drum up concern for the immediate progeny of their spiritual offspring, much less mortal ones."

Orison got as close to the border of the territory the wraiths guarded and shouted, "Hey, Assassin! You're the strongest of the bunch. So, you should be able to hear me from here. Pass a message to Little Pete, er, Knight for me!... I don't know how you ended up doing your dark night of the soul here but good luck!

"The person capable of waking up your mistress will be coming soon. I'm rooting for ya! You won't remember me but we were buddies for awhile in another life."

From the distance, a hiss of sound his slightly supernatural hearing could barely pick up, said, "Why should I? What do I get? You should come closer and tell him yourself."

The young mage sighed and shouted back, "I'm not bat sh*t crazy. That's why!... I tell you what. Tell Mage to send a weak curse wrapped with as much inert essence as she can manage my way. I'll toss over a vital essence crystal but you got to share with everyone."

He wasn't answered with words but a colossal roll of undeath energy instead. Orison swallowed dryly and was glad that he could avoid what he couldn't handle or it would have killed and raised him as a grudge a dozen times over. He inwardly chuckled, however. He was about to make a peeping tom's day very bad.

After nibbling off the limit of what was useful to him and mixing it with a trickling slosh of pure vital water, the young mage resealed the positive energy plane rift with the snow globe. He nearly emptied his magic tank in one go to smack the rest of the ball with a cone shaped disjunction. The ball of undeath energy spread out like shrapnel from an exploding claymore.

Extra dimensional energy in the area rippled like a stone dropped into a pond as a shriveling body fell from the air nearby. He pounced on the man quickly and sucked him into his space before the fey blooded individual could release the bit of soul invested in the avatar back to the main body. Surprised by an assault of life eating essence boring to the core while the outside was immersed in a shallow pool of pure vital water, the fey creature was helpless to do anything but observe the space as it chewed away his spiritual essence until it was gone.

Through pants, Orison shouted, "Sorry! Give me just a moment to recover. There was a devil subordinated fey dude out here!"

Assassin hissed across the distance, "You took out Aaron's avatar!?... All agree. You may approach the first border with our oath not to attack you... But, you have to hold to your original bargain."

Orison secretly let out a sigh of relief. No matter what he did, they'd never let him get within three football fields of the Menhir but he could still benefit greatly from the place if he was allowed to get closer. It would take him out of the worst of the radiation field too. The basic TSSRR suit and his own resistances could only hold out for so long.

Shouting back, he said, "I will honor and oath to keep my original bargain... Add an oath that I can freely leave and that no one will try to rob or extort me too. Mamma didn't raise no fools!"

After a long pause, Assassin growled out a reluctant agreement with the caveat that he didn't try to get any closer to the temple than the first border before deciding to 'freely leave'. Inwardly sighing over the failed loophole he'd tried to make for himself, the young mage entered the attack range of Mage and Druid.

Once he reached a few dozen feet of the first border, he tossed out a life crystal made from an outer portion of the fey avatar's body and said, "I'll give you a lot more than that if I can wring two more concessions from you. The first is that you let me meditate here and slip down as many echoes of this world as I can. The second; when the one who'll wake your mistress comes, you have to pretend to be in the same state you're in now.

"Healer has to keep pretending that They are on the verge of disappearing. Assassin... never mind. He'll act the same way no matter how well off he is. That's more for you, Druid. Same for you as well, Mage... Pete, you just keep doing you."

The invisible wraith of Druid chuckled dryly in an ancient voice. "You would need to produce a hundred times this amount for our current straits to require any 'act'. This paltry crystal is an alleviation of a day or less across all our echoes of this endlessly mirrored world."

Orison let out a nearly perverse laugh. "The avatar I took down with a little borrowed might from Mage, his name was Aaron, right? That was his ear. Give me an hour or so. I'll give you the whole damn thing... It's almost absurd how much power of existence was invested in that body for as far down the dimensional chain as this echo is."

In a weak but still pleasant to listen to voice, Mage added, "The terminal end of an existence's echoes are nearly as important as the origin, symbolically speaking."

Orison nodded in agreement. "Yeah, it's not like you can make a world endless with anywhere near the ease a person can."

Druid muttered, "The trials of making a person endless is maddeningly difficult. The argument could be made that doing so with a whole world, infinitely approaches impossible."

Orison chuckled and said, "Yet the planet Earth that resides close to the divider line that you call the Great Mirror, is just that. So, when your mistress ties the last remaining version of Satyrus to Earth, don't secretly second guess her. She knows what she's doing."

Both Druid and Mage muttered to each other fiercely while Assassin made annoyed groans of incomprehension. Ethereal Pyotr just continued to stare at Orison in curious vigilance.

After being grilled for the hour or so it took for Aaron's avatar to crystallize, the young mage finally said, "Look. I may come off as knowing a lot but I actually don't. Even as we speak, the things I know become less and less relevant. Tiny micro changes are spoiling what little future events I can take advantage of, much less pass on to others.

"Just keep in mind what I asked... Pretend like nothing has changed for you and pretend I was never here. I only want a peaceful place to meditate and 'fall' to the same echo of existence the Earth I want is on.

"I have no desire to join the cut throat competition between all the tier eights who are going to fight over the scraps of this dying Greater Reality. And, I can't stay here on Satyrus because I'll screw up giga pop's fate. The guy who's coming here, Wren Tidrus, he's kind of my great grandfather through a mortal bloodline. Was, will be, I'm still confused on how some of this stuff works."

Assassin said, "Healer wants to know what your angle is."

"Through the filter that is you, I'll assume that meant They thanked me and wanted to know if there was something They could do for me in return. There is... Treat the first born between you with the same love and care that you'd give to a spiritual offspring," Orison said.

Suddenly, all spectral eyes flipped between him to the slowly recovering outline of Healer's wraith form before finally landing on the speechless outline of Assassin. Satisfied with the silence, Orison started to meditate, secretly drawing small motes of the potent, existence and soul nourishing essences trapped beneath the menhir. Druid scared him when the wraith suddenly took an old man's visage and crossed the line that Orison thought was an absolute boundary for the wraiths.

Drawing near while the young mage wondered if his insignificant theft was something that would get him killed, Druid whispered, "As long as you take only what you need, I will keep my silence. But, I do have a question for you. How did you reach here and how much did you sacrifice?"

Thinking it through, Orison decided on honesty, "I used the awakening of my domain and the power of an artifact to survive reaching a Darkened Road. I sacrificed most of everything outside of the very essentials to climb again in order to make a wish on the artifact Lost Hope in the abyss. If I didn't have precise knowledge and multiple failed virtual experiences to show me how, my chances of making it and not demonizing would have been less than one percent."

The old man chuckled. "Stay on Earth til I come for you. I'll take you into the Veil Cradle if you'll take me into the Void Cradle of this reality. We can return to our home reality without having to make such a desperate sacrifice again. No need to struggle vainly on a protected Earth nearly a hundred years for little gain."

Orison spluttered, "Do you know where the Void Maze in this reality is? I didn't even know it had one!"

Druid smiled. "With what you know, I'm sure you do. Perhaps you'll understand if I tell you that the maze can be destroyed but even the Dark Magician himself won't destroy the cradle. It's too useful."

Almost breathlessly, the young mage whispered, "Gnarly's active here too?... Is nowhere safe from that thing?"

Druid waited patiently for Orison's anxiety to calm back down.

After some time, the young mage said, "Is it located somewhere around where the Hollow Host's prison once was?"

The old man winked. "Only a void walker or their retinue can step into it's innermost area. If there hadn't been traitors in their midst, the neutral host of this existence wouldn't have fallen to anything less than a coordinated attack of celestial, abyssal and infernal working hand in hand. Such a thing is inconceivable to me."

Orison frowned. "They haven't fallen. As long as I don't do something that screws it up, my great grandpa and his sister that lies just over there will tag team the traitors with their dad and raise it from the ashes in no time."

Druid sighed sadly. "For all that it matters to a dying reality."