The Path of Ascension

Matt, Liz, Aster, and Camilla sat in a tight circle in a far corner of the rift.

"If anyone wants to back out, no shame." Matt's words caused the women to cock their eyebrows at him. Clearly, this wasn't what they had expected when he gathered them to talk.

Liz rolled her eyes and quietly said, "I'm staying with you. Dumbass."

Aster added her yips and lightly growled at him. What Liz had intuited, she plucked from his mind. He was going to go no matter what, but he wanted to make sure that the rest of his team wasn't hesitant.

Ignoring the barred teeth, Matt scooped up Aster and flipped her onto her back in his arm. Cradling her with one arm, he rubbed her belly with his other hand. With that, the fox went limp in both body, spirit, and mind.

Camilla just watched him when he looked over for her answer.

She chewed on her lip hard for a long moment, finally saying, "I think we do have an obligation to the people here. We have the power to make a difference, and so we have a duty to do so."

That was far more noble of his temporary teammate than he expected. Camilla was what he would call a friend at this point, but she still had her rough edges. She had verbally snapped on more than one person during their time together. But weirdly enough, she seemed to have opened up during their time in the camp, and had even started chatting with passerby's.

Then, Camilla essentially ruined his good impression of her. "Besides, I bet those golems have gathered nearly everything of value in this half of the continent."

Matt had to laugh at that, and got a joking glare from Camilla in return.

"Fair enough, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't pressuring anyone."

Feeling slightly awkward, Matt brushed at some leaves that were stuck to his physical armor.

"I guess we should go meet up with everyone else?"

As they got up, he asked, "Why would a rift make a forest with fallen leaves? Really, it makes no sense."

Camilla just pulled Aster out of his arms, while Liz turned to him.

"Rifts don't need to make sense. You bring this stuff up in almost every rift that’s remotely normal."

"You say that, but it makes sense for a forest to have fallen leaves, so your own argument doesn't even make sense."

Their good-natured bickering lasted until they reached the rift entrance. They soon joined the others milling around the distortion in space.

Once they arrived, their joking atmosphere disappeared as they prepared for what was about to come. They couldn't know for sure what was out there, but they needed to prepare for the worst. There could be a fortified position full of golems waiting for them, and they would need to cut their way through.

Fifteen minutes later, Juni came up and counted the remaining fighters. Matt had already done the same, and they were missing three people who had come to the previous meeting. He couldn't blame them for wanting to stay in the safety of the rift.

Juni didn't say anything until their departure time had arrived, and asked everyone to gather information and prepare for anything.

Matt was in front of the formation, with the other melee fighters who could take a hit. His hand tightened around his sword's hilt as he watched the distortion in space that would take them out of the rift. His sword glowed a faint blue with the 1000 mana he had siphoned into [Mana Charge]. The first thing he hit was going to die.

"Move!"

At the command, Matt rushed ahead with the others. He heard Basil let out a roar right before they passed the demarcation line that separated the dimensions.

As Matt exited the rift, he threw himself forward, and prepared to strike down anything standing before him made of metal. But there was nothing.

Lowering his sword to a ready stance, he joined everyone else in surveying the plains. There was nothing and no one to be seen other than swaying grass.

Letting the mana dissipate out of his sword, Matt relaxed out of his ready stance, and returned to the side of the rift entrance.

The next wave came out thirty seconds later, and someone called out, "Safe!"

At that, everyone lowered their weapons, and made room for the rest of the group.

Camilla came over to Matt and shrugged at him, quietly saying, "I didn't expect there to not be a fight at all."

"Yeah, same. Feels almost... off."

The last wave of the fighters and mages came out of the rift. Shortly after, they were followed by Juni, who had a cart carrying the satellite and anti-air constructs.

Everyone sat around waiting for him to check in. After a few moments, he jumped on the cart and called out, "Ok, we have our orders. We’re moving to the Prince's location, where he has set up camp around a rift. They didn't face great opposition, so they didn't have to enter the rift. When you consider that all of the crafters and such are with him, this is a great opportunity to resupply and get new items."

"Where are they?" Someone in the crowd called out.

Along with his answer, Juni sent a message to everyone.

"It's roughly a two-day, eighty mile journey on foot. We have to cross the mountain range, so it'll be slightly more challenging."

With that, they all started moving. The mages were on all of the available flying devices, patrolling the skies in circles and scouting their immediate front.

The party exited the plains and moved back into the forest. It was quiet while they moved through the trees and started their trek towards the mountains.

As night approached, the scouts came upon a clearing with a camp set up, and a party sitting around a fire .

When the rest of the group arrived, they challenged the party. If they were that comfortable, there was a good chance that they were bandits.

Juni called out to them from behind their melee frontliners, "Who are you? And why are you just sitting there?"

Matt had already scanned them and found that they were peak Tier 6s. They only saw four people, but if there were more hidden, they would be troublesome in a fight.

One of the people looked over and waved at them. "Listen. We’re just delving the rift over there. No more, no less."

Juni asked the question that they all were thinking. "And the golems don't bother you?"

The man shrugged while settling back into his chair. "Not really. They came after us a few times, but after we fought them off, they stopped coming by. We also spend most of our time in the rift, so they don't really bother us."

"Then why are you cooking out here?"

The man rolled his eyes so hard that his head moved. "Listen, dude. I don't know what your problem is, but we want to be left alone. We don't care about your grand and epic fight against the golems. We’re cooking out here because the rift is underground, and there’s no wood. We don't want to waste mana on a portable camp stove."

The man stood up and waved them off. "Look, I answered your questions. Move on or fight. Either is fine with us."

His three companions didn't even move from their relaxed positions. They were extremely confident. Matt just wondered if that was cockiness or justified confidence in their abilities.

Juni didn't want to find out, and responded, "We'll leave, but we could really use your help. There are a lot of innocent people getting hurt, and we need powerful people. The Prince would greatly value you."

The man waved them off while sitting back down. He didn't say anything, and acted as if they were alone again.

Juni sent an order for some people to guard their rear, and the formation shifted as they moved around the camp.

As they moved, Matt questioned the group they met to himself. They were so apathetic to the situation of everyone around them. It didn’t sit well with him. They were each strong enough to deal with any golems that happened upon them, but they didn't go out of their way to help anyone else.

It felt wrong.

To have power, but then sit on your ass and watch the world go by was unfathomable to him. It got so bad, he messaged Liz in their chat.

'Can you believe them? They don't even care to help. People are dying, and they’re strong enough to handle the golems with ease. They could make a real difference.'

Liz's message wasn't what he thought it would be.

'That's pretty normal, honestly. As you advance through Tiers, that logic becomes more and more prevalent. Most call them observers, or independents. They exist all throughout the Tiers, and even have a few guilds they join for protection. They only focus on delving and their advancement. They don't deal in politics or worldly affairs. If the Empire got invaded today, they wouldn't lift a finger to help. One political ruler is just like any other to them.'

A moment passed, and a second message came through, 'They’re strong enough and prevalent enough that no one can force them to join a group or do anything. That's why the Emperor gives rewards for managing the political jobs. They’re able to entice some independents to actively participate in internal affairs. For a time at least. There are whole contracts where independents do X job for Y years, but won't do Z. In exchange, they get access to the higher Tier rifts, faster. You have to remember that the rifts become a scarce commodity that’s strictly managed. There are wait lists that take hundreds of years to get through for the Tier 47 rifts.'

Matt pondered her words. It made sense, to a degree. If you just wanted to get stronger, keeping out of political affairs, keeping your head down, and sticking to delving was probably the best way to do that. Managing a city must be hard work, even with a higher Tier AI to help. Otherwise the AI's would run the Empire, and not the royals.

The rewards also were enticing. Matt understood having a rift there, but just out of reach. He had worked at Benny's for years to get access to a rift. If you were immortal, would a few hundred years of work be all that high of a price to pay for advancement?

Matt didn't know how he felt about the situation. A part of him felt that everyone had a responsibility to do what they could for the benefit of others. Matt didn't think that the few Tier 4s in the rift had a responsibility to fight the peak Tier 6 golems. That was outside of their abilities. But the Tier 6 combatants who remained behind? Matt didn’t have such lenient opinions of them.

They kept moving until it was nearly dark, and quickly set up camp in a small area near a river. Food was quickly cooked, with Matt helping out the only other person with cooking experience in the combatant group.

When a short watch schedule was set, they all tried to get as much sleep as they could manage.

The next morning, they finished their trek to the area that the Prince had indicated. When they crested the hill, and the camp came into view, Matt paused for a second. He had expected a camp similar to the one his group of survivors had built. But this one far exceeded that billing. .

Where they had rough wooden walls, this camp had stone ones eight feet tall. Where they had tent cities, this camp had wooden cabins.

There were stationed guards with ranged weapons and staffs every few feet, and even larger towers on the corners of the Bastion fort's star-like structure. There was even a diverted river that created a moat in front of the walls, further increasing their effective height.

As they got closer, he noticed that each guard tower was topped with two of the anti-air defenses.

This place was a fortress. He wasn't sure if they had thrown this up in the two days after the evacuations, or if the structures had been here the whole time. Earth mages could do the fortification in a few hours, if they had the mana to throw around. It made Matt wonder how the ruin had taken the city, especially if they had even a fraction of these defenses.

No, they didn't. The city was little more than a camp when we left. They might have just been relying on the Tier 15 to keep them safe.

That made sense to Matt. Most cities never had physical walls, and relied on their mana reserves and mana shielding. And that would have worked too, if the resident Tier 15 hadn't decided to play games with everyone's lives.

As they came down the sloping hill, he saw a drawbridge lowered over the makeshift moat. On the other side, there were five people in heavy armor. When Matt scanned them, one of them looked directly at him, and then to a few more spots in their group.

The guards didn't even attempt to stop or question them, and they quickly made their way through the city to an open-air pavilion made from raised stone. Inside, there were nearly a dozen people clustered around a table.

When he reached the threshold, Juni went to a knee and pressed both fists to the ground, calling out, "Your highness, I have returned with twenty-eight combat-capable people."

Everyone stopped talking, and the atmosphere went tense.

A man walked to the edge, and as he approached, Matt was able to scrutinize the Prince. He was tall, only an inch or so under Matt's height, but solidly built. He wasn't sure how much of that was the Prince himself, and how much was his Talent. It seemed to turn him into living crystal.

Prince Albert stood there, considering Juni for a long moment. It was so long, everyone around them started to fidget, but Juni didn't rise from his position. The Prince didn't tell him to rise either.

Finally, Albert called out softly, while stroking the sharp edge of his jaw, "What am I supposed to do with you, Juni?"

He sighed so heavily, Matt wanted to call it theatrics. But from the way the Prince sagged, he thought it might be a real sigh.

"I just don't know. I just. Don't. Know."

Rubbing his jaw, Albert walked around the still kneeling Juni.

Finally, he asked, "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Juni, without lifting his head, replied, "Your highness. I am, as always, at your disposal."

The Prince barked out a laugh at that.

"At my disposal? The traitorous subject says he's at my disposal. Who wants a weapon that will turn on its wielder?"

The people around the table that the Prince had been at started to murmur. Matt heard a few variations of 'kill him'.

Prince Albert apparently heard as well, because he shouted at them, with anger leaking into his voice, "I didn't ask you! Hold your tongues. Unless I ask, I don't need input from you on how to handle one of my own."

Visibly calming himself, the Prince kept his pacing around Juni.

"I really don't know what to do, Juni. You’ve served me loyally for nearly ten years now. Everyone said I was foolish for believing you were innocent with your mother's treason." The heat started to creak back into his voice. "I protected you, and this is what I get. I send you out to protect the citizens of the Kingdom, and you spit in my face by killing Zoey. Did you think I wouldn't put together the facts about the other hits, and you not even getting an attempt?”

Matt heard a few people mutter about their suspicions surrounding the circumstances, but the prince didn't seem to hear those comments.

The prince took a deep breath and deflated a bit, shaking his head.

“You were like a brother to me. More than that. I don't trust my brothers, but I trusted you."

Juni's neck was all that Matt could see, but his tendons and veins were prominent.

"Your highness, I’ve never given you any less than everything I have, and my complete loyalty. I'm more than willing to provide my AI’s recording of my time away. I had nothing to do with Zoey's death."

Having talked with Juni, and seeing him in stressful situations more than once, Matt thought the man was over acting. He had seen him fight during the retreat, and issue orders without blinking.

Albert flipped a hand around, "And a portion of the recording will be missing. Conveniently Zoey will die after."

The Prince seemed to be about to work himself back into a frenzy, but Juni spoke up in the brief pause.

"Your highness, I am more than willing to hand over the data, and prove that there are no gaps or blips in the recording."

That caused the Prince to stop his pacing at Juni's back left side. He didn't speak, only nodding once. Juni seemed to know, as in the next moment, the Prince's eyes started to flick back and forth. He was clearly reviewing Juni’s recordings through his own AI.

Finally, he quickly stepped in front of Juni, and pulled him off the muddy ground and into a tight embrace.

"Oh, wonderful news! I feared I had lost my best supporter and friend."

He pushed Juni to arm's length, and wiped some mud from his face before pulling him back in.

"We had seven of our camp's leadership assassinated. When you were the only group to have a single royal killed, I feared the worst. But it seems I should have had more trust."

Juni froze at that, and he shook slightly. "Is Bridget ok?"

The Prince pulled him closer with a hand behind his head, and said quietly, but loud enough for Matt to catch it, "She's fine. Her group fought them off."

Finally, after a long hug, the two men released each other, and the Prince turned to one of the men still under the awning.

"Get our newcomers settled in. We'll reconvene the counsel after the evening meal. Juni and I have much to catch up on, and I'm sure he can use some time to freshen up."

One of the men called out, "Your highness, we don't have the time."

Albert cut them off, "A few hours will not cause any undue damage. After dinner, we will finish this out. We’re still waiting for more than a few people to make it."

The man didn't protest further, and moved to the side. "If you'll follow me, I'll get you set up."

They started moving, and Andersen, one of the lower Tier 6 melee fighters from the other rescue team, asked, "What can we expect in the next few days?"

The unnamed man called over his shoulder, "The prince wants to start hitting the golems’ factories tomorrow, or the day after at the latest."

The man ducked into a cabin and came right back out. "That one has things in it already. Next one."

They entered a roughly made cabin, but despite the exterior, it had decent bunk beds with cloth bedding.

Matt moved with Liz and Camilla, and claimed one of the triple bunk beds by laying out their sleeping bags. Matt wanted to complain about them leaving him with the top bunk when he was the tallest, but didn't bother. He wouldn't win that one.

The Prince’s man stood at the doorway for a moment, but upon catching sight of Fen's arm, called out to them. "We have a bathhouse and most crafters are set up, but things are expensive, as there are incredibly limited mana reserves. You can also get that healed, but it will probably be over a few days, instead of all at once."

Looking at Liz and then at Camilla, Matt shrugged and motioned towards the door.

With their shrugs and agreement, they started towards the door, and followed the still-unnamed guard. There was no LocalNet, but he still shared a rough map of the camp, with the important areas clearly labeled.

They began to leave the cabin to explore the camp, and the guard turned around and got their attention. "Hey, the night is free for now, but expect to start moving and fighting tomorrow or the day after. Just don't start a fight in the camp. The Prince won't tolerate that."

With that, they were left to their own devices. Matt moved to the area indicated for the healers, and pulled out all of his mana stones. He had a little over a dozen, and it only took moments for Matt to fill them. It was the best cover he could come up with for giving them a lot of mana.

Liz and Camilla didn't even question him, and while they were alone, he pulsed his Concept’s mana regeneration function. They popped into the healing station, and the relief on the receptionist’s face was obvious when they said that they didn't have injuries to heal.

They were led to a back room, where there were the racks of mana stones he had seen used by the other healers. They were slotted into a shelf that looked custom made for the same purpose.

Curious, he looked at the man who led them there and asked, "What are those racks? Like how are they different from a normal mana stone?"

"Easy. They’re specially made for the Empire's healers. They’re created from a sample of the healer's mana, and they can only be used by the same healer. That way, there’s little chance of theft. These bad boys convert mana a lot faster than a normal mana stone, so they’re pretty valuable. They’re even better than the fast converter's efficiency, even though they don't change users. Makes them super expensive, though. I think they sell for like Tier 15 or 20 mana stones."

He looked slightly proud, and had a touch of longing when he looked at the racks.

Camilla asked the pertinent question, "Should he input our mana into them or…?" She trailed off in an obvious question.

"No, sorry. Behind the shelf, there’s a formation that can feed all the racks and prioritize. Just kinda touch there and you should be able to give mana."

Matt went over with the others and found the formation. He could tell it was meant to link the shelf to a larger mana storage device, and that it was made for throughput. The healers were probably one of the few people who had a direct link to a city’s mana storage. After all, no one wanted healing to be slowed by cheaper and lower throughput mana conduits.

Pushing his hand to the conduit, and holding mana stones in his other hand, he put in nearly 3000 mana, before he pulled his hand back and whipped at his face slightly. He didn't want them to think it was easy to transfer that much mana.

Liz just rolled her eyes at him, and bumped him out of the way with her hip. Matt took the opportunity to pull her close, and blasted his Concept in a tight radius.

Liz lasted slightly longer than he had, but he wasn't sure exactly how much mana she had been able to give. She pulled the trick with the handful of mana stones like he did, but he hadn't actually paid attention to their contents.

Camilla shooed them both away, and Matt made sure he was closer to her than the man who led them there, and continued his Concept’s work.

They moved out, and left after not too long with thanks from the guide.

"So, what do you all want to check out?"

Matt didn't have much of a preference. Now that they had gotten some mana into the system and helped everyone, he was much more relaxed. He wanted to visit a blacksmith, but was sure that the prices would be absurd here, so he didn't expect to buy anything.

A proper Tier 6 blunt weapon with enchantments would be great, but Matt wasn't about to bankrupt himself for it. Even if he just went with a mundane weapon, and did the enchantments himself, the price would outstrip the quality. He would look at the wares with the others, but doubted that he would actually make a purchase.

Liz hooked an arm in his and said, "Let's just wander a bit, just for a small bit of normalcy."

Aster, from her backpack, yipped her agreement, and pushed ideas of ice cream at him. By Liz's giggle, she actually said that as well.

Reaching out, he scratched his bond, and they moved along. More than once, Aster looked like she was about to hop down, but she would always look at their muddy boots and whine. She had just gotten her bath, and didn't want to ruin her newly pristine fur.

More than one stall was set up by teams like theirs, and even when it started to drizzle, the streets didn’t clear.

Most of the stalls they visited didn't have much that they were interested in, or even a large amount of wares in general. There wasn't a lot of time for people to delve for this planet's rewards before the golems attacked. So, people were trying to barter for what they needed. They had to contend with the lack of an entity like an auction house and a lack of intermediaries. Because of that, everyone thought their item was worth two of their buyers, making any trade complicated.

Liz did trade one of their Tier 6 bars of metal for an actual healing potion. It was rift made, and if poured on a wound, would act like a normal healing spell. It was a pretty simple trade, as the potion only worked on its own Tier or lower, and this one was a Tier 5. It was useless for the Tier 6 seller.

They pocketed the bottle of red liquid, and Liz chimed in, "Did you know that health potions have changed colors a few times?" When she only got questioning sounds, she continued, "They used to be green, but when public perception of them changed, the color changed. Weird but fun fact about rifts."

Matt poked her under her ribs and mockingly exclaimed, "Ohh! So you can share fun facts, but if I question rifts, you get all pouty."

Liz just stuck her tongue out at him. He was feeling frisky with their newfound safety, so he leaned into her shoulder and whispered in her ear, "If you keep sticking that tongue out at me, I'll think it's an invitation."

He pulled back slightly, and saw that Liz's expression had turned from amused and mocking to heated, so he leaned in and kissed her.

She drew him closer, and for a moment that stretched into eternity, they held each other. Their kiss was the closest thing Matt had ever felt to a miracle. There was a connection there that he had never felt with anyone else, and he craved it. He wanted more.

They pulled away, and Matt was sure that the flush on her face reflected his own.

She played with the edges of his armor for a moment, before patting his chest.

"Why did we wait so long to do that?"

Matt shrugged and said, "I don’t intend to wait again."

To prove his point, he pulled her back in while her fingers twined into his hair.