The Path of Ascension

“Ahem...”

“Cough, cough.”

“Hey!”

Matt ignored Camilla for a moment longer as he and Liz slowly separated.

After staring into her eyes for a moment longer, Matt winked and turned to their unwitting third wheel. He had to admit, they had been at it longer than was polite.

“Did you actually say cough? Couldn’t you just actually cough?”

Camilla rolled her eyes so hard, Matt felt it. “I did the first few times, but I got tired of not being heard, so I started hamming it up. Can we continue our shopping?”

Liz slipped under Matt’s arm, and intertwined her fingers through the hand that was draped over her shoulder.

“Don’t be a sourpuss. We never said anything about you when you uhh...” Liz paused for a moment before shrugging. “Well, we won’t say anything if you decide to make out with someone.”

With Camilla placated, they made their way through the shopping area. They wandered until they came upon a blacksmith who was toying with a bit of metal. His forge was cold and silent.

Matt called out to him, “Hey, are you taking orders or…?” He let the end of his comment trail off into a question.

The man looked up and quietly called out, “Nothing with alloys or enchantments. No mana.”

Reaching back into his bag, Matt withdrew a pair of war hammers from the shop they had looted while still in the ruin.

Dropping them in front of the blacksmith, he asked, “Can you help me figure out the best way to enchant them? I’ll do the work, but I don’t want to ruin them.”

That piqued the man’s interest, and he looked the weapons over for a long minute.

“Are these rift rewards?”

Matt paused. The man phrased it as a question, but his tone was a statement.

“Yeah, how did you know? I’ve dabbled in blacksmithing, but didn’t see anything that would give it away.”

The smith tapped the hammerhead with a calloused finger. “Their internals are identical. It makes them great for beginners to enchant, no human variation to mess you up. That means, you can go with identical runic structures. Easy enough for beginners, so you should be fine, by my reckoning. I can help you, but no guarantee of it actually working. I don’t have access to the town’s mana reserves.”

He scoffed and added, “Good luck getting the prince to give you access, either. This is low priority stuff, sure, but it still sucks to be unable to work.”

“What are you thinking for the runic structure?”

The man chewed his lip for a minute. “Got any more rift weapons? Particularly Tier 6 ones, like these?”

Matt just grinned at him. “Maybe.”

“One weapon with the pattern for Tier 6 durability and strengthening. Can you enchant more? I can add a repair rune, but that will make the process a lot harder.”

“No, the two will already be hard enough for my skills.”

Matt pulled out a war axe, and the blacksmith eyed it for a minute. He then asked, “Got anything blunt left? They’re going for a higher price with all the metal monsters running around.”

Reaching back in, he pulled out a mace.

“Perfect, here you go.”

With that, Matt received a complex data packet that contained a runic structure that fit the two hammers. Looking it over, Matt was fairly confident that he could enchant the weapons. At least, he didn’t think he would fail and break them.

Moving on, he caught up with Liz and Camilla. They were perusing a shop selling odds and ends and other sorts of things. They already had comparable versions of every bauble he saw, so Matt decided to go outside and look around.

They met up with the rest of their people shortly after a message interrupted their shopping, Juni asked them to gather so they all trickled into their bunk area. Matt expected to be given orders to go attack somewhere, but Juni had other news.

“We have new scouting reports to go through, and they have all thrown a few wrenches into our plans. We will move tomorrow morning, but for now, just try and relax as much as you can.”

When his information was passed, someone called out, “Are you ok, Juni?”

The man laughed, saying, “I’m fine. The prince is under a lot of stress, and lashed out yesterday. Think nothing of it.”

At the skeptical murmurings, he repeated himself, “Really. Everything is fine.”

Matt and the others found themselves at a loss with the sudden free time, so he found an open area and started working out. He found Tier 6 chains piled to the side,and threw them over his shoulders while doing body weight exercises.

The extra weight was a strain on his muscles, but he had [Endurance] at full blast in between sets. He could feel that the constant training was helping. He worked out as much as he could, but with his increase in cultivation, his natural body weight was hardly a challenge. No matter the exercise.

He made a note to buy similar chains for his own use. He had worked out heavily in Travis and Keith’s house, but in the last few weeks, he lacked the faculties to properly work his body. He needed to make sure that his cultivation didn't outstrip his natural strength with how quickly he had been able to advance with the stream of Tier 6 enemies.

He watched the horizon, and he forced out the fiftieth pull-up. The chains tried to pull him back to the ground, but he defied them, and gravity.

Dropping as he finished the set, he enjoyed the burn for a moment, before removing it and healing his muscles.

As a final cool down exercise, he went over his hammer forms. He had used the mace recently, but the spike on the rear of the hammer opened up some possibilities. He wanted to refresh his skills with it.

When he was done, he found the bathhouse, and quickly washed while sneakily filling their mana stone reserves in the hot water heater. He wasn’t going to give his secret away, but he wanted to help where he could.

A part of him wanted to give his mana freely, and charge everything so people like the blacksmith could work. The man could surely work on forging new weapons, and even if he was unable to do that,he could work on enchanting. Any crafting at all would be helpful to the survivors’ cause.

Matt shook the thought away, and after drying off, wandered around. He finally hopped up on a rooftop, and pulled out the hammers that he had gotten enchantment patterns for.

Carefully reviewing it, he had to admit that the man was better at laying enchantments than he was, by miles. Either that, or his AI was better at planning them. That was a possibility that he hadn’t considered. If the man had a crafting module, it could explain the ingenuity of his design.

Settling down, Matt centered his mind away from the turmoil of the day, and started to guide his mana into the appropriate forms and lines. He carved channels for power to flow into the item’s spirit.

He succeeded with the first one, and was about to start on the second when Camilla sent a message in the group chat.

‘I found an item my mace can use to upgrade, but the seller wants equal trade-in value. Can I swap some of my shares of the treasures for something he wants, if you have it?’

Matt sent her his agreement, and she said that he wanted a Tier 7 seven ingot he had. Matt would have given it to her free of cost if she wouldn’t refuse the “charity”; it had been by sheer luck that he had grabbed it. But with the restriction of he and Liz being on The Path, while Camilla was not, they had to be careful to avoid being called into question as sharing loot was highly scrutinized. She would need to trade with them to keep the AI watching programs happy.

After letting her know where he was, Matt waited for her to come to him, and they conducted a trade for a lot of her semi-precious Tier 6 materials. She kept adding to the trade until the AI said that they had a near equal value.

Taking enough time for the sun to appreciably move, he re-settled himself, and repeated the same steps he had with the first war hammer.

It was a nice item. He had to admit, a heavy head with a spike on the reverse side would do much better than his Tier 5 longsword. If he broke another sword, he would cry, so this was a good alternative. Liz would get the second hammer, as her spear was useless for its intended purpose of getting her enemies to bleed.

They needed to prepare for the impending battles as well as they could.

Hopping off his perch after stowing his two newly enchanted weapons he started wandering around the miniature city. Pausing for a moment as he watched the passing people, one of the building’s doors opened, and a person was tossed out into the muddy street. Matt didn’t pay more attention until his AI pinged him the person’s identity. It was Malcolm, who they hadn’t seen since they had gotten separated in the ruin.

He pinged Liz and Camilla, quickly stepping over to the amateur adventurer, who was struggling to free himself from the cloying mud.

Reaching him, Matt was slapped in the face with a stench of alcohol and vomit so strong, it was burning his nose.

“Are you ok, Malcolm?”

The answer was obvious, but he was more so looking to see if he was coherent, rather than looking for an answer. What worried Matt was how the man’s eyes weren’t able to focus on him.

“Who’re you?” The words were so slurred, Matt took it as a no.

He looked at the door he had been thrown out of, and saw a sign that said ‘Bar’. Obvious, but he was glad the man didn’t get thrown out of anywhere... worse?

He popped inside, and was met with a glare that disappeared quickly once the barman saw that he wasn’t Malcolm.

Before the man could speak, Matt quickly asked, “He owe you anything?” While jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

The man’s smile turned sour as he asked, “You friends with him?”

“Not really, more like acquaintances. But I don’t want you to take a loss. I can get it from him easier.”

The man sighed, moving closer to Matt and away from the other patrons.

“He only owes a mana crystal or two. I’m not worried about that. Just get him some help. You don’t drink like that unless you’re drinking to forget.”

Matt flipped him a Tier 5 mana stone and asked a question before he left.

“Did he happen to say anything while drunk? We got some loot while we were with him and well you know.”

At the barman’s no he breathed a sigh of relief and walked out of the bar; a disaster averted. If Malcolm said something while drunk it could lead to greater consequences for all of them.

Liz was helping Malcolm up, while Camilla poured her canteen over his head, sloshing most of the mud off him. They had arrived faster than he expected.

Malcolm just muttered incoherently. Listening, Matt heard about how he was sorry and other murmurs of the same vein.

That tugged at Matt a bit as he helped the man sober up. They maneuvered him to a side road that was clearly less traveled, and plopped him down on a dry patch of grass near a building.

When they dumped more water onto the man, he seemed to come to his senses enough to realize who had pulled him out of the mud.

“Thank the Ascenders! I was sure you had died...” His head rolled off to the side, and finished, “Like everyone else had. What did we start? I just wanted to get a stupid item.”

He hiccuped, and then vomited off to the side for a long minute. After that, he slumped backwards and passed out. Matt hadn’t missed the flat look in the man’s eyes, and lack of caring in his facial expression.

Looking toward the others, he shrugged. “What should we do with him?”

Camilla shrugged as well, but looked hard at the drunk man with an expression Matt couldn't quite place.

Liz offered some sense. “Let’s wash him off a bit more, then bring him back to our area. There has to be an extra bed we can chuck him in.”

Not having a better idea, Matt activated his armor and grabbed the man, and rubbed him down with water created from his canteen. When the drunk and unconscious man was mostly clean, Matt washed his hands, glad that his skill kept the vomit off his person.

They moved back to their selected housing and tossed Malcolm into an unoccupied bottom bunk. After ensuring that he wouldn’t drown in his own vomit, they called it a night and turned into their respective bunks.

The next morning, Malcolm was sitting up in his bunk, clinging to his head while flinching at any sound made.

Matt shook a bottle of painkillers next to his head, paining the hungover explorer enough to make him feel slightly bad.

Malcolm took the pills and finally looked at Matt, squinting at him. He whispered, “I thought you picked me up. What are you doing here?”

“That’s what I wanted to ask you. I figured you’d be hiding in a rift.”

Malcolm flinched back at that. “No, I can’t hide from this, it was my fault, and so many people paid the price.”

Matt looked around, making sure no one was close enough to overhear that comment. He didn’t even want to think about what would happen if the survivors found a target to vent their anger at.

“Keep that quiet. Don’t want the wrong people to hear about that.”

Malcolm spat to the side, worked his jaw for a few moments, and said, “Yeah, you’re not wrong. But still...”

Malcolm looked at his hands. He displayed them in the air. They shook. Badly. So badly, Matt wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol, or something else.

Before he could ask, Malcolm continued, “I tried to volunteer to help. As you know, I’m no combatant, but I was able to help on the wall. I… I wasn’t able to defend my section of it, and we were overrun. After that, I turned and ran. From what I heard, I was one of only twenty people who made it out of that camp.”

Matt felt the loss, and gently patted the man’s shoulder. Despite not being a great combatant, he tried, and didn’t run away during their delve. Matt could see the man staying to try and help, even when he was better suited to hiding in the rear.

“You did what you could. That takes bravery.”

Malcolm just shook his head and said, “Can you get me in the rift early? I can’t handle this anymore. I want to go home. I want…” He paused and took a deep breath, “I want a lot.”

“Do you have food and everything else? I’m sure we can get you into the rift, but it will be lonely as hell for a few weeks. That might not be the best for your mental state. Do you want to wait for the entire base to evacuate?”

“No. I need to be alone. Others have gone in from my understanding. And I’m pretty sure the prince isn’t trying to evacuate at all. He wants to hold this as a headquarters. I just don’t want to fight anymore. I’m too weak, and I’ll just make it worse.”

Peering into the man’s eyes, he found them dead and lifeless. Matt found Liz and Camilla standing a good bit away, with Aster on the middle bunk watching them. Camilla had a hard look he usually only saw before a fight.

The two women nodded, indicating they heard enough to agree. They packed up, and escorted Malcolm to the rift near the center of the camp.

Matt called out to the guards, giving his most pleasant smile, “We just want to get some extra essence for our friend here.”

The guard rolled her eyes, saying, “I don’t care if you want to drop off your friend in there. It isn’t our problem. You can go in now. The last group was out over an hour ago.”

His smile froze, and he awkwardly walked in. It was a Tier 3 rift, so no real danger to anyone in their group. Malcolm looked around and saw the forest, and began weeping slightly. He was able to get it under control quickly.

Liz started forward, and called over her shoulder, “The info said that this is a wolf rift, so I’ll go clear it.”

Matt wasn’t worried about her. He was focused on watching Malcolm starting to set up his tent.

After a few minutes, Liz came back, and told Malcolm that it was done.

Camilla looked around, and Matt received a message from her. Liz received it as well.

‘So the fifteen minutes are up. Are we going to kill him now?’

What?

“What?”

Liz’s outburst mirrored his own thoughts. Camilla just turned and walked deeper into the forest seeing they hadn't agreed with her suggestion.

When they were far enough away, she said out loud, “Was that not the idea? He’s the only one who can peg this on us. I figured you wanted to remove him. I agree, honestly.”

Liz nearly shouted but managed to whisper, “No! We can’t just murder him because he knows. That’s not right.”

As the two women whispered while arguing their points, Matt felt the urge to vomit.

His initial reaction to Camilla’s suggestion had been confusion, then acceptance. Liz’s reaction had brought him back to his senses. He didn’t want to be the type of person who would murder a man because it was easier.

Killing Zoey had been one thing. Matt could accept that.

This wasn’t anything like that.

Malcolm didn’t have to die.

With his decision made, he turned and walked back to Malcolm.

He heard Liz shouting at him and felt her tug at his arm.

“Matt, don’t do this. I won’t let you.”

He paused midstep as he saw her grow more desperate, and she called out, “I’ll fight you! I will. I’ll not be any part of this, or allow this. I won’t be with you anymore either. This isn’t you, Matt.”

The last bit was her pleading with him.

Matt winced. That was more pointed than he wanted to hear. She was right, though. He was once again glad that he had given Liz the heart back on the training world. He could see himself sinking into the mindset that killing was the easy way out. He didn’t intend to rely on her to be his moral compass, but it was nice to know that his partner wouldn’t let him stray too far from the proper path.

He turned to Liz with his first smile in what felt like forever. His heart wasn’t in turmoil, and he felt at peace.

“I’m not. Thank you for being willing to keep me on the straight and narrow. I don’t want to need it, but thank you for being there for me.”

He turned to Camilla and said, “Killing can’t be our first option. It’s easy, sure, but this doesn’t need death. Do you think Duke Waters would kill a man for something like this? I never met the man, but I’ve seen the movies. He wouldn’t stoop that low. But Camilla...”

Matt waited until she met his eyes, and finished, “We need to be better. That usually means taking the harder path, but we still need to do it. If you kill everything at the first sign of difficulty, how are you better than the trash you take out? We have both pushed our criteria for what is acceptable a bit too far, I think we both need to watch ourselves.”

Camilla lowered her eyes and slowly nodded.

Turning, he squeezed Liz’s hand and walked up to Malcolm. He pulled back his hand, and smacked him.

Hard.

The blow sent the man reeling and sputtering.

“What the fuck, man?”

For the first time, Matt saw life in the man’s eyes.

“Look around, Malcolm. Is this what you want? You said that you wanted to help and tried, but you couldn’t make it happen yourself. Is this how you want to react to that? You’re just going to cower in a rift? I won’t force you out, but ask yourself. Will doing this accomplish anything that you want?”

Matt wasn’t going to give a speech, and turned and walked out of the rift. Liz and Camilla followed through a moment later.

He didn’t miss that Liz came out after Camilla.

Not saying anything, they went and got breakfast. Liz tossed the guards a few mana stones as they passed. He assumed that they were the reward for the rift. Not enough for them to care about, but enough for the guard’s tip.

Without talking, they made their way to the dining area. They each got plates of food and sat down.

They continued to eat in silence, until Camilla spoke up while toying with her spoon.

“I think once this is done and the teleportation platform is open, I’m going to go back home and return to therapy. Everyone said I rushed it when I decided to come out. I didn’t agree with them. I thought I was ok. These last few weeks have shown me that I’m not ready. I knew I wasn’t perfect, but I thought I was good enough.”

She spun the spoon in circles, and watched it reflect the rough wooden table.

“I didn’t want to be at another’s mercy. But this wasn’t what I expected. I delved some rifts back at the estate, but I thought the exploration would make me stronger. I thought I could slowly fix myself. I was wrong. I could already feel myself slipping, as you said. But with what almost happened with Malcolm… that was a harsh wake-up call. He didn’t even threaten us or anything. He didn’t deserve it like the others. It wouldn’t have been right. I don’t really know what is right anymore. I thought that if I was hard enough, everything would be ok. But I can’t power my way through this.”

She didn’t say more, and Liz took it as her cue. “Well, I’m glad you’re becoming more self-aware. But don’t be too hard on yourself. This isn’t the easiest time. I know I’m going to have a good cry with my therapist, once this is over.”

That got Camilla to smile, and Liz continued, “Uncle Aiden will take you back with open arms. I’m sure of it.”

Camilla nodded at that. “He was kind enough to make sure I knew that his home was my home. I just felt so stifled there. It’s so... I don’t know how to explain it.”

Liz filled in for her, “Like nothing is real or even matters when they can just wave a hand and solve literally anything. It makes you feel useless and without your own identity.”

That perked Camilla up. “Oh... I guess you would understand. I was only dealing with it for a couple of years, not my entire life. How did you handle it?”

His partner’s smile was sheepish when she said, “I ran away and joined The Path as soon as I could.”

The two of them reminisced for a few minutes, while Matt just listened. It was weird to hear how living in a powerful person’s house was. He had no frame of reference.

Camilla added one thing that struck a chord with him. “It can be nice to know that the people around you can protect you when you’re scared, but that shield can become a cage.”

Liz had said something similar when she was still hiding her parent’s identities. She mentioned something about blankets being nice when you were scared but turned smothering when you want freedom.

The two seemed to bond more during that last conversation than he thought possible. It was only interrupted when Malcolm sat down next to them. All four of them looked up at the man in slight shock, but Matt was pretty sure that Aster was more interested in his plate of food, rather than why the man was out of his rift instance.

Malcolm didn’t bring his eyes from his plate, and his hands were gripping his spoon with a white-knuckled grip.

“You were right. At least partially.” He glared at Matt and said, “I could have done without the slap and just the words, though. But while you need to work on your motivational speeches, you make a good point. I can be of help, and it wouldn’t be right for me to hide. Even with my lack of combat experience, I still have a useful Talent.”

Camilla interjected at the mention of his Talent, “You might want to hold that one close to the vest. You never know what hole you might fall into if the wrong people find out.”

Malcolm actually smiled at that, contrary to what Matt thought.

“No, I’m safe enough on that front, I forgot about it in all the excitement, but I’m a part of the seekers guild with this bad boy.”

He wiggled his sleeve down, and showed off the armband that he had taken from the rift.

That didn’t mean much to Matt, but Liz leaned in and looked around, whispering, “Why didn’t you say anything earlier? We thought you were a trap or something. If you had vouched for yourself with their backing, anyone would have taken you without suspicion.”

Malcolm scratched his head. “I wasn’t officially a part of the guild until I got my item, and part of the recruitment is not telling anyone. They want people who can think on their feet in the field, not people who need a backer for everything.”

Camilla asked the question Matt wanted to know the answer to. “What’s a seeker guild?”

Malcolm looked at Liz in confusion. “Yeah, how do you even know about them? Most people under Tier 15 don’t have a clue about them.”

Liz waved it off nonchalantly, “My parents are strong enough to know some of them.”

“Ah well. Don’t feel bad, Cammie. I had never heard of them either, but they’re a group of people with Talents like mine. They contacted me shortly after I was awakened, and recruited me after I hit Tier 3 and had my second Talent. One of their rules is that you need to advance on your own, so it took a while to find people able to help me. Thankfully, I was able to find a few lost skill shards, and could at least help in rifts.”

Matt and Camilla were both glaring at the man for what he was sure were different reasons. Camilla had started glairing when he had shortened her name, but Matt wanted to punch the man when he said that he found skill shards. Had he missed when they had turned into loose change at some point?

“Anyway, when I hit Tier 5, they told me that I needed to find a particular item, and once I found it, I would be officially a part of the guild. They said that once I was in, they would get me carried to peak Tier 14. But I can help and use that as a way to keep myself safe. I’m sure I can do something. It might not work with Tier 6 items, but all I need is a part of something to be Tier 5 or lower, and I can lock onto it pretty well. My Talent is a bit more broad than most, but it still has its own limitations.”

Matt asked him, “So what does the guild behind you do?”

Malcolm shrugged and said, “Find stuff, mostly. I don’t know; I’m barely a part of them.”

Liz elaborated. “They find stuff, yes. But they can be contracted to go on explorations to new areas, and find the best stuff there. Or if they’re strong enough, they can be used to find things like higher Tier worlds. But mostly, they don’t work well for things like that. They’re really good at finding stuff, though. They’re also used in the higher Tier rifts to find hidden items and locate ores and such. The rifts after Tier 15 are massive, and they usually send in teams to strip them of useful materials, along with the delving team. Seekers make that easy.”

She chewed on her lip and added, “They can also help if you lose a planet or two and need to find them in a hurry.”

Matt just cocked his head at her. How had her parents lost a planet or two? She just smiled like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

The others had seemed to gloss over her comment, so he ignored it as well.

Malcolm was saying, “With the right questions, I can help quite a bit. I already located some of the replicators that the ruin has set down. And a Prince should know about the guild enough to not try anything.”

Matt interjected with emphasis, “That the fortress set down. The fortress.”

Getting what Matt was implying, Malcolm nodded and corrected himself, “The fortress set them down, and I can help. The prince of this place said that he wants to take them out first, and I can make sure we do exactly that.”

He stood and looked at all of them, saying, “Thank you, guys. For protecting me... and everything else.”

To his surprise, Camilla called out to the seeker’s back, “Hey Malcolm!”

When the man turned around, she kept speaking. “Don’t get yourself into trouble. If you need help, message us as soon as you think something’s wrong. Don’t let them slap you with an AI blocking device.”

The man smiled and turned, but Camilla added one last bit. “Oh, and call me Cammie again, and I’ll rip out your tongue.”

Malcolm paled. “Are you uh… joking?”

Camilla just smiled at him.

Matt was confused enough, and he had no idea how Malcolm would feel after such an exchange.