Wish upon the Stars chapter 536

To my utter and complete shock, we did NOT get immediately attacked  when the lights went out. The screaming had me setting my stance for a  fight, but apparently nobles were just weirdly jumpy. Reaching out a  hand, I clasped Callie's fingers in mine. "So...can you see in this?" I  asked calmly, completely unable to spot literally anything in this  oppressive darkness. "Because I'm planning to use an...alternative means  of sight, and I don't want to blind you."

"I can." She  responded succinctly. From her tone she was incredibly focused, probably  trying to process a large amount of data at the same time via her  shadow sense. "Go ahead and exclude me."

With a nod, I  reached for my Moonlit Night ability, filling the area around us with  fog. Now, one might be curious how further occluding the sight of  everyone nearby would make it easier for me to see, but Moonlit Night  manifested the fog as a translucent cloud of light to mark its  boundaries. Once the fog spread, everything was suddenly perfectly well  lit, easily visible even in pitch black.

To me. Easily  visible, to me. The people weaving through the crowds slipping hands  into pockets suddenly found themselves just as blind as the people  they'd been robbing, and shouts of their dismay joined the shrieks of  panicked nobles.

I was frankly shocked that had worked.  Whatever this was, it was clearly enough to block off E-rankers from  being able to see at all, barring unique abilities like Callie's. The  only reason besides my slightly higher Impact I could attribute the  quirk to was that I might not be ACTUALLY seeing anything. Maybe the  cloud was acting as a kind of sonar? Or whatever the physical version of  that concept was.

Thinking through the possibilities, I  casually reached into my coat and slipped out my staff, releasing  Callie's hand as I hauled back and smashed the E-ranked stick into the  masked face of one of the thieves as he got a bit too close to Callie  for my liking. He fell over with a shout, and I spent a minute beating  him violently about the head and body with the weapon, just to really  drive home the message.

He was an F-ranker, like me, but I  had three extra Impact and was beating him with an E-ranked stick, so  there wasn't much he could do, especially without the ability to see,  except curl up in a ball and take his punishment. After confirming he  was down, I kicked him once for good measure glaring down at him for a  minute before moving on. Putting his creepy thief hands on my girlfriend  in the dark wasn't going to fly.

Leaving the whimpering  thief in a puddle of his own blood, I pulled Callie with me out of the  way of the main force of thieves and up onto the steps, just to get us  some room. The fog wasn't effecting her, since I hadn't brought her into  the skill other than to exempt her from the stealth aspects, so her  ability to merge with shadows let her process everything that was going  on with extremely high precision.

Finally, after about a  minute and a half of darkness, a voice shouted. "ENOUGH!" A loud thud of  something hard striking floor came down, before a wave of bright energy  blasted across the hall, dissipating the choking darkness and leaving  everyone confused as to what was going on.

A tall, stately  man with far too many rings on was standing in a circle of dark  figures, glaring at them in rage as he held a brightly glowing staff.  For a second I thought they were attacking, but after a moment I  realized that they were all completely paralyzed. One of the rings, a  green stone thing in a gaudy gold setting, glowed sedately on his hand  as his blue eyes blazed.

"Shadow Troupe." He spat. "To  think you would be so brazen as to assault an event where I am in  attendance." He slammed the staff, a tall dark rod of wood with the end  wrapping a glowing crystalline stone, once on the ground, and an  eruption of plants exploded from the ground, reaching up and wrapping  around all of the dark figures.

Looking closely, I could  see the faces of the men hidden behind beaten masks of matte black  metal. They were creepy and featureless, though they gave the impression  of amusement. These weren't great masks, Zeke would have been appalled,  but they definitely lent their wearers an air of competence and  mystery. One of the ones being restrained, choked out. "Magister  Weston." As the plants started to grip him harder.

A magic  user. I'd heard of them, the owner of the Wizard's Tower where we found  the ritual information we used to defeat Suvaya was one of those. It  was a job dedicated to learning and practicing spells. When a person  took a Job, their ability became a Skill, albeit a main Skill. Skills  could be taught and learned, and certain Skills with narrow usage but  impressive and interesting results were considered spells.

I  had no idea what made something a spell, but I knew magic users could  learn a lot of them, and from a variety of useful disciplines.  Technically anyone could, but the Job system made learning and advancing  Skills easier in some ways. Especially Skills related to your job,  which made magic users complicated but sometimes very effective  combatants.

Several of my DS Mastery subskills were  probably considered spells, but I now had that as an ability, which  meant they would automatically rise when I ranked up, a useful part of  heroic cultivation Job system cultivators had to give up in exchange for  protection from recursion and some other useful tricks. I was pretty  happy with the direction I'd gone, all things considered, but it was  damned impressive seeing what a magic user could do.

Weston  turned, blue eyes searching the crowd until they fell on a sallow man  with dark hair and a waxed mustache. "Clairdon." He intoned coldly.  "Might you wish for assistance disposing of these...interlopers?" He  technically asked a question, but his tone made it clear that 'no'  wasn't an answer that was on the table for the Baron.

Clairdon's  face was getting even paler, but I didn't have time to react to that  before I was tapped on the arm. "Excuse me." Said a familiar voice.  "Might I trouble you for a moment of your time." Turning around, I froze  in shock as I looked into the eyes of a formally dressed Anna, who  smiled patiently as she took both my arm and Callie's and led us further  up the stairs, pulling us into an alcove at the top. "What are you  doing here?" She hissed when we were alone.

I  raised a brow at her, before remembering she couldn't see my eyebrow  behind my mask. "What are YOU doing here?" I chuckled as I gestured to  our outfits. "We were invited. You didn't exactly seem friendly with  Clairdon when you mentioned him."

"Because  I'm not." She spat. "But I do know most of his private business  dealings now. I was able to suss out where he keeps one of his emergency  stockpiles of chits by crossreferencing information I had on his  movements with the dates and times in the ledgers. I sent the Shadow  Troupe to distract everyone while I lifted the money, but I had to pull  out last minute because Weston is here. Clairdon is a nobody, but  fighting the Magister would be a death sentence for me."

Which  implied that guy was at least D-rank. Why the hell was he HERE? Anna  couldn't see my face, but she obviously picked up my curiosity from my  body language. I could feel the telltale stuffiness in the air of a  stealth Skill in use, and I was pretty sure Anna was doing it. So at the  very least we didn't need to worry about being overheard. Still, she  looked around furtively and lowered her voice.

"I  don't know why Weston is here." She said worriedly. "He shouldn't be  anywhere this backwater. He's not a Viscount, but he works closely with  the Earl at times. He's something of a stabilizing influence on  Stratholme." She cursed quietly. "This was supposed to be an effortless  job. I'd probably have still tried it, given my skillset, but you're the  goose that laid the golden egg. Can't let you get caught up in this  nonsense. Which is part of why I pulled you away. Weston CANNOT find out  you're a Wyndham."

That  sounded ominous. "Why, does he have a problem with the WCP?" He was  D-rank, so Zeke wouldn't let him act against me personally, but still,  that only lasted until I hit E-rank myself. While he wasn't as  restricted as he had pretended at the start (Zeke had let me believe  'protection from anyone two ranks higher' didn't include the rank I was  at when I was starting out so I'd be more careful) once I hit E-rank,  people like Weston would be able to do whatever they wanted to me.

Once  I hit D-rank, the protection would end completely, but I wasn't ready  to think about what that might mean. Anna brought my thoughts back to  her with a rapid head shake. "No, but you're a strategic resource. He  can and would use you. More than that...his being here seems odd, like I  said." She glanced down the steps worriedly. "You're here with Tolbert  right? How tied up are you with his settlement attempt so far."

"Very." I said firmly. "You think Weston is here for Camden? Why would he even bother with that?"

She  shrugged. "Lots of reasons. Could be doing a favor for one of Tolberts  off world enemies, hell, the Earl could be involved. Just be careful, if  Weston is here, someone big is making moves, and there's no way he's  their only card. Something else is happening and I somehow doubt it's  going to be pleasant for Tolbert or anyone involved with him."

Which  was really something I could have used information on before I signed a  binding contract with him and got heavily invested in his business.  While it was nice not to be the active TARGET of the insidious plot this  time, being sucked into it by accident was almost as annoying. worse  really because this time it was entirely my damned fault, and I just  knew my fucking fate sense had influenced this nonsense.

Anna  sighed and shook her head. "Anyway, I need to go. I'm going to try to  spring my people before Weston gets them back to his estate. He's an  unpleasant bastard, and chances are good he'll take them home for  experiments. I can't take him in a fight, but my skillset is suited to  prison breaks and disappearing into the forest. Be careful." She nodded  and then turned and strolled casually down the steps, before LITERALLY  vanishing into the crowd. One second she was there the next she was  gone.

I  looked at Callie worriedly, but without Anna's stealth we couldn't  really talk too openly. Callie's own Skill wasn't anything to scoff at,  but with a D-ranker here the chances of us being overheard were too high  by far.

Offering  her my arm, I gestured back down to the party, and she nodded solemnly.  We needed to blend. Once this night was over we could talk to Camden  about all this. Hopefully he'd have some idea what was going on and what  to do about it, because I was thoroughly out of my depth.

We  rejoined the milling throngs of nobles, smiling and flattering and  being noncommital about everything as we killed time. As we did I  considered how Camden might get out of this. Someone was clearly acting  against him in a less than straightforward way, based on what Anna said,  and that might give us a chance. After all, they didn't know about me  or the wishes I'd signed over to Camden. Part of me was looking forward  to seeing how that would tip the scales. After all, my other enemies had  mostly known about my powers and been prepared for them. This time,  THEY would be the ones in the dark.