Wakespire: Chapters 20-21

Hello, everyone! I have chapters for you, same as always, but first I hope to get everyone's attention on the images above and a very serious decision about the series going forward.

The covers for The Weirkey Chronicles have an uneven history. Not only different ideas, but various artists going AWOL. It's been frustrating, but I'm not here to talk about that. Instead, I'm here to show you the work of RobotCat, a TWC reader who has been bringing a lot of passion to my work.

What do you think of the above as stylistic examples for the series? First you can see the nearly complete cover for Wakespire. After that, an example of how the cover for Soulhome might look (that one will still get coloring). The plan would be to have each book in the series work from a different limited color palette.

If people are enthusiastic about these covers, then all the past books would be redone to match the style. All of TWC would have unified covers and I'd have a reliable artist going forward instead of constantly having to deal with new hassles. That said, I'm not determined to do this no matter what, so I'm open to all feedback!

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Chapter 20

It was a full day after their attempt at the spire that Nauda actually began analyzing the materials they'd won. She had been thinking about effort and reward as reversed: the real benefit was the lightegg and the other materials that Isorales had given them prior. Or, in a more abstract way of thinking, the reward for their successful work was a firmer alliance with one of the strongest lineages in the city.

Even an environment as rarefied as Ugustial only had two native Strongholds: Isorales's grandfather and a soulcrafter who served the strongest lineage. The Stronghold wasn't actually the prince himself, though his power was the basis for their position in the city. The victory had given Isorales a bit more credibility in his family, so hopefully he would be a strong ally in future rounds.

But all of that aside, they had been given sublime materials. Theo had assumed they were maliciously chosen and Fiyu had been busy with her relative, so Nauda was the one to actually sort through the chest.

For the most part, it was as unremarkable as Theo had expected. The chest was filled with simple materials that a non-soulcrafter might have considered ordinary junk. Instead of powerful centerpieces that could fill a chamber with cantae, the rewards were secondary materials like sublime rope, mortar, and resin. Everyone needed plenty of such materials to properly finish their soulhome, they simply weren't the most dramatic.

Because this was Noven, and nothing could be simple, there was a sheet of paper explaining every single item in grandiose terms. The little pot of goop wasn't just a sublime material that could be used to glue two objects together, it was "frostbinding" from some legendary mountain range "in the farthest north". In practical terms, it was dark and seemed to sap heat, so it could fit into a soulhome like Fiyu's.

Nauda took it out of the chest and made it the first item in a pile. Since she still needed more time to think about everything she had experienced in the Wakespire, she might as well sort the results for her friends.

As she worked, Nauda slowly had to admit that the average quality was not bad. No one would get excited about "topaztwine" no matter how much the description said it was renowned for its beauty. But the thin twine was tough enough to tie together even Authority-tier materials, and that was worth something. You couldn't build an elaborate soulhome without needing to tie things together from time to time.

By the time she was done, Nauda had divided all the rewards into three piles. All but two. By her judgment, two of the sublime materials were actually of exceptional quality.

First, there was a rope made of living flame called an ifritbraid, intensely hot but not burning anything it touched. It radiated enough flame cantae that it deserved a significant place in a chamber. Maybe not as a centerpiece, but it might do an excellent job of enhancing another material. The only question was which one of them could actually use it, so Nauda set it aside for the time being.

Second was a rather less impressive box. The list called it "mulch of dragons" but it was definitely excrement. Some sublime beast expelled it after eating, and it wasn't some fantastical process like with the lighteggs. No, the interior of the box was filled with a foul-smelling red sludge.

Disgusting as it might seem, however, Nauda thought she could use it. Her heartoak had grown strong on its own, but not all sublime plants would develop so easily. There was still more work to be done to flesh out her life-themed tower, so this could well prove useful. Nauda closed the box, which she noted also sealed the scent, and took it into her soulhome for safekeeping.

While inside, she found herself wandering through her soul. It was easy to do that and tell herself that she was contemplating her soulcrafting, but she wasn't sure if it was true. After she'd mostly met her goals for the Wakespire, she'd been left without an immediate objective. Unless they won the next round, she didn't have any extraordinary sublime materials to begin working on.

That didn't mean there was no work to do. Nauda deposited the box alongside the heavenspears and the mask and the winter supplies and everything else they had her carry.

Instead of her life or death towers, Nauda entered her staff. The bottom floor was dedicated to her staff armament itself and could still use an enormous amount of work. Theo had helped her make the floor flexible enough to potentially work with any staff, but if she wanted to use the full strength of the armament, she needed a lot of additional materials. Mostly from Fithe, since that was the source of the staff. House Blacksilver had given her all she needed, so it was just a question of taking the time.

She walked up her central spiral staircase to her second floor. Along the way, she reflected that the staircase itself could use some work. Fiyu polished every single one of her staircases to perfection, with not a single step at the wrong angle. But that was tedious work she could do when they weren't under a time limit.

Assuming that, at some point in the future, Theo would fail to create more deadlines for them.

Her second floor was, somewhat unusually, her most developed: one chamber for each of her techniques. All three central materials were strong and she'd been working hard on developing those skills. She might be able to refine it further, but all three rooms were well-built and mostly finished. No, best to focus on her third floor.

Nauda had completely finished the three teardrop-shaped rooms that formed her third floor, but she only had exact plans for one of them. Should she fill the others with more armaments? That would be an unusually high number and she thought that Theo wouldn't approve. She could definitely use chambers to enhance her staff or techniques, but the problem was that they wouldn't blend at all with her one filled room.

Her belt of notemeralds hung in the center of one room, identical to the one she wore in the physical world. As powerful sublime gems from Arbai, they had survived the destruction of her soulhome. But just being placed inside, they could only defend her a little. She wasn't using anywhere near the armament's full potential.

Working on improving her notemerald belt was an obvious choice to help her keep up with the others in the short term. The problem was that she thought the best design wouldn't place it here, or anywhere on her third floors. So if she put too much work into establishing it now, she would just need to remodel later, and that would make her fall behind Theo and Fiyu in the long term...

Fiyu and Theo... Nauda abruptly realized that they held her solution. Even as careful as they were, they'd both done partial work on many sublime materials before later moving them to permanent locations. Fiyu had kept her darkburn bonsai on her Corporeal Floor for a long time and Theo was currently juggling that hideous heart from the House of the Lost.

She could do the same, she just needed to focus on soulcrafting that wouldn't be made obsolete in the future.

For a start, having the notemeralds just hanging from the ceiling was a weak design. She could build a portable plinth specifically to hold it and that would bind the belt more firmly to her soulhome. That should in turn tie the armament more to her and she could get more use out of its defensive power. Plinths were easy enough to carve, even with the spiritual tools available.

Nauda sang a little song to herself as she worked, glad to have a clear objective. Maybe she didn't have to stop with a plinth, either. There were so many sculptors in the city, she might commission a partial statue of herself and then place the belt around the statue's waist. It didn't make sense in her staff tower, but it would strengthen her further until she moved it to a proper location.

Buoyed by her new goal, Nauda was actually irritated to hear a knock on their door. She was turning into Theo or Fiyu. Since there was no one else to answer, she forced herself up in the physical world and went to look. Isorales stood on the other side, shifting his weight awkwardly.

"Hi," Nauda said as soon as she opened the door. "What do you need?"

"Actually, I just wanted to offer you something. My parents are a bit pleased with my work, so they're going to put together some sublime food. I assumed that all of you have feast chambers?"

"Of course."

"Well, there would be enough for you to join me. If you've just been eating manna, you haven't seen the full potential of Noveni sublime food." Isorales grinned uncomfortably. "And, uh, I think it would be a nice meal, as a way to thank you for your help. I wanted to offer before all of you got busy again."

"Well, unfortunately you're too late." Nauda pushed the door fully open so that he could see that the rooms were empty.

"They're already gone? But we just finished a Wakespire! What are they even doing? This is a time for recovery and celebration..."

Nauda shrugged because it was easier than answering. Theo was flying off around the world with Senka, seeking out something related to her past, and frankly she was just glad they weren't all dragged into it. Fiyu had been spending even more time with Guchiro recently, intensifying her work on her third floor. For both of them, a month wasn't anywhere near enough, so it couldn't be enough for Nauda, either.

"I guess, uh, the offer is always open." Isorales scratched his head for a while as if uncertain where to go from there. "You do want the sublime food, right?"

"Absolutely, and it's a thoughtful gift." Since his victory hadn't seemed to have done much for his confidence, Nauda smiled encouragingly. "All our soulhomes could use it, we just need to find the right time. Honestly, I'll have to speak to them to find out when."

"That's... good then."

"Can you get sublime foods from both sides of Noven? From below the clouds too, I mean."

Isorales blinked in surprise. "It, uh... I mean, I suppose I could. With the Terefilia family in the city, we do have trade connections with undercloud cities. Not sure why you'd want to, though..."

"Actually, let's talk about that." Nauda leaned against the side of the doorway and crossed her arms. Time to get some straight answers. "If we're being such chummy allies, I'd like to know more about the underside of Noven."

"Like what?"

"Everything. But let's start with how many people live under the clouds."

"A lot, I think?" Isorales stared down the corridor as if trying to recall old lessons. "It's different all over the world, of course. But in a lot of places, there are plenty on both sides. I think here it's about... one third of the total population."

One third of the people on the streets definitely didn't have black wings, and the Terefilia lineage was clearly made of social outsiders. Nauda wanted to confront him about it and had to struggle to find a nicer way of approaching the issue. "But there's only one prince from below here."

"Well, Ugustial is a sunside city. It's not like there are lots of us on the councils of undercloud cities, either."

"Could you if you wanted to?"

Isorales took a step back, so she obviously hadn't succeeded at being nice enough. He shook his head slowly before answering. "I see what you're getting at, but I'm not sure what to tell you. For the most part, we just don't mix. We might look alike to you, but underclouders and sunsiders are very different. I've read that there's a lot of conflict across the clouds in some parts of the world, but it's not like that here."

"Huh." Nauda knew that couldn't be the full answer and doubted she would get any more. Best to keep things lighter. "Regardless, I think all of us will want the strongest sublime food from both sides of the clouds, so we'd appreciate it."

"Yeah, sure. I can do that."

"And what about you? What are your plans?"

"First I need to do some real work on these new sublime materials." Isorales briefly flickered into a haze of light as he stepped into his soulhome. "The rewards were almost too good, so I need to remodel a little for them to work in my soulhome. But after that I'm supposed to ascend, of course."

"You were almost there before."

"I wish. I wanted to ask your friend for tips, because he had such a good ascension, but..." Isorales stared into the room again and shook his head. "Never mind. We'll talk about everything later, okay? Next round you don't have to support me, but we can still be allies."

"Definitely." Nauda reached out to clasp his arm and, after a little awkwardness, Isorales succeeded in mirroring the gesture. "Take care of yourself, alright?"

He squeezed her arm with a smile and she was surprised just how strong he was. Come to think of it, she actually hadn't seen him fight despite all their interactions. Judging from his strength, he definitely had more than one strength-enhancing chamber.

Isorales eventually said his farewells, leaving Nauda alone again. Normally, she would have been lonely, and she did feel the absence of Fiyu and Theo. But there was so much to do, she couldn't think about that for long. As soon as they were done, they'd be coming back to her.

-

Chapter 21

One brick. One perfect brick.

It was simultaneously an achievement and utterly inconsequential. Theo sat back and stared at the result of his work. Unlike all the other white stone bricks he'd created, this one was an Authority-tier brick. The sublime stone had fought him every step of the way, refusing to be integrated into his soul. Now that he had finally wrestled control of the material, it was... just one brick. The first of many.

He'd learned some things during the process, so future bricks would be faster, but the average time would be longer than it was before. That fact had frustrated him while crafting his first soulhome. For the tiers up to Ruler, creating walls and ceilings were trivial for a skilled soulcrafter and the major bottleneck was finding enough sublime materials to fill the chambers. From Authority on, the two required similar amounts of time. A hasty Archcrafter might craft an entire floor in a month, but no Authority ever could.

Now that he knew there were nine tiers, he had to wonder if there would be another dramatic shift at the seventh. Part of him could imagine the system scaling up forever until master soulcrafters required an entire year to create a single brick. He hoped not, because that would be unbelievably boring. Until then, he would leave the future for the future.

Because Senka wasn't back yet, Theo started on a second brick. No point wasting any time, even if he couldn't possibly finish all his chambers before the next Wakespire.

Building out his fourth floor was actually not a major priority for his strength, even if it would be nice. So much of his soulcrafting up to that point had been building abilities that wouldn't attain their true forms until later tiers. Normally, reaching Authority simply powered up a soulcrafter's skills in a fairly linear way.

With his blueprint, the quantitative upgrade should be a qualitative change. His points of mass and anti-mass had been weak for such a long time, barely generating enough gravity to budge objects. With the cantae available to him at Authority, they would finally have an impact. The change would be even more dramatic for his anchoring and tunneling abilities, because those had barely functioned at all previously. Only his singularity wouldn't be upgraded so smoothly, as Ractifus had pointed out.

Thought of the old man distracted Theo for a time. Many of the princes might be actively biased against him, but Ractifus Terefilia seemed neutral. Theo wished he could prove the old man wrong, but that would take time.

In the short term, what he needed to do was master the true forms of his abilities. And create bricks. Lots of bricks.

"Finally found it!" Senka approached him in the real world, hovering over the clouds.

"Are you as 'certain' as you were last time?" Theo left his soulhome and stood up, brushing his hands off on his pants instinctively. Senka promptly stuck her tongue out at him.

"Shut it, fumpet. I'm absolutely sure I'm right this time, and if I'm wrong, I'll just be even more absolutely sure next time."

"Sure, sure. Just point me in the direct direction."

Though he mocked Senka, she was attempting something of immense difficulty that he could never have done on his own. Strange spaces outside the Nine Worlds were difficult to track down and seemed to roam. The movements of the Chasm of Lamentations inspired entire competitions across multiple worlds. If she could really track down another one, that was extraordinary.

Once she gave him instructions, Theo reached into his coat and pulled out both his weirkeys. First the Noveni key he'd reclaimed from Guchiro, then the Siatan weirkey taken off the body of the fleshmasker. His first use had been a little shaky, but the skill had come back to him rapidly.

Theo activated the Siatan key, creating his own passage toward another world. But as soon as he entered the chaotic non-space between realities, he pulled himself backward with the Noveni key. Physical space meant nothing between worlds, so he could easily re-enter at a different point.

In this case, he arrived in the sky over a desolate region of crags and clouds, mostly lit by a violet sun. Theo automatically cast a gravitational field before remembering that he didn't need to do that anymore. Just by wrapping his cantae, now as dense as water, around himself he could hover in the air whenever he wanted. Using a field was actually slightly more efficient, so perhaps he should blend the two.

"Is this the place?" he asked Senka. "It doesn't look like much."

"It's basically the middle of nowhere. We're miles from any civilization." She pointed toward one of the dark crags. "It's there, actually in the cloud part. Finding the entrance might be difficult, but we're definitely in the right place."

As Theo descended in that direction, he examined the landscape for more than security reasons. The clouds seemed angrier than elsewhere on Noven: instead of a peaceful layer of fluffy whiteness, they roiled and twisted upwards. Instead of grand mountains rising to the sky there were long knife-like ridges on which nothing grew. Staring at them, he could almost imagine they were spikes on the back of a vast sea serpent.

Nothing attacked him as he descended into the cloud layer. Senka grumbled about the visibility while Theo automatically switched to his gravity senses. He could sense the wall of rock in front of him easily enough and it was comforting to be able to feel that there was nothing but mist in all directions.

Then again, Fiyu had been confident in her senses and an Ichili predator had still managed to strike her. Theo kept his cantae ready, just in case.

"Okay, somewhere around here..." Senka perched on his shoulder and shook her head. "There should be a distortion, a bit like a permanent gate. We just need to track it down."

"Why can't you do this yourself?" Theo asked. "I'm not just messing with you, either. Exactly how can you move between worlds?"

"I'm pretty sure I swallowed a weirkey."

With her leaning on his head, he couldn't glare at her. She seemed to understand anyway.

"That wasn't a joke!" Senka tapped where her stomach would have been if she had been a normal living being. "There's a weirkey somewhere in my mangled soulhome. I can use it to move myself, but it takes a real toll on me. I've tried to help you guys with it a few times and haven't managed it."

"You said a weirkey, but you've traveled between multiple worlds."

"Individual weirkeys are beginner stuff. You can do a lot better than that, but that's so far beyond you, there's no point even talking about it."

Instead of answering, Theo stayed focused on the search. The entire region was a bit unnerving, but he thought that was a purely psychological effect. Nothing felt truly unusual until something rippled through the nearby stone. According to his gravity and cantae senses, nothing had moved at all. That couldn't stop the visceral awareness.

"Did you get that one?" Senka asked.

"Were you sensing these from absurdly far away?" he asked. "How?"

"You just have to get a feel for it over a lifetime of experience. You're actually better-suited to this than most, because you survived your encounter with the House of the Lost. They really disrupt the fabric of other worlds."

Now that he knew what he was looking for, Theo could zero in on it. The fluctuations weren't constant, more like an erratic throbbing. He'd been examining the correct spine of stone, but he was too high. It emanated from deep inside the cloud layer, on the other side of a protrusion.

Eventually he reached out and touched the stone. It pressed back against his fingers, slightly wet and cool, as he ran his fingers along the side of the cliff... until they suddenly passed through. He immediately jerked his hand back and checked for any kind of harm.

"Oh, you're gonna lose that hand," Senka said. "It's infected. You'd better cut it off now."

"Shut up. Is this the entrance?"

"That's right. Now, you'd better go in first, since you're a big strong-"

Theo threw Senka against the wall. If she hadn't gone through, she wouldn't have been much harmed, but she passed into the apparently solid stone. He followed soon after, bracing himself against the strange chill. It reminded him of the entrance to the Chasm of Lamentations in a way he struggled to put his finger on, since the experiences were otherwise so different.

The space on the other side was pitch black but dry. Theo released a bit of cantae to light it... and immediately let out his breath.

It was as if he stood in a tunnel between worlds. What should have been cave walls around him shifted in the corner of his vision, twisting like non-space. They might be harmless on their own, but he had a bad feeling that if he stayed for too long, demons would start crawling out of the void.

Worse than that was the other end of the corridor. The entrance and the strange tunnel could be written off as a strange manifestation of reality, but he faced a barrier that was unquestionably artificial. He could barely even see the wall of dark bricks around the entrance. Heavy double doors stood within a massive statue of a face, contorted as if screaming in pain. To enter the doors, he'd need to walk into that mouth.

"Yes, this is it." Even Senka spoke softer as she stared at the entrance. "My memories are jumbled, but I can tell you what this is. A space containing another river, not as dangerous as the Chasm of Lamentations but... in some ways worse. Somebody didn't want it open to the Nine Worlds, so they locked it away here, where they hoped no one would ever find it."

"And now we're going to march directly in." Theo frowned down at Senka. "Are we going to unleash something trapped on the other side?"

"One or two unspeakable horrors, no big deal."

"Has this been your plan all along? You know, on Earth we have a variety of different stories about some unsuspecting human foolishly opening something that was meant to remain closed."

"We have those stories too. They end with everyone living in peace and prosperity, right?" Senka's smile didn't last for long. "I don't know what else to tell you, Theo. I'm incapable of opening this on my own, so this is one of those moments where I hope that you trust me."

"I guess I do." Theo smiled at her and walked to the door.

His statement would have felt much more meaningful if he hadn't immediately realized that he didn't know how to open the door either. There were no handles and they didn't budge when he pushed on them. He did note a dark gemstone that was likely meant to receive cantae into some locking mechanism. The space beyond was too difficult for his gravity sense to parse, so he had no chance of simply picking it.

Up close, he realized that the doors were covered with etchings of faces in agony. Lovely.

"I guess it's harder to get in than I was expecting." Senka hovered beside it, but didn't seem to have a solution ready. "I don't know... you don't have to do this now if you don't want to. I could try to research some sort of key while you look into your old Noveni friend. That was one of your top priorities, wasn't it?"

"No, we'll do this first. I owe you that much." Theo put his hand on Senka's shoulder, trying to avoid gripping her like she was a child. "Besides, when I tried to investigate Brigana, I brought down a huge amount of trouble on myself. This could be just as bad, so I want to deal with other issues first."

Senka turned away and wiped her eyes. "Alright, that's fair. But if we're going to get in, I think we need someone with better senses."

"Not a problem anymore." Theo pulled out his weirkeys again and couldn't help but grin.

Seconds later, he was across the world floating just outside Ugustial. The city had defenses that prevented him from entering directly, but it was a simple matter to fly down to their palace. Reaching Authority wasn't just a matter of power, it meant freedom. If his group could just acquire enough weirkeys, that freedom would become nearly unlimited.

"Oh, Theo." Nauda looked up from her soulcrafting and blinked. "You're not done already, are you?"

"I need expertise," Theo said. "Is Guchiro here?"

"I think they're in the back, in the dark area. But we were actually going to get you next time you came back. Isorales invited us to a big sublime feast."

"Is it literally right now?"

"No, we were waiting for you."

"Then it can wait." Theo was about to say more, but at that moment Guchiro emerged from the wall of darkness leading to the next room.

"What?" He folded his arms and regarded Theo with an expression of utter confidence, even though the two of them were technically both Authorities now.

"I need senses far more polished than mine," Theo said. "We can be across the world and back in minutes if you don't mind."

"My ward has work of her own to do. I am willing."

Guchiro floated up to join him and seconds later they were flashing back across the world. Theo had to wipe the grin off his face when they emerged above the clouds, even though he assumed the Guchiro had already felt it. In any case, it was much easier to find the tunnel the second time, so they both stepped in together and stared at the screaming face.

"There you are." Senka stood up and spat a rock out of her mouth. "Guchiro, do you know about the five rivers? This is the entrance to one of them, or at least its world fragment."

"And you wish for me to open it." Guchiro floated forward to the door and placed a hand against the surface. "It is possible, but you should know there is danger beyond. Not danger of the crude variety that could destroy your body."

Theo could only shrug. "I'm determined to make the attempt, but that attempt doesn't need to be now. If you think it would be suicide, I'll reconsider. If it's possible, I want to try."

Guchiro examined him for several long seconds, then turned back to the door. "Because it is you, it may be possible. But I will not allow my ward to join you."

"Fiyu needs to work toward Authority, anyway."

"Then I will unlock the door."

Despite his confident tone, Guchiro failed on his first attempt. He withdrew his cantae and attempted again, sending a trickle of it through the gemstone into the mechanism. After a pause, he drew his legs up and sat cross-legged in the air, considering with his eyes closed. It required no less than five minutes before a deep click sounded through the chamber.

"I hope you will be fortunate in this unwise endeavor." Guchiro looked at him and seemed disinclined to say more. Since there was no way to reply to that, Theo returned him to Ugustial.

Then it was only the two of them, staring at the unlocked doors within the carved mouth. Theo glanced over at Senka and didn't see any more amusement in her eyes. There was really nothing else to say and he had no idea if there was anything he could do to prepare. All they could do was walk forward.

When Theo pushed through the double doors, he instantly entered another realm. Unlike the broad spaces of the Chasm, he found himself standing in a room of dark stone. The roof was uncomfortably far up, as if the space had been built for giants, but the walls leaned close on all sides.

They seemed like smooth gray walls... until he shifted slightly and the room changed. With a single step, the square room became a pentagon. Or had it ever been square? There was an old wooden door along one wall, but when he turned toward it, the door was gone and three triangular doors appeared behind him. When Theo reached out to touch one of them, the door dissolved into stone and another appeared on the ceiling.

"I remember this place now," Senka said quietly. "Welcome to the Archive of Misery."

-

Please do comment on the covers! But aside from that, I hope you've enjoyed the chapters. Things are moving forward. ^-^

I'm sure that some readers would prefer the book be focused 100% on the Wakespire, but my plans are more wide-ranging. I wanted reaching Authority to make it feel as though Theo hasn't just leveled up, he's really reached a new tier. He can teleport across worlds now and reach all sorts of things that were limited to him before. After so much time buildings things up, I hope this is also a satisfying sort of payoff. You're getting another river much sooner than you thought!