Chapter Sixteen.

ATTENTION.

CONGRATULATIONS, [CONTENDER]!

YOU HAVE SELECTED YOUR FIRST PATH.

The road to Hegemony is long and arduous, and few are willing to truly embrace what it means to tread the steps of the divine. You have boldly chosen to ignore the cautious tales of your ancestors, the warnings of the ancient steles, and cast aside the fearmongering of the unwashed masses to walk the Contender’s way. Abandon mortal frailty and ascend to a true Throne! This is only the first step however, so tread cautiously. There are only two ways to leave the Contender’s road; Victory, or Death.

Um… WHAT??

That was only the first of several notifications I received on waking up, and I could already tell that somehow, I messed up. I hadn’t even opened my eyes yet, trying to sort myself out before I could face the world.

This reads like the promo for a no-holds-barred deathmatch. Why do I feel like I’ve been set up somehow?

Dismissing the first notification, I let the others come forward in my head.

PATH SELECTED:

[Sojourn Beyond the Stars]

To walk the Path is to know yourself, and what you will become. Much easier to do when one of your future selves is a causality-defying space dragon, isn’t it? The Path provides a reinforcement to all of your being that grows as you progress down it, and grants Authority.

Bittersweet relief filled me as I looked at the Path I’d chosen. Anathema was a poison in my veins that ate away at me just as it did my enemies. So much of my life before Haven was a murky grey now because of the way Anathema had eaten parts of my soul. I felt frayed, thin, stretched and splintering like a rubber band left out in the sun too long. The black fire might be able to give me everything I wanted in the short term, but deep down I knew it would always end the same.

Death. One way, or another.

[Sojourn Beyond the Stars] was my hope that I could do better, be better. If I fought for it hard enough, maybe it might be true. Either way, for what felt like the first time, I’d made a choice for my future and it felt… good. The next notification reinforced this feeling.

Attention.

New Ideal acquired.

Ideal: [Fire]

As a higher Ideal of the same order is already present, Ideal [Fire] has been changed to:

Sub-Ideal: [Stellar Flame]

No longer will the [Cosmos] be a cold, empty place. Unleash the burning fury of the stars and bathe your enemies in the light of the true first flame! Grants increased control over elemental source within [Cosmos].

Hell yes! Progress baby!

I raised a fist in the air triumphantly with a wet *splorch*, and instantly froze as the sound and the horrible, chunky slime coating me registered to my senses.

Ohmygodwhatthef—

Attention.

Species advancement conditions met.

[Outer Kindred]- Larval Stage I→II

Having deepened their understanding of the world and taken their first steps along a Path, the young [Outer Kindred] briefly pupates; transforming into a protoplasmic slurry to incorporate their various advancements in an improved physical form. The process is startlingly quick, and once complete the newly advanced Kin will emerge rejuvenated, like the phoenix of old, leaving behind a husk of all they once were.

What this final notification very conveniently failed to mention about my apparent evolution was that it would leave my entire bed and half my room covered in translucent slime and the chunky remains of my enormous transformed body. This was a problem.

“Shit. shitshitshit…”

Scrambling out of the messy pile of goo that had been my bed, I threw open the wardrobe and snatched out a few towels before looking around despairingly at the ridiculous size of the mess.

This isn’t gonna work, I need help.

Looking down at myself, I was covered in slime and crusty segments of exoskeleton. My clothes— which I’d been too tired to take off before bed— looked practically ruined, with multiple torn seams and rips from my spikes.

Clean me first.

Stripping off my soiled clothes, I scrubbed myself with a towel to get the worst off (along with a liberal application of my water ration, damn it) then I wrapped another around my waist and darted out of my room and over to Leigh’s. My knuckles beat a somewhat frantic rap on his door for I don’t know how long until it opened to Leigh’s disheveled face blinking blearily out. When he recognized me, he gave me a quick up and down before a slow smile spread over his face and he leaned against the doorframe.

“So… I guess your evening went well.”

“What!? No— I mean, yes, but not… I need help!” I said frantically, grabbing him with one hand and dragging him over to my room.

“Kid, I’m your guide here but I’m not that kind of— oh.” He trailed off as he saw the disaster my room had become. “Well. Kids really do grow up fast these days. I’ve got this, Ray. Sit tight, lock the door and don’t let anyone in until I get back, alright?”

Without another word, he practically shoved me back into my room and closed the hatch. He was gone for almost ten minutes, and I only resisted the urge to pace nervously out of fear of stepping in… me (Ew). I sagged with relief when Leigh finally returned, announcing himself at the door along with some ‘backup’.

Bhartolo Vincémon, the ship’s Eldborn cook, trundled along with a heavy cart full of cleaning supplies and a huge wastebin. He took one look into the room with his otherworldly, piggy features and chuckled in his bass voice.

“Ah, First Molt. You not worry, Blessed [Kindred]. Is always surprise. We shall fix!”

With that, he tossed me a shovel and we quickly got to cleaning. At first I worried about the noise waking Shani just in time for a very awkward conversation, but Bhartolo only snorted.

“Little Shani would sleep through ship exploding. Wake up in marsh, wonder what happened. Ha!” He rumbled good-naturedly while I continued to shoot nervous glances at her door.

It took us almost two hours to get all the goop cleaned up, with Bhartolo having to make several trips to dispose of the ‘evidence’ while we continued to clean. We also recovered my clothes, which were definitely going to need washed again, but luckily weren’t so damaged that the ship’s laundry wouldn’t be able to just stitch the burst seams back together in a couple days. For a fee, anyway, one that increased when I had to have it counted against my future wages.

Not like I was gonna strike it rich off this gig, but jeez…

The sun eventually cracked over the horizon to find Leigh and I hunched tiredly over our respective cups of coffee in the ship’s galley while Bhartolo had happily resumed his post in the kitchen, seemingly none the worse for the early start. We seemed mutually content to sit in silence, right up until Leigh started chuckling under his breath.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“I was just thinking it’s a good thing you didn’t actually get lucky last night. Imagine you had and you woke the girl up by molting on her. Such a ‘memorable’ first time together that would make.” He said with a wheeze as he struggled to contain his laughter.

I shuddered and flushed with secondhand embarrassment at the idea.

God I hope this isn’t a frequent event, or this is going to make living with people a little awkward.

“Happy first molting, Ray.” Leigh continued, snickering.

“Shut up. Ass.” I mock-glared at him for a minute before slumping back tiredly in my chair. “Thanks Leigh.”

He waved off my thanks good-naturedly.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. I’m here to help.”

I nodded gratefully, and returned my attention to Bhatolo’s divine coffee while the room was still empty. For the first time since my panicked awakening, I had a moment to take inventory of myself and realized a few key differences.

The pain… it’s gone?

Gingerly, I poked at my side which had still been horrifically bruised as of last night, and found nothing. Grinning with amazement, I reached for my magic, [Law] flowing down from the connection in my soul-space to my body. For the first time in days it came without feeling like I’d lit myself on fire, and the lack of pain was so relieving that I completely missed Leigh until he leaned over and rapped my forehead with a spoon.

“Ow! What the hell??”

“No magic at the table!”

“Ok, mom.”

Leigh laughed and stood, dropping his empty mug off at the kitchen.

“Well, I’m sure you’ve got a busy day ahead so I’m going right back to bed. Call me if anything else goes horribly wrong.” He waved and turned to leave… right as the alarms went off.

These were different from the last few times I’d seen them, shifting all the lights straight to a bloody crimson while a harsh buzzer rang out repeatedly.

“You just had to say it like that!” I accused.

“All hands to battle-stations! All hands to battle-stations!”

Abandoning the last of my coffee with a groan, we both found ourselves sprinting for the upper platform. The crew was rushing past us left and right, and several times we had to duck out of the way as people frantically pulled carts of ammunition through the ship’s tight passageways. I heard the beginnings of cannon fire from another ship in the caravan, but I was still totally unprepared for what I saw when I finally got outside the ship.

Giants.

Coming over a hill to our side were dozens of enormous, hairy humanoids. Each ranged from three to four meters tall, with incongruously stocky builds that made them look short despite their size and hair so thick it was almost fur.. Their arms were the only exception to their otherwise pudgy features, dangling down to their ankles like a bizarre, spindly afterthought. They were still plenty strong though, as I watched a giant angrily rip a sapling out of the ground and hurl it at the ship currently firing its guns.

“Giants?? This far into the swamp? And it looks like a whole clan…” Leigh said breathlessly at the railing. “That doesn’t make any sense, they shouldn’t be here!”

“Tell them that.” I grunted.

“BRACE!” The tinny voice shouted over the speaker, and we both latched onto the railing for all we were worth as the Duchess launched a thunderous full broadside of cannons at the approaching giants. The deck bucked beneath us, and even braced we still almost flew off the platform from the combined recoil. Struggling to stand, I watched as the three lead giants toppled under the heavy barrage, and several others took painful-looking hits. This really pissed off the rest of them.

As a group, the giants roared back at us, bellowing with rage so loudly I could see ripples in the mucky water below. Each of them quickly reached to the ground below, snatching up massive chunks of dirt and rock before cocking back for a return volley.

Oh shit.

Magic flooded into my newly healed body as I pushed out as many shields as I could, layering defenses in a rough semicircle with every scrap of speed in my body as I watched the giants unleash a fusillade of earth at us.

There’s too much, I can’t get it all.

Still, I tried until the moment the barrage was on us, building a wall of glowing hexagons between the ship and the raging giants. The wave of projectiles hit my shields with a crash that felt like it transferred directly to me and drove me to my knees, but to my shock, they held. The shields were cracked and several had shattered under the impact, but altogether had survived remarkably well. Looking more closely, I noticed that the shields— which had previously been a translucent, clear blue— had gained a faint network of golden veins that even as I watched seemed to heal up the cracks.

Ha, Awesome! Upgrades to the rescue. Thanks, future me!

Future me’s potential response would never be known, because this was right around the time the second wave of projectiles from the giants came hurtling in. My shields did not survive this round, and Leigh yanked me back just in time to avoid getting brained by a pumpkin-sized boulder. The remaining projectiles bounced off the ship’s armor in a deafening cacophony while I sat dumbly for a bit.

Ok yeah should have dodged that one, save self-congratulations until after the fight.

“Thanks!” I shouted as Leigh hauled me back up to my feet. His response was lost when the ship bucked beneath us again, the crew launching another volley of cannonballs that almost sent us tumbling to the ground. More giants went down, but even as they fell I saw more cresting the hill behind them. The return fire from the giants had devolved into a disorganized but constant shower of deadly projectiles, giving me no chance to build up a full defense again. I did the best I could to protect the ship’s more sensitive areas and let the armor handle the rest, but there were so many giants now that I just couldn’t keep up.

I can’t keep doing this, something needs to change or we’re screwed.

Luckily, I had a brand new sub-Ideal just waiting to be tested. Reaching into my soul-space, I had [Cosmos] let the new guy off the leash.

You wanna burn? Sure, burn them.

[Stellar Flame] leapt gleefully at the offered freedom, racing down the connection to my body and pouring from my outstretched hands in a raging torrent. The fire was… weird, not looking or behaving the way I thought fire should naturally. It was white but faded to blue at the edges, and behaved more like a dense plasma than simple fire; swirling violently in the air with an odd sense of weight I’d never seen before. I was fascinated by how it looked, but unfortunately once it came into being it didn’t seem to actually do a whole lot. After leaving the (limited) boundaries of my domain it just kinda… flopped to the ground. Burned the hell out of the mud below yeah, but I had absolutely no control over it afterwards.

Oh come on! Really??

I stared exasperatedly at my disobedient flames with growing embarrassment as they happily charred the mud in a useless display of power. Holding in a scream of frustration, I raised my hands up to try again when a small hand grabbed the top of mine.

“Not like that, Ray. Here—” Shani stepped forward, still blinking sleep from her golden eyes and trying to tie back her hair with one hand. “I’ll show you.”

She stepped bravely up to the railing, and I immediately shifted my shields to cover her while she gave me a grateful smile. Then she raised up her hands… and called down the apocalypse.

“[Finger of the Gods].”

My fire below stilled, freezing in the air for an instant before it began to swirl in unison. In moments it transformed from a messy pile of random fire into a swirling tempest that rose higher and higher with every breath. My jaw dropped by the time Shani was finished with her spell as a whirling column of fire stretched into the sky above us, roaring with unreleased, barely-contained power. The entire battlefield went quiet, even the giants pausing their barrage as they beheld their doom looming above them. Shani pointed at the marauding clan like a judge from on high, and pronounced their fate.

“Burn.”

They did.

I could immediately see the reasoning behind the name of that spell, as the aftermath looked like some enormous being had taken their finger above the world and just… erased a chunk. A smouldering canyon had been carved through the swamp for almost half a kilometer, completely obliterating our attackers along with anything they’d been standing relatively close to. Shani wavered unsteadily for a moment at the rail, but waved me off with a tired smile when I stepped forward to help.

“‘M fine, just tired. Need sleep.” She mumbled, staggering towards the hatch. I half-caught her, and she giggled tiredly. “We’ll practice, later… [Fire] is… fun…” And then she was out like a light. I carefully snatched her up in a princess carry while shooting panicked looks at Leigh, who raised his hands up defensively and shook his head.

“Nope. You’re on your own for this one. Just do me a favor and let me know if you piss her off somehow, I’m gonna have to be significantly farther away than I thought.” He said with a meaningful look at the devastation below.

No shit…

Rolling my eyes at Leigh, I started to carry Shani back to her quarters. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as he stared out over the swamps, his expression turning unexpectedly grave. I paused as I heard him mumble under his breath.

“Why? They’re cruel and stupid, but even giants wouldn’t suicidally attack a full caravan…”

A soft murmur of complaint from my ‘passenger’ brought me out of my eavesdropping, and I hurried down the corridor to drop her off. I couldn’t help the flicker of unease that built in my chest though, even through the hope I felt for learning new magic.