My head was pounding as I woke up. That was a pretty common thing for me when waking from unconsciousness, but this time it felt different. Or rather, it felt normal. I reached for my ability and for the first time since I entered the trials I felt my wish power respond. Six wishes. Apparently I'd been unconscious for longer than expected, at least depending on how fast time passed while I was in the trials, but whatever the case, I had my wishes back.

Which was going to make this situation easier, but also not. I needed Callie to make the wishes, but we could find our group and then...what? We couldn't trust anyone. The Blood Murder Palace was here. They'd come for something and I couldn't imagine we'd be in a good spot when they found it.

Pushing down the panic I looked around. Finding Callie nearby I headed over to shake her awake. "Cal." I whispered, shaking her. "Come on. Wake up." I glanced around. All I could see around us was...trees. Familiar trees. Not individually, but the type of tree seemed similar to something I'd seen before.

Then it clicked. The fortress trial. The trees here were the same as the ones back there. Figuring I could keep an eye on Callie from above, I made sure she was comfortable and mostly uninjured (thank you scan heal) at least aside from minor burns from her fight with Billy, and then made my way over to a nearby tree and started to climb.

State of Grace helped me make the trip up easily, and when I got to the top I started looking around, hoping to identify any landmarks.

I saw nothing. At least nothing specific. The fortresses weren't in sight, nor was the mountain Abel and I wrecked, but still, looking out over the forest, the layout was the same. I remembered Biscuit the squirrel and how realistic he'd been. Maybe he was a real creature accessing the trial from the other side. I tried my Eye of Revelation to locate him, but he must have been too far away if he was here.

The one thing I DID manage to spot hadn't been in the trial. A massive white stone building towering into the sky, backlit by the startling blue sky. The Royal Academy, I was sure. I didn't see anything else nearby, but with how absurd Ascendant construction could get, maybe the Academy was inside some kind of pocket dimension.

Stepping off the branch, I floated down to the ground, glancing worriedly around to try to see anyone who might be nearby. I checked on Callie again. Her wounds weren't too threatening, but apparently they were stress enough to monopolize her Vitality. I cursed myself for running out of heal bursts, we needed to find Jessie soon.

We needed to find ANYONE we knew. Who knew where the other Blood Murder Palace initiates were hiding, or what the hell they had planned. I doubted Billy killed himself so the BMP crowd could retrieve Hatescream's 'world's greatest butcher' coffee mug. If they went through all this trouble, there was a reason. A bad reason if I had to guess. More importantly, they were dangerous unknown people mixed in among my allies.

Any of my friends could be in danger right now, and have no idea. I glanced worriedly down at Callie, reaching to shake her again, when she finally started to stir. "Owwww." She groaned, sitting up slowly and clutching her head. I helped her sit up.

"Are you ok?" I asked worriedly. "You're not too badly injured, but you scared the piss out of me passing out like that. What happened?"

She groaned again. "Soul strain." She grimaced. "My reward was a Skill upgrade. Shadow Manipulation Mastery to Intermediate. I thought it would help prepare me for dealing with Billy, but the upgrade pushed my soul hard. Cranked me up to fifty percent of green and left me a little fragile. Trying to USE that Skill during the fight, at least as much as I had, was a bit much."

So she hadn't been pushed to an Azure Soul Body. Apparently that sublimation had fixed up some damage too. Good to know. I sighed, pulling her against me. "Fair enough, take it easy for a bit. No need to get too excited about all this. We can figure things out in a minute, but right now, your recovery is the most important thing."

Chuckling, she snuggled into my embrace. "I'm in enough pain that I'm going to let myself believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary. But once my head is on straight we'll need to figure out a plan."

We sat there for a while, letting our mental states recover. I was still somewhat reeling from the pain earlier, so it was a good idea for me to let myself recover a bit too. Finally though, after about an hour, Callie bestirred herself with a sigh. "That's about all we can afford for now. Tell me what's going on."

I recounted my experience on the treetop and told her my suspicions about the place, and she seemed almost excited. "Biscuit is here? Maybe we can find him!" She was practically bouncing with excitement and I had to stifle a laugh at her glee. Good to see she wasn't too caught up in the details. It was a good attitude to have. Still, we had other priorities.

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"We'll get to that." I said with a worried frown. "But we need to find the others first. We can use wishes to track them down probably, though I can't give you any suggestions on method. Once we're together we can find Biscuit and worry about what to do about the Blood Murder Palace assholes. We need to stop them from doing whatever they're here to do. I'm positive it's not a good thing, whatever it is."

"Probably not." She sighed. "You're right, we need to find the others. Who first though?"

I glanced at her wounds. "Jessie." I said firmly. "With any luck she'll be with Benny and we can kill two birds with one stone. Plus the others have more combat potential and are less likely to get ambushed. Plus giant bear in the woods seems pretty useful."

She nodded. "Right." Holding out a hand, she said clearly. "I wish that I had a compass that could lead us to Jessie. I'll pay with..." She flicked her hand and a bag of chits appeared. "Five H-ranked chits."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I confirmed, and was relieved when the wish went through, giving me the necessary stats, thankfully well within my reach. I felt the familiar buzz of static across my skin as the wish built, and it shocked me how big a relief it was. Spending so long in the trial had really made me appreciate how useful my ability was. It was such a relief to have solutions to problems again.

The time inside had also been a gift though. Proof that I could handle myself without wishes, and not only that, confirmation that I could become strong in my own way. I'd gotten a second ability, albeit one with incredibly vague wording in terms of explanation. I'd already accomplished something my dad never had, making myself powerful enough to move on without losing my qualifications to become the Wishmaster. No wonder Aiden had won the contest last time.

Finally the purple electricity burst out from me, condensing into a spot of dense electricity, resolving into a small bronze compass with a needle that didn't point north. Callie grinned happily, snagging five chits and tossing them to me lightly. With my Might and Perception I picked them all out of the air one by one with ease, dropping them into my ring.

Offering her my arm, I chuckled. "Shall we?" She grinned and grabbed my arm and we set off in the direction the compass pointed.

And then my Danger Sense went haywire. I grabbed her, hurling both of us aside as a throat tearing roar rattled the leaves from the trees. A massive scaled paw slammed down on the dirt where we'd been, and I followed it up to a...thing. An ugly thing. It was fifteen feet tall, and looked like a humanoid wolf almost. Rather than fur, it was covered in sickly green scales. Its arms were long and distended, the knuckles of its razor taloned hands dragging the ground as it stalked, and its head had a rack of long, sharp dark antlers, from which I could see a noxious green liquid dripping.

"What the fuck is THAT?" I said in an appalled voice. I'd seen weird shit before, but most of it followed some kind of logic. The mantis centaurs had been fucking gross, but not as disgusting as this thing"

Callie was backing away, dragging me with her. "How the fuck should I know! Whatever it is though, it's definitely not friendly! Run!" She bolted in the opposite direction, and I trailed after her, we barely avoided the monster as at lashed out with its too long arms, its claws raking the trees.

Judging by the burning gouges in the wood and the blackening of the bark around the damaged areas, those antlers weren't the only part of the monster that was venomous. I glanced back at it, triggering Pit of Despair as we ran, and the forest floor vanished under it as it dropped into the hole. Sadly, the hole was ten feet deep, which meant its antlered head was still above the ground and then some.

I let the skill drop, the ground resolidifying, and it roared in rage, its head whipping around as it chomped and gnashed its teeth. Not that we stayed to watch, because fuck that noise. We booked it around the long way, following the compass and taking off towards Jessie, leaving behind the roaring of the creature as we did.

"That was fucking terrifying." I panted breathlessly as we ran. "I hope we never have to see one of those things again."

"Yeah." Said Callie uneasily. "It's just..." She trailed off, looking around anxiously. I could feel her fear through the bond as we fled, and I wasn't sure what she had to be so afraid of.

I glanced at her in concern. "What? What is it? That thing is going to take a minute to get free, and we'll be well out of tracking range hopefully. I'm sure it'll run into something else to distract it before it catches our trail." I paused. "Though we should definitely use stealth once we're a bit further away. Really ensure our escape. Is that what you were thinking?"

She shook her head." No. It's not that. It's just...that thing's head shape, the way it carried itself. It kind of reminded me of a wolf."

I chuckled. "Ah, yeah I saw that too. It was definitely a weird looking bastard that's for sure. But why focus on that one aspect? Whatever that thing was, it had a little bit of everything in there. Why does the fact that it looked like it was part wolf matter."

There was another twinge in my Danger Sense, and this time Callie felt it through the bond and yanked me aside as the claws lashed through where I'd been standing. I heard another monstrous howl, and then from the other side of the clearing a third, and then a fourth, and I paled as I realized what Callie had been saying.

"Because." My girlfriend said grimly as she drew a pair of dark daggers and took up a fighting stance. "Wolves hunt in packs." From the darkness, half a dozen looming green scaled forms resolved themselves, envenomed horns scraping the boughs and branches of trees as the emerged surprisingly quietly from the shadows. I reached back to draw my staff with a grimace. I was really starting to fucking hate the woods.