After we divined what Suvaya was doing and decided on gathering support, we pooled our information on the local geography and what teams most likely ended up where. It was a rough estimate, but by mapping out where we'd all been when we got on the slides and where we'd ended up, we were able to create a vague approximation of a formula that predicted the way the distance changed from one side of the slides to the other.

Using that data, and the knowledge we all had about where the other teams were in the bazaar, we managed to get an idea of where certain teams may have come out. I personally had assumed it was random, but once he got the idea in his head Benny had insisted on at least checking to see if there was a pattern, and it had paid off huge. His investment in Focus up to this point was definitely paying dividends.

"So, with this information we should be able to match people up with a list of teams to contact." Benny said, scrawling some more numbers on the page of the notebook he had borrowed. "Our list of known teams and their locations isn't huge, granted, and nowhere near complete, but the more teams we bring in, the more information we can get. Especially if the searchers note down the location their quarries landed so I can refine my formula. It's pretty general right now, even if we SHOULD see some results."

"Ah." Said Templeton greasily. "So this little exercise won't be accurate?"

Benny sneered at him. In the time we'd all been working on mapping this out, pretty much everyone had grown to dislike Templeton. We also did our best to let him speak as infrequently as possible. "It WILL be accurate. Just not to a fine degree. With so few use cases I was only able to calculate rough areas, the more data points we get the more exact I can get it. At the very least it'll give is a direction and an approximate distance. Which is more than we had before."

Gabriel nodded, cutting into the discussion. "Clockwork is right. We have, what, two teams listed for each of us? When we bring them back we'll have another eighteen teams and can gather data from them. Then we have twenty seven teams to send out to find the rest. It's the fastest and most accurate way to gather everyone quickly. We only have a month or so worst case."

"Agreed." Sneered Valsa. "So shut the hell up, Templeton. Nobody needs to hear from you anyway." While the rest of us disliked him, it seemed like Valsa had a special grudge against Templeton. I didn't much care as long as she helped keep him quiet.

I looked down at our own list. We'd been given the names of two team leaders, one of whom was selected because he was someone Nat knew personally. My cousin had traveled extensively, and had run into quite a few famous people of our own generation, so it wasn't a shock she might know one of the team leaders.

"I think we're ignoring a major issue." Said Chad grimly. "Designated meeting place or not, can we really ask Annalise to stay up here? It can't possibly be safe. I suggest we change the meeting place to somewhere else."

Nat snorted. "And how would we do that exactly? Alistair, Solomon, and I are completely tapped for wishes for the day. That means we have no way of reaching them until tomorrow, and chances are SOMEONE will make it here by then. Hell, how do we know the other teams aren't all already on their way? What if we miss them and they show up here? We'd be wasting our time showing up at their landing spot."

"I don't think so." I said. "Anyone close enough to see the mountain would be close enough to have gotten here by now. You know how fast we are, especially anyone at the peak of F-rank. I think our best bet is assuming all the attendees who are coming are already here. But I see Chad's point. Annalise, you sure you don't want out? I know you said it didn't bother you."

The fae shook her head. "It would be a meaningless gesture. If we don't prevent this ritual from taking place we're all going to die regardless. Being here doesn't put me in any more danger than being elsewhere. If nothing else, I suspect the manifestation will shatter this planet. You're familiar, of course with what happens when someone ranks up on a planet too weak to withstand the process?"

My eyes widened. "Shit. This place is peak of F. Forget the injunction against E-rankers, if she Ascends here it'll push the place into trying to rank up early. It'll collapse itself." I hadn't realized that when she'd mentioned the danger earlier. I thought it would be the rank up process itself that did the damage.

The others looked worried. "Well." Said Abel grimly. "At least we have some motivation for the rest of them. Self-interest will be important even for those that hadn't used the drops. Always nice to have motivated team members."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Wait." I said anxiously. "If she comes back into being at the peak of F-rank, she could attempt to break through to E-rank anyway. Wouldn't that cause the same problem? We'll need to put her down immediately to prevent her from killing all of us. Once she hits E-rank she can use the stockpiled stats she has to rank herself up again pretty quick, couldn't she? Can she shoot herself back up to S-rank?"

"Doubtful." Said Annalise. "I'm sure you know how painful it is to grow your stats too quickly. But you're right that she'll embark on her Ascension rapidly and be a danger. We will need to stop her as soon as she restores herself. We were expecting that fight in any case, though."

Which made this more and more annoying. I turned to Alistair. "I think you should stay. Giving Annalise access to wishes while we're gone will give her a way to narrow down the exact timing of the ritual, something we're going to need. She can also help Clockwork refine his formula...which is why I think he should ALSO stay. Along with Celine, Perit, Valk and Mel." Half of our team, but it would give him enough backup for me to be comfortable without leaving my own portion of the team vulnerable.

Benny, obviously, did not look happy, but I think he realized my end game here. This was important and we needed to find these people as quickly as possible. With access to wishes and someone with as keen a deductive mind as Annalise, he could basically make us a map to each team. It would massively save us all time. He'd already demonstrated how helpful he could be, and this would make his Focus even more useful.

He stared at me inscrutably for a minute before sighing. "Agreed. I'll stay and work. My suggestion is to keep in regular contact. Scan rings are good, but in person check ins would be safer. Assuming we're writing off the possibility of Suvaya waking up and punching us all into orbit. I think we should dispatch the teams in a staggered rotation to pick up singular targets. Means the mountain won't be running on a skeleton crew for longer than necessary, and we'll have teams in and out."

I knew he wasn't worried about the priests, given what we knew about them they were all currently in their tombs or nearby at least. Annalise theorized that they needed to stay put to act as foci for the lightblooms. No, he was worried that some of the other teams might decide they wanted to run the search, or that we were wrong, or any number of things. He was right, keeping the barebones crew we had set up here all the time would present a tempting target.

"Sounds good." I said nonchalantly. "Gabriel, Bethy? What do you guys think? If we stagger it we can make sure one of us is here at all times." While I wasn't a powerhouse, Callie and I together were pretty scary, and throw in Abel and you had a nightmarish level of variety in a combat scenario. Plus with Nat we had two candidates, which was its own form of disincentive. The other two were straight up monsters. If we staggered it so one of our three teams was here, people would be way less likely to start shit.

Gabriel nodded slowly. "I'll move out first. I'm the fastest given my team is mounted. We'll head out today, and tomorrow you can leave on your own search. We can relieve the Vampire when we return, then she can head out, and you can relieve us." Lending his support, and theoretically Bethy's to the plan made it much more likely not to kick up a fuss.

While being a candidate might make me someone worth listening to normally, there were three of us here. I wasn't the oldest, the strongest, or the most educated. I was making plans because of momentum, but I DID have the biggest voting bloc in terms of raw power, and making the calls as a group would help add legitimacy to the proceedings. Especially once more teams showed up, because the power structure was bound to become more complicated as we went. Ascendants loved complicated.

After we hammered out the details as best we could Gabriel took his team and left. How they got fucking HORSES up and down the mountain I neither knew nor wanted to guess at, but apparently they'd done so, or left someone down to guard them. I knew Gabriel's charger was a construct, but the others had been riding real animals. I didn't see them up here, granted, but it was a big mountain. They might be over a ridge or something.

Once he was gone, I turned to Nat. "Alright. We have a day to prep before we leave, getting down won't be a problem, I can float us, but I still want to know more about this Renaldi person we're looking for. You said you knew him from your travels right? That's why you picked his team to look for?"

She nodded. "Miles Renaldi. Absorber. He can take on the attributes of materials he touches for a time. He uses it pretty well, I'm not shocked he won a tournament. I ran into him on a little planet called Revarge about five years ago. Granted him a few wishes. Some Skills he made good use of. He paid, but he considered it a bit of a favor so he told me he owed me one."

I exhaled a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding."So he'll listen to you if you tell him what's up?" That was a relief. I was pretty sure we were going to have trouble convincing some of them. The more we had on side when we approached the easier it would be. I wasn't going to turn down any advantage in this mess. "You know anything about his team?" Most of our information was incomplete. We knew most of the relevant team leaders, but no one had bothered keep dossiers.

"I remember his girlfriend Sierra." She said with a shrug. "Earth manipulation. Other than that not especially. He's a pretty relaxed guy though. As long as we don't try to sneak up on him we should be fine."

"Alright." I said with a sigh. "I'm going to set up the bunker over there." I pointed off into the distance. "Then we can all crash. If we're going to ride all out tomorrow we want to be as well rested as we can be. After hours of that deduction shit I could use a nap, and I wasn't even deducing." She chuckled and I slipped the rock spike out of my ring. Tired or not no way was I going to sleep without solid walls around me. Not in mixed company, and not here. I couldn't get off this mountain fast enough.