The red mote was plucked from its orbit around his soul cluster and hovered between himself and Vera. The light was dispelled and it took on the appearance of a set of black leather armor. Despite not seeing its full-sized appearance, Arden liked what he saw. He touched the orb containing the armor, and his body was soon covered in red sparks as the armor manifested around his body.
When the armor appeared fully, both Arden and Vera got a face full of Status.
Stoneflesh Shroud
Satellite Tier: Red
Satellite Rank: Supernova
Satellite Type: Armor
Satellite Description: Any beast with power can take control of a mountain. However, it takes a special one to truly become the king of the mountain.
Satellite Aspects: Stoneflesh, Igneous, Headstone
Stoneflesh: This armor is very tough, but very light.
Igneous: This armor provides mild heat resistance.
Headstone: This armor masks some of the wearer’s signs of life.
Arden ignored the Status for now. He wanted to see what the Stoneflesh Shroud looked like. To his eyes, it looked like something a thief with darkness powers would wear, like it was forged in midnight itself. Dark grey leather-like fabric covered most of his body as a surprisingly comfortable under armor, while patches of stone-like scales covered it on his arms, chest, and lower body, meeting the boots that came with the outfit. A black hooded cloak finished the ensemble as it covered his face and traveled halfway down his back.
“Oh I like the look of this.” Arden said with a grin.
He pushed the hood back off his head and walked around his soul cluster. To his surprise, it all felt very comfortable to move around in. Not once did it restrain his movements or ride up on him in any way.
“What do you think?” he asked Vera.
“You look like a mountain bandit.”
“Perfect! That’s pretty much what I was in the trial, after all.”
He approached Vera again and they went over the aspects.
“Stoneflesh and Igneous are pretty obvious,” Vera said after touching Arden's armor to feel its toughness, and nothing else. “But what about Headstone? It masks some of your signs of life, but everything about you still seems normal.”
“It's probably because we are in my soul cluster. This whole place is filled with my presence. Besides,” he pointed to the giant ribcage towering over them. “Life is kind of a big thing here. It would probably work better on the outside. Why do you think the supernova Satellite only has three aspects? I thought it was one to one for cores and aspects.”
“It’s common for a high rank Satellite to not have full aspects. It just means they can have at most an equal amount of aspects to the Celestial’s star cores. So your armor can at most hold four aspects. It just dropped with three.”
Vera shook her head with a chuckle.
“I can’t believe you managed to kill a red supernova.”
“That was the easiest part of my trial. I got lucky. Something else killed it, but I was given credit because of how I caused it.”
“There’s a saying among the stronger Starborn. Surviving is 1 percent circumstance, and 99 percent knowing how to turn that circumstance into an opportunity. Or something like that. At no point was luck a factor. How did it die?”
“It threw me into a pond, then it was killed by something in the sky without a chance to fight back,” he said dryly.
“Okay, maybe that was luck,” she conceded. ”But my point still stands. Luck will only get you so far. Knowing how to create opportunity is the benchmark of a good Starborn.”
Arden held his arms out, gesturing to himself, decked out in his new favorite Satellite. He doubted he would ever get bored of it.
“Do I look like a good Starborn?”
“You look like a Starborn.”
Arden’s arms drooped a little bit, and his smile faltered for a moment.
“That didn’t answer my question.”
“I know. But like I said, you’ve only just begun. You’re not great, or even really that good. But you have potential. You have something that the others around the city don’t have. The desperation to survive.”
She smiled at him.
“You’ll make a great Starborn one of these days. We just need to keep going.”
She giggled as he rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish smile and light blush.
Continuing on, Vera pointed to the next red mote. After summoning the Codex Momenti Proximi, Arden handed the tome to Vera for her to flip through as the Status appeared.
Codex Momenti Proximi
Satellite Tier: Red
Satellite Rank: Protostar
Satellite Type: Tool
Satellite Description: Your next line is, “This seems a bit too strong for a red-tier.”
Satellite Aspects: The Next Moment
The Next Moment: The pages tell what will happen next.
“This seems a bit too strong for a red-tier,” she said. Immediately after, she gasped in surprise.
“I know, right?” Arden said. “I said the same thing. I'm surprised Podren found something like this.”
“Podren gave you this?” Vera asked, closing the book, before it turned into a red mote of light and returned to Arden’s core. “The same Podren who told me that my scars ruined my face?”
“Thats the one. He gave it to me after we saved him. Said something about not needing it because he is bound by fate and I, as a paradox, am not.”
“Did he know you were a paradox?”
“No. He just saw that you and I existed outside of the bounds of fate. Apparently before we made it back to the fight with Frozhe, the book told Podren of his death. That was the first time he ever saw the book wrong.”
“I guess that leaves one new Satellite,” she said, turning the topic of the conversation back to the soul cluster. “The white one.”
“That one’s a bit of a question mark.”
He summoned the white mote forward, without unsummoning his armor, and tapped it. White sparks danced along the floor between the pair and coalesced into an anvil that looked to be made of lava.
Forge of the Imaginarium
Satellite Tier: White
Satellite Rank: Protostar (Current)
Satellite Type: Tool (Anvil)
Satellite Description: It is not unheard of for an artisan to pour their heart into making a masterpiece. However, one reclusive master instead poured his mind into the creation of a forge itself. It was said that should one master their mind, they shall also master this forge.
Satellite Aspect: Harvest
Harvest: Automatically harvests useful materials from slain creatures and adds them to inventory.
“Its an anvil,” Vera said. “An anvil with a looting aspect.” She looked at Arden. “Why an anvil?”
Arden shrugged.
“Why is your white-tier Satellite a couch? Are all white-tier Satellites like this? I’d be pretty pissed if I got a magic litter box from something as strong as a white-tier Celestial.”
“You and me both.” She touched the anvil, and it only felt a little warm despite being made of lava. “I guess use it in conjunction with your boon? I got nothing.”
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“There’s gotta be something special about this,” Arden said. He pointed to the rank on the Status. “It’s a growth item. It’s special, it has to be.”
“Until it does grow, it will just be an anvil.”
Arden sighed and unsummoned the Forge of the Imaginarium.
“Like I said. Question mark. Now for the last one. I’m sure you remember it.”
He summoned the Bone Talons and they appeared covering his hands. Despite the difference in colors, the Bone Talons looked really good with the Stoneflesh Shroud. The stone scales meshed well with the bone extending past his wrists. The Status appeared again.
Bone Talons
Satellite Tier: Red
Satellite Rank: Protostar
Satellite Type: Weapon (Gauntlets)
Satellite Description: Death is the end for most. For the creatures whom these claws belonged to, it was just the next phase of its life.
Satellite Aspect: Rigor Mortis
Rigor Mortis: Satellite becomes sturdier the more undead are slain
“We need to get you more skeletons to kill,” Vera said. “Power these up, and eat them as well.”
Arden groaned.
“It's not eating.”
“My mistake. You can devour skeletons as well.”
Arden cast one last look at the stars tangled in the grotesque web of biology. It was strangely appealing, in an edgy way. Not that he could say anything, when his favorite piece of clothing was bandit armor and the description of his abilities told him that he would forsake his humanity.
He reluctantly unsummoned the Stoneflesh Shroud and Bone Talons.
“That’s everything,” he said. “Time for yours?”
Vera nodded and grabbed hold of Arden’s hand to leave the soul cluster.
“I’m telling you right now, It’s nowhere near as interesting as yours, except for one thing. Plus, you've already seen all of my Satellites.”
“That doesn’t matter to me.”
They both closed their eyes and were whisked back to the hotel room. Arden checked the time, relieved to find that only an hour passed.
“Alright, we still have time before we need to check out,” he said. “I say we check out your soul cluster, then we check out of the hotel, then check out the new slums. See if we can find any leads. If we can’t find anything, we’ll go back to Savish. That work?”
Vera nodded as she looked through her inventory. She wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just taking stock.
“I’m ready,” she said. “Are you?”
Arden nodded and took her hand, then shut his eyes as Vera did the same. When they opened their eyes again, they were inside Vera’s soul cluster. Arden looked around and groaned.
“So my soul cluster looks like a demon’s wet dream. How come yours looks like heaven had a snow day?”
The soul cluster looked magical. Warm sunlight beamed down on them as they stood atop a floor of ice. In front of them stood a majestic castle that was a fusion of ice and metal. Curved spikes of ice similar to fangs stuck out of the back of the castle, like an arctic wind froze solid as it blew. Looking closer, Arden could tell that it looked like similar things happened all over the castle. A serene metallic fortress besieged by frost.
Arden walked around with awe evident in his expression. He wanted to explore the castle, but swore to himself when he ran into the end of the walkable space. The castle’s front gates.
“You haven’t seen anything yet, Arden.”
Arden turned to look at her and her core floating next to her. Like all red tier cores, it was a red orb. Unlike most cores of the same tier, it was significantly bigger. Arden looked closer and saw what looked like craters on the orb’s shell. On the inside, he could see two smaller orbs fused together. One was a lustrous black, the other was pale blue. Just like her hair.
Arden reeled back in surprise when he realized what the two smaller orbs were.
Vera spoke.
“This is my core. As you can see, it contains two Stellar Cores. Which means twice the abilities, but twice the cores necessary to increase my rank.”
Her Status appeared in front of them.
Name: Vera
Starborn Tier: Red
Starborn Rank: Protostar
Constellation: Eclipse
- Rank: Paradox
- Description: When the sun is blocked by the moon, the world goes dark. When the sun is blocked by the world, the moon is bathed in red. There are two eclipses. You are both.
Innate Ability: Lunar
- Description: Due to your paradoxical nature, your evolution process is different from other Starborn. You do not have a Stellar Core, but a Lunar Core that contains two Stellar Cores. Each Stellar Core can evolve normally, but they need to evolve at the same time to maintain balance. Only one core can be used at a time.
Protostar Ability: The Cutting Edge
- Description: Your bladed weapons are sharper.
Protostar Ability: Cold Hands
- Allows you to create ice.
“Two Stellar Cores…”
Arden could understand why she said that she needed twice the star cores. But more than that, he was gobsmacked. The prospect of having two sets of powers was incredibly alluring, even for someone like Arden who had extreme potential.
Vera was already extremely capable as a mundane. She was able to transcend the boundary between Starborn and mundane with skill alone. Now, she not only became a starborn, but a master of two powers.
“My girlfriend is going to be the strongest in the world…” He muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. So your powers. Looks like they're related to your sword skills and ice stuff.”
“I like to see it as one powerset created to harmonize with my Dance of the Nine Phases. Look At the core. There aren't two separate Stellar cores. They are conjoined, each one part of the other.”
“Have you tested either of them out?”
“Not yet. There aren't many Celestials in the middle of the repaired slums. And I'm not about to start attacking civilians to test out my new powers.”
“Same. Savish actually warned me not to. Like she thought I would actually do that. I haven't had the powers long enough to be corrupted by them yet.”
She shot him a look.
“What?” He asked innocently.
“How long until I regret kissing you?”
“Honestly? I'm surprised you didn't regret it immediately.”
Two motes of light descended from on high, one red and one white. They started orbiting Vera’s Lunar Core, much like Arden’s Satellites had.
“I'm not sure if it's a requirement for white-tier Satellites to be mysterious, but the Usurper’s Throne is much like your Forge of the Imaginarium in that it's a big question mark. I'd say it's even more confusing than the Forge actually.”
Arden thought about it for a moment and came to the conclusion that she was likely right. The Forge was an anvil and was labeled as such. The Usurper’s Throne was something else entirely. It told a story of usurpation. Stealing a throne.
‘Just like Vera, come to think of it.’
Arden kept his thoughts to himself And spoke.
“Let's see your super couch again. It's been a while.”
The white light around the mote faded and showed the true form of the Usurper’s Throne, which was a decadent throne as expected. Still, Arden couldn't help feeling slightly disappointed.
Vera summoned it in front of her, and with a swarm of white sparks, it was there. Sitting in all of its majesty was a heavily decorated, gaudy throne forged in a beautiful silver with numerous different colored gemstones encrusted on the arms.
It was fit for a king to be sure, but Arden thought it was a little much. Shallow. It was all appearance and no substance. It felt closer to a prop than a throne. It was too perfect.
At least that was what Arden thought of it before he saw the back of it. Sword slashes, arrows, and scorch marks decorated it.
“Now that looks like a throne for a usurper,” he said with a nod. “The damage really sells it.”
The Status appeared in front of them, and they read it. Arden was very eager to read the lore of this piece of furniture.
Usurper’s Throne
Satellite Tier: White
Satellite Rank: Giant
Satellite Description: ???
Satellite Aspects: King of Comfort, Defiant Decadence, ???
King of Comfort: Incredibly comfortable. Drastically increases potency of resting.
Defiant Decadence: The form is not bound to any one piece of furniture.
???: ???
“When you’re right you're right, Vera. The description is maddeningly unhelpful. If you can even call it a description. Question marks not once, not twice, but three times.”
“And the aspects don’t even really seem that great for a white-tier Satellite,” Vera added. “You can find Satellites that basically do the same thing at red-tier. Though I’ll admit, the rest potency increase is really good.”
“Yeah. It helped a lot in the Mausoleum. Same with Defiant Decadence, although the description of it sounds pretty arrogant for something that can be functionally replaced with a few pieces of wood.”
“What do you make of the nameless aspect?”
Arden looked at the question marks and felt an eerie dread. There was something about that just didn’t sit right with him. His instincts were telling him that it should not be used under any circumstances. It was too dangerous. Too unknowable.
“I don’t like it. I don’t know why. It just feels ominous. Like using it would come at a great cost. Something about it is rubbing me the wrong way.”
“Really? I don’t have an aversion to it like you seem to, but I don’t want to use it either. Not until we know what it does first. Or its the only way forward.”
Without a word, Vera unsummoned the Throne and it was replaced with a red mote that showed a simple slingshot.
“I completely forgot that you had this.”
“It’s not stylish, but when you need a weapon that’s small and doesn't stand out much, it's great.”
Rascal’s Pocket Rocket
Satellite Tier: Red
Satellite Rank: Protostar
Satellite Description: It puts the ‘rock’ in ‘pocket rocket.’
Satellite Aspect: Hidden Hand
Hidden Hand: Increases accuracy of all shots, as if guided by a hidden hand.
“It puts the ‘rock’ in ‘pocket rocket,’” Arden repeated. He tried to ignore the pun and asked Vera a question. “I thought you said you stole enough Satellites to get by. You only took these two?”
Vera shrugged.
“I needed a weapon that wouldn’t stand out, and I needed to screw over my family. These were the only two that fit.”
“What about food?”
“There were rations. Everyone in the slums gets some. You know that.”
“I also know that your family somehow prevented you from being issued an ID to get some.”
Vera looked away.
“It's possible that I didn’t account for that. Regardless, the Satellites here served me well. I only needed the two anyway. Would I have preferred to steal some armor and a sword? Absolutely, but now I don’t need to steal them. We can find them with our power.”
“What will happen with your family? You were exiled because you didn’t become a Starborn in time, right? But now that you have, do you know what will happen?”
“I don’t know. They will either come looking for me when they learn of my awakening, or leave me alone. It all depends on what the leader thinks is best for the family. But they’re not my family. You and Sya are. Let's go find our missing member.”