Wish upon the Stars

"That was WILD." Chirped Bethany as she dragged me over to where her friends were waiting. Callie was clutching my other arm, despite the Vampire girl not seeming romantically interested at all, and I was a bit worried I might get torn in half until she let me go, spinning back to me. "How did you see through my Mesmeric Gaze Skill? Daddy says I'm the best at that one for my age. I was just like 'zap, your mind belongs to me' and you were like 'pow, as if, this is my brain!'."

I blinked. "Um...I have a skill to see through illusions." I didn't, really, but it COULD do that. I was more thrown off by her demeanor. How had I possibly been afraid of this girl. Sure she was strong as fuck, but she was like a bouncing shimmying puppy. She'd had her handmaids put the screen back and changed back into her dress, which she was whipping around as she spun back and forth, clearly fond of the swishing.

"Wow." She said, eyes wide. "That's crazy. You have so many Skills. That's pretty cool." She stopped, thinking back over her previous statements and then smacked her forehead with her palm. "Duh, Bethy, rude. I didn't introduce myself. I'm Bethany Lark, but my friends call me Beth or Bethy." She narrowed her eyes at me, making the irises glow a bit. "Never Bessy though. I ate someone for calling me that. Who are you? Sorry about before by the way, daddy says I need to have the proper 'gravitas' as a vampire when I talk to strangers, but we fought so we're not strangers yeah?"

My eyes were glazed as I stared at her worriedly. If she wasn't a vampire I'd have been scared she might suffocate because she hadn't paused at all during that. Callie, far from being threatened now, was trying to hold back giggles, and held out her hand. "Nice to meet you Bethy. I was impressed with you...gravitas, by the way."

Bethy nodded sagely. "Of course." Her voice took on the semi-formal cadence from earlier. "My dark father insists his children comport themselves with the utmost dignity before the masses." Then she winked. "But, like, now we're alone and my Vampire stealth means we can say whatever. Like 'whoosh, total secrecy'. " Smiling smugly she tapped her chest. "I'm pretty cool." Then she jumped again, her insane all over the place train of thought bringing her around to face her handmaids. "Oh wow, rude again! I didn't introduce you to Aida and Tracey. They're my besties. They're also my thralls!"

One of the twins (I decided to call left twin Aida and right twin Tracey) chuckled. "They don't know what that means Bethy." Her eyes, a sort of reddish chocolate brown, fixed on us. "Thrall is a job that you can unlock serving a Vampire. It's like the Knight job that some nobles can give. Thralls get bonuses based on their Vampire and can learn unique abilities."

Bethany rolled her eyes. "That's super boring Aida, they don't care about that." I was pleased to see I'd called which was which right. The vampire girl turned back to me. "That was so fun though. I was expecting you to be super week, I can kind of feel that stuff and you feel...spread thin. But then you totally put up an awesome fight!"

I grinned at her. "Well, glad I could oblige. Personally, I'm just happy you decided to change into the leather armor. I heard you don't take kindly to people ruining your clothes. How screwed would I have been if I had damaged that dress?" I asked teasingly, figured I'd get some throw away comment about her beating me up.

Instead, her face closed off, becoming cold and remote as her eyes blazed a lambent red. "I'd have ended your life on the very spot." Then she blinked, and she was suddenly all smiles again. "Which would have SO ruined the party!" She turned to Callie. "Oh, and speaking of outfits, I LOVE yours! That weird shadowy effect is so cool, you HAVE to tell me where you got it. I want to get a dress made like that. It would be like I was swooping around garbed in shadows!"

My girlfriend, still slightly off balance from the terrifying death threat, shook it off pretty fast, introducing herself and filling her in on the details of her costume. Of course, the Vampire wasn't remotely concerned about affording something like that. She just looked over to where a crowd of people was standing nearby. "That sounds so cool. Taylor!" She barked. A woman stepped out of the crowd, and Bethy pointed to her. "This is my tailor, Taylor. She goes EVERYWHERE with me. Tay, come look at this girl's clothes."

The tailor in question looked...normal. A tall, athletic girl, with a pretty face and a blonde ponytail. She was dressed in a black cocktail dress and heels, looking more party chic than most of the people here, who were almost all in costume. It was interesting that she was a tailor instead of a hero. I wondered how much renown she got just from being around Bethany.

She looked over Callie with an interested smile. "Oh hey Bethy. Wow, I DO like that. Some kind of conceptual filtration effect keyed to a static enchantment structure? Mental component maybe? Fascinating. Subpar materials, but put to excellent use." She hummed consideringly. "I'd say this came from a lower end planet. Maybe D-rank? No, psuedo D-rank. Someone put a lot into learning their craft but was hamstrung with poor materials."

We all blinked at her in complete shock. Bethany didn't seem surprised. "Well I want a dress like that. It would be so cool. You could work the fabric so it would like...float or something. Then I'd be swishing around clad in darkness. Daddy would be ecstatic to see me 'embracing my role'." She rolled her eyes. "He never stops going on about that. 'Fashion is a hobby Bethany, not a lifestyle. Vampires need to inspire terror.' Ugh. Like, Vampires are all chic and beautiful now. He's so behind the times."

It was hard not to be swept up in Bethy's massive personality, the tiny Vampire was easily one of the most energetic and cheerful people I'd ever met (aside from brief moments of being murderously terrifying). I couldn't reconcile her with the image of the Vampire monster that Zeke had described. I honestly felt almost stupid for being so afraid (though the threat of murder if I'd messed up her clothes helped) and I was curious about her family. "So...Bethy. Tell me more about yourself. You seem like an interesting person, are all Vampires like you?"

She snorted. "No. Most of my brothers and sisters are wannabe posers. Daddy is the real deal, and everyone is scared of him for it, but they all grew up wanting to be just like him." She put a hand beside her mouth as if to block the view of her lips and whispered conspiratorially. "I think that's why I'm his favorite. I don't suck up like the rest of them." Then she giggled. "Get it? Suck up? Because we're Vampires." She burst out into peals of laughter, almost doubling over at her own joke.

Aida and Tracey, who were standing stoically nearby, sighed, Aida pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. To my surprise though, she wasn't the only one laughing. "That was hilarious." Said the cheerful voice of Jessie, her face lit up with a wide smile. "You're awesome." She held out a hand. "I'm Agria." Bethany took her hand, pulling it to jerk my teammate into a hug.

"Oh wow I love your outfit! Are those like...leaves?" Jessie, who was normally the most cheerful and enthusiastic person I knew, looked poleaxed by the speed with which it all happened. Bethy pulled back, chattering happily about the construction of Jessie's costume, which my blonde friend enjoyed immensely, not having really been able to show off since getting it. She'd been wearing it around, sure, but she wasn't in the tournament and we'd all gotten new costumes.

I remembered how excited she'd been to show off when she got her first costume. How happy she was about it. It was nice she found someone so enthusiastic. I heard a throat clearing and looked over to find Nat, Perit, and Valk all waiting politely to one side, my cousin shooting me annoyed glare. I smirked smugly behind my mask at the expression. Nat was more experienced and confident about all this than I was. It was nice to come out ahead here without really trying.

Before I could comment though, or Bethany could respond, the entire party started shaking. Not in a figurative sense, but literally shuddering in place. Everyone in the hall looked off balance, in the literal and figurative sense both, and we all looked around worriedly to try to figure out what the hell was going on. "What's happening?" I called loudly, worried we might be under attack.

Abel was staring up at the ceiling, eyes looking past the sky and off into the distance. "Spatial ripple. Like someone dropped a giant ass rock into a pond. Something just changed in the nearby space, something big. This place is just floating around in the void, so it got shaken up."

"It's opening." Said Zeke from behind us. None of us jumped, too distracted to care much about my uncle's theatrics. We all turned to look at him questioningly, and he rolled his eyes. "The Moonsong Glade is opening. We've been waiting for the space to stabilize so you could all enter, that's what that was. It's stable enough to allow F-ranked passage now. Slightly more than F-rank, honestly. I'd say anyone with under fifty Impact could get through."

That meant we could actually use the Moonglow Dew if we found it. E-rankers had sixty two Impact, so none of them could get in, but it made me wary of the interior of the dungeon. How many people there had more than a normal F-ranker's Impact value. Zeke had said the Dew wouldn't reveal itself to those inside normally, but there had to have been SOME of the stuff. Were we going to be fighting people halfway to E-rank? What would that even be like?

I felt that old fire start to burn in my gut again. Excitement. I'd been...floundering, a bit, since I lost my fight to Abel. It had been my first real defeat and it derailed me something fierce. Now though, we were going to be competing for resources, and Abel was on my side.

"Alright." I said firmly. "So we need to go. Bit short notice, but we're already good on supplies and stuff right?" We all had our rings, I got my weapon, we should be good to go. "Also...how do we go? Because you said it's F-rank only, so how do we enter. Will there be a portal or something?"

Zeke grinned, gesturing for us to follow, and we all did. Every one of us walked out of the party, followed by dozens more people, and as we exited we stared up into the darkness of space over the city. Darkness covered with a series of rivers or celestial silver light, shimmering and twisting around the floating city. "Why do you think the Lakedeeps picked this spot?" He said with a grin.

Gesturing up at the rivers theatrically, he announced. "Presenting the entrances that flow through the unstable space. Starlight Slides. There's a special song you have to play to call them, but the process was started when the space solidified enough to support the slides. That's concentrated moonlight. It's where the Glade gets its name." He turned toward the city. "Now, let's go find you a musician and get you your own. You don't want to be the last ones to arrive."