We were all pretty exhausted after the fight. The Wavestriders had been pretty tough, and this had been one of our first run ins with an elite Ascendant force from the Academy. If anything we'd gotten lucky because they weren't taking us seriously, but it had really shown us the difference between our group and some of the tougher teams out here. With all our advantages it was easy to consider ourselves the best of the freshman class, but this fight had shown us how wrong we were about that.

I'd known the higher years would be more powerful, but it was pretty absurd how much stronger than us even the other first years could get at the higher end of things. If this fight hadn't gone exactly the right way for us we would have been screwed. Raleigh was MUCH stronger than I was, than any of us besides Cark really, and if he'd been more prepared to deal with our coordination we never would have won the fight.

I sidled up next to Callie, putting my arm around her shoulder. "Credit for your thoughts?" She hadn't said much since she announced our break. She didn't seem upset or anything, just...distracted. I was pretty sure she was going over the fight in her head and coming to the same conclusion I had. We needed to get stronger. Which meant we needed to win this hunt and get the promotion we were entitled to as well as the points to move us up the rankings.

She shook off the trance she was in pretty quickly. "Sorry, I was just thinking about how much further we still have to go. It's easy to get caught up in how fast we've been advancing and lose track of how weak we still are on the grand scheme of things." I'd figured that was it. I understood what she meant. While I could get more points from others by granting wishes, my teammates had to trade their own points or valuable memories to get them. Which meant that while we could move points around for them to optimize their abilities, they still needed to advance the old fashioned way.

Granted being able to change around points to maximize their strength would help a lot with that, but it was by no means a done deal. We had a lot of hard work ahead of us to get stronger. Not to mention once we finally got strong enough to get off this planet we still had to deal with the larger forces, which included the other Wishmaster Candidates that would be just as broken at the very least. We had to make the best possible us of our time here and get as strong as possible because at that point our advantage would be gone.

Hell, it was worse than that. The other Candidates may have come from larger and more developed planets, giving them a headstart on resources and a larger value pool to draw from for wish payments. My only real advantage was the fact that my parents had been strong enough to ensure I started with every single stat unlocked, which had given me an incredibly solid foundation to build my strength on. I'd been doing my best to lean into that and keep my stats fairly even, but I needed to pick up the pace.

Callie reached up and pulled my mask away, leaning in to kiss me soundly. When I blinked and looked down at her dumbly she smiled. "No getting lost in your own head. I'm already freaking out about the future, somebody in this relationship has to stay grounded and not let what's coming get them down. Whatever is on the way, we'll face it together. All of us. In the mean time you just need to keep your head on straight. We aren't out of this hunt yet, even if we're getting close. We need to keep our heads in the game."

I let out a loud breath. "Yeah. You're right. I'm really bad at this living in the now thing, but there's still a ton to do to finish up this event." I gave her a boyish grin. "Plus I can't get too distracted. I have to finish this and make sure we all get out ok, I don't want anything spoiling our big date or our visit back to meet your mom." That got a blush from my girlfriend and it was my turn to lay a kiss on her. Once I pulled away I got to my feet and offered her my hand, pulling her up to a standing position.

I slid my mask back into place after shooting her a wink and she turned to look at the others. "Ok guys. This is it. The big one. The last thing on the list. If we get through this we're the winners of this years freshman scavenger hunt. We get a ton of points to bump us up the rankings, not to mention we'll be promoted throughout the city by the Academy and we'll get priority in the stream of this competition when it's released, all of which will result in a huge windfall of points for everyone here."

I hadn't actually considered how huge the windfall would be come to think of it, but it absolutely would be enough to kick Grimmengap all up to G rank I was betting, hell I had no clue where my own strength would end up, but I was pretty sure it would be a very nice cushion for all of us, and plenty more points to redistribute for the others to keep them in peak shape. Direct points trading was the fairest and most even method of wish making I knew, hell I could even suggest those because the inherent nature of the one for one trade made it a fair exchange even if it was my idea so I didn't need to worry about invalidating the wish with my interference.

Jessie was the one who brought up the obvious. "I'm a little worried about fighting this Fisher guy. The chains sound nasty, but those hooks are what really scares me. We don't really have anyone who specializes in durability. G ranked hooks on chains could do some serious damage to any of us. The puppies especially will have a lot of problems avoiding that kind of thing, and I'd really hate to see them get hurt like that." She cast a worried glance at our wolves, and I couldn't help but agree with the sentiment.

Callie bit her lip, obviously just as unwilling to see her wolf injured. Our pups hadn't been with us long, but they were big warm fuzzballs we'd all bonded with once Jessie had helped us communicate with them. I didn't want to see Jin strung up on a meat hook, that sounded horrible. We all had armor (H rank though it may be) on us that could help prevent the hooks from getting in, but the wolves just had their fur. They could avoid the hooks just as well as we could, if not better, but there was something else to take into account too.

I turned to Callie. "We should send the H rankers back to the base. Bringing them along with the wolves was a way to mitigate the risk, but given the level The Wavestriders were at and how likely it is that everyone we run into will be at that level I don't think it's a good idea to bring them along." I gave them a helpless shrug. "Sorry guys, I know you wanted to stick it out with us, and you were here for that last bit and hopefully were able to get some time on the stream, but I don't think you'll be able to keep up going forward."

I expected them to be upset, but Celine nodded with a sigh. "You're right. As much as I wish we could be part of the finale, that last battle made it painfully obvious this isn't a stage where we belong yet. We can take the wolves back to the base with us if you like. Having the five extra guards with us will make it much easier to get back safely. I assume it'll be the five of you going ahead at least?" We all looked to Callie, who nodded. "Then I wish you all luck." She looked at Benny, almost shyly. "Stay safe, we'll see you all soon."

Callie looked relieved to have avoided a fight. "That sounds like a good plan. I suspect the Heart will be in an even hotter chamber in any case. The wolves aren't really designed for these temperatures, not to mention their paws aren't optimal for this kind of ground. We saw that on the way up the mountain. You all can head back down and we'll meet up with you back at the base once we've finished retrieving the last item on the list."

We said our goodbyes, Benny taking Celine aside to have a whispered conversation we all pretended not to hear because our Perception was way too good for it to matter. I said goodbye to Jin, nuzzling the wolf for a bit and scratching behind his ears. He seemed to like it, which was good. There's something life affirming about hugging big furry animals, though I suspected we were getting too attached. Still, we all said goodbye and then the wolves took off back to the base with Grimmengap, leaving just the four of us and Cark behind.

I shot Callie a questioning glance, and she took a deep breath and nodded, prompting me to activate Seek Hidden on the heart of the greater mountain. I wasn't actually sure what it looked like, so I was wondering if this would even work or if I'd wasted a charge on something too small to be visible from a distance. Luckily that didn't turn out to be the case, because the heart was both not that far away and NOT small. I oriented us in the general direction and we started walking towards it as I filled the others in on our target.

It was kind of hard to describe, and it took me a second to find the words. "It's a heart." Everyone just kind of looked at me blankly. "No, like...a literal heart. The actual organ. It looks like it's pumping too, though I can't see exactly what. It's about the size of a door? Height wise at least, and maybe half that wide." It was actually pumping too, albeit slowly. We were pretty close to it too. It looked like it was maybe a few chambers away. I wondered if they set these two chambers up next to each other on purpose.

I led the others in the right direction, though we had to detour a few times to find the entrance, because it wasn't a straight shot to the chamber where it was waiting. Still, we got to it eventually, and all of us were preparing to head into the room when a form came sailing by us and crashed into the wall next to where we were standing. An incredibly tall woman with skin like rock, though not the dark lava rock around us. More of a grey stone like you'd find in a quarry.

Before we could react the chain we hadn't noticed attached to her leg tightened, digging in the hook at the end as she was slowly dragged back into the room, groaning in pain. We all looked at each other, but Benny was the one who finally said something. "So...I'm guessing we found Fisher." I nodded. Seemed like we had. Though from the looks of it, we weren't the first ones to find him. My friend grinned nervously. "But hey, if the fight is still going on at least we still have a chance at winning." I could always count on Benny for a silver lining at least.