Getting everyone else down into the cavern was simple. After the dark thing had been destroyed, it was just a lazy swim down. Once everyone arrived, we sent out teams to explore the place. My century and Callie’s had been turned over to us for defense of the settlement, so we had two hundred F-rankers ready and able to explore, and we put them to work.

Luckily, we found out pretty quickly that the cavern had no other entrances. It made sense, this place was untouched by time or anything else. I wondered if it counted as part of the Undertrek, or if it was just its own thing.

Standing in front of the shrine, I frowned down at the items on top of it, then looked over at Zeke. “You were the only one who might be able to identify this stuff, do we need to pay?”

He shook his head. “No. This isn’t directly related to the competition, and is totally out of your depth, not to mention it might impact my duty to protect Chelsea. I’ll take a look at them, but honestly…I wouldn’t hold your breath. These are sealed items, but they have weight to them. At least A-rank, probably higher.”

“Sealed items?” I asked with interest. “Like how I can seal my staff so it isn’t so heavy? How did Chelsea destroy the monster then?”

Nodding, he locked his eyes on the medallion, cup, and, knife. “Similar. And the thing she killed wasn’t part of these items. If I had to guess it was some kind of shadow elemental or fragment of darkness that fell into the cup and mutated. It was young, only having barely attained any sort of power.”

I nodded slowly. “Ok, well then we should know what these are. Why is your Identify Skill so high anyway, I don’t think I ever asked?”

He shrugged. “Any decent crafter needs Identify. Sometimes you take a risk or get some inspiration while you’re working and need to see the exact result. I went through a lot of masks to get where I am now.”

“Alright, so…what can you tell me about these?” I gestured back to the items. “Anything helps.”

Nodding, he raised his hands, hovering them over the items. Before he could do anything though, he stopped, then reached into his coat and pulled out a mask. One of his combat masks, though I didn’t know which one. He slipped it over his face, then gestured for me to step back.

As he raised his hands, there was a flash of black, and the dark liquid in the silver cup shot out like tentacles, wrapping around his wrists. There was a flash and white opalescent flame leapt up from the spot where the tentacles had touched, the liquid shrieking and pulling back.

“Please, like I wasn’t expecting that.” Zeke said derisively. “A-rank then, but weakened. Let’s see what we can see.”

There was a pause, and then he hissed, stepping back quickly. “Sacrificial items. All three of them. They’re part of a set. The knife wounds the soul, draining it out with the blood, the cup converts the blood and spirit into power, and the medallion goes in the cup to soak up the energy.”

I nodded slowly. “What’s the medallion for though? Like is it just a battery?”

“Like I said, sacrifice. It’s the emblem of a god.” I winced, my guesses being confirmed. When I stared at him, waiting, he just shrugged. “I have no idea WHICH god. Not one I know of. I know it’s not any of the six, and it’s not Hatescream.”

I stared down at the items worriedly. “Can you purify it with the flames from the mask?” I asked cautiously. “I don’t really want to just leave these here. Who knows what they could do.”

He shook his head. “Not even close. The liquid that tried to grab me is left over dregs after the medallion absorbed most of the power. These are A-rank sacrificial tools. Granted, I’m guessing there used to be a LOT of them lying around, but still. They’re out of my depth. Luckily, containment and purification are not the same thing.”

Snapping his fingers, he flicked his hand and a huge trunk appeared in the air, slamming down with a thump. He threw it open and started rummaging around, Finally he pulled out a bowl, then emptied a series of vials into it. “You’re going to want to stand back.”

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I did, and he walked around behind the shrine, then flicked a finger and a burst of flames condensed into a hand smacked out and knocked the items off the altar. I heard a few wet plops, and then an explosions of darkness burst up from the bowl in a torrent of horrifying black shot through with an evil red light.

We stood there, taking cover, for about ten minutes, and when it finally ended, I let out a sigh of relief. “What the fuck was THAT?” I shouted at my uncle, who was standing up and wiping off his coat.

“Little mix I use to temporarily disarm failed products to be disposed of.” He sounded nonchalant. “Expensive as hell, but when you work with A-ranked materials you need a backup plan. The base is void essence, and the rest is a proprietary mix of shade lurker blood, hope pheonix feather dust, and spinal fluid from an astral ravager.”

I stared at the now opaque liquid, which looked an almost uncomfortable shade of grey. “And it…neutralizes them?”

“Temporarily.” He reiterated. “But that’s where this comes in.” He walked over and dug back into the trunk, pulling out a heavy black stone box, which he thumped on the ground. Pulling a key from a pocket, he unlocked the huge dark metal padlock on the chains wrapping the box. Once he’d unwound them all he paused. Walking back over to the trunk he pulled out another vial, this one full of golden glowing liquid.

Walking back to the box, he gingerly kicked it open. As soon as he did, there was a boom and a massive purple serpent far too big for the opening exploded outward, rearing back as if to strike. Zeke hurled the vial, not even unstoppering it, and it burst on the snake, golden fluid drenching it.

The monster roared, smoke rising from its face as it dove back into the box, which just lay there, open, as if nothing was wrong with it. Zeke walked over, picked up the bowl, then dropped it into the box and kicked the lid shut. He re-wrapped it with chains, then locked the padlock before carrying it back over and dropping it back in the trunk.

“There. Safe as houses.” He said happily.

I was frozen, staring at him in terror. “What the fuck was THAT?”

“Prank.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s a Cosmic Rot Viper I bought ages ago as an egg. I was going to leave it in your dad’s sink when I saw him next. Don’t worry, it’s only barely B-rank and it’s starving.”

I sputtered, trying to figure out which part of that I should address first. “What did you throw on it?”

He held up the vial. “Sunlight Sherry. They make this stuff out of real stars. Not like, good ones, obviously. I’m not wasting decent liquor on scaring off a snake. Rot Vipers are dark aligned creatures. They’re particularly sensitive to starlight, hence the Cosmic tag.”

“Fine.” I said, shaking my head. “We can talk about that later. What about the items, what did you put them in?”

“Berenthar Box.” He said seriously. “The Berenthar family specialize in secure storage items. Their big Vaults are prohibitively expensive, but some of the smaller lock boxes are affordable. It’s made of some strange stone mix they created themselves.”

I nodded in relief. “Alright. So they’re safe for now. What are you going to do with them?”

“Hand them over to someone from the WCP.” He said bluntly. “I don’t need this kind of trouble. There should be at least a representative at the Conclave, if not the Wishmaster himself. The current one, the old man doesn’t really do day trips.”

“You don’t think the gods will show up in person?” I asked. I’d kind of assumed for something this important they’d put in an appearance.

Zeke just laughed. “No. I don’t. Remember that the original Wishmaster doesn’t even run the family anymore. Aiden will probably show. The Revenant will send one of his popes, same for Black Sorrow, the Emperor will send one of the Kings, and the Queen will probably send one of her own nobles.”

It was nice to get a straight answer from my uncle. Zeke could talk to me about the gods because they were so absurdly above my weight class they didn’t trip his geas. It was less like telling me political details and more like telling me which city was about to be hit by a hurricane.

“This is kind of important though, isn’t it?” I said angrily. “There are enemy gods out there plotting to destroy our whole way of life.”

Zeke shook his head. “It’s complicated. I don’t understand it all myself, but gods aren’t…like us. I told you once that I-rankers don’t count as real Ascendants. Well, H-rankers aren’t really much better. You remember being I and H-ranked right? Did you feel much different than a normal person?”

“Not really.” I said with a shrug. “A point or two of Impact isn’t a big deal.”

He nodded. “Right. Ten points, when you hit G-rank, that’s when the differences became apparent. Ten. You saw the same thing at a hundred. D-rankers are a different breed. They’re just a higher form of life, and it takes something absurd for any lower ranked Ascendant to kill one.”

I followed his train of thought. “That’s why gods become gods at a thousand Impact. It’s another watershed. The next step up the lifeform ladder. Does it really matter that much?”

He gestured around us. “That touches on things you aren’t ready to know yet. The short answer is yes. It matters. Effectiveness aside, the sheer amount of stats combined with the pure power of a Mirror soul is…it defies description. I’ve never seen a god in battle before and I hope I don’t for a long time.”

“So what does this have to do with the conclave?” I asked. “Are you worried they might fight?”

I was actually scared of his answer, but he shook his head. “No. The Wishmaster, Emperor, and the Queen would prevent any squabbling Between Black Sorrow and the Revenant, who are the only ones likely to start anything. It’s not that I’m worried about what they might do, it’s that they don’t NEED to be there.”

“You’re saying they all have methods of making their will known and keeping track of what happens.” I said, finally getting it.

“Basically.” He confirmed.”Besides which, they’ll probably already be moving when the conclave begins. You don’t get to be a god by sitting around and waiting to see what happens. The six have dealt with other gods before. Maybe not quite so many, but they know what they’re doing. The conclave is more to iron out cooperation than anything.”

It made me wonder exactly how things worked behind the scenes. And who would be coming to the conclave? Would I meet my grandfather there? Would my dad show up? Did I want him to? Turning back to the buildings around us, I considered my earlier instinct about this place, about the god they worshipped here.

If this was a place where one of the five gods Hatescream had brought back had been venerated, maybe we could learn more about them. Learn their weaknesses, and be a bit more prepared when the war came. In any case we needed more info, and I hoped my sister and the others could get it for us. Knowledge was power, and we needed all the power we could get.