The Path of Ascension

PoA: Aster's Adventures Chapter 4

Aster padded through the dimly lit hallway on her tippy toes while trying to control her tail. It kept trying to swish back and forth, but even the slightest change in air current could get her caught.

Pausing as she heard her target's gait change, she waited around the corner, not wanting to get caught with something as simple as her target walking backward.

At least, not this time.

After all of Luna’s training, the fact that she had fallen for that trick even once was embarrassing enough to last a lifetime, and she was sure the cranky cat had a notebook somewhere full of critiques.

Taking a deep but slow breath, Aster let the smells slide over her senses, and after determining the target had exited the room, she walked forward and around the corner. The shim that she had picked up at the start of this event was extended to prevent the door from latching. After waiting a few more moments, she carefully opened the door and let it close naturally once more.

The moment the door clicked, Professor Adams called out, “Time, thirteen minutes fifteen seconds. No sightings or captures on the second attempt. Well done, Aster, that puts you firmly in first place for the mundane category. If you wish to take your third attempt, you are welcome to at any time before the night ends.”

Pumping her fist, Aster made a little dance as Kelly handed her back her slushie. A slushie that was noticeably lower than when Aster had left it with the bird. Seeing the neon yellow stain on her friend's lips, Aster pouted. “Piece of cake, nyaaaand you drank my slushie.”

Kelly nodded with zero shame. “And it was good! Lemon Zing was a nice combination. I almost regret getting the Red Berry Razler after trying it.”

With a thought, Aster rechilled her drink while doing the same to Kelly’s, but she was deliberately a little loose with her control over her cold and sent a blast slithering up Kelly’s arm, causing the other girl to jerk in surprise.

“That was cold! Not nice. Not nice at all. It was just a sip tax. I—”

Aster interrupted with her tail raised to show her indignation. “Sip? No way was that a sip! That was like ten percent of my drink.”

Kelly tried to suppress a grin but failed as it slipped through. “I never said how many sips were in the tax. Hey! It was really tasty, okay?”

As they linked arms and sauntered around the rest of the fairgrounds, Aster kept eyeballing the student council members in the star pattern uniforms. They looked really slick, and she was sure they would look great with her white hair and tail. The hats they wore even had a variant with cutouts for ears on top of the head, which she appreciated.

While they would be third years in a few days, they weren’t yet, so they couldn’t run for a position. But even then, Aster wasn’t sure she wanted to.

The student council did a lot of work, and that sounded less than fun. Sure, they got to put on the fun events like this end-of-year fair, but they also dealt with overseeing all the student-run clubs, handling small disputes between students, planning the orientation for the newest students, overseeing housing for the incoming students, proctoring other clubs events that were open to the wider school, and so many other things. The only thing they didn’t handle, as far as she could tell, was the cafeteria menu, which was a real shame because Aster did have some suggestions there.

With Kelly’s help, they found Juan, who was busy painting a really odd tree, and Roody, who was trying to chat up the lioness twins. Aster and Kelly commandeered both of the boys to help them register a new club each.

To officially start a club, they needed at least four core members, and Aster wanted a club dedicated purely to making the best ice creams. Kelly, on the other hand, was trying to restart an older movie-making club that had died a few years ago, when its last members graduated. While Aster had zero interest in movies, Kelly did, and she would support her friend.

After handing in their forms to a cute-looking scaled boy, Kelly and Juan split off to go play in the water-themed part of the park, which was an area that the two with tails were loath to enter. Their fur took too much work to keep looking clean and fluffy in her case, and smooth and sleek in his case, for casual dips into a water park mid-day. That was very much an end-of-day activity.

Instead, the two of them went and enjoyed some of the more aggressive combat simulators the fair had to offer. Together, the two of them made the games look casual and fed off each other’s showing off. Aster didn’t even need to push herself. For all that Roody loved to boast about delving two Tiers up, and had improved notably since they started the academy, he still wasn’t that good. She was pretty sure he usually delved one Tier up at most, and maybe had delved two Tiers up at some point, probably in a rift his team perfectly countered, then lived high on the accomplishment ever since.

He noticeably increased the speed as he was batting the lights back, and Aster spun around to check the crowd. As she suspected, she saw a familiar pair of twin lionesses and waved at them despite Roody growling at her to pay attention.

Instead of doing that, she decided to help, and instead of dodging she finished the set with just her tail while facing the crowd.

When their turn was down and they had a fist full of tickets, she dragged him to the lionesses and stuck out her hand.

“Nya! I’m Aster, Roody’s roommate. I’ve heard all too much about you from the love-sick kitty.”

Leia and Lauren smiled. “We know about you, but not from Roody. We actually wanted to talk to you about the Path of Ascension. Are you mad that coming here knocked your team off?”

While Lauren was a bit more direct than most people, Aster was well-used to the question. After it had come out that her bond was the son-in-law to two of the Empire’s royals, and Princess Elizabeth was their final team member, she’d gotten just so many people bugging her about it. A lot of people had questions about the Path in one form or another, which she didn’t mind, but others were just trying to use her to get an in with Queen Mara.

Those she had frozen into ice cubes.

She had taken the fines and punishment work of assisting the year eight students in cleaning up their alchemy labs for a month in good graces. She knew that it was the school's way of showing she wasn’t above the rules, but acknowledging she could have easily gone farther than gently creating ice around the pests.

Aster smiled back at the twins. “The Path served its purpose, and we got what we wanted and needed out of it. Liz proved that she wasn’t solely reliant on her parents for her accomplishments, and Matt was really only on it to get off his low Tier, mismanaged planet. Now, we are immortal and free. I appreciate them treating me like a true part of the team from the beginning, and they won't move without me.”

That wasn’t strictly true, they were likely doing a bit of delving between their appearances as Torch and Quill that filtered through the Empirenet from time to time, but so was she! There would be some catchup once she rejoined, for sure, but that wasn’t really a concern. Matt’s ability to freely charge rifts needed to be used sparingly, but was great at giving them additional flexibility for maintaining their covers. Leia nodded as the three of them turned and started walking away, leaving a tongue-tied Roody to follow behind. “That makes sense. On a more fun topic, the rumor mill said you and your pod were starting a film club?”

The small glance at Roody told Aster the lioness didn’t really care about the film club, and was actually interested in Roody, so she happily slapped the idiot with her tail as he tried to butt in. “We did! Kelly is the one who headed the project, but she got the rest of us to join. I even got them to start an ice cream-making club. A fun little side project.”

Both twins' tails quivered as they shook their heads. “Too cold.”

Laughing, Aster nodded and didn’t push the issue. They were nature aligned, and that type either abhorred cold or loved it, with no inbetween.

Together, the four of them walked around, and Aster kept Roody from making a fool of himself until they were rejoined by a dripping-wet Juan and Kelly.

Both tried to hug her, and Aster had to threaten ice cube status if they dared get her soaked.

They promptly ignored her and pulled her into a sandwiched embrace anyway.

She intentionally overplayed her reaction for the amusement of Leia and Lauren, pressing her ears flat against her head and pouting at her roommates.

They met up with the twins’ individual pods, and the newly-enlarged group grabbed dinner before watching the evening skill showcase, with the stars serving as a wonderful backdrop to the blossoms of magic and color.

The next day of classes was fairly standard, with Aster learning about how the Second Skin worked in relation to their malleable form in her Advanced Shapeshifting class. But at dinner, Juan surprised them all with his decision for the next semester.

“I think I’m going to take ‘Concepts And The Real Us’, he announced.”

His words shocked everyone, but especially Aster.

Concepts and the Real Us was a course meant to guide students into either breaking or otherwise completely reforming their Concepts, which meant Juan planned to get rid of his earth-based strength and protection Concept.

Kelly chirped the question they were all asking. “Is everything ok? That's a big step.”

Juan nodded. “I want to move beyond just being an earthen wall. I’ve come to appreciate being a frontliner in a fight since coming here, but I’ve talked it over with my human. We don’t have some grand ambition to quickly delve through the Tiers, and we never really did that to begin with. If we need to take a few decades or centuries for me to get comfortable with a new Concept, we’re fine with that. It just doesn’t feel right when I use my domain for anything these days. I need to change it, and pushing it off isn't working. I thought the therapy would help, but it has only let me realize that I need to take this step more than ever.”

Aster could only shake her head. “Just be careful, alright? When I changed my bloodline, it cracked my Concept just a tiny bit, but that still felt like my spirit was on fire. It was manageable, sure, but it wasn’t fun. I couldn’t think straight for at least a month afterwards.”

Roody punched Juan on the shoulder as he reprimanded him. “You should have said it was getting that bad before now. We knew you were struggling, but we can’t help if we don't know.”

At Aster and Kelly’s agreement, Juan blushed and rubbed his head. “I was trying to handle it on my own.” At their protest, he raised his hands and continued, “I know that’s exactly what the professors tell us not to do, but I didn’t want to be a burden. Now that I decided to make the plunge, it seems really dumb to keep it from you, so… sorry.”

They ribbed their friend a little more before agreeing with him that breaking his Concept and starting over seemed like the right choice in his case. It also seemed to help that his human was onboard with the idea, and had encouraged him to do whatever he needed to do, delving be damned.

Aster, on the other hand, went to her first class and prepared to encounter her nemesis, Cameron the Magma Otter.

Seeing that the otter girl hadn’t arrived yet, Aster took over a pair of seats in the second row and put her bag in the second to show it was reserved.

Not long after she sat down, Cameron arrived and dropped her bag on the table. “Your junk is in my seat, Ice Pop.”

Aster rolled her eyes right back. “If someone arrived on time, I wouldn’t have to make sure you had a seat that wasn’t in the boonies. You’re welcome. After all, I, unlike some unnamed others, arrive on time.”

Cameron sighed as she fell into her seat. “Ah, but unlike you, I have responsibilities. I took up the student helper position for the ‘Practical Uses of Innate Fire’ club. We, unlike some others, have the advantage of being useful for society beyond keeping drinks cold, and this is a great first step for me running for Student Council in our fifth year. I intend to be president in my ninth and tenth years, breaking normal traditions and serving a term as vice president in my eighth, and for that, I need to manage my time wisely.” Seeing she forgot to add a barb into the last statement, the otter lamely added. “Unlike others who use cat affectation drivel.”

Aster blinked and swished her tail as she thought that over, ignoring the comment about the ‘nya’ she had picked up from her friends, the Ice Cats. It was cool, and no one could tell her otherwise. She knew Cameron wanted to join the Student Council, but she hadn’t known the girl was so ambitious in her goal. There were only a handful of examples in the last few thousand years where someone had been president for two years, instead of the position being held by the previous ninth-year vice president.

Not knowing what to say, she quipped back, “If only your use to society didn’t involve setting the Student Council seats on fire.”

That led to an argument as to whether the Student Council would have flammable seats or not, until the professor entered and their class began.

After the class, the two split up to go to their elective classes, which for Aster was another ‘Melee for Mages’ class. She hadn’t intended to enjoy the class as much as she had, but she really did enjoy the flow and dance of melee fighting.

It was similar to being a mage, but instead of just dodging and reacting, she got to almost play chess with her opponents. Each made a move while the other countered and struck back move after move.

Her opponent today was a tall man she recognized as a fifth-year, and she grinned back at him as he stood across from her.

“I hear you were a Pather. Let me test your mettle!”

Aster felt his opening statement was a little too neutral, and he should have been a little more cutting, but met his energy with something similar.

“You’re a fifth year? Make sure you don’t break your nose when you fall on your face, nya?”

Obligatory trash talk was done. The two of them lunged at each other when the ref made a noise.

Aster’s cutlass cut through the air with a satisfying swish, even as her opponent's rapier struck out.

Letting her blade hit and deflect the lighter weapon, she danced to the side to avoid the man's faster recovery and followed up with thrust, cutting at his hip with her second attack.

While his larger stature and longer weapon meant he had the range advantage, Aster had dealt with far bigger and far worse than him. While they weren’t able to actually use spells to distract, she had a giant fluffy tail with a purple ribbon threaded through it, and it was very distracting when used right.

Without moving, I think.

She swished her tail as though she was preparing to dodge right, tensed, and stood absolutely still. Her opponent thrust at where he predicted she’d be, not recognizing the feint until she landed a solid blow on his chest, ending the round.

She winked and bowed deeply. “And there’s one of two. This could be even easier than I thought, if I don’t even need to move!”

Her opponent's second line was much better. “An opponent worthy of my full attention is rare. Prepare to face the might of a fifth year.”

The second bout, she set herself the goal of winning while physically above her opponent, which she did handily. Her tail was nicked as it drifted a bit too slowly past her opponent’s blade mid-somersault, but otherwise, it went no different than the first. It was great fun, though, and the two of them spent the rest of the class sparring with one another, with Aster explaining some of the tells she had used to predict his actions.

The fights were kinda fun, but usually too easy. Even as a nominal support-only mage, the fights she was used to were simply so far above the difficulty any of her peers could provide, the only challenging parts of any fight were the goals she set for herself. She didn’t always win, but regardless, the most fun part was picking up tips and tricks from her peers.

Not that there were that many she didn’t already know, but some were so insanely impractical, they circled back around to being situationally useful. One day, she would beat someone by kicking her sword in such a way that its trajectory circled back around and struck them in the back of the head.

One day.

After class, she changed into the light armor that served as her job uniform. Acting as a guardian for safe rift delves wasn’t that fun or entertaining, but Luna, Kurt, and April had to feel much the same way. So, to channel her mentors, she always did her best to provide feedback to the teams and analyze what they could have done better. She wasn’t nearly as good as Luna, but apparently, she was good enough to have a waitlist several months long for teams requesting her over the other student watchers.

It wasn’t like the other guides didn’t provide feedback, that was half their job after all, she was just… able to draw on lessons from some of the best trainers in the Empire. They were getting better, as they were all working on improving their personal styles either on their own or by asking her for tips, but they still had tendencies to push ill-fitting tactics onto groups, sound too condescending in their advice, or just prioritize the wrong things, addressing symptoms instead of causes.

Gawain, a former Pather bond from her year, was already in the guide’s lounge as she arrived.

“Nya, Gawain. New stripes, I see. What’s it this thyme?”

The tiger just rolled his eyes. She’d been using the joke ever since he’d changed his stripes to a pattern that bore a distinct resemblance to the herb, and she wasn’t tired of it yet. Really, that wasn’t something you lived down quickly, and everyone gave him a hard time for it.

“I was able to schedule some consulting with a formation master, and with her help, I finally got the enchantments to work.” He pulled off his shirt, letting Aster see the pattern emblazoned on his skin as the black stripes took on an iridescent sheen.

Aster blinked a few times, trying to get her eyes to focus. “You know what, I take it back. That’s impressive. Does it work with armor?”

“As of yesterday, yes. It’s a lot weaker when covered up, but we’re still working on it. Do you want her contact? I think you could do some pretty impressive things with aurora, get set up for your change.” True to form, as Gawain pulled his shirt back on, the effect lessened. She still had some trouble focusing on him until he deactivated the stealth enchantment, but it was substantially weaker.

Aster nodded. “You know what? Sure. Not sure if I’ll go for the stripey look, but it never hurts, nya? I’m a long way from actually making the change to Aurora though. Mainly, it’s my bond who likes formations.”

Aster’s AI dinged as Gawain sent over the information, and she nodded in thanks as the two entered the waiting room to grab their scheduled teams.

No matter how many were employed, guides were always in short supply. Given that completing a Tier 15 rift in a group of 5 or less was a graduation requirement, her role was somewhere between exam proctor, coach, and guardian angel. A truly shocking number of bonds had literally never delved before without being hard-carried, and many of those who had delved before didn’t delve often.

They always needed lots of saving, hand-holding, and advice before they were ready to fight anything head-on. It was actually a perfect fit for Aster, as her debuffs let her functionally dial back the difficulty of fights they weren’t ready for until even the most inexperienced person could score a kill.

At least the rifts at her station were short, and they didn’t have to perform a full clear. She straight-up wouldn’t have time for the job if it took a week each time, even if she only attended all of her classes via her AI. Matt would probably be super interested in how they made the rifts so short. but she couldn’t care less.

Her team today was, thankfully, an easy one. She’d worked with them before, and they were nearly to the point of attempting a completely unassisted delve. That wouldn’t be today, unless they surprised her, but it could be next month. They were decently fast, too.

“Nya, guys. Today we’ll be running C7B11, so I hope you brought your goggles!”

Bannie groaned. “The sand one? I hate the sand. It's coarse and gets everywhere.”

Kadmey agreed. “It's also rough and irritating on my skin. Can we skip this one, Aster? I think I have a cough.”

Aster let a gust of wind spin the mouse around, turning her faux run toward the exit into a stumble towards the entrance. “Not a chance. If my tail needs to be de-gritted after we delve, you can deal with a bit more lotion.”

Kadmey kept complaining, but it was all in good fun as they prepared for their delve.

Unsurprisingly, the team did just fine, and showed their improvement by holding formation even when a sandworm ambushed them, instead of scattering. Last time something similar had happened, they had just opened themselves up to being picked off one by one, but they’d clearly taken her instruction to heart.

Their boss fight wasn’t as clean, as they were caught off-guard by the boss using wind magic to whip up a storm. They got blown around a little bit, took a few wounds that would have been worse without Aster’s aid, but mostly, they handled it admirably once they got their feet under them.

Just shy of 13 hours after starting, Aster finally clocked out and returned to her room.

Much to her surprise, she found Juan chatting with a timid-looking woman in their sitting room.

She flinched and jumped at the door opening, which startled Aster, and she looked to Juan, who shot her a glare, and a new message appeared on her AI.

Reading it, and the messages she’d missed on account of being at work, caught her up on what was going on.

Katherine was someone Juan met at the new Concept class, and he felt she needed a friend and so he brought her over. His initial message asked them to be quiet, as loud noises startled her, but Aster had completely missed the message, being as tired and mentally exhausted as she was.

“Sorry about that. I’m Aster; nice to meet you.” Aster waved as she added. “I'd shake your hand, but I'm still covered in sand from my job.”

The woman smiled slightly, then glanced away. Curiously, she was fairly nondescript-looking. Considering most beasts who just got their human bodies went absolutely wild, making themselves incredibly pretty at minimum, it was unusual and set her apart. Cats in particular tended to like keeping their ears and tails akin to how Aster had. Luna and now Katherine were the only two she’d met with neither, which stood out to her.

There was most certainly a story there, but Aster wasn’t going to pry.

Aster took a nice, relaxing, ice-cold shower, taking the time to wash out all the sand that had permeated her hair and fur so thoroughly. For a moment, she was jealous of Kelly’s shorter hairstyle and how much less work it took to keep clean. But… it just didn’t look right with her fox ears, and getting rid of her long hair would be like getting rid of her tail. It just wasn’t how she wanted to look.

A hair-cleaning skill did move a couple places up her to-get list, though. [Glacial Scrub] and [Aerated Hair] were her two primary contenders, but there was just so much going on, she never really got around to truly trying to get one of them. Also a cleaning skill that worked on sand. She had [Bathe], which worked great for things aligned with elemental mud or blackwater, mostly dirt and oils, but sand wasn’t quite close enough to count.

When she exited the room, the others were already waiting for her to go to her ice cream studio before going to Kelly’s movie club. She didn’t miss the fact that Katherine came along, and while she didn’t say much, she seemed eager to help them set up and be a part of their little enterprise.

Her ice cream maker was already set up from last week, when she’d had a few spare minutes, so she was able to help the others get their stations all up and running before Juan demanded they make some actual ice cream.

Not one to pass the opportunity to show off, Aster quickly whipped up a citrus chocolate ice cream for everyone and delighted in their appreciative noises. Even Katherine spoke up and said how good it was.

She finally showed off a bit of her feline side by unveiling a milk tooth strong enough to devour half the large bowl in practically the blink of an eye. The shy girl seemed embarrassed, but when Aster offered to make another bowl of ice cream in whatever flavor she wanted, the girl didn’t say no, which Aster took as a good sign.

Dessert was truly the most important meal of the day.

After making a few small batches in different flavors to show everyone how it worked, they spent another two hours designing flyers they could put up in the common rooms to get more people into the club before heading to Kelly’s movie club.

There they found Leia and Lauren already waiting for them, which was exactly when Roody forgot how to speak and turned into a bumbling buffoon.

This club needed a lot more setup work, and they mostly focused the first two hours on getting the room ready for more active filming by setting up the backdrop array. Then they spent close to an hour as Kelly directed them to set up a number of lights of various colors, intensities, and positions.

Aster had no idea what any of it was really for, but Kelly was excited, and she was happy to help a friend.

She did that even more by keeping Roody busy and away from the twins, whose mere presence seemed to shut off his brain.

Katherine appeared less captivated by the movie-related topics, yet she eagerly offered her assistance. Aster caught the twins exchanging glances before ambushing Katherine as if she were a mischievous kitten in need of guidance from older, wiser cats. Katherine was temporarily bewildered by the attention, but after the twins whispered a few words beyond her earshot, she readily fell into place.

While cats and lions weren’t exactly the same, they were cousins of a sort; Katherine seemed much more comfortable with them around and actually seemed to settle down.

Aster didn’t miss the fact that she followed all three of the large cats' tails when they got to swishing back and forth with desire, which only made her own lack of said parts all the more puzzling.

The story behind the girl was looking more and more bleak, which made Juan’s intentions to befriend the girl all the more important, and Aster made a note to check up on her going forward as well.

Three hours after they finished setting up most of the equipment they would need, Kelly brought out a data cube.

“Guess what I have!”

Everyone looked at the shorter woman, and she almost bounced in excitement. “I was talking to one of the off-worlders, and they had a copy of an advanced screening of ‘The Scribbling’! I’m so excited! The first movie is about a possible pair of new Ascenders. I hear there are two more movies coming out about them too. The second is a bigger budget team-up film with Queen and her Giant Blade delving into a hidden realm, and the third is them taking down a cabal of evil nobles who were capturing people to steal their Talents from.”

“Possible Ascenders, my butt. The main news channels have predicted ten thousand of the last two Ascenders. They’re just trying to drum up sales for the movies. I mean look at them, talismans? You couldn’t pick a worse style for the long haul of blasting through higher Tier rifts, even if the ass did do well in the tournament.” Lauren said as she plopped down onto the couch, then grunted a bit as her sister landed on her lap at maximum force.

As her friend vibrated, Aster had to bite her lip so as not to correct her about those missions. That said, she was equally excited to see ‘The Scribbling’. The movie had the same dramatic feel that Duke Waters and Light and Shadow’s movies had before the rights to other missions were given to lower-budget and more campy production studios.

This would be the first and quite possibly the best movie she’d see made about them, and she couldn’t wait to see just how bad it would get.

The teasing would be oh so sweet.