DSS Chapter 7: Test of Worth (Patreon)

If there was one thing that convinced Rodrick he had made the best decision to let this Elder abduct him away from Redstead, it was the room he got.

Back home, in the little hovel he shared with his grandma and his sister, his closet-sized bedroom hadn’t allowed him much. A single pallet, a desk underneath which he had to store his trunk, and a chair he had to keep folded most times since there was only enough room for so much furniture. All old and second-hand, of course.

Not so now. The bed was big enough to hold his entire family with the mattress boasting just the right firmness too. Not so soft that it tried to eat him up, but not hard as a park bench either. There was an honest-to-goodness closet with a mirror, a desk with built-in power outlets, a chair nearly as plush as a rich couch, even a gesture-activated, sixty-inch holo-display against one wall.

Rodrick had a private bathroom too, complete with a bathtub and a small cabinet stocked with razors, trimmers, shampoos, and gods knew what else to spruce himself up. Now he could finally look like a cultivator. For crying out loud, he could even trim his void-cursed eyebrows.

He couldn’t help but grin at it all. Rich didn’t even begin to cut it. Rodrick had practically ascended to another realm already.

Rodrick didn’t stick around in his room for long. A quick wash of his face and a little cookie for a snack later, he nearly barged into Priscilla’s room before remembering there was a door he could knock now. That sort of privacy didn’t come with hovels. So, clearing his throat in a gentlemanly manner, he rapped his knuckles on the door to his sister’s assigned room.

“Uh,” she said. “Come in?”

Rodrick smiled. “Are you telling me or asking me?”

“Are you an immortal bloodsucker? Just come in, Rod.”

He did so, finding Prisilla sitting in the middle of the bed with her duffle bag open in front of her. “Weren’t you supposed to freshen up?”

“Already did. What’s up? Too bothered that you can’t be calm cause you’re too excited about all this?”

Rodrick peered around until he found the mirror on Priscilla’s closet. Was his expression thatreadable? “I just came in to check up on you.”

“Because checking up on me makes you feel like you’ve still got a hold on things, right? Like you’re still in control of something, even when everything else now feels like they’re all out of your control. Everything here is new. Except me. But I get it, Rod. I like a little dose of familiarity in the middle of all this new stuff.”

Rodrick mimicked the Elder’s groan. He was rather proud of the imitation. Spot on. Even Priscilla laughed at it.

“There you go,” he said with a grin. “Acting like a proper kid now, laughing at dumb copycats.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. Are you ready, though?”

“You know I’m going to ace—” He paused as a glint caught his eye. “What’s that?”

“Oh, this?” Priscilla pulled out a white canister. Rodrick’s eyes widened. The real qi locus. “Varkos said I could keep it. He never got around to swiping it up after everything that happened.”

“And you just took it off the ground?”

“Thought it could be useful. Varkos said it’s valuable. A parting gift.”

“Of course he gives the girl he gave shooting lessons to a parting gift,” Rodrick muttered.

Priscilla grinned. “Jelly, Rod?”

“No. Just be careful with that thing, okay? We don’t want to blow up this ship with demonic qi. The Elder won’t appreciate it.”

“It’s fine. It’s a locus, not a storage, like the qi flags. I’m sure she knows about it already. Her Domain has to have one-hundred percent surveillance of some kind. Nothing’s happening here without her knowing about it first. It’s why I never bothered telling you to keep quiet.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re too smart.”

Priscilla smiled in a self-satisfied way.

Rodrick took a seat beside his sister on her bed. He tried not to peer into the duffle bag. Those were his sister’s possessions. She wasn’t exactly trying to hide them from him, but it wasn’t right to take too much of an interest. Still, he couldn’t help that his eyes caught on some of the more interesting contents.

Along with the qi locus, Varkos had also allowed Priscilla to keep the Mager. The gun’s shiny barrel glinted in the light, even if it was mostly covered up by clothes. Rodrick still couldn’t think it was right for a twelve-year-old to be shooting firearms, but whatever.

He was dragged to the other piece that caught his eye—nothing more than an overlong blue silk ribbon.

“You still have it,” he said with no small amount of wonder.

Priscilla rolled her eyes. “And of course you don’t.”

“It’s just a ribbon.”

“It’s an heirloom, Rod. The same one mom gave to dad. The same one grandma gave to grandpa. And so on. Which, fine, it’s an heirloom only if you believe everything grandma says, which nobody should. But still.”

Rodrick looked away. All the care Priscilla took once again made him feel like he wasn’t being the responsible brother he was supposed to be. Shouldn’t he be the one double-checking they had left nothing worthwhile, material or emotional, behind?

Instead, he’d been so eager to get off Redstead, he hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye to grandma. Even when a part of him knew it might be the last time he ever saw the hag.

Though, truth be told, she had looked almost happy for once when she had seen them off.

“You’re finally setting off on your own journeys beyond this planet that’s become our home,” grandma had said, all grave and severe.

“Home not by choice,” Rodrick had muttered.

Priscilla had dug an elbow into his side to shush him up. Grandma had ignored him.

“I know you will make the Rolden name proud.” She hadn’t said that with pride. No, it was said with the certainty of a master craftswoman looking at her best-selling work. “You will not squander this miraculous opportunity the fates have granted you. Unlike many generations of your ancestors, unlike my own grandparents, your destiny lies beyond this little dusty rock.”

“We’ll do everything we can,” Priscilla had said, mimicking the same gravity. “We promise.”

Grandma had nodded, as though that was only to be expected. Then she had faced Rolden “And you child? What will you make of all this?”

“You know exactly what,” Rodrick said. “I’ve been wanting to get off Redstead for years. Now that I can finally do it, you know I’m not going to mess things up.”

“One would think taking in demonic qi to turn your star core into a demonic star would already be messing things up. But do as you will. At least ambition isn’t something you lack.”

Leave it to Matriarch Rolden to be as snidely insulting as possible during a final farewell. They weren’t much of a talkative family unit—not when grandma was a part of said unit, at least—so after one final round of formal last statements, they were off.

Besides, Priscilla had been rather eager to talk with Varkos through the implant comm line before they took off. It wouldn’t work once they started moving through wormholes.

Rodrick hadn’t been present during that conversation to know what exactly they had said. For one, he didn’t hold Varkos in high enough of an esteem, and the feeling was mutual. For another, Priscilla had looked like she wanted some privacy, and Rodrick was happy to provide her some.

“You ready?” Priscilla asked.

Rodrick took a quick breath. His eyes were on the qi locus. It represented everything they had been through over the last day. The heist against a cultivator, getting drawn into that ritual, and then—the memories almost made him shudder and he blocked them out, trying not to let his feelings show. His sister had asked if he was ready, not if he was still frightened.

“I’ve got the makings of a plan,” he said with as cheery of a smile he could manage. “You know, this place has an excellent net. Don’t even need a password. I suppose she doesn’t get many guests to set one up.”

Priscilla looked down at her HD watch with a soft curse. “Can’t believe I forgot to check if there was a net connection here. No surprise, what with everything else we’ve got.” True enough. If they each had a mini-fridge, a net connection was a given. She focused back on Rodrick. “What are you looking up? How to survive an Elder’s test in the middle of space?”

“Nope. Just refreshed myself on some of the old stories. They’ve got a nice archive set up, and I have the link saved on my watch.”

Priscilla didn’t look particularly convinced, but then, there was little they could do without knowing what exact test the Elder would be administering. Something they didn’t have to wait for long.

About an hour later, when Rodrick and Priscilla had been exploring the Astral Domain’s other areas—they were both fascinated by the strange drink drive in the kitchen that could create almost any edible liquid—they received a message from the ship itself.

“The Elder requests your presence in the main hallway,” the pleasant voice said. “Please join her as soon as you are able.”

“Is it really a request?” Rodrick asked.

“Semantics are unfortunately not my strong suit. You are to receive your test, Rodrick. You must attend it. Please joint he Elder as soon as possible.”

How exactly the ship knew his name, Rodrick had no clue. Maybe the Elder had told it. He forgot about it soon, though. The trepidation he had staved off now came hurtling back, speeding up his heartbeats and making his thoughts turn in anxious circles.

If he failed here, he’d be condemned to a lifetime of “containment”. Rodrick hated the sound of that. If he couldn’t be free, how could he expect himself to excel at the sect?

Then again, the Elder hadn’t exactly promised him complete freedom even if he did pass her test. All she had guaranteed was that he would be allowed to grow. It was that lifeline Rodrick clung to. Cultivators prized their standing against others of their kind over almost anything else.

If Rodrick could prove himself mighty enough, he’d be smothered in a flood of opportunities. Opportunities that could make his life truly worth living.

Opportunities that could perhaps even restore his family name.

Priscilla squeezed his arm. “Let’s go.”

Nodding, he joined her to meet the Elder in the hallway. The woman was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the passageway. She had finally taken off her weird armour to don a high-collared uniform that was somewhere between white, purple, and silver, with pure black leggings tucked into black boots. The torso piece almost had a reflective sheen, too. A logo of three shooting stars on the right side of the chest was probably the Starfall Dawn sect’s insignia.

“Rodrick, please sit in front of me,” the Elder said without moving or opening her eyes. “Priscilla, please stand back and do not approach us.”

Rodrick exchanged a quick nod with his sister before taking position. That was when he noticed there was a strange, circular device in front of the Elder.

“Touch it,” Elder Altin said.

“What does it do?” Rodrick asked, hesitating just a little. The disk was spinning at a light pace, its centre slowly blinking with white light.

“It’s a qi transponder. One of the devices we use for dealing with cases of demonic qi infestation in innocent victims.”

Rodrick wasn’t exactly an innocent victim, but since it sounded like the weird disk wasn’t about to kill him, he placed a fingertip on it. Immediately, his surroundings started fading from his sight. In place of the Astral Domain, Rodrick was drawn down into the demon star.

The sensation was way too similar to when he had tried to absorb all that demonic qi. Rodrick was once again sunk into a world of pure, burning scarlet. Crimson energy swirled around in a storm of ripping, tearing power, the lifeblood of a million living beings itself turned into pure aura.

He couldn’t feel his body here. No limbs to move, no senses to truly take note of. All Rodrick had at the moment was an intense awareness and a sight that could only be called spiritual.

Everything was brittle as glass. One wrong step, even a single misaligned breath or thought, and Rodrick would be dragged right out of the spot he had settled into and dissolved into the same bloody energy that surrounded him all on sides.

And with it came all the fright and trauma he had been trying to subdue all day.

Rodrick couldn’t tell if the voices were really there, or if it was his mind playing tricks on him. He heard them. He felt them. The whispers, the vocal pokes and prods, the suggestions to give into the monstrous urges of the demonic qi. They weren’t wrong. The easiest way to grow in strength with demonic qi was to let the inherent compulsions run their course.

Evil was only another perspective.

There was good reason the qi felt… desperate, though. It was being torn apart. Shredded to nothing. By the Elder’s qi.

Rodrick started to feel unmoored. Elder Altin was eliminating the demonic qi within him.