Sya had rejoined the group and was done teasing Arden for now. There needed to be a good amount of time in between ribbing sessions, otherwise it would become bland. Juxtaposition was paramount with things like that. Juxtaposition, however, was not something that existed in the Mausoleum of the Maverick, as all three of them had found.

  Rest, train, kill, repeat.

  It had been close to a day since they entered the stargate. If they didn’t hurry, they would be joining the dead, for one simple reason. They were lacking food.

  Unlike the majority of Celestials, no nutritional value was found in skeletons. Arden was very disappointed in the skeleton’s inedibility. He had long heard of the meal cooked from Celestials, and their unbelievably good taste. Back when he and Sya lived entirely off of the lowest rank of rations, it had been one of his biggest inspirations to become a Starborn.

  Honestly, he hadn’t expected the biggest threat of raiding a stargate to be food.

  “How much food do we have left?” Arden asked Vera.

  She opened her inventory to see. She scowled, sighed, and closed the Status.

  “A day’s worth for all of us.”

  Neither Arden nor Sya said anything in response. Neither of them had a lot of meat on their bones to begin with, so starving to death would be faster than normal. If they wanted to survive, they needed to bust out of the mausoleum by the end of the day. But escaping the stargate could lead to worse dangers.

  “Do you think the Starborn outside will have closed the rest of the stargates?” Arden asked.

  “A lot of stargates opened, so I doubt it. They probably took out the ones with the highest risk, so if we escape, we should be relatively in the clear. All we’d need to do is find a shelter that would take us.”

  “Easier said than done,” Sya grumbled. “Of the three of us, you’re probably the only one who won’t be burnt at the stake on sight.”

  “Do you really think they’d do that to you two at a time like this?”

  “Yes,” Arden and Sya responded in unison.

  “People can’t think logically. A person, maybe, but people in general?” Arden shook his head and continued. “They want a blame figure, and who better than a suspected murderer and a Blight Walker?”

  “Either way, it's not like we can just stay here,” Sya said. “I'd rather take my chances outside than accept death here.”

  Arden and Vera nodded along.

  “Then let's keep going,” Vera said. “So far the path has been long, but not hard.”

  Arden wanted to make a joke, but figured he could do better, so he let it go.

  Outside of the two encounters with the skeletons, there had been nothing but the empty catacombs with tree imagery. No loot in burial urns, obstacles, nothing. There wasn’t even danger here. The worst injury anyone had sustained came from when Arden slung a star core at Sya.

  “It kind of blows that the biggest threat here is food.” Arden said. “It's like we're in an alternate version of the slums that smells better and has nicer inhabitants.”

  “Arden,” Sya said, putting her hand on her brother's shoulder. “I'm not sure if you're aware, but the inhabitants are trying to kill us.”

  “Yeah, because we're invading their territory. If some dude busted into our house I'd be pissed as well. At least they're not attacking us because you have black eyes.”

  Another few hours passed like that. There was no fighting, no training, and no stopping. Fighting was out of the question because there wasn't anything to fight, and both training and stopping would dwindle their remaining resources.

  They passed through numerous identical chambers. Empty spaces for bodies, tree carvings, the occasional coffin, and chains running along the ceiling. Having no other course, they continued, trying to ignore the monotony pounding into their skulls. Conversation was their only thing that kept them going. As they talked, the somber atmosphere dissolved into their normal joviality.

  “So you’re telling me you’ve never hooked up with anyone?” Vera asked Arden.

  “I could have answered that question,” Sya responded.

  “Why’s it so surprising? Everyone hates me, who would I get together with?”

  “You flirted with that Starborn lady at the municipal building, and she seemed to enjoy it.”

  “You flirted with Cirai?” Sya asked Arden.

  “It wasn’t flirting,” Arden denied. “It was just banter. She was one of the few people who could tolerate me, because she didn’t care that I was protecting a Blight Walker.”

  “Did you think she was pretty?” Sya asked in a teasing tone.

  “Of course. I have eyes. There was nothing between us though. No spark.”

  “Did you try to hook up with any other Starborn?” Sya asked.

  “Look at me,” Arden gestured to himself. “I have as much muscle as the skeletons. I give myself a seven out of ten in terms of my looks, but that doesn’t mean much when most Starborn are at eleven as red-tier protostars and only get better looking from there.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” Sya responded. “You know those really hot girls with really nothing guys? You can be one of those guys.”

  “I'm not sure if I should be insulted or not.” Arden muttered. “Wait, why are we talking about my love life?”

  “Well,” Vera said. “The only people I’ve been around besides you two was my family.”

  “Same,” Sya said.

  “Alright, let me rephrase; why are we talking about hookups in general?”

  “What else can we talk about?” Vera asked. “Cartesian dualism?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “I don’t even know what that is. That sounds like a fake word to make me look stupid.”

  "She wouldn't need to make up words to do that," his sister said, flying to his defense.

  The trio entered a new chamber. However, this one was different. It had a domed ceiling reaching high up. However, their eyes were drawn to what was in the center of the room.

  There was a patch of dirt along with a tree that reached high into the room. The trunk alone was several meters wide. They recognized that the tree was dead for two reasons: There were no leaves on the tree or floor, and the wood was whitened from petrification.

  Chairs and tables surrounded the massive tree in a disorganized fashion. Several chairs were overturned, and one of the tables was split in half. Upon closer inspection, the furniture was made of wood that had also been petrified.

  Along the walls were numerous arches with decaying wooden doors. Arden wondered where all of those paths led to, but he swiftly found a reason to avoid them.

  As soon as the trio entered the room, all of the doors swung open, releasing skeletons.

  “Arden, with me!” Vera ordered.

  It was fortunate that she had drilled into each of their minds not to ever put away their weapons in their inventories, as it would take several seconds to summon them, seconds which they would not have in a life and death scenario.

  Arden followed Vera with his sword in hand.

  ‘Push and pull!’ He reminded himself as his sword swung through one of the skeletons.

  Behind them, Sya watched with her slingshot ready to let loose a rock at whatever skeleton got too close to her companions. As a support member, she had to pay more attention to the enemies than the ones deep into the fray.

  She was about to shoot a skeleton who was about to attack Vera, but Arden killed it before she could. Another one went for Arden but Vera was able to cover him the same way he had. Deciding that they had each other covered she shifted targets to the ones furthest away and began to launch rocks.

  Calling upon his training, Arden sidestepped another attack and brought his sword down. Without wasting a second, he thrust his sword forward into the ribs of another. Grabbing his sword tightly, he ripped it out and into another.

  ‘Keep moving. Don’t stop. Dominate.’

  Arden blocked an incoming strike with the sword, only for his sword to split. His eyes widened and instinct took over as the skeleton's sword continued.

  ‘Faster!’

  Arden grabbed his broken sword by what remained of the blade, giving his hand a nasty cut. With a hand on both sides of the broken sword, he managed to block it long enough for Vera to take care of the skeleton.

  Arden threw the broken sword into another skeleton. It hit the skeleton with the flat of it but it still crumbled to dust like the ones that had come before it.

  Not wasting any time, he activated his ability. Tetanus might not be a problem for someone with a Status like him, but blood loss could be a threat if he lost too much.

  As soon as the pale white light started healing his hand, a majority of the skeletons paused for a second, staring in his direction.

  ‘What was that?’

  Arden didn't know why they stopped and presented an opening, but he wasn't going to let a moment of hesitation go unpunished.

  Arden picked up the sword of the skeleton that had almost got him and kept moving. As he and Vera fought together they began to get more and more in sync with each other.

  ‘Steal more moments!’

  Sweat rolled into Arden’s eyes, but he ignored the burning. He refused to die to a bunch of already dead things. Especially ones so weak. All they had was numbers.

  Arden and Vera slowly pushed back the horde as they fought side by side. Any time either of them would advance, the other followed behind to prevent any attacks from hurting their partner.

  Eventually, the sound of clashing steel became muted to Arden. Everything did. The only thing he could hear was his heartbeat and his mind telling him to keep going. The feeling of pain in his hand died soon after.

  Vera was far more experienced in combat. Nothing even came close to her, especially with Arden covering her. She was surprised at how well Arden had been fighting. She could tell he hadn’t achieved clarity, but he had something that allowed him to keep up, despite his newness to fighting.

  Catching a second of respite, she looked around to see how her two friends were holding on. Arden was in the zone, dripping sweat and dust to the ground. She looked back to Sya, seeing her firing rocks without pause. Vera dove into the fray with Arden once again and called out.

  “How many more!?”

  Vera cut through a skeleton as she approached Arden, joining his side. The fight wasn’t done, and she wasn’t sure how much longer Arden would be able to handle it.

  The pair continued dancing through the skeletons, one with the grace of a dancer, and the other with no grace at all, but both with the ferocity of a tiger.

  ‘Dominate!’

  Arden saw another sword come towards him and instead of backing off, he went in deeper. Instinctually, he stabbed up with his sword into the eye of the skeleton, and it turned to dust.

  Vera followed him, surprised. She realized what it was that allowed Arden to fight so well, and they would definitely have a conversation about it once they escaped the mausoleum. It was effective, but like the swords every combatant except Sya used, it was double edged.

  In his trance-like state, Arden was able to see through the wall of bones. They were almost done. A few seconds later, the last of the skeletons had turned to dust, and all of the doors that had released the skeletons had been shut.

  “Holy crap,” Arden said while gasping for air. “That was intense.”

  “You did good.” Vera responded. “Much better than I thought.”

  “Are we still scrubs?” Sya asked from on high.

  “Lets count our kills to find out,” Vera said, willing her Status to appear in front of her.

  Arden did the same, scrolling through all of the messages. Sya’s wouldn’t be shown thanks to her lack of a Status, but they would be able to see how many she killed by taking their spoils and giving the leftovers to Sya.

  You have slain a red-tier protostar, Grave Guard.

  You have slain a red tier…

  You have obtained…

  Arden skimmed through the messages, only reading the first few words of each message. By the time he finished, he counted 15 kill messages.

  “I have 15,” he said.

  “16,” Vera said.

  They looked at each other and smiled, recognizing the effort they had both put in. They sifted through the piles of dust to claim their star cores. When they had taken 31 of them, Sya counted the leftovers marking her kills. Arden and Vera turned their heads to look at Sya who looked at them smugly.

  “And that leaves me with 22,” she said, winking and giving a peace sign with two of her fingers.

  “That’s pretty good,” Arden acknowledged.

  “Yeah,” Vera said with a nod. “If she had as much as us while hiding in the back with an accuracy boosting ranged weapon, she would have been the worst Starborn ever.”

  “I’m not a Starborn,” she said.

  “And good thing,” Arden said. “Otherwise you’d be among the worst.”

  “You got less than me! I bet you're just jealous.” Sya accused.

  Arden gave his sister a smug look that made her previous smug looks look humble in comparison. Red sparks came together to surround his hands. In a few seconds, he had what looked like gray bony claws instead of hands. They looked like what he imagined a skeletal dragon’s hands would look like, and he really liked it.

  “Why would I be jealous? I got bone claws now.”

  The Status appeared in front of Arden, showing the details of his new Satellite.

  Bone Talons

  Satellite Tier: Red

  Satellite Rank: Protostar

  Satellite Type: Weapon (Gauntlets)

  Satellite Description: Hidden

  Satellite Aspect: Hidden

  “Gotta be honest,” he said. “I don’t really feel like a nothing guy right now.”