The warp station looked at odds with the rest of its environment. The other buildings matched the urban center of Foruta quite well, while the warp station looked like it was ripped from a fantasy town and fashioned to look like the rest of the buildings while not grasping the subtleties.

  It was a large building, more wide than tall. The grey material of celestinite wasn’t unusual, but the texture making it look like cobblestone was, especially when paired with the moss that clung to it in places. Looking around, Arden saw that the textured stone was only in certain places, while the rest of it looked like the other buildings, a homogenized material.

  Stairs led up from the lot into the open archway almost as tall as the building itself, from which shone a golden light. As they entered the warp station, the vast expanse opened up to them.

  “Wow,” Arden said. “This place looks like a train station.”

  “Why fix what isn’t broken?” Vera said with a shrug. “For years, train stations haven't changed, only the trains themselves. Now, the trains are teleporters."

  The golden lights that lit up the station did a great job of ridding the atmosphere of the lifeless feel that plagued the majority of celestinite structures. The streams of people in different states of dress helped with that as well.

  There were people in suits with briefcases looking like underpaid and overworked salarymen, groups of casually dressed youths, and even some who walked around clad in armor, clearly on their way to the wilds.

  Arden found it funny how his group looked like the second type of group, but were actually the third type.

  Savish led the group to a row of turnstiles behind which were escalators leading deeper into the warp station. She tapped her ID four times against the card reader and the four of them were able to pass.

  “Is that legal?” Sya asked as they rode down the escalators.

  “It's the point of the free pass,” Savish explained. “It can be used as many times as I want. The card reader knows that I have it, so it lets us through.”

  Arden glanced behind him seeing a group of youths trying the same thing without any results. Arden gave them a silent wish for success, hoping that their endeavors wouldn’t force security out from wherever they were.

  As they rode the escalator down to the main floor, Arden gave a low whistle.

  “There’s like three times as many people down here than there upstairs…”

  On each wall there were two wide hallways. One of them constantly had people going in and the other had people coming out.

  “So does each pair of halls lead to a different teleporter?” Arden guessed.

  “That’s right,” Savish confirmed. “Each teleporter is synced to another in the corresponding cardinal direction.”

  She pointed to the portion of the warp station with the most foot traffic. It was the furthest tunnel away from them, but Arden was able to see the N written in block caps on the wall above the tunnels.

  “North leads further into the city, so it's always packed. Lots of workers. Same with west, though noticeably less than the north. The same can’t be said for south and east as they lead out of the city into the wilds,” Savish continued, moving her finger to the corresponding directions and the mostly empty quarters.

  As they reached the ground level, Savish led the group to the southern entrance. They fell in line behind a group of people who dressed like adventurers as they made their way to the same teleporter. Savish continued her explanation.

  “I hunt the majority of my celestials down in the southern sectors. Occasionally I’ll go to the east if I can’t find many, but I doubt that it’ll be a problem so soon after the cascade.”

  After a long walk, they entered a dimly lit waiting room with the only light coming from the shimmering blue and black light being cast off from the wall of five teleporters, which all looked like elongated lens flares between pieces of tech. It was calming, like the light of an aquarium.

  The team in front of them approached the desk with the tired looking receptionist and took a number before sitting down. Savish did the same for her current team and sat down with her party. She looked at the number, 47, and then at the desk which had a counter that read “now serving: 36.”

  “It shouldn't take that long,” Savish said, joining the trio at a table. “If we were going north, it probably would take somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour. Typically, the rate is a party per minute.”

  “Which teleporter are we going through?” Arden asked, eyes fixated on the wall of teleporters.

  “The one I go through is the fourth one. That one brings us to the hunting grounds. It's where most Starborn go if they leave from here. It's a large forest area with a lot of weak Celestials. Perfect for newbies like you guys.”

  Ten minutes later, the party was brought up to the fourth teleporter, as had six of the eleven previous parties. Arden and Sya stood in front of the blue gateway with the same excited and nervous anticipation that they both felt moments before entering the Mausoleum of the Maverick. With smiles on their faces, they marched through and warped, with Vera and Savish behind them.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  *****

  The other side lacked the comfort of the warp station. The waiting room on this side was a lot smaller, with far less amenities. It was a blank celestinite room with only a few chairs and a single guard in a simple set of armor.

  The man stood at attention facing the single portal and the group of Starborn who emerged from it. He did not so much as flinch when they came through. His rigid posture and stoic expression screamed “Association.” Even when faced with three unparalleled beauties and Arden, his expression did not change. There was a glint of recognition in his eyes when he spoke.

  “Welcome back to South Sector 4, Mrs. Savish.”

  “Good to be back,” she said, leading the group out of the small room.

  As Savish led the group through the compound, she explained the nature of it. She told them that at the end of most warp stations were facilities like this. Heavily fortified fortresses that existed to try to maintain a foothold out in the wilds and eliminate any Celestials that came too close.

  Most of the wilds were without human presence anymore. The StarFall and the advent of the Celestials made it clear to everybody that a few people out in the boonies didn’t have a chance when it came to the encroaching tide of monsters. Most everyone who chose to remain in the sparsely populated areas would die out there.

  The fledgling Starborn were already familiar with that. It was why the cities like Foruta were so large, growing into full-on city-states. It was also why Arden and Sya remained within the destroyed slums rather than venturing outside. Even with both of them having targets painted on their backs, it was better living there with a steady supply of “food” than risking it out in the wilds.

  They came to a large gate that towered above the group, roughly as tall as Foruta’s perimeter wall. The gateway was made of wood that was reinforced with the grey celestinite that Arden was coming to realize was Foruta’s primary export.

  As several guards moved to open the gate, Savish pointed out the gate.

  “The wood is from a Celestial called a Treant. It's basically a living tree.”

  “All trees are living,” Arden said.

  “Hush. They are fairly strong, but also fairly passive. So long as you don't mess with one, it shouldn’t mess with you.”

  “How strong?” Sya asked.

  “The weakest one I’ve seen was a red main sequence.”

  “We’ll avoid them the best we can,” Vera said.

  With the gate fully opened, the group of Starborn disappeared into the forest just beyond the celestinite threshold.

  *****

  As they disappeared into the woods, all four of them changed into their armor and equipped their weapons, pulling from both their inventories and their Soul Clusters. Arden wielded his claws while dressed in the Stoneflesh Shroud, Vera held one of her swords in her hand dressing the same as Sya, who gave the command to Rogier’s Tree to change from a great spear to a guandao. Savish stood aside, wearing her impractical looking dress and holding a pair of daggers.

  “Remember,” she said. “I’m not going to help you fight the Celestials. I’m just here to supervise. I’ll bail you out if needed, but unless it's serious, I won’t help.”

  Vera nodded.

  “That’s what we wanted. This is training. We wouldn’t be getting anything done if we just called up our big sister to dice the monsters to bits.”

  The group wandered through the undergrowth for twenty minutes before they found their first Celestial. Sitting in the bushes, they observed it for several minutes, coming to learn that it was alone. Reading its aura, they could tell that it was only a red-tier protostar. The perfect target for Starborn still wet behind the ears.

  The creature in front of them with its head down low to the ground nibbling on something was a rather large lizard. It was roughly two meters long with a tail taking up half of that. Spines stuck out near the end of the tail at odd intervals like someone had ineptly hammered nails through a baseball bat. It also had a fairly substantial sail on its back, making it come up above the groups’ waist.

  Vera whispered to the group from behind a bush several meters away from the lizard.

  “Who wants the first crack at it?”

  Arden and Sya both wanted it, so they did the most mature and level headed thing they could to decide who would have the honor of fighting the first Celestial in the wilds. They each shook their fist three times before throwing out a gang sign on the fourth and final shake.

  Sya threw scissors, and Arden threw paper.

  “Damn…” he muttered.

  “Remember,” Vera quietly said. “This is as much about training your ability as it is training your skill.”

  Sya nodded and snuck through the bushes around the lizard until it was placed between her and the rest of her party. She crept up behind it and held her Satellite aloft.

  “I know she’s a Blight Walker Starborn, but is absorbing Blight Essence her only skill?” Savish whispered, watching Sya’s approach.

  “No,” Arden answered. “That just comes with the territory of her being a Blight Walker. That’s her innate ability. Normal Starborn use stellar essence, she uses blight essence.”

  He made sure to leave out the fact that he used neither.

  They watched as Sya brought her hand to the blade of her guandao and sliced her hand open then smeared her blood onto the weapon’s edge.

  The lizard lifted its head off the ground and turned it towards Sya. Blood was painted around its mouth. It flicked its tongue at Sya like a snake. The smell of Sya’s blood drew the Celestial’s attention.

  With a roar that sounded like an asthmatic growl with a throat full of gravel, it charged forward.

  Its speed caught Sya off guard, but only for a moment. She was expecting something closer to the skeletons from the Mausoleum, but the lizard moved as fast as the average man jogged.

  She steeled herself as the lizard leapt into the air. Its face dipped forward as it flipped in the air. It's tail was no exception.

  Sya understood what the lizard was trying to do and backed up a few steps, getting her out of range of the lizard's tail strike.

  As soon as the tail crashed into the ground and threw up a bit of dirt, Sya rushed in with her weapon, severing the tail of the lizard in a single slash.

  The lizard fell from the air with a cry of pain and tried to run away with a limp. It didn't get far, not due to Sya quickly killing it, but due to it tripping over itself from a lack of balance. It laid on its side and looked up at Sya as she approached.

  Sya didn't finish it off, instead choosing to observe where she cut off the tail. The normally green skin was turning black with necrosis. It spread through the lizard's blood, killing it from the inside out. After a few minutes, Sya was greeted with a Status message.

  You have slain red-tier protostar, Lesser Thagomizard.