HE WHO FIGHTS WITH MONSTERS THREE

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he who Fights with Monsters Three

2021 shurtaloon

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Contents

also in Series

1. A Question You Don't Yet Know to Ask

2. Looking Forward

3. Adventurers Are People Too

4. Valkyrie

5. Departures

6. No Pot of Gold

7. The Glory of Success or the Price of Failure

8. Adequate

9. Trash Bonanza

10. Strangeness

11. Full Circle

12. Regretting it Later

13. Swat

14. The Purpose of the Adventure Society

15. Elven Storage Solutions

16. Disbanded

17. The Man Behind the Mouth

18. Search

19. Defiance

20. Hanging Around

21. What Doesn't Kill You

22. Lingering Doubts

23. Scars

24. I Won't Let Them Turn Me Into That

25. Putting the Band Back Together

26. Nothing Speaks Louder Than Power

27. My Name is Jason Asano

28. While They Watch Me Kill You

29. Inherently Corrupting

30. Beholden to No One

31. Evil Detector

32. The World Needs People Like You

33. I'm Very Big on Cowardice

34. More Powerful Than We Anticipated

35. Fate Can't Wait to Kill Us All

36. Running Towards Something

37. Greenhouse Flowers

38. A Man Transformed

39. The Worst Possible Option

40. Brave Little Tailor

41. Terms of the Pact

42. Trading Safety Today For Death Tomorrow

43. Stalwart

44. I'm Sick of Fighting Magic Rocks

45. Crossing the Threshold

46. Anyone Can Be Useful

47. A Series of Familiar Powers

48. It's Not About Killing Monsters

49. Sin Eater

50. The Most Dangerous Thing in the Dark

51. The Boss Comes to Town

52. It's Very Complicated and You All Need to Go Away

53. Strong Foundations

54. A Valiant Death

55. Ambitions

56. Faith and Glory

57. Thadwick

58. The True Danger

59. Forsaken Place

60. Being What he Needs to Be

61. A Significantly More Dangerous Entity

62. Losing the Battle to Win the War

63. War of Adaptation

64. The Hero of This Story

65. Good News, Bad News

66. Here We Are

67. Outmatched

68. The Power of Friendship

69. A War of Stolen Moments

Epilogue Chapter 1

Epilogue Chapter 2

Epilogue Chapter 3

Epilogue Chapter 4

Epilogue Chapter 5

Epilogue Chapter 6

Epilogue Chapter 7

Epilogue Chapter 8

Thank you for reading He Who Fights With Monsters, book three.

About the Author

also in Series

he who Fights with Monsters

Book One

Book Two

Book Three

Book Four

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1

A Question you Don't yet know to ask

J ason Asano and his team of fellow adventurers were living in a

houseboat literally made of clouds. At a marina in the city of

Greenstone, it was moored amidst the pleasure craft of Greenstone's

wealthy and aristocratic elite. The cloud house had been the much vied-for

prize in the Reaper trials, a deadly contest in an otherworldly realm. Jason

and his teammates had managed to beat out some of the finest young

adventurers in the world.

Jason's team had no illusions that they were better than the many

outstanding young people they had competed against, knowing that luck and

circumstance played a large role in their victory. After a celebratory trip away

where they consolidated their gains from the contest, their new objective was

training. Their young team had experienced success but they had a long way

to go, both as individuals and as a team.

Jason and his teammate Humphrey Geller were the first to rise each

morning. Jason made the team breakfast while Humphrey plotted out the

day's training. As the teams were magical beings, transformed by the

essences they had all consumed, they were able to sustain themselves on

spirit coins and go without food entirely. Humphrey liked the effect on

morale and team cohesion that eating breakfast all together had, while Jason

just liked breakfast.

When Emir Bahadir had presented Jason with the magical item that

created the cloud house, he had warned that it would be something of a

money pit. The cloud house was capable of reproducing all manner of

amenities, from showers to ovens to windows that could function like a

telescope. In order to activate these functions, however, Jason needed to

supply magical resources, usually in the form of magic quintessence gems.

Water quintessence for bathroom amenities, fire, iron and glass for a stove

and oven. Jason had already poured a small fortune into it.

The ability to call a grill right up out of the deck, the cloud-stuff the

house was made of shifting to meet his needs made Jason think it was

completely worth the cost. For someone for whom cooking was such an

important part of his life, it was a delightful convenience.

“I love being rich,” Jason muttered happily as he flipped hotcakes on the

grill.

“What was that?” Humphrey asked, looking up distractedly.

“Nothing,” Jason said, raising a clenched fist. “Seize the means of

production!”

“What are you talking about?” Humphrey asked.

“Nothing, it's fine,” Jason said, turning his attention back to the hotcakes.

“I'm a really hypocritical socialist,” he muttered to himself. “I like money

way too much.”

They were out on the open deck, Jason working the grill as Humphrey sat

at a nearby table, looking over the meticulous notes he had taken on the

team's training. Winter was pleasant in Greenstone, with mild temperatures

and less mugginess pressing in from the wet jungle delta, magically sustained

in the middle of a bone dry desert. The sky was a gorgeous, empty blue, with

a crystal clarity to the winter air that even the brightest summer day couldn't

match.

“Looks like a nice one today,” Jason said, looking up.

“You're right,” Humphrey said. “How about we do some outside

training? Maybe focus on mobility training.”

“Works for me,” Jason said. “Did you schedule that match-up against

Bethh's team?”

“It won't be for a few days,” Humphrey said. “We aren't the only ones in

a training frenzy after the Reaper trials. The mirage chamber is heavily

booked.”

Like everyone who safely returned from the Reaper trials, the Geller

family teams had brought back a treasure-trove of awakening stones to

unlock new magical abilities and complete their power sets. Danielle Geller

had received the same forewarning as Jason had about the chance for unusual

awakening stones. Most adventurers who faced the trails now had a Reaper

ability in their repertoire, as every almost everyone who survived had been

awarded an otherwise extremely rare awakening stone of the Reaper.

This included both Jason and Humphrey, with Jason having even picked

up a second one. The rare stones didn't awaken inherently more powerful

abilities but having a little-known power in their toolkit could be a trump card

for any adventurer.

This slew of new and little-seen powers had excited Jason and

Humphrey's teammate Clive. As an enthusiastic proponent of the Magic

Society's effort to catalogue all known powers, Clive and his dogged

questions were now being actively avoided. He had also urged their

teammate Belinda to shape-shift into Jason, in an attempt to replicate the

interface power that allowed him to look at detailed descriptions of magical

abilities. To his frustration, she always ended up with the wrong power and

could only replicate Jason's map ability.

“The map is a great power,” Jason had insisted when Clive had

complained to him.

“Not for administrative purposes,” Clive had bemoaned.

“I think you and I look at the potential of magic powers in very different

ways,” Jason told him.

Humphrey and Jason chatted while going about their morning tasks, until

Jason spotted a familiar, but unexpected, figure. She was walking along the

marina pier towards the houseboat.

“Humphrey,” Jason said. “Your ex is coming by.”

“My ex?” Humphrey asked. He spotted Gabrielle as she approached the

houseboat.

Gabrielle Pellin was a priestess of the god of Knowledge, as well as

Humphrey's extremely beautiful ex-lover. Gabrielle and Jason had originally

gotten along but she wasn't the first person whose strong religious views had

placed her in a position antagonistic to Jason.

Jason regretted the part that played in souring Humphrey's relationship

with her. He respected Humphrey for having the strength to end things with

someone who stood out even in a world full of people made beautiful by

magic. Jason doubted he could have made as mature a choice when he was

seventeen.

Jason invited Gabrielle aboard. The open deck areas of the houseboat

didn't require the boat to take an aura imprint before granting access.

“Gabrielle,” Humphrey greeted, a complicated expression on his face.

“Hello Humphrey,” she said. Dressed in a plain version of the robes of

her church, she was clearly trying to be stoic but couldn't hide her tense body

language. Steeling herself, she turned to Jason.

“The goddess has a new gift for you,” she said. “I'm here to deliver it.”

“Is it strippers?” Jason asked. “Not you; you're too young. Other

strippers, but roughly the same level of hotness.”

Humphrey and Gabrielle both gave him horrified looks.

“What?” he asked innocently.

“Ignore him,” Humphrey said.

“My lady wants me to tell you that objectification jokes are beneath you,”

Gabrielle said to Jason.

“Yeah,” Jason said with a chuckle, “but you shouldn't trust someone who

doesn't spend at least a little time in the gutter.”

“I very much disagree,” Gabrielle said.

“Colour me surprised. So, what does your boss have for me? I'll admit

I'm a little trepidatious, after the last time.”

Jason had made a deal with the goddess of Knowledge that she would

give him a gift in return for not introducing his very poor grasp of the

physicals sciences into this one. Her first attempt at a gift was received as

poorly as Jason understood the gravity he had tried to explain to Clive.

“She recognised your concerns” Gabrielle said, clearly unhappy, “and has

prepared a new gift you should find more palatable. You should know that

this gift edges against the boundaries of her own rules. Consideration that you

do not deserve.”

“What do you mean?”

Gabrielle opened her dimensional satchel and pulled out books, one after

another, piling them on the table next to Humphrey's notes.

“This knowledge is the answer to a question you don't yet know to ask,”

Gabrielle said as she continued taking out books. “This pushes the limits of

what she is willing to do. Further, this knowledge is not of this world. She

was reticent to give it to anyone, but you are not of this world either.”

“Not of this world?” Humphrey asked.

“The Builder cultists have been bestowed knowledge from beyond this

reality,” Gabrielle said. “now that it is here, she is sharing it with you.”

“Ah,” Jason said. “I know she likes this world to develop knowledge for

itself, which is why she offered to bribe me in the first place. The Builder cult

doesn't care about that, though, and now the genie's out of the bottle.”

“What would a genie be doing in a bottle?” Humphrey asked.

“Wait, genies are a thing?” Jason asked. “Do they grant wishes?”

“No, that would be outrageous. Do they grant wishes where you come

from?”

“Just in stories,” Jason said, then turned back to Gabrielle. “So, this

knowledge is something that comes from the Builder?”

“Yes. Once the knowledge was known by someone in this world, it

became part of the goddess. She personally transcribed these tomes for

delivery to you.”

Humphrey's eyes went wide.

“The goddess made these personally?”

“Yes,” Gabrielle confirmed as she took out a small wooden case. She

opened it to reveal neat rows of recording crystals. “She also created these

and the information contained within. She would have produced all these as

skill books that you could absorb more quickly but knew you would reject

them.”

“I would,” Jason said. “I won't imprint things directly into my mind that

came from sources I don't entirely trust. So, what is all this knowledge?”

“The goddess recommends you turn to your friend Clive for assistance.

She anticipates he will be quite enthusiastic.”

“He always is,” Jason said as he picked up a random book and opened it.

It looked to be some kind of magical theory, at a level well above what he

could parse at a glance. He closed the book and set it back down.

“Thank you,” he said. “I'm not really sure of the ramifications of this gift,

but given the source, I expect it to be quite specifically useful.”

Gabrielle shook her head. “I am constantly at a loss as to why the goddess

feels you warrant such consideration.”

“You and me both, sister. You want to stick around for pancakes?”

Gabrielle gave Humphrey an uncertain glance, then shook her head.

“I have further duties to attend to. I shall take my leave here.”

Rufus stirred back to consciousness under the effect of his mother Arabelle's

potent healing magic. He was lying on the sandy shore of the island where

the group of adventurers had confronted the Builder cultists. The last thing he

remembered was challenging a cultist far more powerful than himself, then

man who killed Farrah. He was had put everything into one great blow,

which had been almost, but not quite enough. The last thing he remembered

was falling unconscious, not expecting to ever wake up.

“We won, then?” he groaned.

“We were already on the way when we saw your field of darkness go up,

and then that huge beam,” his father said. “We finished off that silver-ranker

but he was close to done when we found him. I pretty much poked him and

he fell down dead.”

Rufus closed his eyes and drew a sharp, ragged breath. The man—the

inhuman thing—who killed Farrah was dead.

Gabriel gave him a proud smile, placing a warm hand on Rufus's

shoulder. “You did it, son. Fantastic job.”

“What your father means,” Arabelle said with a pointed look at Gabriel,

“is that you should never have confronted an enemy like that.”

“Exactly,” Gabriel said. “Terrible job, son. Don't do it again.”

Arabelle shook her head at her menfolk. “I think it's time for another

child, husband. A daughter, this time.”

“I'd love a little girl,” Gabriel said. “What essence should we give her?

How about a whip essence? I saw a student at the academy doing some very

interesting things with one just recently.”

“I think you're skipping a little far ahead, dear.”

“What about the cultists?” Rufus asked.

“A lot of them made it through the portals,” Callum said. Rufus hadn't

even realised he was there, which was normal for the stealthy adventurer.

“We got most of the leadership,” Callum continued. “The count came up

with one silver-ranker less than my initial count, so they likely escaped

amongst the lower-rank masses.”

“Prisoners?” Rufus asked.

“None,” Gabriel said. “The cultists did the usual self-detonating crystal

star thing. Before they did that, though, they killed off the priests amongst

them.”

“Killing their own allies,” Arabelle said, shaking her head. “I hate

fighting zealots.”

“We have plenty of recordings of Purity's clergy consorting with the

cultists, though,” Callum said. “More than enough for the other churches to

form an ecumenical council and forcibly investigate.”

Rufus pushed himself to his feet.

“So, what now?” he asked.

“Now we bring in everyone else. We need to identify the dead, see if it

leads us to more cultists. Give the Magic Society a chance to figure out where

these portals go. As for us, we can head back to the city.”

For Jason and his team, days of unrelenting training turned into weeks as

their potential slowly transmuted into capability. This included regular

practise against other teams in the mirage chamber. Bethh Cavenish's team

was likewise improving rapidly, beating them less than half the time but with

only five members to the six on Jason's team.

Padma was a half disciple of Jason's dead friend Farrah, with a team

made up of Rufus's juniors from the Remore Academy. They were interested

in testing themselves against Jason, the person Rufus and Farrah had trained

personally. At first, their conflicts were one-sided in favour of the Remore

Academy elites, but Jason's team advanced in leaps and bounds until they

were winning as much as they lost.

Padma's team was standoffish at first, and all the more so after they

rolled over Jason's team in their early encounters. They opened up as Jason

and his team solidly proved their worth, although their draconian member

remained stolid in his disdain for Humphrey and his dragon essence. Their

shapeshifter, Natalie, struck up a friendship with Belinda who had only

gained her powers and joined the team after the Reaper trials. Natalie was a

valuable voice of experience for Belinda in the specialised area of shape-

changing.

Padma's team leader, in the meantime, built up a rivalry with Valdis.

Both were sword specialists with almost identical essence combinations, but

they were very different swordsmen. Valdis had the classic combination of

sword, swift and adept, which produced the master confluence. Each essence

was common, but with legends like Rufus's grandfather using the

combination, no one would look down on it. Valdis was very much a

swordsman of that tradition; he had an array of special attacks that, at a

glance, seemed very similar. It was a high-skill power set that lived or died

on the user's grasp of nuance.

Lance, Padma's team leader, was an elf. His essences, which were sword,

myriad and adept, also produced the master confluence. He possessed the

elven aptitude for spells, rather than the special attacks in which humans

specialised, resulting in a wholly different combat style from Valdis.

The elf could not match Valdis toe-to-toe, but he had no need to. He was

far from weak in hand-to-hand combat but his powers gave him the freedom

to fight at any range. Mixing spells into his swordsmanship, he could

duplicate himself, conjure dancing blades to fight for him or fire waves of

razor-sharp force from a distance.

Of the two swordsmen, the more experienced Valdis edged out his

opponent more often than not, although Lance would score his own points as

well.

Valdis and his team maintained a perfect record against Jason's in the

mirage arena, although what began as a series of thrashings slowly became

actual battles. To hear Valdis talk, however, enjoying post-fight drinks on the

houseboat, anyone would think he was the one losing.

“Your team is terrible to fight against,” he said to Jason. “You're running

around like an invisible, teleporting plague while your familiar is trying to

burn down our healer. Normally my job is to put down problems like that, but

that damn woman is made of the wind. How does an immovable object move

that quickly? That's not how immovable objects work.”

“You do realise you won, right?” Jason asked him.

“She head butted my sword! That shouldn't be possible. And what's with

that woman who's everything? She had a wand in one hand and a shield in

the other, which doesn't seem like something people should be allowed to

do.”

“I'm pretty sure that's not a rule.”

“Once she hit me with my own power. My own power! Being able to take

on different roles is one thing, but none of those roles should be me!”

“Calm down,” Sigrid told him. “You're spilling your drink.”

In the wake of Reaper trials, the city of Greenstone had a relative flood of

essences and awakening stones. The foreign adventurers largely took their

gains and went home, but many locals had also participated. Most had never

intended to vie for the ultimate prize but instead plundered the astral space

for as much treasure as they could carry away. As a result, the market price of

essences and stones reached an all-time low.

With so many essences and awakening stones entering the market,

Greenstone's novice adventurer population was undergoing a surge. Families

that previously could only dream of having an adventurer in their ranks were

pooling their resources to buy essence sets for their most promising young

people. It made for a strong first step towards replenishing the numbers

diminished by the losses of the disastrous expedition. The city's more

powerful criminals were also taking the chance to add powerful henchmen to

their rosters.

The ramifications of the expedition to the astral space that claimed so

many adventurer lives were still being felt in the ongoing presence of the

Adventure Society inquiry. The inquiry had begun with sweeping demotions,

after which they had put the branch records through a sieve while so many

adventurers were away at the Reaper trials. Once they returned, the inquiry

commenced interviews, sometimes with individuals and other times with

groups.

Finally, the Adventure Society had started re-evaluations, assessing the

demoted adventurers one by one to reinstate their rank, confirm the demotion

or even revoke their membership altogether. This brought a sense of

hopefulness, but for most, their demotions were confirmed. When

memberships were revoked, it was not a matter up for appeal. The lobbying

to do so from certain sectors was swiftly and emphatically rebuffed.

Other concerns were at a level that iron-rankers like Jason and his team

were uninvolved, although the team's connections kept them abreast of

goings on. The Builder cult was on the back foot, at least locally. The cult

had been purged from the city and, after several costly ambushes, had halted

their supply raids in the delta. The escapees from the island raid were still at

large, however. Stories rolled in of the cult's activities around the world and

tension built as the city awaited the revelation of their next big move.

The church of Purity was under more scrutiny than any church would

ordinarily have to tolerate. An ecumenical council of the other churches

sanctioned them, launching a sweeping inquiry. Their temple was searched

and all manner of materials seized. The church officially maintained that their

members present at the island raid were a schism faction denounced by their

god. Claims of a few isolated, bad apples rang hollow, however, as similar

revelations were made about the church of Purity all around the world.

Certain individuals stood out, either by their absence or the issues in

which current events embroiled them. A number of key members of the

church of Purity seemed to have vanished on 'previously scheduled

sabbaticals.' These absentees included the church of Purity's Archbishop,

Nicolas Hedron, Anisa Lasalle and almost the entire Lasalle family, who

were some of the Purity church's strongest supporters. Those that remained

claimed no knowledge of where their spiritual journeys had taken them.

Jason was especially delighted to hear about Lucian Lamprey scrambling

to absolve himself. Lamprey's personal intervention in handing the star seed

over to the church of Purity was suddenly the object of significant scrutiny.

The time-displaced priests Jason had released from the astral space during

the Reaper trials were an unusual new presence in the city. Most were

absorbed into their various churches, but the former members of the church

of Purity were another matter, having been rejected by their now-former god.

As Jason predicted, the Adventure Society had taken their disposition in

hand. Given the troubles faced by the church that rejected them, the priests

were a rather awkward presence within the city.

Those priests who had some of their powers gifted to them by their god

had those powers revoked, which left them with dangerously imbalanced

power. Those who had the greatest level of power and those who had many

of their powers revoked suffered the worst. Until they replaced the missing

powers they would all suffer, and their strength would never return to its

previous level unless they found a new god to replace their missing abilities.

One group of the former purists dedicated themselves to regaining entry

to the church of Purity. They were undaunted by the new revelations about

their church, but their dedication was flatly rebuffed. A small number of these

even turned to suicide in their despair, rather than be accept exclusion.

Others sought positions in other churches, many finding success. The rest

eventually came to accept the need to start over and accepted new ordinary

essences. With the market at record lows, the Adventure Society provided

common essences for free as an act of mercy.

Whatever their situation and whatever their faith, every member now

freed from the astral space had to decide on their own future. They had all

been born before Greenstone was founded and needed to find a new way in

what was, to them, a new world. Everyone they had known and loved was

long gone. Most took passage to their homelands, even knowing that there

was no one and nothing waiting for them.

The priests whose gods had welcomed them back at least had a path.

Their churches placed them locally or sent them off to distant branches of

their faith. Others, mostly former purists who came to accept their

abandonment, decided to start over in Greenstone. They took the essences

they were offered, even if they were cheap and less than ideal. Many, purist

and otherwise, rejected their former faith with ferocity. They were filled with

resentment at the gods who had sent them into that place and cost them

everything and everyone they had known. They had a new attitude towards

the gods that made Jason seem pious by comparison.

All the recovered clergy, excommunicated or not, had a variety of

attitudes towards Jason. As he was the agent of their liberation, they were

largely grateful, although to wildly varying degrees. Some felt that he only

released them as an afterthought. Some even resented him for their current

situation. Most were more gracious, however, often thanking him in person

as he wandered about the Adventure Society campus. There was even a small

contingent of the freed priests who viewed him as their saviour, especially

after the gods had publicly appeared to thank him in person.

One day, Jason and his team returned from their training to find Rufus

drinking out on the deck of the houseboat with Vincent, the Adventure

Society official with the outrageous moustache. The pair had previously

maintained a casual relationship, although not as much since Farrah's death.

Vincent's busy schedule and Rufus's driving obsession had left them seeing

little of one another. After confronting Farrah's killer and being largely

responsible for his death, Rufus was finally starting to move forward.

They were not alone. Gary and his friend Russel, an artificer from the

Magic Society, sat with them.

“Jason,” Vincent greeted. “Your reassessment interview with the

Adventure Society has been scheduled. I thought I'd come and tell you in

person.”

“Alright,” Jason said. “Any idea if I'll be getting my old rank back?”

“The issue is that you're very… loud for an iron-ranker,” Vincent said.

“They're going to want a display of humility.”

“No worries,” Jason. “No one's as good at being humble as me.”

2

Looking Forward

I n the clinic waiting room, Jason chatted with Jory's assistant, Janice, until

Jory emerged with a patient from the treatment rooms in the back.

“Jason.” Jory greeted him cheerfully, after sending the patient on her

way. “It's good to see you in person instead of just hearing you through your

voice chat power. You know that weird message popping up to say you want

to contact me can be disturbing, right?”

“Disturbing?”

“Remember the other day, you tried to contact me and I refused?”

“I figured you were busy with a patient.”

“I was in the bath! It felt like you were watching me. It was creepy.”

“Sometimes I just don't have time for a personal visit. The team's been

busy with training.”

“That much I know. I've barely seen Belinda, lately.”

“Can you spare me a few minutes now?” Jason asked.

Jory glanced around the waiting room, which was around half full, then

gave Janice a questioning glance.

“A few minutes shouldn't throw things too badly off,” she said. “A few

minutes.”

“Come on,” Jory said. “I'll make us some tea. Would you like one,

Janice?”

“That would be lovely,” she said with a sweet smile.

Jory led Jason back into the room he and whatever Healer priest was on

duty used to relax if things got too tense. It had a large cooler box and

cupboards full of snacks and beverages. A large window looked out onto the

courtyard where Jason, Rufus, Gary and Farrah used to train. Far from the

dirt yard it was back then, now it was nicely tiled, with standing and wall

planters adding pleasant greenery.

“We've come a long way,” Jory said, following Jason's gaze. “It was

only in the summer that you were hopelessly lost, madly training in a dirty

back lot. Now this place is a thriving medical centre and you're a big-time

adventurer.”

“This is only the beginning,” Jason said. “Now I'm looking towards

bronze rank. I think I can get there before I've been here a year. I definitely

can, if the monster surge comes. All those monsters in that astral space sent

my abilities shooting up. Same for everyone who doesn't use monster cores.”

“I know,” Jory said. “Mine did the same. I've never had the money to go

spending on monster cores and I'm definitely not interested in hunting for

them.”

“You've got the skills,” Jason said, “but I think you're in the right place.

There's plenty of us out there killing monsters. We need more people like

you helping those who need it the most. I really admire you for that.”

“Thank you, Jason. That means a lot.”

“Also, I need forty gallons of crystal wash.”

“Wait, what? Forty gallons?”

“If I could get in it a barrel that would be good. Maybe one of those big

kegs that Norwich uses in his brewery, the ones with the little tap. That

would be convenient.”

“Are you insane? Are you trying to soak your whole houseboat in the

stuff?”

“Actually, I kind of am,” Jason said. “Emir warned me that it would

require certain additional materials, especially early on, to fuel the various

amenities. The cloud-stuff automatically cleans itself and anything in it. Have

you ever noticed how you get out of the cloud bed feeling like you've just

had a refreshing shower?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Jory said unconvincingly.

“Jory, we all know about you and Belinda.”

“You do? I mean, what?”

“Jory, I'm connected to the houseboat. I know anyone who comes aboard

and where they are at all times. Even if I didn't, Humphrey and I have been

watching you sneak off in a dishevelled state every morning. I don't even

know why you're hiding it. There's nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I wouldn't want to impinge on her reputation.”

“Jory, she's a convicted criminal.”

“I was raised a certain way,” Jory said defensively. “I was taught that

there's a proper process to courting a lady.”

“Why didn't you do that, then?”

“I was working up to it. Then she kind of grabbed me and dragged me off

to her room.”

“At least one of you is sensible,” Jason said. “Anyway, the cloud beds.

Like everything else on the houseboat, the cloud-stuff cleans whatever's in it.

Unfortunately, the houseboat has used up whatever resources it started with

for cleaning. Emir warned me that a lot of resources would need topping off

early and now I need a bunch of purgation quintessence and a huge supply of

crystal wash. Luckily, most of the Purity temple's assets were seized and

Clive reckons he can get his hands on the quintessence I need. That just

leaves the crystal wash.”

“Jason, that amount is crazy. Forty gallons?”

“At least. Now, I know for a fact that you massively increased the

production with all those fancy foreign nobles in town. I'm willing to bet you

have a decent amount stockpiled away.”

“I sold most of it,” Jory said. “Prince Valdis buys almost as much of the

stuff as you.”

Jory looked at Jason's annoying grin, scratching the back of his head

absently as he let out a sigh.

“I can probably sort something out,” he conceded. “I'm going to

repurpose the production space currently used on crystal wash for the lesser

miracle potion, but I'm still sourcing the materials I need. That will be the

engine to fund the clinic going forward. I suppose I could keep production of

crystal wash up until then. I could have that much for you by the end of the

month.”

“Thanks,” Jason said gratefully. “I'll pay full price, instead of the usual

mate's rates. I'll be taking up a good chunk of your production, after all.”

“That's appreciated,” Jory said. “Getting the church of the Healer's

assistance has been great but we still run some tight margins. That miracle

potion money will be coming in eventually, but I used the last of the leftover

funding from the renovations to import all the materials.”

“Seems like the more money we make, the more we need, right?”

“No kidding,” Jory said. “Where are your costs coming in?”

“Aside from the gaping money chasm that is my cloud house? Preparing

for bronze rank. I don't know when I'll be able to get back to a big city, so

while I was away I picked up the materials to resummon my familiars at

bronze. I thought I'd be flush with coin after auctioning off those essences

but I've pretty much got it all earmarked for preparing new gear, the

houseboat, summoning rituals, it just goes on and on.”

Jason let out a weary groan. “I should let you get back to it then. I need to

go spend some more money.”

“You aren't training today?” Jory asked.

“Humphrey and I are both having our rank reassessments at the

Adventure Society this afternoon,” Jason said. “We decided to give the others

a rest day. You should knock off early, go see Belinda. In fact, the symphony

is playing tonight. Take her and use my private viewing booth.”

“You have a private booth?”

“I go whenever I get the chance,” Jason said. “That hasn't been as much

as I'd like, lately. I'll swing by and make sure they know to let you use it.

You have a good suit, right Jory?”

“Uh…”

“Oh, dear,” Jason said, shaking his head. He took a carousel of recording

crystals from his inventory, looking through them until he picked one out. He

told Jory to stand still.

“What are you doing?” Jory asked as Jason moved slowly around him,

waving the crystal up and down his body.

“This is a specialised recording crystal to take clothing measurements,”

Jason told him. “I know a guy who'll do a rush job for me without

compromising quality. You're lucky he's actually my next stop.”

“You carry around a crystal specifically for clothing measurements?”

“A good adventurer is always prepared.”

“Mr Asano, welcome back.”

Gilbert lit up as Jason entered Gilbert's Resilient Attire For the

Discerning Gentleman. “Like all good adventurers, you have excellent

timing,” Gilbert continued. “I was just having Emil take everything to the

fitting room.”

“You've reached iron rank,” Jason said, shaking Gilbert's hand. “Finally

picked up that last essence.”

The punchy, middle-aged man had lost considerable weight and the hair

was much thicker on his head.

“Yes, I finally went and did it,” Gilbert said. “All my cloth essence

abilities hit bronze years ago but I was resistant to more essences for a long

time. Never seemed quite right to take essences that others could make use of

to help people. Age and health are humbling, however, and with the market

the way it is, right now, I took the opportunity. I've been absorbing monster

cores but I'm still a long way from bronze and the extra years it will buy me.”

Gilbert led Jason into the generous fitting room just as his assistant

appeared, pushing a long rack of clothes from the back room on a wheeled

trolley. As Emil departed to fetch the next one, Gilbert started showing Jason

the outfits.

“Your winter wardrobe,” Gilbert declared. “As requested, this is largely

in the Vitesse style, with the flourishes we discussed previously.”

Jason had long admired Emir's dress sense, which he discovered was

largely down to Constance. She had been kind enough to consult when Jason

decided to buy his clothes for the cooler months. Between her advice and

Gilbert's expertise, Jason's winter wardrobe was sleek, fitted and sharp. The

colours were more earthy and sober than local Greenstone fashion, which

favoured explosions of bright hues.

“It was engaging to work with something different to the local palate,”

Gilbert said. “I am quite satisfied with the result.”

“So you should be,” Jason said with admiration. “You've outdone

yourself, Bert.”

“Thank you, sir. With the mild winters here, mid-weight fabrics are

perfect. Included, of course, are some subtle enchantments to maintain the

comfort level whether the day trends hot or cool. Off course, there is a

selection of outfits that trend one way or the other. I have included an array

of winter colours in the Vitesse fashion, dark greens and burgundies, the

expected blacks, greys and blues. Some very nice browns, dark and rich, as

well as a deep caramel Miss Constance referred to as brandy. I've also

included some lighter selections, of course, and the expected formal wear for

various occasions.

Jason started putting the clothes away in his dimensional storage, opening

the outfits tab of his inventory and placing each ensemble into its own set.

“Is there anything else I can do for you today?” Gilbert asked as Jason

stowed one outfit after another.

“Actually yes,” Jason said. “A couple of things. One is rush job, just

some basic formal wear for a friend that you can put on my tab.”

“You have his measurements?” Gilbert asked.

“Of course,” Jason said. “I picked up the crystal you suggested.”

“Very good.”

“The other job is non-urgent,” Jason said. “It's time I started looking

ahead and thinking about bronze rank. My combat robe is fantastic, but I will

need to upgrade one I rank up.”

“Well-made adventuring garb is about matching material and

craftsmanship to purpose,” Gilbert said. “You are wise to start thinking about

it now, so we can put together exactly what you need.”

“Actually, there's something I've been keeping up my sleeve for a long

time,” Jason said.

He continued taking outfits off the racks and putting them away in his

inventory as Emil hauled out more trolleys. Three were hanging racks while a

fourth was a box trolley packed with underclothes and other sundry items.

“You got the love hearts on the boxer shorts just right,” Jason said as he

rubbed the material between his fingers. “This texture is incredible. You were

spot-on to suggest the mist valley silk.”

“I import a large supply each year,” Gilbert said. “I've found it to be an

exceptional choice for underclothes with our particular winter climate.”

Jason started looping ties around his neck, tying the knot before adding

one to each outfit. He matched the knot to the outfit, whether a simple four-

in-hand knot, a nice, clean Pratt knot or a bold, full Windsor. He even added

a flamboyant trinity knot to a couple of the most outgoing outfits.

“I must confess, Mr Asano, I was uncertain about the noose but it does

have a way of bringing an outfit together.”

“How many times, Bert? It's a tie, not a noose.”

“I was concerned that your opponents might not see it that way should

you find yourself in an unexpected engagement, Mr Asano. This shop

provides resilient attire for the discerning gentleman, after all. I had an

enchantment placed on the ties to prevent them from being used to choke

you.”

“Very considerate, Bert.”

“Consideration is my watchword.”

“As it turns out, though, I don't actually need to breathe.”

“Do you need to chant spells?” Gilbert asked.

“That's a fair point,” Jason acknowledged.

After putting everything away, dark smoke manifested around him briefly

before vanishing to reveal Jason in one of his new outfits. Looking himself

over in a full-length mirror, he adjusted his tie slightly.

“I may not be an impartial judge, Mr Asano, but I would say you look

very dapper.”

To Jason's eye it had more of a gothic flair, compared to a suit from his

old world, with the patterned embroidery of the vest and the flourishes on the

long jacket that swept in at the waist before reaching down to mid-thigh. He

gave a little shuffle, finding his movement utterly unimpeded. The shoes

looked formal and stylish but felt like athletic footwear.

“Superlative, Bert. You're a credit to your profession.”

“Thank you, Mr Asano.”

“I have meeting with the Adventure Society, so I think I'll wear it out.”

“Of course. Before you go, Mr Asano, you mentioned having something

up your sleeve?”

“Right, yes.” Jason said. He wandered over to a table at the side of the

room and retrieved a large bolt of dark material from his inventory. “I've

been holding onto this for a while. What do you make of it, Bert?”

Bert moved next to Jason and ran his finger lightly over the material. It

was dark, matte and cool to the touch.

“Snakeskin,” he said. “Umbral snake, probably the mountain variety.

Strong affinities for darkness and poison. Bronze rank, and it's infused with

some kind of odd magic. It almost feels intrinsic, rather than externally

imposed, but…” Gilbert frowned. “Was this a familiar?”

“It was,” Jason said. “Is that a problem?”

“In terms of the value of the material, just the opposite,” Gilbert said.

“My concerns are ethical. You don't get familiars without essence users.”

“You're aware of the people running around causing trouble in the astral

spaces?”

“Cultists or something,” Gilbert's assistant said from where he stood to

the side. “It's almost all anyone wants to talk about, these days.”

“Yes,” Gilbert said, giving his assistant a nod. “The competition held by

the gold-ranker distracted people for a while—congratulations again, by the

way—but they're back to all this unnerving talk. Strange forces from beyond

reality and the madmen that worship them. It's as unpleasantly disconcerting

as it is monotonous. Fear isn't a look that matches any outfit to be found in

this store.”

“Fear is to be expected,” Jason said. “The threat is real and it falls to more

powerful people than us to stop it. About half a year ago, however, I ran

across one of those cultists and he tried to kill me. After he died, his familiar

tried to kill me too.”

He patted the material.

“This is its skin.”

“Good riddance, then,” Gilbert said. “We should see if we can't make

something of it to help you deal with more of them.”

“If the familiar was bronze-rank,” Emil said, “then the cultist must have

been, as well, right?”

“That's right,” Jason said.

“You're only iron-rank, though,” Emil said.

“Back then, I wasn't even that. Didn't even have my first essence.”

“Then how did you beat them?” Emil asked.

“I got lucky,” Jason said. “Things that attack me have this way of ending

up dead.”

“Do go on, Emil,” Gilbert said, dismissing his assistant.

“Yes, boss. Uh, can I ask you something before I go, Mr Asano?”

“Emil,” Gilbert admonished.

“It's fine,” Jason said. “Go ahead, Emil.”

“Did all those gods really appear to thank you in person?”

“Gods turning up is hardly a big deal,” Jason said. “Spend some time at

the Divine Square; they pop up with fair regularity. And I'd hardly call it 'all

those gods' when it was barely a half-dozen.”

“Out with you,” Gilbert said, shooing his assistant out of the fitting room.

“He'll be telling that story all over, Mr Asano. You've built up quite the

reputation with recent events. A local boy, beating out all those fancy foreign

adventurers? Princes and princesses, no less.”

“I'm not exactly local,” Jason said. “In fact, I'm about as far from local as

it comes.”

“You're a local now,” Gilbert said with a laugh. “You've been co-opted.

Nothing earns good will like success.”

“So, this material is something you can work with?”

“I certainly can. If you're willing to leave it with me I can investigate the

best options.”

“Good, because it was a pretty big snake,” Jason said, taking out a second

bolt of the material.

“Oh, my,” Gilbert said. “There's certainly enough for two sets of armour

here, probably three. Possibly even four, depending on how we use it. Were

you looking at spares, or do you want something for your agile lady friend as

well? This material should be useful for something that would suit her.”

Sophie, like Jason, used highly flexible armour made from trap weaver

leather. Gilbert only catered to the discerning gentleman, but had a lady

friend of his own. On Gilbert's recommendation they had taken the trap

weaver leather to Brenda's Massacre Emporium, elsewhere in the trade hall.

“Sophie might want something that better combines flexibility and

defence,” Jason said. “Stealth and poison doesn't fit her power set.”

“Then would you like me to take the liberty of keeping an eye out for

appropriate materials? I can have Brenda do the same.”

“That would be great,” Jason said. “For the whole team, in fact. How

about l have them come in for a chat so you know what to look for?”

“A prescient idea, Mr Asano.”

3

Adventurers are People too

J ason rode the elevating platform up through the Adventure Society

administration building, arriving on the fifth floor. There was a new

reception desk, installed as part of the changes implemented by the

inquiry team. Behind the desk was a familiar face.

“Bert,” Jason greeted him. “They've moved you upstairs. Is it the new

essences?”

“It is,” Albert said. “Getting the full set is the way off the bottom rung in

the Adventure Society. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Seems the higher-

ups liked that I didn't let them take Miss Sophie away when she was locked

up in the prison tower.”

“Miss Sophie and myself both appreciate it as well,” Jason said. “It's nice

to see integrity being rewarded.”

“Is that one of the suits Gilbert was making for you?” Albert asked.

“It certainly is.”

“Well, if you don't mind me saying, Mr Asano, you're looking quite

sharp.”

“Thank you,” Jason said. “We have a saying where I come from: the suit

makes the man. In a characteristic display of Bertinelli family excellence,

your brother has made quite the man of me.”

“Thank you for saying, Mr Asano. You can go ahead and wait in the

conference room.”

“I know the way. Thanks, Bert.”

Jason went through to the conference room and sat down to wait. In the

meantime, he pulled out a hefty tome of magical theory, opening to where he

had marked his place with a ribbon and started reading. It wasn't one of the

new books Gabrielle had handed over, as they were too advanced, but a more

foundational text he inherited from Farrah.

The books the goddess of Knowledge had delivered to him fell directly

into Clive's field of astral magic, all focused on one specific aspect:

dimensional transgression. Portals, teleportation and even the basic theories

of passing between worlds. Clive had almost exploded with surprise when he

first perused the books to glean their purpose.

“I don't know if this is enough to get you to your world or back,” Clive

had excitedly told Jason, “but it gets us orders of magnitude closer.”

Clive had been spending every moment not training buried in the books.

These books built on work he found amongst Landemere Vane's notes,

seized back from the church of Purity.

Jason closed the book and put it away as the door opened to admit

Elspeth Arella and Tabitha Gert, the stern-faced leader of the inquiry team.

He stood up to greet them; Arella shook her head upon seeing that Jason had

been sitting at the head of the table.

“Arella,” he said with a nod. “Interim Director.”

“Actually,” Gert said, “Director Arella has resumed her full duties as the

inquiry comes towards a close. You may address me by my regular rank of

Inspector.”

“Very well, Inspector,” Jason said.

Jason took in Gert at a glance, from the tightly bound hair and prim, plain

clothes to the way her cold eyes surveyed her surroundings and seemed to

find them wanting. Her resting expression exuded disapproval, as if she had a

general expectation that the world at large would fail to live up to her

standards.

Given his style of interpersonal relations, Jason had learned to swiftly

assess how people would respond to his particular brand of provocative

insouciance. He recognised immediately that the inspector was the kind of

person with zero tolerance for the informal affability that was his strong suit.

With people like that he would either crank it right up or dial it right back,

depending on his needs From everything he had heard, Tabitha Gert was a

rigid, but even-handed woman, carrying out her job with stark

professionalism. Since he felt that integrity was deserving of respect, he kept

his normal inclinations subdued.

Gert waved Jason to one side of the table as she and Arella sat opposite.

“Mr Asano,” Gert began. “In the course of our inquiry into the general

culture of this Adventure Society branch, your name has been appearing

significantly more often than is appropriate for an iron-ranker. Which is to

say, at all. Garnering the attention of the influential and powerful too soon in

your career is an excellent way for that career to reach an early and

ignominious end.”

“I agree,” Jason said. “All I can say in my defence is that I made what I

felt to be the right choice at each stage. I recognise, of course, that such a

direction often leads to places I never intended or wanted to go. I'm told that

is a common situation for outworlders to find themselves in.”

Gert nodded, although even that affirming action somehow came across

as disapproving.

“Your rank was reduced as part of the initial sweep of demotions,” Gert

said. “From our brief initial assessments, your promotions had a smell of

politics to them. That they were part of some kind of game Arella was

playing.”

Arella remained silent and impassive, not reacting to the mention of her

name or the postulation on her motives.

“I have no doubt that was a factor,” Jason said. “I like to think that my

capabilities made it an easy pill to swallow, but naturally that is not an

impartial opinion.”

“Do you think you deserve three stars, Mr Asano?” Gert asked.

“From what I've seen of the demands on adventurers, yes. At least at iron

rank.”

“I'm inclined to agree,” Gert said, surprising Jason. She seemed built for

delivering news you didn't want to hear.

“I read your report of the contract surrounding the land in the forestry

district. It was thorough and well-documented. I look very favourably on

thorough reports. Delivering that report directly to the upper levels of the

administration was also well-considered. Your handling of a politically

delicate situation demonstrated sound judgement. You also took being

excluded from a prestigious expedition with equanimity, putting your energy

into completing contracts. At the iron-rank level, this is more than sufficient

to warrant a three-star promotion.”

“I don't imagine things are quite that simple, though,” Jason said.

“Indeed. Frankly, you have demonstrated a capability above your rank.

The problem is that in doing so, you've demonstrated that you consider your

actual rank to be below you. I am aware that you surround yourself with

bronze, silver and even gold rankers, but you are not one of them. I have no

doubt that you will climb higher, should you survive that long, but before

restoring your promotion, I would like to see a demonstration that you

understand that you are, for the moment, an iron-ranker.”

Jason nodded.

“I surmised that something like this would come up during the

reassessment,” Jason said, “and I have given it some consideration. I think I

have a proposal that will work for everyone involved.”

“And what is this proposal, Mr Asano?”

“A road contract,” he said.

“A punishment detail,” Gert mused. “Interesting.”

“My reputation is riding high, right now,” Jason said. “Ostensibly, I

should be swimming in accolades. But if you assign me a punishment detail

and I eat it without complaint, then it will be a public demonstration of my

respect for the Adventure Society's authority.”

“What's in it for you?” Arella asked, speaking for the first time since

entering the room.

“My team has been undergoing an intensive training period. Going out

and facing some real-world challenges is exactly what we need right now. In

my world they call it a shakedown cruise. It will allow me to show some

humility, season my team and help some people along the way. A win all

around, by my count.”

“A well-considered idea,” Gert said. “I approve.”

“I'll be choosing your scheduled route,” Arella said. “You can expect a

lot more trudging through the desert than nice delta towns.”

“That's fine. I would appreciate if it included North East Quarry Village

Four, if that's possible. I made some friends there a while ago and it would be

nice to check in.”

Arella looked slightly peeved at Jason welcoming her condition so

readily.

“Are you sure you can get your team to eat being placed on punishment

detail with you?” she asked.

“We're already making plans,” Jason said. “If you don't give us one,

we'll probably roam around clearing off adventure board notices anyway.”

“Very well,” Gert said. “You will be assigned a road contract. Contingent

on it being carried out satisfactorily, your promotion will be reinstated on its

completion.”

“Thank you, Inspector.”

“Thank me by doing your job and doing it well, Mr Asano. We are done

here.”

She stood up and departed without a further word. Arella followed, giving

Jason a complicated and assessing look.

“I'll have the details sent to you before the road contracts go out at the

start of the month,” she told him and likewise left the room.

Jason made his own way out, returning to the reception desk.

“How did you find the head of the inquiry team?” Albert asked when he

paused for a chat.

“Disconcertingly agreeable,” Jason said.

Albert raised an eyebrow.

“That's the first time I've heard someone call her that,” he said. “The

Duke hates her more than he hates Arella.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. She's completely rigid when it comes to Adventure Society

rules and authority but has a complete disregard for anything else. Locals

laws and authorities mean nothing to her. I've seen the Duke march in here

more than once, only to leave more angry than he arrived.”

“Something worth knowing. Good looking out, Bert.”

Valdis informed Jason and his team that they would soon be returning to the

Mirror Kingdom. The two teams arranged one final match in the Geller

family mirage chamber. Jason and Humphrey gathered their team on the

houseboat to discuss strategy.

“I really want to win, just once,” Neil said. “Send him off knowing that

we can stand alongside the best.”

“That's easier to plan than execute,” Humphrey said. “They're all close to

bronze-rank, more experienced and have been working as a team for much

longer. They've been able to take apart every strategy we've attempted by

staying calm and responding with tactics that make efficient use of their

superior power and practised teamwork.”

“Then we disturb their calm,” Neil said. “Hamper their efficiency, disrupt

their teamwork. Surely you have something, Jason? Disturbing people's calm

is your life's work.”

“Well, I was thinking about something,” Jason said.

“Oh?” Humphrey prompted.

“We've been thinking about Valdis's team the wrong way,” Jason said.

“We've been strategising as if they were collections of power and skill sets.”

“You don't think we should strategise around their powers?”

“Of course, but we also need to look at them as people. Think about

Valdis. We've been thinking of him as a high-speed, high-impact melee

attacker and using Sophie to contain him. Trying to take him out doesn't

make strategic sense. The effort to put him down would cost more than

having him put down is worth, compared to Sophie bundling him up.”

“You think that's wrong?” Sophie said.

“I do,” Jason said. “We haven't been thinking about them as people.

Valdis isn't just a power set. He's a prince of the Mirror Kingdom. The

whole team was built around him, the shaft to his spearhead.”

“Oh,” Humphrey said, eyes wide as revelation dawned. “I get it. Disturb

their calm.”

“Would you mind filling in the rest of us?” Neil asked.

“Strategically,” Humphrey explained, “their team is built around their

healer, Sigrid. She facilitates and directs strategy. We've tried piling onto her

multiple times but they have tried and tested strategies to defend against

exactly that.”

“This isn't new information,” Belinda said.

“The strategic core of the team is Sigrid,” Jason said, picking his

explanation back up. “The political core, however, is Valdis. Prince of the

Mirror Kingdom. He's the reason their team exists and I promise you that in

their heads, the central figure of the team isn't Sigrid, but him. This is our last

shot at beating them until we go to the Mirror Kingdom some day and kick

the snot out of them on their home turf. I'm willing to bet everything on the

bottom line of Valdis's team being that he has to survive, whatever the cost.”

“But this is a mirage chamber fight,” Clive said. “He will survive.”

“Yes,” Humphrey said, “but those instincts have been ingrained for years.

I can tell you right now, they were being prepared for Valdis's team before

any of them ever received an essence.”

“Exactly,” Jason said. “That disparity between the actual core of their

team, Sigrid, and the core that's been drilled into them, Valdis, is the gap in

their armour. If we go all-in on Valdis, right out of the gate, I bet they'll do

the one thing we haven't been able to force out of them. They'll make a

tactical mistake. Even if it's just a fleeting moment before their discipline

kicks back in, that moment is our small but critical window.”

“So we feint on Valdis but actually move on Sigrid,” Sophie said.

“Exactly,” Jason said.

“We're going to have to really sell the feint,” Humphrey said.

“That's well within our abilities,” Jason said. “The advantage we have on

them is versatility. We adapt faster than they do to changes in circumstance,

so we can switch our entire tactical approach faster than they can react. So

long as we can get them to make that mistake, we can capitalise before they

can cover for it.”

“You think we'll win like this?” Sophie asked.

“From just this, no,” Jason said. “They've been training together for

years. There's a good chance they'll regroup and retake their formation, even

in the face of everything we throw at them.”

“Then we need to figure out how to stop that,” Neil said.

“No,” Jason said. “We try and stop them, because it would be suspicious

if we didn't, but we don't succeed. We fight hard to keep them scattered that

they instinctively clump up all the more. If they're going to put so much

effort into to gathering togther, it would be a waste not to use that against

them. The advantage of never having our strategies work against them is that

they haven't seen them through to completion. It's time we showed Valdis

and his team some of the trump cards we've never had a chance to pull out

before.”

4

Val-kir-ee

V aldis wildly fended off Humphrey's attacks. Behind him, Sigrid

desperately healed their team members. Even using his smaller sword,

Humphrey couldn't match Valdis's speed but his strength was overwhelming.

Valdis was more of a highly mobile striker than a defender and could not

meet the barrage of special attacks. This left him to a slow retreat as Sigrid

fell back behind him.

In their previous encounters, Valdis had always ended up fighting Sophie

while Humphrey used his heavy sword style to pressure the heavy defender

from Valdis's team. He had dismissed Humphrey's swordsmanship as all

power, no finesse.

Now Humphrey used his smaller sword, stylised as an angelic wing.

Despite the embellishments it was still a practical, single-edged sabre,

flashing out with more rapid attacks than Valdis had seen from Humphrey in

the past. When he first moved to protect Sigrid, Valdis assumed his superior

skills would compensate for being forced into holding his ground. Only now

did he remember that Humphrey's mother was a famous swordswoman.

Humphrey's swordsmanship was every bit as rigorously trained as his own.

If it were simply a duel, Valdis's mobility and experience at duels and

lighter blades would have given him the edge. Forced to keep himself

between Humphrey and Sigrid, however, the advantage fell to Humphrey,

whose style was more suited to a standing clash. He pushed Valdis back step

by step, with solid, unrelenting attacks.

While Valdis unquestionably had the stronger team, the one advantage

Jason and his allies had was versatility. They had seen almost every trick

Valdis and his highly efficient cohort had to offer, while they had more up

their own sleeves. Their ability to surprise was what had forced Valdis into

the position he was now in.

As the fight began, Sophie, who normally went after Valdis, had instead

bolted away while the rest of her team had converged on him to sell the feint.

Clive switch-teleporting her with the heavy defender guarding Sigrid was the

signal to give up the feint and move on her instead.

The defender had not been worried. Displacing the defenders was a

standard strategy he had faced before and his abilities included a rapid-

movement power that allowed him to reposition as circumstances required.

When he went to use it, however, he was yanked back like a dog trying to

sprint but getting pulled up by the chain around his neck.

He turned to look at what had jerked him back. There was a crystal rod

sticking out of the ground, with a force tether connecting it to him. He

launched into a charging special attack. It bounced off a force field around

the rod, although he felt the impact weaken the field. At first he failed to

notice that another of his abilities suddenly became unavailable, as if he had

used it as well.

He was human and had no shortage of special attacks, so when he started

unleashing them, the force field quickly started to buckle. When the field

finally gave out, the crystal rod exploded, blasting him backwards. He was

far too tough for that much to stop him, although he certainly felt it. It was

not his first experience with the armour-penetrating feel of resonating force

damage.

He pushed himself swiftly to his feet, only then realising that for every

attack he had used, another power had been expended, including his critical

movement powers. He recalled it was the effect of a curse levied by the

strange role-shifting woman on the enemy team. With a grimace, he started

running back in the direction of the main battle, encumbered by his heavy

armour.

Sigrid had suffered a near-fatal damage when Jason and his team had

sprung their trap out of the feint against Valdis. As Jason predicted, her team

had suffered a brief but critical moment of panic, leaving the slenderest of

windows in which Sigrid was exposed to attack. Jason and his team had been

primed for that moment, poised to switch gears the instant Valdis's team

moved to protect him.

Sigrid had barely kept herself alive through the use of a potent self-heal

that would not be available again for hours. Even then, she was badly hurt

and even suffered some afflictions. Humphrey's spirit reaper attack had

pounded down her personal shield, giving Jason the chance to throw quick

spells her way before the shield snapped back up.

Both teams had six members, although their make-ups were very

different. Compared to Jason's eclectic and versatile team, Valdis had a

traditional healer and heavy defender. The rest of his team were mobile and

attack-focused and they excelled in swift blitz tactics. Along with Valdis

himself was a spearwoman who specialised in potent, charging strikes. Their

ranged attackers were an archer using a mid-range skirmish style and a spell

caster with the wind and needle essences.

Those three attackers found themselves in a fast-moving dance with Jason

and Sophie, startled to find the pair more than holding their own against

superior odds. Sophie was even faster than they were and apparently

impervious to harm. She deflected projectiles with her bare hands, physical

and magical alike. When they tried to catch her in area attacks, they hit empty

air she had already vacated.

Like Valdis, the trio was startled by the skill of their enemy. While they

were frustrated at the inability to inflict any real damage, they were relieved

by her lack of powerful attacks. They turned their attention to Jason but

found him just as much trouble. Their own shadows had come to life,

draining their mana as Jason moved in and out of them at will. At any

moment he could appear or disappear right next to them, slashing out with his

black and red dagger or quickly chanting a spell on the move.

Although the reach of his dagger was short, Jason's deceptive style

proved a tricky opponent. The darkness magic that made up his starlight

cloak floated around him, shrouding his movements as a shadow arm snaked

out, longer than even the spearwoman's lengthy weapon, to strike with his

dagger. He wasn't landing critical hits but he didn't need to with the terrible

afflictions his powers produced. Minor wounds left behind curses, poison and

impossibly fast-acting flesh-eating disease.

Jason's powers favoured an extended fight, growing steadily more

impactful as the fight was drawn out. The enemies' own shadows seemed to

have turned against them, an intimate and unnerving form of attack. Jason's

afflictions filled his enemies with a growing sense of dread carrying out their

horrifying work on the adventurers' flesh. Sigrid's stream of healing held it at

bay for a time, but she could not outpace the inexorable escalation of the

afflictions. They continued to get worse while her mana was steadily

depleted.

Between rapid-fire shadow jumps and raw speed, Jason and Sophie

flickered around the trio of enemies like mating hummingbirds. Jason was

more aggressive than his normal in and out style, his quick attacks left only

superficial wounds but each one was a clock of doom counting down on his

enemies. He even cast the odd spell in the direction of Valdis and the

defender madly sprinting back towards the fight. It was only the efficient

healing of Sigrid being spread around the battlefield that kept things under

control, although she didn't have time to spare to cleanse the afflictions.

Jason's more aggressive approach left him more exposed, but he trusted

Sophie to cover him. Every time their enemies thought they had pinned him

down, suddenly Sophie was there. Most teams preferred a traditional, heavy

defender but Sophie was demonstrating the true value of the mobile guardian

archetype.

When all three of their enemies came too close together, Jason unleashed

one of his trump cards—leeches spraying from a cut he sliced on his hand.

That could well have spelled the end of the fight if not for Sigrid. Using

another of her long cooldown powers, every member of her team other than

the distant defender gained a short-lived shield that exploded from inside

them, blasting away the leeches covering their bodies.

Many of the leeches were destroyed on the spot, others scattered across

the battlefield. Even the brief exposure left more afflictions behind but Jason

was taken aback. Once he actually caught enemies out, the deployment of

Team Colin, his leech swarm familiar, was normally the finisher. Never

before had the swarm been so thoroughly and immediately countered.

With all their members caught up in fights, Valdis's team faced one more

threat. Clive, Belinda and Neil were gathered behind a protective wall of

summons and familiars, ready to attack. The bunker strategy was one of

many the team had developed; it was a place for Belinda and Clive to launch

control and attack powers from safety. It also freed up Neil to throw out

shields and healing without the pressure Sigrid was being subjected to.

Neil had frequently sought out Sigrid for advice over the previous weeks.

Their ability sets were similar and her experience was far more extensive than

his. His ability to heal and shield his team was not far behind hers, but she

did it while also serving as the tactical core of the team. Watching everything

and directing her teammates with efficiency and precision, Neil could not

help but admire the equanimity with which she directed her team, even as

Humphrey pressed in on her.

Although Sigrid's team had been caught up in the strategy of their

opponents and scattered, they were slowly but surely regrouping. Their

discipline and experience showed as they returned to formation, even while

caught up in their individual fights. If not for the dangerous spells pouring

out of Clive, they might have turned the fight already. The need to shield her

team was a key reason Sigrid was too busy to cleanse all the afflictions Jason

had levied.

The minion wall made going after Clive, Belinda and Neil an infeasible

option for Valdis's team until they had regained a semblance of order. The

only attackers they could spare were their own familiars and summons, which

could do no more than initiate a distracting monster brawl.

On Jason's side was the ominous figure of Gordon, his third familiar. A

disembodied cloak floating in the air, within which was a nebula-like cloud

of blue an orange, in the shape of an eye. Drifting around the strange entity

were blue and orange eyeball-patterned orbs that fired unrelenting beams of

blue and orange energy onto the enemy minions.

Belinda, Clive and Humphrey's familiars were likewise present, along

with Humphrey's summoned dragon-tooth warriors and Neil's summoned

chrysalis golem. The golem looked like an ogre carved out of diamond. With

every attack against it, a rune appeared on one of its many facets. Clive's

tortoise familiar, Onslow, fired off elemental attacks from the magic runes on

his shell as Clive periodically recharged them with his own mana. Onslow

was back next to Clive, as was Belinda's lantern familiar that fired bolts of

force at the enemy. Her second familiar, the illusory echo spirit, was dancing

around the enemy familiars, distracting and baiting them.

Humphrey's dragon-tooth warriors were normally humanoid figures with

bodies of ivory, decked out in conjured equipment provided by his personal

space power, magic armoury. In this case, however, the summons were

affected by the summoning die Jason had gifted to Humphrey that randomly

affected the form of summoned creatures. What were normally three ivory

soldiers were instead a trio of hulking bone gorillas, covered in heavy

conjured armour. They even wielded hefty, iron-shod clubs.

The final member of the wall of minions was Stash, Humphrey's shape-

shifting baby dragon. Stash the advantage of being versatile, like the team to

which he belonged. He moved wildly through the brawling familiars and

summons, his form rapidly shifting from one shape to another. One moment

he was a resilient bark lurker, soaking up an attack aimed at the gorillas. The

next he was a darting bird, quickly repositioning.

The summons and familiars on the Valdis's side were, like their owners,

fast and attack-oriented. A werewolf-like creature fought alongside a sleek

metal humanoid figure that was covered in sharp edges. There was a ball of

needles with chitinous spider legs and a scorpion that fired spines from its

stinger. Floating amongst them was a small lantern, projecting shields to

protect them. Their powerful attacks were blunted by the superior number of

familiars and summons from Jason's team, making little headway beyond

forcing Clive, Belinda and Neil to keep an eye on them.

The forces protected behind the minion melee were the key reason

Valdis's team had not yet managed to regroup. Clive's offensive potential

was primarily contained within in a single, potent spell, wrath of the

magister. He could charge it up and unleash powerful attacks, on a one-

minute cooldown. With Belinda's ability to reduce an ability's cooldown by

that same amount, both with an ability and her tattoo, Clive unleashed a

mana-hungry but incredibly potent series of attacks. As his mana pool was

greater than any two of his teammates, however, he had the freedom to do so.

More than anything else on the battlefield, Sigrid was poised to respond

to Clive's spell the best, throwing out her strongest shields to intercept. Even

then, the spell burned through her protections, forcing Sigrid to follow up

with her strongest heals. As with Jason unleashing Colin, it was only the

consummate skill and power of Sigrid's healing and shielding that prevented

the fight from already being over.

For a while, at least, Belinda's ability to loop Clive's potent spell was a

defining force on the battlefield. She even copied the spell and cast it herself

when he was done. It was another strategy they hadn't used against Valdis

before and his team had no idea how long Clive and Belinda could maintain

the barrage. They were too busy to do any more, however, and were forced to

endure.

The failure of Jason's team to finish off Sigrid with their ambush was the

defining point of the fight. There was no question that she was the most

impactful person on the field. Standing bloodied and unbroken with her

Valkyrie blond hair, her piercing blue eyes took in every part of the fight. She

was the glue that held her team together in the wake of the enemy's divide-

and-conquer strategy; Sigrid was the critical factor in every part of the

battlefield. Through the chaos, she fought desperately to bring her team back

into order, barking out directions between spell chants. Their practised

teamwork and extensive experience allowed them to make subtle moves to

coordinate, even while caught up with more immediate concerns.

Jason's team had defined the pace of the fight, but the arrival of Valdis's

defender turned the enemy's six-on-five advantage into an even fight. The

defender's cooldowns were finally back up and he erupted into the battlefield

at Sigrid's direction. Jason and Sophie were pushed back, Jason not daring to

dive into the formation Valdis and his team were falling into. He recalled his

familiar Shade's bodies to himself as Valdis started attacking them with

disruptive-force special attacks.

The reformation of Valdis's team came as they realised that the spell

barrage from Clive and Belinda was finally over. They had to seize the

moment and turn the tide as Jason's attacks had placed them on a ticking

clock. Jason's afflictions were past the point that Sigrid could eliminate them

while still healing the team. They took one of their sweeping attack

formations and moved on Clive, Belinda and Neil. If they could take out the

healer along with Clive before his cooldowns ended, the fight would be over.

Valdis launched forward at the head of his team, flashing a triumphant

grin at the chance to finally fight on his own terms. Then he saw an

uncharacteristically hungry smile on Humphrey's face and concern flashed

through his mind. Sigrid had also intuited that something was wrong but the

warning to scatter came too late.

A crystal rod rose up from the ground in the space between the two

teams. The air shimmered as tethers of force yanked Valdis's team towards

Jason's. Then Jason's team vanished. Cold, dark energy flooded the area. The

merest touch opened terrible wounds on Valdis's team as their flesh rotted

away like it was recoiling.

Belinda's tether had brought both teams close enough for Neil to catch

them all in the six-hour cooldown power he obtained from his reaper

awakening stone. Reaper's redoubt placed his team safely in a dimensional

space and flooded the area with death energy. Given that Valdis's team were

all afflicted with Jason's necrosis-enhancing curse, Neil's ability was a

finishing move that closed out the fight. In the strange, dark dimensional

space of Neil's power, the team started receiving messages.

You defeated Valdis Volaire.

You defeated Sigrid Freyn.

As the most capable members of the team, Valdis and Sigrid had put

themselves on the line to cover the others, making them the first to fall. The

others soon followed and, moments later, awoke in the mirage chamber

control room.

Valdis sat up on his platform, glancing between Sigrid and the still bodies

of the enemy team still inside. He let out a relaxed laugh.

“That was unexpected,” Sigrid said.

“And just think, Sig,” Valdis told her. “You didn't want to make friends.”

5

Departures

I n the mirage chamber control room, Danielle Geller played the recording

of the mirage chamber fight for the most prestigious guest ever to visit it.

Together they watched the battle between Jason's team and that of Prince

Valdis play out.

“They used my son's status against him,” the Mirror King observed. “It

seems your son has picked up your knack for spotting people's leverage

points.”

“No, he hasn't,” Danielle said. “My Humphrey's a good boy.”

“I see,” the Mirror King said. “You teamed him up with someone who

thinks more like you.”

“The man is good at making friends,” Danielle said. “Just ask your son.”

Valdis was deeply regretting his insistence on joining Jason in drinking

bronze-rank liquors. It was the farewell party for his team on Jason's

houseboat and when he saw Jason drinking the higher-ranked stuff he had

joined in over Jason's warnings. He didn't remember anything between that

and the following morning waking up with a pounding headache and his

father seated at the end of his bed. Now, a few hours later, his team were

making final farewells on the deck of the houseboat, although Valdis wasn't

saying or listening to anything as he struggled with a throbbing head and

unruly stomach.

Valdis and his team were packed and ready to leave via portal, having

spent the night in the houseboat after the raucous party. They had only

travelled to Greenstone via boat originally because of the arrangements made

by Emir. Emir liked big entrances, as evidenced by the grandiose arrival of

his cloud ship days after Hester had quietly portalled him to the city.

There had also been the problem of actually opening a portal to

Greenstone. Whatever other nuances a dimensional transport power might

have, the universal requirement was that the person with the portal ability had

to have visited the destination first. Most of the teams had been portalled as

close to Greenstone as their people could reach that was also in the path of

Emir's transport ships.

“It's for the best,” Sigrid told Jason, nodding a head at Valdis. “If he was

in a better state then he'd be making a last-minute attempt to poach your team

members.”

Valdis looked like he was going to say something, then like he was going

to throw up, giving up on the former to avoid the latter.

“You're not going to make a recruiting pitch on his behalf?” Jason asked.

“My job, first and foremost,” she said, “is to keep Valdis out of trouble.

You are definitely trouble.”

Jason laughed. “Next time we see you, we'll all be bronze rank. We

might come visit that kingdom of yours and give you a chance for revenge in

your local mirage chamber.”

“You do remember that we repeatedly beat you, right?” Sigrid asked.

“You're only as good as your last fight,” Jason said. “That makes us the

winners, leaving you to return home in disgrace.”

She shook her head. “I still can't fully parse you, Jason Asano. Are you a

fool, a genius or a monster?”

“Yes,” he said with an impish grin.

Suddenly every member of Valdis's team dropped to one knee, except for

Valdis himself. Jason's own team followed a beat later, leaving Jason and

Valdis the only ones on their feet. Jason turned around to find a man standing

on the deck that he hadn't sensed, even through his connection to the boat.

The man was dressed well but not extravagantly, looking to be somewhere in

his late thirties with a neatly trimmed, blond beard.

His appearance was unremarkable, but his aura was something else

entirely. It was not overwhelming, in fact, just the opposite. Jason could

hardly tell where the man's aura stopped and the rest of the world began, as if

the world itself was an extension of his power.

Another man walked across the cloud-stuff gangplank and onto the deck

from the marina. His positioning and posture marked him as subordinate to

the first man, despite his own powerful, gold-rank aura. He was glaring

unhappily at Jason.

“You should kneel,” he told Jason.

“Why?” Jason asked.

“To show your respect. You stand before the king.”

“If there's mandatory kneeling, it's not respect that you're looking for.

Also, the king? I mean, he's a king, I'll grant you. Certainly not my king,

though.”

“Do you even have monarchs where you come from?” the Mirror King

asked. His voice was deep, rich and tinged with amusement.

“Kind of,” Jason said. “We sort out our own business, but old folk like to

have a royal or two floating about, so we borrow someone else's queen from

time to time.”

“You borrow a queen?”

“Yep,” Jason said. “We pop her over, wheel her down the street so people

can have a wave and then send her back. It works out for everyone.”

“That's madness,” the Mirror King's offsider said. “He's telling strange

outworlder stories to disrespect you.”

The Mirror King laughed. “What he's doing is poking the nest to see how

aggressive the wasps are. You remind me of Danielle Geller when she was

young and precocious.”

“Thank you,” Jason said.

“You'll have to forgive my friend Hastor,” the Mirror King said. “Among

his varied and valuable roles is to be protocol officer, at which he very much

excels.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“Sadly,” the Mirror King continued, “the traits that makes him an

excellent protocol officer serve him less well in more informal settings. If

there isn't a chart to seat everyone in the room by relative rank, he starts

getting snippy.”

“Your Majesty!” Hastor protested.

At that moment, Valdis, who had been lurking behind Jason, lost his

battle with his stomach. Lurching to the side of the deck, he vomited loudly

over the side.

“Good thing I ranked up my poison-resist power,” Jason confided in the

Mirror King. “It soaked up just the right amount of alcohol. Also, I

apparently don't have a stomach. I was going to ask my mate Clive about it—

that's Clive kneeling there—but I figured the answer would be pretty gross.

Which may sound odd, coming from the guy with the flesh-rotting powers,

but there you go.”

“It seems my son has learned a lesson about limitations,” the Mirror King

said with a chuckle. “Those can be hard to find for princes.”

Valdis staggered forward to stand next to Jason.

“Dad,” Valdis croaked in greeting.

The Mirror King gave his son a wry smile.

“Having fun?”

Valdis let out a wordless groan and the Mirror King chuckled again.

“Thank you for putting up with my son, Mr Asano. I think it's time to

go.”

“No worries, Your Kingness. And you can call me Jason.”

The Mirror King grinned and threw an arm around his son's shoulders,

who groaned.

“Come along, boy; you can explain the state you're in to your mother. If

you would, Hastor?”

Hastor called up a portal that looked like a sheet of glass and the Mirror

King marched his son to it. Just before he passed through, Valdis shared a

put-upon look with a grinning Jason, departing with a wave. Once the king

was gone, Jason and Valdis's teams stood up, Sigrid politely moving to greet

Hastor. The disgruntled look on Hastor's face softened with their brief and

formal, yet somehow still warm interaction.

“It's good to see you, Father,” Sigrid said after her formal greeting.

“Wait, this guy's your dad?”

“He is my father,” Sigrid confirmed.

“And he doesn't get a hug? That's cold.”

Sigrid chuckled, shaking her head.

“Thank you for the hospitality,” she said to Jason's team. “I look forward

to the next time we meet.”

She led the rest of her team through the portal, leaving only Hastor with

Jason and his team.

“Thank you,” Hastor said, to Jason's surprise. “While I cannot agree with

your gross deficit in etiquette, the young prince doesn't have a lot of friends

who will stand beside him instead of kneel.”

Hastor didn't wait for a response, stepping through his portal, which then

vanished.

“That was unexpected,” Jason said. “So, Emir's portal lady is Hester, and

that guy's portal guy was Hastor,” he mused. “Are portal powers a name

thing?”

“Of course not,” Clive said. “You need to watch your decorum around

royalty.”

“Do I?” Jason asked. “I was more thinking that I need to get powerful

enough that they watch their decorum around me.”

Standing on the marina, Jason returned his houseboat made of clouds to the

magic flask in which it was stored, the cloud-stuff snaking in like a genie

going into a bottle. Once the cloud house was fully returned, Jason took a

large brewer's keg from his inventory.

There was a small tap, under which he placed the flask before opening it

to letting crystal wash spill inside. Despite pouring out far more liquid that

the flask should have been able to contain, it showed no signs of becoming

full, taking the entire contents of the keg without even getting any heavier.

He didn't restore the houseboat after emptying the keg as he was taking it

with him on his team's upcoming road contract. It would provide pleasant

accommodation as they wandered around the desert, although this left Rufus

and Gary, who had also been staying in the cloud house, without

accommodations until they returned.

With the conflict with the Builder cult at an uneasy pause, Gary and

Rufus turned to other endeavours. Gary would be rejoining Emir at Sky Scar

Lake, while Rufus would lodge at the Geller Estate as he refocused his

attention on his training academy annex project.

The fight against the Builder cult was at a lull after the raid on their island

outpost. The Purity church was in something of a limbo while everyone

waited for word from on high, be that the ecumenical council formed to

investigate them or the gods themselves. In the meantime, the people from

the church of Purity were comfortably but thoroughly detained under the

authority of the ecumenical council.

Once Jason had drained the keg of crystal wash, restoring the cleaning

functions of his magical abode, it was time to head out. It was a short walk

from the marina to the loop line station for Jason and his team, which carried

them to the Adventure Society campus. Waiting for them outside the jobs hall

was Humphrey's sister, Henrietta.

Henrietta was a statuesque and handsome woman whose short-cropped

hair swept back dramatically. In practical leathers and with a dimensional bag

slung over her shoulder, she had the confident ease of an experienced

adventurer. Her eyes were a bright shade of purple, a sure sign of a

summoned familiar inhabiting them. Belinda's lantern familiar, Shimmer,

was likewise subsumed into her eyes, turning them silver.

Henrietta was a minion specialist and Jason knew that she would have her

three summoned familiars inside her body. Her fourth familiar was bonded to

her like Stash was to Humphrey. It was a phoenix, the classic variety native

to the desert. The magical bird was rare and elusive; people lived whole lives

and died out in the desert without ever seeing one. It was a gorgeous creature

with feathers like living fire, which stood out even when familiars were a

common sight. As the phoenix could not disguise itself the way Stash could,

Henrietta largely left the mystical bird to its own devices. She was always

able to sense and communicate with it.

Summoned familiars had a number of practical advantages over bonded

types, but the bond was not without its perks. A bonded familiar could be

sensed at all times, while summoned familiars only could be while subsumed

within the summoner, which was not a practical advantage. The closest Jason

had to this was Shade and his three bodies. While Shade's other bodies were

out and about, Jason could sense them so long as at least one copy of Shade

took the place of his own shadow. It also helped make Shade a useful spy.

“I've already picked up the contract,” Henrietta said. “Let's head out.”

Every road contract consisted of a group of iron-rankers with a

supervising bronze ranker. In the current, uncertain times, Henrietta had

appointed herself to look after her brother and his team. Danielle had also

made sure Henrietta had certain expensive magical consumables to use in a

pinch.

The team turned around and headed back for the loop line. After leaving

the station, they prepared to head out for the desert. Clive had arranged for a

heavy-duty skimmer that could handle rocky terrain to be waiting for them at

the edge of the delta. Skimmers specialised to sand were relatively cheap, but

the magic that kept them aloft became less effective over a rugged, sweeping

area. Knowing they would be ranging far and wide, Clive had requisitioned a

more robust model designed for all kinds of terrain.

To get to the Magic Society outpost at the edge of the delta, the team

deployed their various means of transport. After returning from the trip to

Jayapura, the team had new transportation available to them.

Humphrey already had Stash, who would happily transform into a heidel

that he could ride. Heidels were roughly the shape of horses and were

domesticated for the same purposes, but they had scales instead of hair and

two heads. Stash didn't like the colour of regular heidels, leaving Humphrey

riding a bright pink animal.

Jason's familiar mount was Shade, who could also transform each of his

three bodies into mounts due to Jason's dark rider power. As Jason found

heidels creepy, Shade turned into a trio of horses. The hair of each horse was

black, with white, glowing hooves, eyes and mane. White mist, shining

against the black coat of the horses rose up from the hooves. Jason would

have been satisfied so long as Shade didn't turn into a heidel, but was

delighted with the glorious form he took.

“Looking sexy, Shade.”

“I believe,” Shade said, “that comment is inappropriate on numerous

levels.”

With each of Shade's three bodies turning into a horse, Jason, Sophie and

Belinda all had one to ride. Shade even manifested saddles, although with

only a hand-grip strap on the saddle instead of reins, bit and bridle. Jason

wasn't a great horseman but he knew how to ride, after family trips to his

mother's cousin's farm as a kid. He was at least able to help get Sophie and

Belinda get seated on their own horses.

Clive had purchased a floating disc during their trip away. It was much

the same as the ones they had used in Jayapura, but could function in low-

magic areas like Greenstone. As with most such cases, it coul only be

operated by someone with a special power to use magical tools. Neil had no

such power and no shape-changing familiar. He ended up in a floating

trolley, towed behind Clive by a magical tether.

“This doesn't feel dignified,” Neil said as Clive pulled him along like a

child in a trolley. He looked over at Henrietta who was riding a heidel-like

construct creature, strangely crafted from what looked like folded paper. It

would not hold up to the rigours of combat but could fold itself down small

enough to carry in a pocket, like a two-headed origami horse.

“I should have bought one of those,” Neil lamented. He had seen them for

sale in the Mystic Quarter in Jayapura but had balked at the price. Given the

money he still had from the essence auctions, he was now regretting his own

prudence.

“I watched the recording of your fight with that prince and his team,”

Henrietta said as they rode through the city streets.

“What did you think?” Neil asked. “Beating that team is impressive,

right?”

“Impressive?” Henrietta asked dismissively. “It was a travesty. You lined

up your familiars and summons like they were bricks in a wall. Do you have

any idea how much potential you squandered?”

As a specialist in using summons and familiars, Henrietta had found the

tactics the team had used for theirs painful to look at.

“During this trip I'm going to drill you all until you stop wasting your

familiars. Jason is the only one of you even starting to use his familiars

properly and he still has a long way to go.”

“Thank you,” Jason said.

“I wouldn't get too happy,” Henrietta said. “Your performance was only

decent compared to the rest of this lot. You left one of your familiars standing

around with the others, too. You'll be drilling as hard as anyone.”

“I don't mind a bit of hard work,” Jason said.

Henrietta grinned at him.

“You will when I'm done with you.”

They were making their way down Broadstreet Boulevard, one of the

main artery roads between the Island and Old City's north east gate when

they all felt a surging aura. Looking in that direction, they could see rainbow

light shining over the rooftops from several streets away.

“A manifestation,” Henrietta said darkly. “Right in the middle of the

city.”

“Maybe it'll just be an awakening stone,” Neil said.

“Not with light display of that size,” Clive said. “That's a monster.

Probably silver rank.”

“Silver rank?” Neil said. “Do we go?”

“Of course we go,” Jason said. “We're adventurers.”

“I'm not,” Belinda said. “I haven't had my assessment, yet. Does that

mean I get to not go?”

Jason flashed her a grin. “No.”

He urged his shadow horse to a gallop, roaring ahead of the group.

Trailing behind him was the sound of hooves on the packed earth of the

street, mixed with the sound of Shade's voice.

“I would like to remind you that I can talk. You could just ask me to go

faster instead of digging in with your heels.”

6

no Pot of Gold

T he people of Old City were reacting in one of two ways to the rainbow

light shining in the air. Many were fleeing as fast as they could, rushing

past Jason and his team as they rode towards the source of the commotion.

Other members of the populace were trying to find a spot to watch from a

safe distance. At worst, they would get to see some adventurers in action.

Even better would be if it turned out to be an essence. Maybe they would

even have a chance at grabbing it for themselves.

Jason and his team were not the only adventurers in the area to come

running. There was another team of iron-rankers in full gear, plus a handful

of people with iron and bronze-rank auras that, judging by their casual

clothes, were just in the area on civilian business. Jason and his team

dismounted their various means of transport.

“Once the monster manifests,” Henrietta said, “everyone follow my

direction. If there are lower-rank secondary monsters I'll have at least some

of you on them. Otherwise I'll put you on crowd-wrangling. The onlookers

won't be willing to go until things get dangerous, so we'll need to keep them

from panicking and trampling one another.”

The rainbow light was emerging from the ground. Chunks of street had

broken apart and were floating in the air like dandelions on a breeze as the

light rose up from the holes left behind. The assembled adventurers moved up

to peer into the holes, seeing through the light that there was a good-sized

space below.

“Some kind of hub for the water utility tunnels,” Clive said. He had

withdrawn a stone tablet from his personal storage space to consult. The

magical map etched into it shifted as he pushed his fingers across the surface

of the tablet.

“That's troubling,” Clive said after finding what he was looking for.

“There's a wastewater treatment hub right underneath here. It's probably

been damaged by a manifestation this strong.”

“You think that's troubling?” Jason asked. “I think you're missing the

main point.”

“What do you mean?” Clive asked.

“Monsters take forms according to their environment, right?”

“Oh,” Clive said, realisation dawning.

“What is it?” Henrietta asked.

“There's no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow,” Jason said, “I think

we're about to fight a poo monster.”

Even as he said it, filthy water started geysering up from the holes in the

ground. The gathered crowd started recoiling loudly as gobbets of viscous

water rained from the sky, bringing a terrible stench. Jason quickly pulled out

his magic umbrella, protecting himself from the wastewater rain with the

bubble that formed around him. Belinda and Sophie immediately ducked into

the bubble with him as the others looked on in envy while they were rapidly

drenched in filth.

“I think we might need another keg of crystal wash,” Jason said.

The splashing water did not lay inert after landing. Like a living creature,

it crawled over the ground, buildings and even people it landed on, seeking to

congeal into pools.

“The rain is the monster,” Henrietta called out. “Some kind of elemental.”

As the rain congealed into pools, the pools started radiating auras. The

biggest pool was condensing a silver-rank aura, the smaller ones either

bronze or iron.

“Start attacking if you have anything that will be effective,” Henrietta

called out, not just for Jason's team but all the assembled adventurers.

“Anything explosive or any resonating-force powers will be most effective

against a water-type elemental. Avoid ice or anything else water-based it can

absorb unless you can freeze and shatter all at once.”

Elementals formed anywhere that the water was pooling, from the middle

of the street to the flat rooftops and even on shopfront awnings. Globulous

masses of thick, rancid liquid congealed into gelatinous chunks, until an

accumulated pile started undulating in the direction of the closest living

thing. They oozed across the ground, spilled over walls and tipped out of

whatever container the wastewater had been accumulating in, splattering to

the ground. Jason spotted one elemental secrete its way out of a fruit cart,

flowing between the fruit like some unholy juice.

“Like a less-awful kale smoothie,” he muttered to himself.

Gordon, who inhabited Jason's aura, was much easier to draw out than

Colin, who lived his bloodstream. All Jason had to do was project his aura

the right way for Gordon to appear at his side and soon blue and orange

beams of force were gouging their way through elementals.

Jason's afflictions would be worthless against the elementals' own

powers so he drew his sword, although he knew he would be more use

directed elsewhere.

“I'll be better off on crowd control,” he told Henrietta. “This is a bad

match-up for me.”

Henrietta nodded.

“You know your team better than me,” she told him. “Set the roles.”

Jason had Sophie join him on crowd wrangling as her speed was more

useful than her fists against the ambulatory sewerage monsters. The others he

assigned to elemental hunting. Humphrey's powerful attacks could smash an

elemental apart, rendering the magically infused water inert once more. Clive

had his legendary staff tucked under one arm and his legendary wand in the

other hand, blasting out force energy from both. Neil kept an eye on the

whole field, shielding and healing anyone who needed it, from their own

team to other adventurers and civilians. Belinda chained her force tether to

collect elementals together where all the adventurers could lay on area

attacks.

The other adventurers had also leapt into action as elementals emerged

across the sprawling area of streets, alleys and rooftops where the wastewater

rain had fallen. That included Henrietta, who called her familiars into play.

She let out a breath that became a dervish of ash and cinders that charged into

the liquid elementals, evaporating them into clouds of foul, choking steam.

Purple light poured out of Henrietta's eyes, from which manifested a

huge, bizarre floating eye, held aloft by leathery wings on either side of the

orb. It flew around projecting a beam of purple energy that blasted the

elementals apart. The last familiar was a lantern emitting soft green light that

healed any living thing it encountered. She sent it floating off in search of

civilians caught up and isolated by elementals.

Even Henrietta's previously absent phoenix appeared, diving out of the

sky like a burning spear. In a series of swooping strikes, it punched through

elementals, their watery bodies exploding with sprays of filth and steam.

Having put her familiars to work, Henrietta employed a power not unlike

Clive's ability to draw ritual circles. Hers, however, was specifically for

summoning creatures. Where most people would have to lay out a circle of

salt or other appropriate substance, she drew a simple magic circle in the air

with her finger, which was traced out in silver-blue light. She was done in

moments and the circle transmuted into a shimmering portal, through which

came one summon after another.

The first was a crow made of golden fire, superficially similar to the

phoenix but formed entirely from golden flames with burning red eyes. It

soared out of the portal and joined the phoenix in its swooping strikes. Next

through the portal was a winged centaur, clad in armour and carrying a shield

and lance. It galloped into the fray, smashing apart elementals with sweeping

shield bashed and crashing blows from its own wings, used as bludgeons.

The third entity to come out looked like a strange, dark angel. It had no

arms but four wings, two black and two white. Around it floated four

disembodied hands. It flew into the air, looming over the chaos and sending

out the floating hands. Where they touched an ally, the ally was healed.

Where they touched an elemental, the elemental was desiccated. The hand

would push into the elemental as it reduced down to a dry, hard nugget of

waste before floating off again.

The final summon was a golem made of crude iron, glowing with internal

heat. Similar to the forge golem Jason had seen Gary summon in the past, this

furnace golem had flames behind the metal grill in its torso, rather than

molten metal.

There was no shortage of elementals to go after, as more and more kept

forming. The geysering wastewater continued unabated and the filth rain kept

coming down. As some focused on eliminating the elementals as quickly as

possible, Jason, Sophie and some of the other adventurers spread out to help

people. The rain had come down farther afield than anyone had anticipated,

seeping under doors and into the buildings around them.

After designating roles, Jason couldn't spare any more attention to what

the rest of the team was doing. He used the voice chat to keep in touch, but

mostly it was left clear for Humphrey, Clive, Belinda and Neil to coordinate.

It was his evolved map ability that he relied on the most; it now had the

ability to pick out friends, enemies and neutrals. Jason ran around, with

Gordon trailing behind. Jason kept one of Shade's bodies with him to

communicate with the two he sent scouting. The mana-draining power of

Shade's even turned out to effective against the elementals, which were

basically magically infused physical matter. Draining the magic out of them

had a strongly deleterious impact on their integrity.

He fought elementals as he had to, his sword proving sufficiently

effective. It was sufficient at least to extricate people from where they had

been boxed up so he could find them a path out of the rain. He relied mostly

on his familiars to begin with while he accumulated power on his sword until

it was slicing through elementals at a blow.

People were scattered, panicking and making all the wrong decisions.

Elementals came into their homes and businesses, and they ran exactly the

wrong way. It was like herding cats in a thunderstorm.

With the spread of people and the rain coming down on a whole range of

streets, alleys and buildings, Jason didn't always reach people in time. Some

he found dead, drowned in viscous filth. He didn't have time to reflect on

how inured he had become to death, but was already looking for the next

person he could save.

It seemed like the geysering wastewater would never come to an end.

More and more of the foul fluid poured into the sky, raining down to form yet

more elementals. The smaller, iron rank ones coalesced first, followed by the

larger bronze-rank ones. The adventurers had mostly cleared out the

panicking innocents by the time the largest pool congealed into a towering

silver-rank elemental. At the height of a two-storey building, it loomed over

the adventurers battling its lesser kin. Fortunately, its formation finally saw

the geyser of filth peter out.

More adventurers had arrived as the battle continued. Henrietta and the

other bronze-rankers were gearing up to confront the giant elemental when

the first silver-ranker arrived. With dark, waving hair, broad shoulders and

huge hammer, he leapt from the roof of a nearby building. He had arrived

after the filth rain stopped but was quickly coated in muck as great chunks

exploded off the elemental with each swing of his giant hammer. It was a

huge lump of metal, even the handle, but he waved it about as if it weighed

no more than a stick.

The arrival of the silver ranker and the end of the rain forming new

elementals signalled the turning point of the fight. Each rank of adventurer

turned to the matching rank of elementals, which were cleaned up in short

order. In the wake of the battle, the adventurers gathered up, mostly covered

in filth. A few had shielding abilities that protected them, while others were

already using crystal wash or similar items to clean themselves. Jason tossed

a bottle of crystal wash to the silver ranker who was now covered in muck.

“Thanks,” the adventurer said as he tipped the bottle over his head. This

restored his square-jawed handsomeness and lustrous, wavy hair. “From that

cloak you're wearing, I'm guessing you're the Jason Asano people have been

talking about.”

“That's me,” Jason said.

The adventurer looked over the team forming around Jason. His eyes fell

on Sophie and Belinda.

“That would make one of you two Sophie Wexler?”

“Why would you have heard of me?” Sophie asked as she took one of the

crystal wash bottles Jason was handing out.

“The Adventure Society director had a friend of mine following you

around in secret for months. He was the one quietly intervening to help you

avoid being caught. He wasn't allowed to talk about it at the time, of course.

A bit ethically shaky, but there you go.”

“I met him briefly,” Jason said.

“Oh, I know,” the adventurer said with a laugh. “You got him told off, so

he hates you.”

Henrietta approached the group, nodding to the silver-rank adventurer.

“That was good timing, Bert.”

“Henry, it's been a while,” the adventurer greeted back.

“Wait,” Jason said. “You're Betrand Bertinelli?”

“You can call me Bert,” Bertrand said.

“Wow,” Jason said. “You really are the handsome one.”

7

the Glory of Success or the Price of

Failure

B ertrand was the ranking adventurer, which made reporting the elemental

manifestation to the Adventure Society his responsibility. As he was a

latecomer to the incident, Henrietta diligently filled in the blanks in his

knowledge. The team was happy to leave sorting out the mess of the filth-

coated streets to him. Civilian casualties needed to be tallied and reported and

repairs and clean-up organised. Through some meteorological quirk of magic,

it never rained in Greenstone. All the waste would need to be cleaned off

before it dried into the walls. If nothing else, the untreated wastewater would

pose a health risk if not dealt with.

Bertrand was commandeering the services of some of the other

adventurers present as Jason's team left. Their travel contract fortuitously

exempted them; they had a schedule to keep. They left the city and made

their way along the coast road towards the northern edge of the delta.

“I've heard that given the events of recent months,” Henrietta told them,

“some of the more remote areas haven't been getting the attention they

should. Not all of the villages were covered in the last two months by

adventurers, which has apparently led to casualties from iron-rank monsters

that have reached the berserk stage. Bronze-rank monsters that spawned in

that period won't have reached that stage yet, so we can anticipate a higher-

than-normal number of them on noticeboards.”

“We're going to fight bronze-rank monsters?” Belinda asked. As the

newest and only non-adventurer on their team, her face reflected an

understandable uncertainty.

“My role is primarily a supervisory one,” Henrietta said. “While with a

less capable group the bronze ranker might engage in more active leadership,

this is a chance for you to show not just ability but also judgement.”

“Meaning we choose whether to face off against a bronze-rank monster

ourselves or turn to you,” Neil said.

“Precisely,” Henrietta said. “My role is to step in when I determine your

ability or judgement has failed and the danger has become unacceptable.”

“If these remote areas we'll be visiting have been this neglected,” Jason

said, “then I imagine there have been messengers sent to lodge complaints.”

“There have,” Henrietta said.

“I'm willing to bet Arella picked out a route where we'll be cleaning up

messes for her, leaving us to face some unhappy townsfolk.”

“Assuming that's all she does,” Neil said. “Her father's a crime boss and

she hates you, Asano. I'm more concerned she'll try and have you bumped

off out here, catching the rest of us in the middle.”

“Arella has a vested interest in keeping me alive, at this point,” Jason

said. “She barely held onto her position and the support of the Remore family

was a large part of that. Not to mention that Humphrey and Henrietta are with

us. Their mother has not been happy with Arella since the expedition, and if

Danielle suspected her of endangering her children, Arella might just be

vanished and never be heard from again. That said, I've assumed Arella

would make the smart choice before and paid the price for that assumption. It

might not hurt to keep an extra eye out.”

“She won't do anything,” Henrietta said. “My mother bullied her way

into supervising the development of our schedule. She also provided

Humphrey and myself with certain resources to rely on in critical moments.”

“Assuming no one else got the schedule and decided to bury Asano out in

the desert,” Neil said. “Not everyone appreciates his cavalier disregard for

rank and social standing. Even if he hadn't ticked-off certain crime lords,

which he has, Lucian Lamprey has well-known criminal connections. I also

know for a fact that certain elders in the Mercer family really hate him.”

“What for?” Jason asked. “Are they still annoyed that I had the temerity

to have a relationship with Cassandra?”

“It was never about you, Asano. It's internal family politics. The Mercer

family elders are used to being in charge and they weren't happy when Lady

Thalia came back to Greenstone from adventuring. She carved off a chunk of

their influence just by turning up. They knew Thalia approved of you and

Cassandra as a match, so they pushed the family to force you apart as a show

of strength. They made a big deal of you not being good enough and Thalia

not thinking of the family.”

“I see it,” Jason said. “They shoo me away from their precious scion

because I'm some nobody, then suddenly I'm swanning about with visiting

royalty, gold-rankers and even gods. Thalia looks prescient for championing

me when I was a nobody and they look like fools for pushing away someone

whose star is on the rise.”

“That's basically it,” Neil said. “You don't actually matter to them, but

they resent you anyway.”

“Hold on, Asano,” Henrietta said. “You and Cassandra Mercer?”

“She and Jason were together for a while,” Humphrey said. “Until her

family pushed her to end it.”

“Wow, Cassandra Mercer,” Henrietta said. “I'm envious.”

“Henry!” Humphrey said.

“What?” Henrietta asked. “Have you not seen Cassandra Mercer? She's

smart and fun and ridiculously gorgeous. Always was, even before she had

essences.”

“You know her?” Jason asked.

“I did, before we both went off adventuring. Our mothers are friends and

we're the same age, so we drifted around the periphery of the same social

events. Cassie liked them more than I did.”

Despite being the senior adventurer, Henrietta wasn't amongst the older

members of the group. She was twenty-one compared to Clive, who was at

almost thirty, Jason at twenty-four, plus Sophie and Belinda, both about a

year younger than Jason.

“How is any of that Mercer family business Asano's fault?” Sophie

asked. “They just tried to use and dismiss him and now they're annoyed he's

successful?”

“This is one of the problems with aristocracy,” Jason said. “If you teach

someone that everyone else only exists for their benefit, you can't be

surprised when they start using people as if they don't matter.”

“As an aristocrat,” Humphrey said, “I think the issue is more nuanced

than that.”

“Humphrey,” Sophie said. “Every problem Lindy and I ever had was

something you never had to deal with, because you were born in a big estate.

When Asano came along and gave me enough essences that I can be here

today, that was something I never imagined having. Something incredible

and life-changing. But for you, there was never any doubt that not only would

you get essences, but you would have your pick.”

“Jason, have you been poisoning Sophie with your politics?” Humphrey

asked.

“Humphrey, were you not listening?” Jason asked. “We know you're one

of the good ones. We've all seen how hard you work to deserve the things

you have, but if you slacked off and did nothing, you'd still have them. The

problem of aristocracy is that you get all the rewards and only earn them if

you feel like it.”

“Things aren't as simple as you make out,” Humphrey said.

“They never are,” Jason said. “That doesn't obviate the fundamentals

problems.”

“You seem to know a lot about Mercer family politics,” Henrietta said to

Neil, sharply heading off the political discussion with a forceful change of

topic.

“While we were doing all that training,” Neil said, following Henrietta's

lead, “I was finding the time when I could to take tea with Thadwick's

family. I think they like having someone who knows him to talk to. There

aren't a lot of those who don't completely hate him.”

“I think more will hate him, by the time this all plays out,” Clive said.

“What do you mean?” Neil asked.

“I'm the closest thing we have to a star seed expert in Greenstone,” Clive

said. “I was consulted as to Thadwick being seeded again when the Builder

cult demonstrated so much insider knowledge of Mercer family operations

during their supply raids. The thing is, the timeline from when Thadwick was

retaken to when the raids began is too short for that to explain his behaviour.

The seed would have needed longer to supplant his original personality to the

point he gave up such important family secrets.”

“You're suggesting Thadwick gave up the information voluntarily,” Jason

said.

“That would make sense,” Neil said. “Thadwick's family got awkward a

couple of times when we were talking and I didn't realise why at the time. If

they already knew what you just told us, that explains a lot.”

“Of course I told them,” Clive said. “They deserved to know more than

anyone.”

“You think he threw in with the cultists?” Belinda asked.

“Not even Thadwick would fall that low,” Jason said. “They already

captured and implanted one of those things in him once. Even he wouldn't be

stupid enough to volunteer for another go around.”

“You think they just tortured the information out of him?” Henrietta said.

“It would make sense,” Humphrey said. “I don't like to speak ill of a man

probably in terrible circumstances, right now, but he seems like someone who

would give up under interrogation rather quickly.”

“And so he should,” Jason said. “Everyone's going to break eventually,

so you might as well save yourself the torture. I would.”

“You'd give up information under torture?” Humphrey asked.

“Why wait for it to start?” Jason asked. “I'd give up under just the threat

of torture. I don't want to get tortured. I'd crack like an egg.”

They made their way along the coast road, afternoon closing in on evening as

they got closer to the dividing line where the delta met the desert. The Magic

Society maintained outposts at the edge of the delta where spirit coin

shipments were inspected before being handed over from adventurer escorts

to the Duke of Greenstone's people for transport into the city. The plan was

to stay at one of the outposts overnight before heading into the desert in the

morning.

The team was riding is a heavy skimmer that floated smoothly over the

road like a hovercraft. Larger and more expensive that skimmers they had

used in the past, it was a big ten-seater. It used magic to prevent the rush of

air propelling it forward to seeming loud to the passengers, allowing them to

converse. They discussed the silver-rank elemental that had appeared in the

city and whether it was a sign of the monster surge finally beginning.

“There are certainly indicators that it might be,” Clive said. “A monster

surge is kind of like water building up behind a dam, except with magic. If

too much builds up before being sluiced out—in the form of a monster surge

—you end up with some flooding when it finally does. The fact that so many

subordinate monsters appeared alongside the silver-ranked one indicates that

there's a significant build up. Being an elemental is another indicator.

Elementals are basically just ordinary materials infused with magic, which is

why so much material was left behind, even after all the elementals were

looted and went up in rainbow smoke. That kind of monster manifestation is

more common as magic builds up before a surge.”

With both Neil and Jason on hand, plenty of looting went on in the wake

of the elemental fight. Mostly it was water and corrupt quintessence, but

there was also a corrupt essence from the largest elemental. That loot was

Bertand's, given he killed it, and he was going to hand it over to the

Adventure Society since it was on the restricted essence list.

“Does that mean there can be a dam break situation?” Jason asked. “I

kind of assumed that was what the monster surges were.”

“That sounds bad,” Neil said.

“The monster surges are part of our world's natural magical cycles,”

Clive said. “That's why I compared them to a sluice being opened, because

they are part of the normal functioning. A dam break would be such a mass

of magic building up without release that, like a dam break, it would

fundamentally damage the structure of the world. The dam, in this case, is the

membrane between our physical reality and the astral. Permanent damage to

that membrane would be very, very bad, yes.”

“What would that look like?” Henrietta asked.

“I can't be sure,” Clive said. “It would open our world up to astral forces

from which it's normally protected, but the results of that are pure conjecture.

The idea has been thrown around, but not in any serious capacity because it

just shouldn't happen. The natural venting process of the monster surge

would kick-in well before reaching that point. It would only be possible with

some kind of outside intervention, but we're talking about a world-altering

power scale. People have bandied around ideas about how that might work

because surges have been taking longer to arrive but that is conspiratorial

rubbish. We don't even have the beginnings of the kind of astral magic that

would take.”

“Don't we?” Jason asked. “How's that extra reading I gave you going?”

“Jason, it's a big jump between some new revelations in astral magic and

altering the magic of a whole world. It just isn't possible.”

“Clive,” Jason said. “A year ago I didn't know magic was real. The

moment that I accepted that it was—really accepted that it was—I realised

that there is no such thing as impossible.”

Humphrey gave Jason an assessing look.

“I think I just came a little closer to figuring out how you think,” he told

Jason.

“I wouldn't try that, if I were you,” Neil said. “Getting inside that mind is

like putting your hand in the fire.”

“Or a trap,” Sophie added.

“You don't know that,” Jason said. “Come, Neil, and bathe in the

comforting warmth of my thoughts.”

“I'd rather bathe in that turd elemental,” Neil said. The group laughed at

Jason's mock-hurt expression.

“You never answered the original question, Clive,” Sophie said. “Do you

think this is the start of a monster surge?”

“Maybe,” Clive said. “Roaming around during a monster surge is like

travelling in the astral space city where the Reaper trials were conducted.

You won't go much more than an hour or two without some monster jumping

you and we've been riding all afternoon without incident. This might be some

kind of flare-up as a precursor to the surge, but those can happen weeks, even

months ahead.”

“So, it's just another monster manifestation?” Sophie asked.

“I know it feels like it means something because the monster appeared in

the city, but that is just us ascribing meaning that isn't there. To a monster

manifestation, the city means nothing. It's no more or less likely to appear in

a city as anywhere else, but when it appears in the city instead of the

wilderness, it feels different to us. That's why the inclination is to see it as

somehow different, when it isn't. Being a silver-rank manifestation just adds

to that. They do happen here, albeit rarely.”

“How long can it take between surges?” Belinda asked. “What's the

record?”

“Just under fourteen years,” Clive said. “That was a famously bad one.

It's over twelve and counting, this time.”

“Maybe I'm just overthinking it,” Humphrey said. “With everything

that's happening with the Builder cult and the church of Purity, I can't help

but feel all this is building up to something. Something bigger than what

we've seen.”

“Let's hope not,” Henrietta said. “You know that not everywhere has

managed to stop the cult of the Builder. Most of the big places found and shut

them down, but there have been towns and rural areas wiped out when the

local astral spaces were ripped off the side of our world. My team scouted

one out before we split up to go protect our hometowns. The outskirts were

devastated, like a hurricane had passed through. The actual area itself was

worse. There was nothing left. No plants, no building, no life. Just a huge,

gaping hole in the landscape.”

“How big an area?” Neil asked.

“The size of a lake,” Henrietta said. “A big one. You've all heard of the

legend of Sky Scar Lake? That a god made it to punish some sinners that

were living there? That's what it was like, as if some god came down and

scooped the land out.”

“That's horrifying,” Belinda said.

“Mostly it's been small places,” Henrietta said. “Rural areas or even

wilderness where there aren't enough, if any, adventurers to find and stop

them. Word came in just yesterday of a city of twelve thousand people being

lost. It's the biggest so far, and no one thinks the cultists are done.”

“I didn't realise things were so bad,” Neil said.

“You have to realise that Greenstone isn't a priority compared to the rest

of the world,” Henrietta said. “You're only seeing the periphery of a larger

conflict. The cult has been largely blunted here and there's only so much

more damage they can do.”

“I wouldn't be so sure,” Clive said. “We know from Jason's familiar that

some people stayed behind when the astral space was resealed. Emir and his

people have been looking for a way back inside.”

Jason stayed quiet. He had put the issue of getting back inside the astral

space to Shade, who had said it was a possibility, but not yet. The astral space

had originally been stabilised by Shade's former summoner, who used his

own essence abilities as a foundation for much of the infrastructure. That

meant installing his own familiar as an administrator and building the

archway portals based on his teleportation ability, path of shadows.

Shade had postulated that once Jason's own path of shadows power

reached bronze rank and could open portals, then between it, Shade's own

knowledge of the infrastructure and a sufficiently skilled astral magic

specialist, it might be possible to send people back into the astral space. Jason

had, thus far, not shared this with anyone, as there were no guarantees.

Opening his mouth now would just put a target on his back as the cult tried to

kill him off before he ranked his power up.

“Coming back here is a risk,” Timos said.

“Our situation is desperate,” Zato said.

Zato was the last silver-ranker left in the Builder cult's local forces.

Tasked with leading the evacuation when their island stronghold was

invaded, he was able to escape with a good number of their people. None of

his fellow silver-rankers made it through, however, leaving him in the

position of leadership. They had decamped to the former Vane Estate, along

with the church of Purity members working directly with them.

“They know we've used this place in the past,” Timos said.

“Our people still embedded in Greenstone, what few we have, confirmed

that they already checked this place and believe we abandoned it,” Zato said.

“And if they decided to check again, having smoked us from our last

hiding hole?”

“Then the consequences will still be less severe than continued failure.

The astral space Bahadir's people opened up is our last chance to prove

ourselves to the leadership. Have you seen what they do to those who prove

themselves more liability than asset?”

“Recycling,” Timos said with a shudder. “I haven't seen it myself, but

I've heard stories.”

“We both have star seeds within us,” Zato said. “There's no running or

hiding. Only the glory of success or the price of failure. We need the

infrastructure we left hidden here if we're going to claim that astral space.”

They had arrived in what was once the underground ritual room of

Landemere Vane and were working to create the portal that they needed. All

the former contents had been stripped out, even the plaster on the walls and

the wood on the floor, revealing hewn stone. Moulded into the stone of the

floor was a breathtakingly intricate magical circle made of brass. They had

created it by carving channels into the stone floor and pouring in molten

metal. At the centre of the circle was a crude archway made of piled bricks,

each of which had glyphs carved into every visible side.

“Our people inside the astral space have successfully planted the beacon,”

Zato said. “As soon as we detected it, we were able to target it and start

establishing the astral bridge. Once it's complete and the portal opens,

everyone goes through.”

“Everyone?” Timos asked.

“When the Builder claims the disconnected astral space, we shall be

there, triumphantly arriving with the latest addition to his world. In any case,

you do not want to be left here. Did you see the final estimations of how

destructive claiming that astral space would be?”

“Not the final ones,” Timos said. “I knew its unusual nature made it

different. Last I heard was that it would devastate Greenstone.”

“The knowledge used to secure that astral space to this world was

obtained by the Reaper from the Builder himself,” Zato said. “Breaking those

bonds will have a terrifying backlash. We need to take all our people, if only

because Greenstone and everything else within a hundred kilometres of Sky

Scar Lake will cease to exist.”

Timos's past was littered with the dead he left behind him, yet that level

of destruction gave even him pause.

“How many people will that kill?” he asked.

“Does it matter?” Zato asked.

“I suppose not,” Timos said. His flash of compassion was a flickering

candle flame, quickly snuffed out. “Can we leave Thadwick behind?”

8

Adequate

T he low, blocky building of desert stone contained little more than hard

cots. Jason took one look at the spartan dormitory of the Magic Society

outpost and marched back outside. There was plenty of flat, if rather rocky,

open space and he pulled out his cloud flask.

He chose the adaptive version of the cloud house and mist started spilling

out of the flask. It formed into five small buildings in a ring, similar on the

outside to the dormitories and connected by covered walkways. Inside the

could house was a very different story, however, with the soft, luxurious

cloud-stuff interiors to which they had all become accustomed.

“This is very indulgent,” Henrietta said after her first night in the cloud

house. Three of the five buildings were bedrooms, while the last two had a

kitchen and dining room in one and a lounge with bar in the other.

“You're free to pitch a tent outside, if you think this'll make you soft,”

Jason told her.

“It's my responsibility to remain with the team,” she said hastily.

“We can expect to have a lot of work,” Henrietta said after they set off the

next morning. Their planned route was to move north, checking in on the

villages along the coast before turning deep inland and working their way

back south, and then taking the river back to the city.

“The further we go, the more we should find overloaded adventure board

notices,” Henrietta warned. “In some instances, I'll be splitting the team into

two groups to cover more than one notice at a time, but no more than two.

We want to keep at least some safety in numbers.”

“There's a village on our list today,” Jason said. “Last time I saw it, it

was a complete ruin. It'll be good to see it rebuilt.”

“What happened to it?” Belinda asked. “Storm, or monster attack?”

“A tidal troll,” Jason said, “although it looked like a hurricane had passed

through. This was just before Clive and I caught you and Sophie. Humphrey

and Neil were off on the expedition and I took the contract alone. It was my

first solo bronze-rank monster, as well as the first one I fought on purpose.”

“You took down a tidal troll alone?” Henrietta asked. “They're tough and

strong, even for bronze rank monsters. Humphrey and his might essence will

be close to silver rank before he can match it.”

“They're slow, though,” Jason said. “Big, slow and no weird powers.

That made it the perfect enemy for me. Lots of surface area for Colin to latch

onto.”

“I can see that,” Henrietta said. “If you were going slow and steady with

the afflictions, though, it must have been hard to keep it out of the water.”

“It wasn't what you'd call a fast mover,” Jason said. “By the time it ran

for the ocean it was too late. I used my execute to close it out before the troll

crossed the beach.”

“You're the first focused affliction specialist I've met,” Henrietta said.

“All the others were wide-area types. Very good at weeding out the

weaklings and softening up the main opposition. They're very popular on

teams, which they have to be. They're great openers, but not great closers.

Better against large numbers of weaker enemies.”

“That's the opposite of you,” Humphrey said to Jason.

“I can see the appeal.” Jason said. “Just blanketing an area in afflictions

would be nice. I was really envious when Bethh Cavendish showed off powers

like that. I was hoping to pick some up myself. I have to work to get people

afflicted, and a lot of the time its better just to stab them in the neck and move

on.”

“You need to get out of that habit,” Henrietta said. “The higher rank you

get to, the less stabbing someone with a weapon becomes viable. A silver-

ranker will pull your knife out of her throat and stab you right back with it. If

you don't have strength like Humphrey or passively add damage to your

attacks like Sophie, ordinary attacks will be worthless. People get far too

tough at higher rank and monsters are even worse. If you stab someone and

want it to accomplish anything, there has to be a special attack to go with it.”

“Loading enemies up with afflictions at this rank feels pointless a lot of

the time,” Jason said. “It doesn't seem worth the effort when one good knife

strike will get the job done.”

“That's the wrong attitude,” Humphrey said. “The habits we ingrain now

are the habits that define us in the future. You need to fight now the way you

will then.”

“That makes sense,” Jason said. “I need to use those abilities to rank them

up anyway.”

“Maybe ranking your affliction powers will give you some area effects,”

Humphrey said to Jason.

“Not that I could find, when Clive and I looked through the Magic

Society records,” Jason said. “It turns out my shadow teleport opens up

portals, starting at bronze-rank, though. My range will be much shorter than

Hester's, and it won't be able to transport people higher than bronze rank, but

it's still awesome.”

“My teleport will be long-range and let me take people with me at

bronze,” Humphrey said.

“My personal space power, rune gate, also creates a portal at bronze,”

Clive added.

“Hold on,” Henrietta said. “I knew about Humphrey's power, but your

team will have three portal users?”

“Mine's technically not a portal,” Humphrey said.

“That doesn't matter,” Henrietta said. “I thought it was bad enough when

four of you had personal storage powers, but three portals? And you, Clive,

getting both in the same power? Most teams would kill to get a portal user on

their team.”

“Don't tell Emir,” Jason said. “He's already trying to poach Clive as it

is.”

“You're in demand,” Belinda said to Clive. “You should negotiate for a

bigger cut of the loot.”

“The question,” Clive said, “was whether Jason's powers would gain

some wide-area effects. There are a lot of gaps in the Magic Society's

knowledge regarding Jason's abilities. His familiars are unusual, of course,

but that's true of many adventurers. He's not the only adventurer to have an

apocalypse beast familiar.”

“He's not?” Humphrey asked.

“No,” Clive said. “There's an active adventurer with another swarm-type

apocalypse beast. Desolation locusts, they're called. It's not Jason's familiar

powers I'm thinking about, though. Many focused affliction specialists find

their abilities adding wide-area aspects somewhere around the silver or gold

level. Out of Jason's sin and doom essence powers, the Magic Society only

has records of what one of them does beyond bronze rank. I'm looking

forward to filling those gaps as he ranks up.”

“The sin essence is extremely rare,” Jason said, “and apparently not

popular, for a legendary essence.”

“It does take a particular kind of arrogance to absorb the essence of

defying the gods into your soul,” Neil said.

“I don't see it that way,” Jason said. “The sin essence isn't about defying

gods.”

“Then what is it about?” Neil asked. “Because it really seems like it is.”

“It's about the nature of sin,” Jason said. “A sin is a transgression against

a set of rules.”

“Exactly,” Neil said. “Rules set down by the gods.”

“But those rules are arbitrary,” Jason said. “Each god had their own set of

sins. For Knowledge, lying is a sin, but for Deception, or even the Merchant,

lying is a part of their core practices. Each god has their own set of rules.”

“So?” Neil asked.

“So, I don't think the sin essence is about violating rules of the gods. Not

for me, at least. Maybe it works that way for some others.”

“It definitely does,” Clive said. “I've seen some of the combinations in

the Magic Society records.”

“Anyway,” Jason said, “it doesn't work like that for me. My sin essence,

I'm pretty sure, is about having my own rules that others transgress.”

“Oh, so you're not violating the rules of the gods,” Neil said. “You're

positioning yourself alongside them. Let me retract what I said about your

breathtaking arrogance.”

The trickiest part of the adventure board notices in coastal villages was the

preponderance of ocean monsters. Clive's air bubble ritual was fine for slow

underwater travel, but wouldn't hold up to combat. Knowing their route

through the coastal villages would cause this issue, the team had picked up a

supply of water-breathing potions from Jory before they left.

They were saving the potions for when they needed the whole team. They

resolved most of the notices by relying on Jason's magic umbrella, while his

necklace of the deep was handed over to Humphrey.

Item: Necklace of the Deep (iron rank, uncommon)

A necklace containing the power of the deep ocean giants

(jewellery, necklace).

Effect: Ignore the effects of high pressure and pressure variance

Effect: Breathe water.

Effect: Your weight is increased. You cannot use iron-rank

weight reduction abilities or items.

Jason's bubble, and the magic umbrella that created it, were quite stable

and handled underwater contact with no issues. As the umbrella floated over

his head by itself, it left both of his hands free, and the bubble of air meant

his movements weren't slowed down by water resistance. The biggest

impediment to his combat power was the inability to pull out Colin, who

couldn't handle the salty water. The intangible Shade and Gordon handled it

just fine, however.

The necklace didn't have the same effect of freeing up movement, but it

offered the secure footing of extra weight and Humphrey's superhuman

strength did the rest.

The pair emerged from the ocean after taking out a crab monster that was

impacting the village's seabed trawling operations. The water quintessence

that formed along the coast north and south of the delta was the bulk of a

village's earnings. Their teammates were waiting for them on the shore.

“You should try going without your umbrella,” Clive suggested. “Getting

past the drowning reflex is a good way to break the breathing habit.”

“He's only iron rank,” Henrietta said. “He'll drown.”

“He's an outworlder,” Clive said. “His body got a head start on the magic

transition.”

“I take it you've all had the talk, then,” Henrietta said.

“The talk?” Jason asked.

“The 'we're all turning into wet, magic flesh sacks,' talk.”

“Yeah, we had that one,” Jason said. “Next we're going to tell Neil where

babies come from.”

The biggest time sink during their journey was not going to be travel,

with the heavy skimmer Clive secured careening them over the desert in

speed and relative comfort. It was the effort it took to hunt down the monsters

on the adventure board notices that soaked up their time. None of them were

near the village centres. If the monsters had been closer and more of a threat

to the village then they would have sent for immediate adventurer response.

The first village was the one closest to the city and least in need of extra

attention. It was the remote villages out in the desert where they anticipated

the notices to be stacked up. The second of three villages they planned to visit

that day was the one where Jason had fought the tidal troll.

As the village had been completely rebuilt, he didn't recognise it when

they arrived to the warm welcome of the villagers. After they had been forced

to escape their ravaged homes, the Adventure Society had avenged their

fallen, reclaimed their village and even helped fund reconstruction. They

insisted on showing their gratitude with a small luncheon feast before the

adventurers even had a chance to look at the adventure notice board.

They finally turned to the task that brought them to the village. It was a

bronze-rank monster, but not an aggressive one. After the tidal troll, simply

avoiding the territory the beast had claimed was an easy task for the villagers.

This was especially true since its territory was a desolate stretch of desert

with little value to anyone. They had simply posted warnings on the coastal

road warning traders to detour around, a common enough thing in a world

where monsters were a fact of life.

“This will be the first bronze-rank monster that many of you have faced,”

Henrietta told the team. “The villagers have identified it as a stone lurker,

which is a common monster in this area, so the information should be

reliable. It's tough, strong and camouflages itself well in rocky desert areas.

If you catch it in the sand it will be easy to spot, but keep a sharp eye out if

you start seeing rocks. It's very good at hiding its aura.”

“Also, don't assume there is only one,” Humphrey added. “Jason, you'll

be the primary damage dealer.”

“You should be wary, Jason,” Clive said. “A stone lurker isn't as strong

as a tidal troll but it isn't as slow, either. It can also make charging dashes,

which it will in an ambush.”

There were two of the stone lurkers, but the fight went as well as they

could have hoped. Sophie, with her enhanced aura senses, detected them right

before they attacked. She and Humphrey intercepted them; she held off one

as Jason went to work on it. They already had Humphrey and Neil's

summons out, which they directed to support Humphrey.

The stone lurkers were large, bipedal lizards that hammered out with

huge, knuckled fists. Their strength was enough that meeting them fist to fist

rattled Sophie's arm in spite of her attack-negating power. She mostly

dodged the attacks, frustrating the giant lizard. It was surprisingly fast for its

size, but that was nothing to Sophie.

Humphrey didn't have Sophie's defensive strength so the rest of the team

supported him. He held the line as Neil's shields protected him, one after

another, then let the summons take the brunt until Neil's abilities became

available again.

Clive and Belinda opened up, chaining Clive's powerful attack spell by

having Belinda copy the spell after Clive used it, reset the cooldown so he

could use it again and then reset her own cooldown to copy it a second time.

This allowed them to fire the team's single biggest attack four times in quick

succession, rather than once and then having to wait for the cooldown. The

sequence consumed huge amounts of mana but was incredibly devastating.

Jason used the reach of his shadow arm to get in his attacks from safety.

Many of his afflictions were resisted at first, although his resistance-

diminishing aura was stronger than in the past and almost half of them got

through. Gordon's unrelenting beam and Jason's conjured dagger both

inflicted the condition Vulnerable, which lowered the lizard's resistances for

each instance that took hold. It was not long before Jason had inflicted his

full suite of afflictions on the lizard. He could have unleashed Colin, but he

kept the leeches in reserve, in case there was a third monster, waiting to

pounce.

Once his afflictions were locked in, Jason used his punition spell. It

inflicted damage for each affliction of certain types on the target. They were

rapidly stacking up, but the bronze-rank monster was able to sustain that

much from Jason's iron-rank spell. He couldn't use it again for half a minute,

so he moved on to the second monster while Sophie continued to keep the

first one busy.

Jason added his efforts to the others. His afflictions were soon locked in

and the fight became a matter of time. He used his punition spell every time it

became available, causing more and more of the monster's flesh to die as the

afflictions mounted. In the end, he finished off the monsters, one after the

other, with his transcendent damage execute power.

The team were tired, stamina exhausted and mana spent. Against bronze-

rank monsters, even when the fight went their way at every stage, the battle

was a slog. Clive and Belinda had learned that endurance was the key when

their combined efforts, while hurting the monster, weren't enough to take it

down before they were reduced to ineffectually firing wands from the back.

“You did adequately,” Henrietta told them in the aftermath. “Don't think

things will always go that well, though. There will be hard fights ahead and

you will be challenged. When I step in to save you, chances are you will have

been hurt already. Badly hurt. You all need to be ready for that.”

The team returned to the village to notify them they could remove the

detour signs from the coast road. They then moved on quickly—the

graciousness of the villagers was appreciated, but also time-consuming.

Riding away, Sophie turned her gaze from the village, to Asano's back.

“What is it?” Belinda asked quietly.

“He didn't tell them,” Sophie said.

“Didn't tell who what?”

“Asano,” Sophie said. “They don't know he's the one who killed the

monster that destroyed their village, and he didn't tell them.”

“So?”

9

Trash Bonanza

J ason set up the cloud house after they cleared out the adventure notices

of the third village of the day. Henrietta gathered the team together to

talk about their performance in the day's combat.

“Obviously, most of those notices weren't any kind of a challenge,” she

said. “As a team, and even alone for most of you, very few iron-rank enemies

will pose any kind of threat. That's acceptable for now, but a full team of

capable iron-rankers should comfortably handle not just most iron-rank

monsters but bronze-rank monsters as well. One to one, any adventurer

should be worth more than any monster of their own rank. That is not to say

you all need to be able to handle monsters alone. Neil and Clive, your powers

are obvious suited to a group environment. You need to make sure that your

value to the team is greater than any monster to their pack.”

Neil threw a wary glance in Jason's direction.

“What?” Jason asked.

“Nothing smarmy to say about my value to the team?”

“Are you kidding?” Jason asked. “You're awesome. If the team gets stuck

in a situation where you or me has to be kicked off the bus, it's not going to

be you.”

“Jason is right,” Henrietta said. “Neil, you are the most indispensable

member of the team. That does not mean you don't have improvements to

make, which goes for all of you. You beat the bronze-rank monsters today,

but if you're still performing at that level by the time we get to back to

Greenstone, then I will personally see to it you disband. I will not have my

brother in a stagnant team, because right now you're all potential and no

payoff.”

She panned her gaze over the group.

“You have clearly been strategising around versatility,” she went on,

“which is a good fit for your team makeup and power sets. Now I've seen

you in action against a live enemy who poses an actual challenge, I could

easily recognise the factor holding you back. That factor is a lack of

dynamism.”

“We're using a variety of strategies,” Humphrey said, “and we're

constantly devising more.”

“And that is a good foundation,” Henrietta said. “You're combining your

abilities well enough, but only when you fall into those devised strategies.

When pushed out of them, you fall back to individual efforts. You need to

internalise those strategies to the point that you can improvise on the move

and adapt to the different configurations required in the moment. The key is

that when you adapt, you have to include your team members instead of

falling back on what you know works just for you.”

“Trust,” Jason said.

“Precisely,” Henrietta said. “To make the most of your versatility,

improvisation will be critical. You have to know what your team is capable

of and trust them to make the right choice in the right moment.”

“Which means we actually have to make the right choice in the right

moment,” Belinda muttered.

“Do you have something constructive to share with the group?” Henrietta

asked her.

“No,” Belinda said sullenly.

“Then save your snide comments for after. Now, as I was saying:

teamwork. You have to learn to read each other. To know what your

teammates will do without discussion and without hesitation. Assess, adapt,

act.”

“Surely that's a matter of experience,” Neil said.

“It's exactly a matter of experience,” Henrietta said. “Not just any

experience, though. You have to know everything your team is capable of

and you won't figure that out if you keep falling into the same, easy patterns.

From now onward, I will be sending you into fights in different groupings.

When you've been doing this yourselves, you've been going for the obvious,

complimentary pairings. Jason and Sophie, Clive and Belinda, Humphrey and

Neil. You're going to find these new groups I put you in awkward, perhaps

even dangerous. Your job will be to tease out everything your teammates are

capable of. To find the synergies you never saw and exercise the abilities that

have gone neglected. If nothing else, it will help you rank up all your powers

on the way to bronze.”

Henrietta put her designs into action with the next village they came to. First

up was the pairing of Jason and Belinda. Belinda had fallen into a pattern of

resetting and duplicating Clive's infrequent, high-impact powers, but it was a

worthless tactic with Jason's rapid, low-impact abilities. Instead, Belinda

served as a makeshift guardian, drawing enemy attention while Jason went to

work.

“Pathetic,” was Henrietta's assessment. “Jason, you're squandering

Belinda's powers and trying to do it all yourself. Expect to be placed in this

pairing again and again until you find the synergies that make you fight like a

team instead of like nervous adolescents, fumbling around one another.”

“I think that means you, Humphrey,” Jason said.

“Was there something in my tone inviting so much as a skerrick of light-

hearted whimsy, Mr Asano?” Henrietta snapped. “If you have time to

leverage your wit – such as it is – against my brother, you will find it better

spend in the development of your combat skills, rather than your social

ones.”

Humphrey received a similar dressing down after being paired with Clive.

Henrietta berated them as well for working as disconnected individuals.

“It's not enough to be a distraction for your damage dealer,” Henrietta

told her brother. “You're trying to set up Clive to use his attack spell, as if he

didn't have nineteen other essence abilities. I want to see you luring people

into his trap spell. Baiting the enemy into making big attacks where his

retribution damage powers will have the greatest effect. And you, Clive need

to stop waiting for everyone else to give you your chances. You have to make

them yourself.”

As they went from village to village, fight to fight, the team was placed in

a variety of configurations. Neil was grouped with Jason, whose usual stealth

tactics would leave the healer alone and exposed. Then he was paired with

Sophie against a high-defence monster. Neil and Sophie made for a

combination even harder to harm than the monster itself, but they lacked the

offensive power to hurt it in turn, turning the fight into a battle of attrition.

Belinda saw the most action of anyone in the team, combined with

everyone else in different configurations of two or three. Not only were her

powers the most varied and untested, but she was also the one most in need

of experience.

The next bronze-rank monster encounter came at the final coastal village

before their route would take them inland. Henrietta's intention had been to

let them face bronze-rank monsters in smaller groups, but this one was an

aquatic monster. Not only was she allowing the full group to act together but

also participating herself.

The monster wasn't notoriously strong, but it was aquatic and had the

environmental advantage. They used water breathing potions. Jason finally

accepted Clive's advice and got Humphrey to hold his head under water until

he gasped out and broke the reflex to breathe. It took multiple attempts before

Jason could actively stop breathing without his instincts freaking out and

starting him up again. Only after finally overcoming the drowning reflex did

he manage it.

“This feels very weird,” he croaked in a gasping voice. “I have to get

used to talking when I'm not breathing.”

“No rush,” Neil said.

“It's kind of unnerving,” Jason continued. “It's like my body senses

something is wrong. It definitely doesn't want me wasting breath I don't have

on talking.”

“Trust your instincts,” Neil said.

“That's not helping,” Henrietta said to Neil.

“It's helping me,” Neil said.

“It will take time before your body adapts,” Clive said. “It's actually an

unusual and fascinating process. Your body, as it stops doing things the way

a mortal body does, will start find new ways. Your voice, for example, won't

come from breathing through your throat but by using vibrations to generate

sound. It'll take a while before you sound like your old self, but along the

way you'll find yourself picking up interesting tricks. Throwing your voice or

projecting it to fill up a room. Or just blasting louder than you ever could

with something as maudlin as lungs.”

“Don't try and rely on not breathing in combat, yet,” Henrietta told Jason.

“You've been breathing your whole life and you don't just kick the habit that

easily. You can do it fine, standing around, nice and safe. You go underwater

and get caught up in a fight and you'll find that drowning reflex coming right

back.”

The fight against the aquatic monster was a mess. While breathing water,

spells could still be cast but it had to be done with careful enunciation of the

incantations, slowing the process down. The leverage required to swing

weapons underwater was impossible to achieve without an item like the

necklace of the deep that Humphrey wore, and even then it took all his

strength to swing his sword through the water to even minimal effect.

Mobility was obviously impacted underwater and team coordination fell

apart, even using Jason's voice chat for silent, telepathic speech.

“That was an absolute shambles,” Henrietta told them as they dragged

themselves out of the surf after eking out a victory. She had done much of the

work, using a spell that allowed her familiars to act freely under the water.

“Neil, you were the solitary stand-out,” she continued. “The way you

covered the team and their many, many mistakes was a credit to you. Well

done. How much mana do you have left?”

“I'm drained,” he said, collapsing onto his back on the sandy beach.

“And that's how close you were to failure,” Henrietta told the others. “If

the fight had gone on any longer, there was a danger of some of you suffering

real damage when Neil's mana ran out.”

“The fight was in an extreme environment against a bronze-rank

monster,” Humphrey said in defence of the team. “If you expected us to do

well, you wouldn't have participated yourself.”

“And if I wasn't here to participate?” Henrietta challenged her brother.

“What would you have done?”

“Sent for someone else,” Humphrey said. “If it was aggressive enough to

leave the water to attack, we could have fought it on land. If not, we'd have

had the time to send for an adventurer better suited to fighting it.”

Henrietta grinned, surprising the team.

“Good answer,” she said. “Recognising when not to fight is also a

strength worth cultivating. If the top reason adventurers die is bad

information, the second is lacking the courage to admit they aren't a match

for the fight in front of them.”

“Not to dismiss the fact that I was the best,” Neil said from where he was

sprawled in the sand, “but how useful is learning to fight underwater

anyway?”

“We won't always get to pick our fights, or the chance to walk away,”

Jason said. “We have to be ready for the fights we don't want. That fight

showed us the strength of having the right items to compensate for

environmental challenges. If we pick some more up and keep them in

storage, then with some more experience we should at least be able to hold

our own.”

“Asano is right,” Henrietta said. “Always be as ready as you can. We're

done with these coastal villages, but once you're back in Greenstone, pick up

some items and practise more underwater combat in the mirage chamber.”

As the team turned their path inland, they crossed the empty desert sands.

The heavy skimmer allowed them to travel in relative comfort, sitting under

an awning as the seemingly endless desert passed by. The air was hot,

rushing over their faces with the speed of the skimmer, but not oppressively

so with milder winter temperatures.

Jason and Clive both had oasis bracelets that shielded them from the heat,

as did Belinda. Jory had gifted it to her in preparation for her first real

adventuring expedition. For the rest of the team, he had provided less-

valuable, but still welcome heat protection for a nominal fee. Sophie, Neil

and Humphrey all wore head-cloths that were alchemically treated to remain

wet and cool. Henrietta had a fire essence and could eat worse heat that the

desert could throw at her.

They made their way through remote villages that were torn between

gratitude for their arrival and frustration that it had taken so long. The

villages were all located on oases sourced from apertures to the rainforest

astral space. One village had even been attacked by Builder cultists who had

fled through the local aperture, following the battle with the expedition in the

astral space.

The villages in the sandy regions of the desert were largely there to serve

the more remote spirit coin farms. With many magical practises prohibited in

the area of the sensitive coin farms, the people staffed there turned to nearby

villages.

Moving deeper in, the sand turned to rocky wastes. Most of the villagers

they encountered quarried the stone for which Greenstone was named. Other

villages were mining towns. Most of those towns were built around dig sites

for a magical ore that appeared in the desert. While investigating to serve his

own curiosity, Jason made an interesting discovery.

The magical mineral sun gold could be found in iron and bronze-rank

veins and mostly appeared in arid lands that saw clear skies all year round.

For that reason, most sun gold mines were located in deserts. Sun gold was

always found with large quantities of what they called trash gold, which was

normal rank and had no magical properties. It simply formed in large

quantities around sun gold veins and had to be carefully separated from the

valuable stuff in the smelting process.

Jason picked some of the discarded metal.

Item: Gold Nugget (normal rank, common)

A lump of non-magical gold. Has little value in worlds with magical

equivalents (crafting material, metal).

Effect: Non-magical crafting material.

The sun gold was refined by a local whose iron and transmutation

essences turned him into a human smelting machine. Trash gold was a cheap

cosmetic material considered too heavy to be worth shipping off and was

largely discarded. Jason paid the smelter to go through the slag piles, helping

him experiment with what sizes he could fit into his inventory. It turned out

he could stack twenty ten-kilogram bars of purified trash gold into a single

slot, as the restrictions were more size than weight-based. Jason left the

village with two slots filled with heavy gold bars.

“What do you want all that trash gold for?”

“Someday I'm going to go home,” Jason said. “In my world, trash gold is

just gold.”

10

Strangeness

A s the team went from town to town, clearing off huge stacks of

adventure notices, not everything went as planned. Henrietta continued

breaking the team into inefficient combinations, which was only the start of

things going wrong.

Humphrey had been regularly summoning his dragon tooth warriors, both

to practise working with them and level their power. Each time he did, he

used the summoner's die to alter their form. The die had proven an effective

boost, turning his warriors into hulking gorillas, swift hunting cats or even

giant, blood-draining spiders.

The way the die worked was to roll it in the summoning circle, which for

Humphrey was a simple circle of powdered chalk. This served to activate the

power, calling out the summons in their altered form. Three giant fish made

of ivory appeared on the ground, wrapped in chain mail and flopping around

like fish on a dock.

“What is this?” Humphrey asked.

“Looks like one of the sides on that die is fish,” Jason said, giving

Humphrey a consoling pat on the back.

“I can't resummon them for six hours.”

“Tough luck, buddy,” Jason said. “I guess you're fighting this monster

without them, unless you can find a lake real quick.”

Amongst the iron-rank monsters they were clearing out like they were

magical exterminators, the team came across the occasional additional notice

for a bronze-rank monster. This was where the team faced challenges that

truly tested their abilities.

Henrietta assigned Neil, Clive and Belinda to hunt down a monster called

a sand hulk, a lesser giant that was common in desert areas. Without Sophie,

Humphrey or even Jason to obstruct or distract, the team had little in the way

of front-line options against the slow but powerful monster.

Belinda's counterfeit combatant power was at the bottom of iron rank,

nowhere close to the point that they would risk her attempting to hold it off.

That left Neil's summon, the chrysalis golem, which only took one punch

each from the monster's huge fists before retreating into its harmless

chrysalis state. It could no longer fight in that state, but not even the giant,

twice as tall as person, was able to damage it. The giant wasted precious

moments that the team used to retreat as it pummelled ineffectually at the

crystal cocoon.

The team fought a stalling retreat, blasting away at the monster with

wands and spells. Clive's familiar, Onslow, proved a relatively effective

source of attacks. Any time Clive wasn't casting his own spells, he was

continually recharging the tortoise's elemental powers. The only issue was

the tortoise was even slower than the giant. Clive had to periodically return

Onslow to the rune in his skin, then retreat farther before pulling the familiar

out again.

Belinda's lantern familiar sent bolts of force into the sand hulk but its

attacks were less effective than those of Clive's familiar, Onslow. The

disruptive-force attacks of Belinda's lantern were better against magic in

incorporeal entities, rather than a solid, physical monster.

They threw power after power at the sand hulk, which largely shrugged it

all off. It walked right over Clive and Belinda's rune traps. Belinda's

lightning tether dealt damage the further the target moved from it, but even at

maximum ranged, its damage was superficial. Clive's big attack spell, looped

and copied by Belinda, was the only thing that inflicted any real damage.

Belinda glanced at Clive. He nodded and she used her pit of the reaper

ability. It opened up a dimensional pit—not an actual hole in the ground but

an extra-dimensional one that didn't occupy space and was open to normal

space at the top. The walls were frictionless and anything inside would suffer

ongoing necrotic damage.

The team's concern was that they had looked up the sand hulk's abilities

and knew it could transform into a cloud of sand. There was little information

about the sand cloud form and Clive was wary of it. They didn't know if it

could fly or use some kind of scouring sandstorm attack they couldn't defend

against. The team had held off using the pit as they were concerned about it

triggering the power, but they needed all the time they could get to burn the

monster down. If it couldn't escape the hole and they could shoot down at it

like it was fish in a barrel, then all the better.

The sluggish monster was not hard to drop into the pit, but their first

concern was proven valid. It flew right back out in the form of a sand dervish.

It moved no faster than the monster's previous pace, however, and retook the

form of a giant.

In the time the pit had delayed it, Neil's golem had the chance to catch

up. It had hatched from its cocoon some time ago, but was not much faster

than the giant. The golem's new form was something between crystalline and

gelatinous. It wrapped a pair of long, rubbery appendages around the

monster, which immediately began to retaliate.

The monster ripped off the gooey appendages but the golem simply grew

more from its fluid body mass. The monster pounded on the golem's body,

which rippled like a jellied dessert as it absorbed the impact. The monster

tried transforming into sand to escape the grip, only to learn that as its body

started changing into sand, that sand became stuck to the golem. The monster

halted the transformation and went back to trying to free itself through main

force.

With the giant at a standstill, the team intensified their attacks, throwing

everything they had at it. Neil's summon had performed its function of

adapting to the needs of the fight admirably, but it was ultimately an iron-

rank monster fighting a bronze-rank one. It couldn't harm the sand hulk. It

could merely tie it up for a brief, but valuable, few moments. Eventually the

sand hulk tore its way free by ripping the golem into globulous chunks and

tossing them aside. Once the golem fell inert, the giant turned back to the

team.

Despite its incredible resilience, the monster was in a bad state, by this

point. The sheer accumulation of damage had left it pitted and burned,

spilling out sand like it was blood. Neil and Clive had both taken the chance

to use powerful retribution effects on the golem, which had turned the

damage from the sand hulk's own powerful blows back on itself. Clive's

spell had continued to have a large impact and the simple accumulation of

damage from rune traps, wands, Onslow's elemental attacks and other

abilities had simply piled up.

When it was clear the monster would break free of the golem, Belinda

and Clive had set up a whole line of rune traps. The monster walked over

them, one after another. This was enough to finally make the sand hulk

decide to flee, which it tried to do in the form of a slow-moving sand cloud.

Clive used his big attack spell, wrath of the magister, one more time. He used

the most powerful version, a prismatic beam launching into the cloud. The

colours dimmed, one by one, until the beam was black and a void sphere

appeared in the middle of the cloud. The sand was sucked through as if the

void sphere was a hole in the universe, the once seemingly indestructible

monster annihilated into nothingness.

The weary group trudged back to the rest of the team. They looked to

Henrietta for her assessment, although it was Jason who spoke first.

“I don't think there's anything to loot,” he said. “Neil?”

“I was too far away,” Neil said. “It wasn't in range of my aura.”

“Maybe there are some scraps left behind from where they attacked it

along the way,” Jason suggested.

“Loot can wait,” Henrietta said. She gave the tired combatants an

assessing look. “I took away the toughest and most mobile members of your

team and you still got the job done. This was an acceptable performance. If

we get another sand hulk it's yours to fight, Asano.”

“Won't that be an easy one for me?” Jason asked. “A big, slow monster

like that?”

“The Magic Society entry doesn't say if that cloud form clears off

afflictions,” Henrietta said. “I'm willing to bet it does. I'm curious as to what

you'll do about that.”

Late in the evening, Jason stepped outside the cloud house. They were out in

the desert, in between villages, and it had once again taken the form of a set

of flat stone buildings.

Jason concentrated and stairs appeared on the side of one of the buildings.

It might look and feel like stone, but still moulded itself as the cloud-stuff it

truly was. Jason was becoming more and more adept at controlling it. He

walked up the stairs to the roof where, to his surprise, he found Clive's

familiar, Onslow, standing in the middle of the roof.

“How did you get up here?”

Onslow responded only with a slow yawn.

“Keep it casual, don't reveal all your cards,” Jason said. “I can respect

that. Mind if I join you?”

The closest Onslow came to a response was an impassive blink.

“I'll take that as a yes.”

A patch of roof rose up to form a chair of clouds and Jason sat down. He

concentrated on bringing his breathing to a halt. Henrietta had been on the

mark about needing time to adjust to not breathing and he had been practising

of a night, wearing his warmest clothes in the chilly desert night.

Neither moon was in the sky, but he had no trouble seeing out over the

barren landscape. His midnight eyes power was edging achingly close to

becoming his first bronze-rank ability and his vision in the dark was near

absolute. Originally, the power had let him see with washed-out colour. Now

he could see as clear as day, yet he could also see the darkness almost like a

physical substance, oddly transposed over his vision. It should have clashed,

yet it seemed to him part of a natural whole, even though the result looked

something like an alien landscape. It was nothing that his old human eyes

could ever perceive.

Midnight eyes had been his very first essence ability. Compared to the

other things he could do, it was positively mundane, yet it was also the most

emblematic of everything he had been through. Because of that power, the

way he looked at the world had literally changed. It was the still moments,

alone in the dark, when Jason most felt the strangeness of his new world.

More than that, he felt the strangeness of what he had become living in it.

He practised speaking without breathing, using exercises Henrietta had

taught him. Onslow was watching him and Jason retrieved Colin, who piled

up in front of the tortoise. Onslow tilted his head to look at the pile as Team

Colin undulated excitedly in front of it.

Eventually Jason tired of practise and decided to get some rest, collecting

Colin and making his way back down the stairs. There, he had an odd

encounter as two people emerged at the same time from different buildings.

They were both also Jason.

The three Jasons looked at each other. One had an embarrassed look on

his face, the other, a bushy moustache.

“I take it Clive is still trying to have you replicate my interface ability?”

“Yeah,” Belinda/Jason said with an apologetic smile.

“Biscuits!”

Jason tousled Stash/Jason's hair. “What did Humphrey say about sweet

things before bed?”

“Warm milk?” Stash/Jason ventured.

“That, I think we can manage,” Jason said.

“Yay!” Stash/Jason cheered. “Why is everyone better-looking than me?”

“That's enough out of you, dragon.”

11

full Circle

T he six-legged lizards were not especially dangerous individually. They

were no bigger than medium-sized dogs and posed little threat. What

made them troublesome was that they were extraordinary in both their

hardiness and their number. A group of lizards was normally called a lounge,

but the mass of creatures the team was viewing from a distance would be

better described as a swarm or even a carpet.

“Desert horde lizards,” Henrietta said. “They're not a real danger to an

adventurer, but they're a lot harder to kill than they look. Most of the time

they'll just lay about in the desert sun, not bothering anyone. If they're on the

move, though, they're looking to feast. They can come down on a town like a

swarm of giant locusts. Regular people have no chance of putting them

down.”

She turned to the team, looking down at the monsters from a high ridge.

“Any volunteers?”

“Let Belinda and I go,” Jason said.

Henrietta raised her eyebrows. She had paired Jason and Belinda together

the most because the combination had shown the least results. While their

effectiveness had improved, that improvement had come from combining

individual effort instead of operating as a unit.

“You have something to show me?” Henrietta asked.

“We've been working on some things,” Belinda said. “This should be a

good enemy to show off the results.”

Henrietta acceded and Jason and Belinda made their way down the sharp

ridge. The lizards were following the base of the ridge around, so by going

down one side, they had time to make preparations before the lizards arrived.

The pair called out their familiars, except for Colin, and Jason pulled out a

large flat board, setting it on the ground. Belinda took out a stick of chalk and

started drawing out a ritual circle.

Clive was the team's master of ritual magic, with a breadth of knowledge

that regularly staggered Jason. Belinda, like Jason, was learning from Clive,

but for her, it was more like filling in gaps. When it came to a certain branch

of magic, the deception and intrusion branch, even Clive had something to

learn from her. The circle she was drawing out wouldn't visibly disguise

them, but it would contain any aura they inadvertently revealed while using

essence abilities.

Desert horde lizards were short-sighted, relying more on aura senses than

normal sensation to sense prey or other predators. So long as the lizards had

something else to hold their attention, Jason and Belinda should be able to

cast spells from a distance without being detected.

They sent their familiars forward to meet the monsters as they came

around the ridge. Remaining behind were Colin, still in Jason's blood, and

one of Shade's three bodies, currently serving as Jason's shadow.

The lizards became a boiling cauldron of chaos as they surged on the

familiars, the aggressive monsters piling over each other to reach them. Their

savage bites had little effect, with Gordon, Shade and Belinda's living

illusion all being incorporeal. Belinda's flying lantern floated out of reach,

blasting down bolts of force. The inherent magic in the monsters allowed

them to minimally affect the familiars, but not to the point they posed a

genuine threat, even in their massive numbers.

The familiars, in turn, didn't make much of a dent on the lizards. Only

Gordon, with his resonating-force beam, inflicted any effective damage. The

goal was not to inflict damage, however, but to hold the attention of the

monsters. Only once Jason and Belinda were certain the lizards were focused

entirely on the familiars did they start casting spells. Jason started, chanting a

spell that, from the victim's perspective, gave no indication of where the

caster was. At the distance they were removed, there was no chance of the

lizards hearing his quiet recitation.

“Carry the mark of your transgressions.”

Ability: Castigate (Sin)

Spell (curse, holy).

Cost: Moderate mana.

Cooldown: None.

Current rank: Iron 8 (19%).

Effect (iron): Burns a painful brand into the target, inflicting slight

transcendent damage and the Sin and Mark of Sin conditions. The

brand cannot be healed so long as the target retains any instances of

Sin.

Sin (affliction, curse, stacking): All necrotic damage taken is increased.

Additional instances have a cumulative effect.

Mark of Sin (affliction, holy): Prevents aura retraction. Cannot be

cleansed while target retains any instances of Sin or Legacy of Sin.

A small amount of transcendent damage burned a brand into one of the

lizards and it gained two afflictions. The important one was sin, which

increased any necrotic damage. There was no indication as the source of the

spell and Jason's rigid aura control kept it from leaking as he used the ability.

Even if it had, Belinda's ritual circle would have contained it. The

unintelligent lizard became frenzied as it renewed its attention on the obvious

enemies, the familiars.

Right after Jason used his spell, Belinda used the same incantation and

cast the same spell on a second lizard. Her aura control wasn't as practised as

Jason's, which was why the ritual was primarily for her.

Ability: Mirror Magic (Magic)

Special Ability.

Cost: Varies.

Cooldown: Varies.

Current rank: Iron 2 (91%).

Effect (iron): For a short time after a nearby ally uses a spell, you may

use the same spell one time. The strength of the spell you cast is based on

the rank of this ability and your attributes, not those of the original

caster. This may make your version of the spell higher or lower rank

than the original, including losing or gaining additional effects from

higher ranks. This ability has the same cost and cooldown as the original

spell.

In the past, Belinda had mostly used the ability to copy Clive's potent

attack spell. As she and Jason had spent evenings looking for more ways to

synergise their powers, they had a revelation. Jason's abilities might be less

impactful, but they also had no cooldown. In circumstances where he needed

to use them over and over, Belinda could double the rate of application.

Jason followed up his castigate spell with inexorable doom, to get the sin

affliction multiplying. Like his first spell, it gave no indication of its source,

manifesting directly on the target. This was rare in abilities with more

immediate effects and most often found in single-target afflictions powers.

Such abilities could ignore many physical obstructions, so long as the target

was visible. It took magical protection, such as the common mana shield

ability, to prevent the easy use of such a power.

Jason's familiars were his key tools in dealing with that particular

problem. Colin could slither right through the shield, which didn't register

movement as an attack unless it was much faster than Colin could manage.

Only if spraying out of Jason would the movement count, so Jason would

usually have to bait such enemy into Colin's range.

Shade couldn't usually get through such powers, with magic shields

blocking even movement from incorporeal creatures. With the mana shield

ability specifically, though, which directly manifested mana as a shield, he

could drain mana directly from it. Mana shield was an extremely common

power, available through many essences. Clive and Neil both possessed it as

did Sigrid and Claire, the healer from Rick Geller's team. It made Shade very

useful for breaking through that specific power.

For Gordon, breaking magic shields was a much more straightforward

problem. His disruptive-force beam wasn't wildly powerful, but its sustained

effect would break down magical shields very quickly. However the shield

went down, it would give Jason a chance to get a spell in before the shield

snapped back into place.

None of that was necessary against the lizards, however. Jason would cast

his castigate on one lizard and follow up with inexorable doom, Belinda

following up on a second. He used castigate, she used castigate. He used

inexorable doom, she did the same. She could only duplicate a spell once for

each time it was cast by the original user. The cost and duration of the ability

were equal to the cost of the copied power.

Neither of Jason's spells had a cooldown, so they were able to paint the

lizards with brands and afflictions. Both spells had a moderate mana cost, so

it wasn't until they were done that their mana pools started to get low. Jason's

wasn't as bad as Belinda; his recovery attribute was more than half a rank

higher hers and his mana had been naturally replenishing faster. She drank a

mana potion to compensate.

“Is that all of them?” Belinda asked.

“It should be most of them at least,” Jason said. “You put on the big show

and I'll mop up after. Call them back, Shade.”

Jason's shadow was one of Shade's three bodies, while the others were

helping hold the lizard's attention. One of the tricks Belinda and Jason had

developed was to use Shade to direct their familiars allowing them to work at

a distance effectively. Belinda's familiars didn't hesitate to come back when

Shade relayed the call to return.

Most of the lizards had suffered brands put in place with unstoppable

transcendent damage, far from crippling but painful. It had sent them into a

frenzy in their pursuit of the familiars, which they immediately chased when

the familiars started to fall back towards Belinda and Jason.

The lizards were collected nicely in their pursuit, so when a crystal rod

appeared in their midst, they were all within range of its effect.

Ability: Force Tether (Trap)

Conjuration.

Cost: Low mana-per-second.

Cooldown: None.

Current rank: Iron 1 (34%).

Effect (iron): Conjures a crystal rod, from which a tether of shimmering

force connects to all nearby enemies within a moderate range. Tethered

enemies are dragged towards the rod, which is protected by a force field

that inflicts moderate resonating force-damage to anyone in contact with

it. If the force-field is ruptured, it explodes in a wave of resonating-force

damage. If the rod is destroyed or removed from its location then it

explodes in a wave of disruptive-force damage. Dimensional

displacement, such as teleportation, severs the tether. Untethered

enemies who enter within range of the rod become tethered. Only one

rod may exist at a time.

The force tether was a powerful control effect against groups of weaker

enemies. Stronger enemies, or someone like Humphrey, could resist the pull

of the rod with physical might. The lizards, however, were nowhere near as

strong as they were tough. The tether quickly dragged them into a pile,

burying the rod and its small force field underneath them. Belinda then used

another conjuration power.

Ability: Pit of the Reaper (Trap)

Conjuration (dimension).

Cost: High mana.

Cooldown: 2 minutes.

Current rank: Iron 1 (14%).

Effect (iron): Conjures a dimensional space pit on any horizontal

surface. The surface does not need to be solid or supportive. Anyone

inside the pit suffers ongoing necrotic damage. If this spell is cast again

while a pit already exists, the existing pit vanishes, depositing anyone

inside upon the surface on which the pit was conjured.

A hole in the ground appeared under the pile of lizards and they fell in. A

few lizards around the periphery remained outside of the pit, due to the sheer

size of the monster pile. Their escape was short-lived as the crystal rod that

was the source of the force tethers also fell down, dragging the monsters over

the edge and into the pit with the others. Being moved from its original

location triggered the rod and its force field to both explode, the twin waves

of force smashing lizards into the frictionless walls of the pit.

Soon, the shrieking cries of the lizards came rising up from the pit. The

pit's necrotic damage was not a large amount but most of the lizards were

stacked high with the sin affliction that multiplied it. The screams started to

diminish as the lizards died, until after just over a minute, the duration of the

pit ended.

The only lizards that survived were the ones who hadn't been branded

because Jason and Belinda missed them in the original sprawling group.

Those surviving lizards moved in the direction of Belinda, Jason and the

returned familiars.

“Gordon, intercept any that move on Belinda. Shade, one on me, one on

Lindy and one with Gordon.”

Jason broke into a sprint in the direction of the lizards. The familiars

followed quickly. Jason leapt into the air, combining the weight-reducing

power of his starlight cloak and the leaping power of his magical boots to go

sailing over the monsters.

Item: Sand-Cutter Boots (iron rank, rare)

Boots incorporating the chitin of a sand-cutter, inheriting some of its power

(apparel, boots).

Effect: Improved ability to walk on sand.

Effect: Increased jump height and distance.

Effect: Enhanced kick attack. Highly effective against enemies with

strong earth affinity.

He cut his hand as he passed over, releasing the leeches and raining Colin

down over the monsters before he landed lightly on the other side. The now

frenetic lizards wheeled around to go after him, even as Team Colin dug into

them. Jason didn't bother trying to finish them himself. Instead, he danced

around, playing distraction the way the familiars had before. Gordon and

Belinda's lantern from the other side started beaming them, splitting their

attention.

Any time a lizard got too close, Jason swung a kick in front of it. A chain-

whip of razor shards came out his boot with every kick, causing the lizards to

flinch at the surprisingly deep lacerations it gouged out of them. Like many

desert monsters, they had a strong earth affinity, making them vulnerable to

the attacks of Jason's boots.

Lack of intelligence was the biggest weakness that low-rank monsters

possessed; Jason and his familiars played them back and forth as Colin did

his work. Jason could easily teleport between Shades, one remaining on the

far side of the monsters, one with Belinda and one in between, with Gordon.

Soon enough, the surviving stragglers were finished, Jason using his execute

on some of them to help level the power.

After the fight was done, the pair made their way back up the ridge.

Belinda was exhausted, dripping with sweat despite the refreshing power of

her magical bracelet. Jason had replenished himself on the bodies of the

fallen monsters with his blood harvest spell, so was back to full strength.

“That was excellent,” Henrietta told them. “Belinda, you're only just

beginning to realise the potential in your powers. You'll be able to handle

monsters of your own rank well enough, but once you have full command of

your abilities, working alone would be an egregious waste. You need to be

the mortar in a brick wall. You can make an adequate wall with just bricks,

but the mortar makes it so much better than it ever could be without it.”

She turned to Jason.

“You are something of an opposite,” she told him. “You're strong on

your own and you're harder to mesh with others without taking away some of

your greatest strengths. Because of that, you need to develop different skill

sets for when you're operating in a team to working alone. To truly be part of

the team you have to use them as more than just a distraction while you have

your own fight. I have no doubt you could have conducted some version of

what you did here by yourself, but by integrating your abilities you developed

a reliable, effective and efficient strategy.”

“Thanks,” Jason said. “I was kind of waiting for the turn-around there

where you start telling me what I did wrong.”

“You weren't perfect, by any means,” Henrietta said, “but you're coming

along. Your rapid improvement tells me that Humphrey knew what he was

doing when he put this team together. There's a lot of potential here.”

The team's route had taken them north from Greenstone, up the coast, inland

over the sands of what Jason knew as the Nambi desert and into the Kalahari.

There was more plant life, patchy and dry though it was, with mountains

dotting the horizon. Jason had been looking to his map as they travelled,

which unveiled space as he passed through it. He watched as their path

formed a loop of revealed space, his eyes always turning back to the point the

loop would close.

Because of his map ability, Jason had been playing team navigator. One

of the map's functions, he discovered, was to mark waypoints, even to areas

that were still veiled. He could use the waypoint to mark out a route and use

the mini-map feature the map gained when it evolved to keep them on track.

As navigator, Jason occupied the other front seat of the skimmer, next to

Clive who was driving. When the loop had almost closed entirely, he leaned

over at Clive and talked over the sound of air rushing through the magic ring

at the back of the skimmer.

“Can we take a little detour?” Jason asked. “Should only be about an hour

out of our way for the skimmer.”

“What is it you want to see?” Henrietta asked from behind him.

“Some blood cultists tried to sacrifice me and my friends in this big ritual

chamber, inside a mountain. I wouldn't mind taking another look, now that

I'm not terrified out of my wits and I've spent more than a few hours in this

world.”

“I definitely want to see that,” Humphrey said. “I've heard the story and

I'd love to see where it happened.”

Henrietta looked at the others and got a general consensus of nods.

“Alright, then,” she said. “Let's go take a look.”

The entrance was a cave that was easy to miss from any kind of distance, but

they spotted the remnants of a Magic Society expedition. Trash, debris and a

couple of abandoned tents that seemed to have suffered a monster attack

made for an obvious marker.

“That's the problem with these expeditions in the desert,” Clive said,

examining the tents after the skimmer pulled up. “There's not a lot out here,

so they tend to attract monsters.”

“When did the Magic Society come here?” Jason asked.

“Right after Rufus gave his report to the Adventure Society,” Clive said.

“After hearing what happened, the Adventure Society referred it to us so we

could assess the site for potential future threats.”

“Did you find any?” Neil asked. “Might be worth knowing before we go

in there.”

“No,” Clive said. “Ultimately, it was just an ordinary, if impressive, ritual

room. If anything, the main value is historical. Like the Sky River Aqueduct

or the Order of the Reaper complex we found under the swamp, the ritual

room here predates the settlement of Greenstone. It seems like the Vane

family simply found it and made use of it.”

They went in through the cave, down the long tunnel into the mountain.

Glow stones were pulled out to light the way.

“The cult had these strange red lanterns that washed everything the colour

of blood,” Jason said. “I don't know if they had some kind of purpose or were

just aesthetic.”

They emerged into the main chamber. The stairs, like carved pegs jutting

out of the wall, wound their way up and around the cylindrical chamber.

There were larger platforms at cardinal points as the stairway went up. On the

floor level, what used to be the pool of blood-like liquid still occupied most

of the space. It was now drained, reminding Jason of an empty swimming

pool at some abandoned house.

“The pit was full of this nasty liquid,” Jason told the others as he walked

over to look inside. It was about as deep as Jason was tall, a featureless pit of

dark stone. “There was a light shining out of it that washed everything red,

like those lanterns I mentioned.”

“It smells like blood in here,” Sophie said.

“Not like it used to,” Jason said. “The air was thick and heavy with it,

then. I was pretty woozy because I'd already been knocked out a few times

that day.”

“The Magic Society team examined and disposed of the liquid,” Clive

said. “It seemed to be mostly water, mixed with various alchemical materials.

There was also a lot of blood in it. The team estimated at least a dozen people

died to produce it. The report described the substance as reminiscent of blood

that refused to dry or clot and was extremely unnerving, even with the magic

within it gone dormant.”

“The Adventure Society made their own investigation,” Jason said. “I

was qualified to look at the report after I reached three stars. The Vane family

had been preying on the towns in the region for years and passing it off as

monster attacks.”

“I can't believe they were really eating people,” Neil said. “I knew

Landemere Vane. Not well, but I saw him at social events.”

“I knew him as well,” Clive said. “We shared the same magical specialty.

I thought he was a genius, seeming to pluck these incredible innovations out

of the air. Now we know he was getting them from the Builder cult all along.

Such a waste.”

Clive shook his head in disgust. “All that knowledge from beyond our

world and this is what he uses it for.”

Jason walked them through the events of that day, as best as he

remembered them.

“This was the platform where they left me. They dropped Gary first

because he was the heavy one. If you look over the edge, you'll see the

doorway on the other side of the room. I jumped off the edge of the platform

and used my cloak to float down. All I had was that and my dark vision

power. My intention had been to run like hell, and I almost did.”

“But you came back,” Humphrey said.

“To hear Gary tell it,” Jason said, “it was some brilliant scheme to lure off

some of the cultists. The truth is, I really was running. But I was unconscious

when I was brought to the chamber and had no idea what was at the end of

that tunnel. I knew I would need help if I didn't want to be recaptured ten

minutes later. Also, I'd been whacked around the brain too many times. My

judgement was compromised.”

They continued up the stairs.

“This is where Rufus had a sword fight with Landemere Vane's sister. I

don't remember her name.”

“Alica,” Neil said.

“Sure,” Jason said. “Anyway, she had a sword but all Rufus had was this

evil magic gardening trowel that I found at the Vane Estate. In the end he

threw it to Gary who chucked it through Alica's throat. It so quick and

smooth, no one saw it coming.”

Jason looked thoughtfully at Henrietta.

“Actually, it's what Henrietta's been talking about this whole time.

Knowing what your teammate will do and trusting them to do it.”

“Then perhaps you should take my instruction more seriously,” Henrietta

said.

They went all the way to the top, the platform once holding the altar now

empty. Jason walked up to the edge, and looked down with a sigh.

“The first time I ever deliberately killed a person was in this room.

Landemere Vane was the first, back at the estate, but that just kind of

happened when we were struggling over a knife.”

“These people would have killed you, too,” Humphrey said. “That's the

whole reason they brought you here.”

“I know,” Jason said. “I don't regret the way it turned out. But this is the

first place I ever decided to kill a person and then did it.”

He turned back and gave Sophie a sad smile.

“You probably think I'm a spoiled fool,” he said to her. “The life you've

had, and here I am complaining about the things you probably did far

younger.”

“You're definitely a fool,” Sophie said, giving him a wry smile. “And

yes, I had to make that decision younger than you. That doesn't make it easy,

though, whenever it happens.”

“It was bandits, for me,” Humphrey said. “I'd only just gotten my

essences and was still training. I was out with my cousin, Ernest, who was

looking through monster notices for something I could handle. We were on a

hunt and came across this trade caravan fleeing from bandits. Their leader

was bronze-rank, so Ernest was tied up fighting him while I took the others. I

knew my special attacks were powerful, and I'd seen what they could do in

the mirage chamber, but it was different in real life. I mean, it wasn't, but it

was. It's terrifying how easily people can die. That first bandit, when I hit

her... it was like the top half of her just exploded, unrecognisable chunks

raining down in the mud. It didn't even land on me; the power blasted it all

away. I remember thinking it was odd that I stayed clean.”

“It was bandits for me too,” Clive said. “They raid the remote farms and

ranches in the delta, sometimes. They didn't know my family had an

adventurer son, or that he was visiting.”

Clive's expression turned flinty.

“They found out,” he said quietly.

The group made their way back down to the bottom of the chamber and

Jason pointed out scorch marks, hard to spot against the dark stone.

“This is where we fought the sanguine horror,” Jason said. “Farrah got

her suppression collar off and blasted it to ash.”

“Quite a way to begin your journey as an adventurer,” Henrietta said.

“You know, I'm not sure I even knew what an adventurer was, the last

time I was here,” Jason said. “Rufus, Farrah and Gary only had a chance to

start answering my many, many questions on the way back to the Vane

Estate. It'll be interesting to see that place again.”

12

Regretting it Later

J ason looked around the skimmer as it sailed smoothly over the rocky

ground. It was an unremarkable patch of desert, but the walk between

the mountain with its hidden sacrifice chamber and the Vane Estate had

been an important time for Jason. After he had entered this world, that walk

had been his first chance to slow down and get some answers from someone

who didn't want to eat him or throw him in an evil blood pit.

That was when he really met Rufus, with his solid dependability, and

Gary, with his boisterous enthusiasm. Then there was Farrah. She was the

one who made the team work, bringing Gary into line when it was time for

business and loosening Rufus up when he caused unnecessary tension.

Smarter than either, she could have easily led a team of her own. She was

wise enough to recognise that she didn't want to. She left that to Rufus while

she engaged in her own pursuits.

But Jason hadn't realised that at the time. He was still agape at the

terrifying volcano powers she had used to annihilate the sanguine horror. He

was only just getting to know the people who would be his first friends and

mentors in his new world.

Returning to the place it had all started, the path he had taken weighed

heavily on his mind. It was a path of violence from the very beginning, so

different from the safe, prosperous life he had known before that. That first

night he had spoken to Rufus of his fears, of what a life of violence could

turn him into. Rufus had not given him the reassurance he sought.

Instead, Rufus told Jason that he would have to choose between holding

onto his innocence or seizing his own destiny. He promised that a life of

adventure would give Jason the world, but it would come at a price. That

price was safety and the inescapable stain of bloody hands. Looking back,

Rufus's promise had been kept. Jason had money, power, influence. Precious

friends and boon companions. But he had also faced danger, and been the

danger faced by others. It could be considered a naiveté, but he wondered if

violence and killing had become too easy.

The need for violence and the moral action was a harder thing to balance

than he ever thought. He was proud of his growing capability, and largely of

what he had done with it. But that pride also brought danger and regret. He'd

gone along with everyone else to fight the Ustei tribe on their sand barge, and

while they had certainly needed to be stopped, no more than a token effort

had been put towards conciliation. That he didn't know how many people he

killed that day was bad enough. That it had been for someone else's reasons

made it all the worse.

He thought about the men he killed in the shopping arcade. For all that he

told himself it was justified, he could have easily escaped without hurting

anyone. In his most honest moments, Jason knew he didn't kill them in self-

defence or through some need to send a message. Not any message worth

sending, anyway. It had been pride. They had the temerity to challenge him

and he had wanted—needed—to let everyone know that to come for him was

to pay the price in blood.

Thadwick Mercer was, at the core, a creature of pride. It was what made

him so easy to wound and what drove every mistake he made. In the Reaper

trials, Jason had come face to face with his own dark future, with the place

that his pride would take him, if he was not mindful of it. He could become

too much like Thadwick.

That he had been more successful than Thadwick made people more

accepting of his pride, but that was a trap. Something that made his pride

more insidious, more dangerous. He had dismissed the Adventure Society's

need for him to make a humble gesture, thinking himself clever for turning it

to his own purpose. He was coming to realise that he had a greater need to

find some humility than he thought.

“Is that it?” Clive asked, next to him, as they crossed a rocky rise.

When Jason had first spotted the Vane Estate those months ago, it had

been an incongruous stretch of green. Rufus had remarked on what a waste of

resources it was to maintain a temperate springtime in the middle of the

desert. From the yellows and browns that had replaced the green, that price

was apparently no longer being paid.

“That's it,” Jason said, double-checking his map. “It looks a bit worse for

wear than the last time I was there.”

“Stop the skimmer on the outside,” Henrietta said, leaning forward to

speak to Clive. “We don't think there'll be anyone in residence, but the

Adventure Society wants us checking for a reason. Best not announce

ourselves too loudly.”

As they approached, they found wilting plants, withered bushes and half-

barren trees, with their remaining leaves the brown, red and yellow of deep

autumn. The grounds of Vane Estate had been an English country garden,

held in a perpetual spring. As the energy maintaining the artificial climate

depleted, that spring was passing through a deep autumn on the way to a sun-

scorched, desert winter.

The pillars placed along the outside edge of the estate grounds still

marked the border between the desert and the estate. Clive drew the skimmer

up next to one. The team disembarked and stepped across the boundary. The

air inside was still cooler than the desert, but hotter than what Jason

remembered. Guided by Jason's map, they set off across the yellowing grass

for the inner reaches of the sprawling estate.

“That's the hedge maze,” Jason pointed out. The towering hedge walls

looked thinner than he remembered, the pale green hedges a pale reflection of

its previous, lush glory. “I came into this world somewhere in the middle of

that.”

“Is that what made that big hole?” Sophie asked, pointing.

There was a ragged arch in the hedges, mirrored in the hedges they could

see through it.

“No, that was Gary,” Jason said. “He and Farrah sent their summons right

through the middle of it. He said it was to sweep out any cultists, but I think it

was mostly to annoy Anisa.”

“Anisa?” Henrietta asked.

“Priestess of Purity. She was temporarily attached to Rufus's team. The

church were the ones that sent them out here, which we think was all part of

their game-playing. I have to imagine an alliance between them and the

Builder cult is an uneasy one.”

“It seems dangerous for the cult to involve outsiders like that,” Belinda

said. “Too much chance of exposure. Getting too impressed with the

cleverness of your own plans is a sure way to mess them up.”

“The Builder cult apparently had their hearts set on this place,” Jason

said. “I can see how the combination of isolation, space and comfort would

appeal. The matriarch of the house didn't like the Builders, though. Didn't

approve of her son being part of the wrong cult.”

“You seem to run into a lot of cultists,” Humphrey said.

“Oh, that's nothing,” Jason said. “Back in my world they come to your

door with pamphlets.”

He turned his gaze back to the hedge maze.

“I couldn't tell you exactly where I appeared in there. My arrival didn't

seem to do any damage, and each place looks like every other in a maze.

Which is the whole point, I guess.”

As they progressed through the estate, they saw more and more damage

beyond that caused by the desert reclaiming the land. Someone had a taken

axe and flame to the place, breaking down outbuildings and torching gardens.

When they reached the manor, they saw it had clearly taken the brunt of

whatever ire had driven the vandals. Only sections of burned and collapsed

building still stood at the original height. Every section of wall intact enough

to fit it had been painted with bright red graffiti, denouncing the inhabitants

as blood drinkers and murderers.

“It seems word got out about the blood cult preying on the nearby towns

and villages,” Humphrey said. “There isn't much of a manor left to check

out.”

“There were some fairly extensive cellars,” Jason said. “They may be

intact.”

The team made their way into the gutted ruin of the manor house.

“Careful of the parts that haven't collapsed yet,” Henrietta warned.

They quickly discovered that the floors had been burned through,

dumping the charred remains of the house above into blackened piles in the

expansive cellar space. Jason managed to find the entrance to the

underground ritual room, but the tunnel was packed tight with debris.

“Should we dig it out?” Humphrey asked.

“No,” Henrietta said. “If we did it fast, what's left of the house would

collapse on us. If we went carefully, it would take too long and might

collapse anyway.”

“There's another entrance,” Jason said. “It's bit of a crawl through a tight,

wet tunnel. Which is at the bottom of a well. After that, though, it's just a

subterranean cave with a walkway and you're there.”

“I don't think we need to go that far,” Henrietta said.

“Perhaps we should be thorough,” Humphrey said.

“Agreed,” Jason said.

“Alright, we'll compromise,” Henrietta said. “I'll sweep my aura senses

from above through that cave system. It should be between here and the

centre of the maze, right?”

“I can put us right over it, using my map,” Jason said. “Maybe we should

actually go down and take a look, though.”

“By crawling through a wet tunnel at the bottom of a well?” Neil said. “If

there were still cultists here, then they would have killed the people who

came to burn this place down. Or left, if it happened before they came back.”

“It does seem worthless as a place to hole up,” Clive said. “Without the

manor, it's just a place they've been known to use in the past. That makes it

all threat and no value. Even if they came here, they would have moved on.”

“That does make sense,” Humphrey acknowledged.

“Still, I'll do the aura sweep, just to be thorough,” Henrietta said. “We

don't want to go regretting it later.”

From within the edge of the estate grounds, Timos and Zato watched the

skimmer disappear into the distance.

“Consider this a formal apology,” Zato said. “I thought your ideas were

overwrought. Burning down the manor and moving everyone into the cave.

Using so many of our resources setting up the aura suppression. You

protected our final chance. Even if we killed them, more would come

looking.”

“Our work here will take months,” Timos said. “I knew someone would

come, eventually. I remained hidden in Greenstone for so long because I was

more careful and more thorough than anyone believed I had reason to be. If

the leadership hadn't felt Thadwick was worth risking exposure, I'd be

hidden there still.”

“You've made a believer out of me,” Zato said. “You're in charge of

keeping us secure. Whatever measures you think necessary, take them. So

long as it doesn't compromise the work.”

The team moved south from the Vane Estate, following the direction but not

the path Jason had once taken to the Mistrun River. The direct route they had

taken at that time had required most of a week on foot. The team anticipated

taking about the same amount of time because of their zig-zag route that

would visit all the local towns and villages, with all the time it would take to

clear off their adventure boards. Miles out from the Vane estate, Jason was

admonishing himself.

“I should have send Shade to scout the underground out,” he said. “I'm

not used to having such handy familiar.”

“I apologise for not putting myself forward myself,” Shade said. “I did

not wish to overstep my bounds at this early stage in our collaboration.”

“Oh, please overstep,” Jason said. “I'm pretty much just bumbling

through this whole adventurer thing with no real idea of what I'm doing.”

“It's true,” Neil confirmed. “He needs all the help he can get.”

“Thank you, Neil,” Jason said flatly.

“I mean, he's genuinely bad at this.”

“You can stop helping any time, Neil.”

“Oh, it's no trouble,” Neil said.

The skimmer garnered attention as it arrived in the North East Quarry Village

Number Four. Such a magical conveyance was only ever used by adventurers

or big shots coming to check out the quarry operations, so the villagers

immediately knew that important visitors had come.

The village was situated in a ring around a lake fed by a channel that led

from the nearby mountain that was the site of the quarries. A waterfall

sprayed out of a hole in the mountainside, feeding the channel.

“I was sprayed out of the mountain by that waterfall,” Jason said,

pointing it out.

“Why would you jump into that spray?” Sophie asked.

“I was up there taking a look when it turned off,” Jason said. “Me and

another bloke were taking a look when it turned back on.”

“It's fed by an aperture, right?” Henrietta asked.

“That's right,” Jason said.

“There were a number of instances of the apertures being interrupted,”

Clive said. “It was the whole reason the expedition was formed in the first

place. That must have been one of the earliest incidents. What happened,

exactly?”

“I was standing right next to the stream when it stopped,” Jason said.

“The caretaker and I went for a closer look and a shab came through. It was

my first iron-rank monster and it was a huge, horrifying crab-shark thing. I

mean, I know they're awkward and quite rubbish now, but they look

terrifying. We killed it, and then the water turned back on. It threw me, the

other guy and a bunch of extra shabs right off the side of the mountain. It was

kind of awesome, actually. Most of the shabs died when they hit the ground,

but a few survived by landing in the water, although they still took a good hit

from that height. Rufus, Gary and Farrah were off chasing the guy that set

them up for the blood cult, so me, the other guy and Colin finished the shabs

off.”

Their arrival had been noticed, and the mayor was soon hurrying out to

greet them.

“Jason? Jason Asano?”

“G'day, Greg,” Jason said, shaking the mayor's hand.

He looked Jason up and down, taking in the dark combat robes, a sword

on one hip and a dagger on the other, his bandolier full of throwing darts.

“Look at you, all intimidating,” Greg said. “Every inch the successful

adventurer.”

“I wouldn't rush to conclusions,” Jason said. “I'm the reason my team got

stuck with punishment detail.”

“Yes, I do recall your friend mentioning you would be by soon enough.

Are they doing well?”

Jason forcibly maintained the easy smile on his face as he recalled

Farrah's flippant remark.

“Let me introduce you to some new friends,” he said, giving Greg all

their names.

“Geller?” Greg asked. “As in…”

“No, not those Gellers,” Jason said. “These two are from the other Geller

family. Very big in the peat trade. As the saying goes, if you want to find a

Geller, look in that disgusting peat bog. These are some of the first to go into

adventuring. Not the actual first, though. It was a shame about the others.

Such an undignified way to die.”

Henrietta watched Jason from under raised eyebrows as Neil shook his

head. Humphrey took it in stride, also shaking the mayor's hand. Greg led

them into the village, along the ring road that circled the lake. They drew a

lot of attention, some people coming up and greeting Jason by name.

“My daughter still has that spirit coin you gave her when you had her run

from the monsters. She keeps it in a box like a treasure.”

Jason would share a few words with each villager before they let the

intimidating cluster of adventurers move on.

“Dan,” Jason greeted one man. “We'll have to get some of that grilled

giant worm.”

“Not this time of year,” Dan said as he shook Jason's hand. “We don't

take them during their breeding season. I can do you a steamed pockmark

lizard, if you like.”

“Sounds terrible,” Jason said. “I'm in.”

“I don't get it,” Neil said as they made their way to the adventure notice

board. “You were here for what? A couple of days, half a year ago?”

“Three, I think,” Jason said. “Two and a half, maybe.”

“How do you know all these people?”

“You aristocrats are all about dignity and status,” Clive said. “We regular

folk appreciate someone who doesn't climb up on their high heidel. And say

what you will about Jason, it's clear that if he was ever on a high heidel, he

fell off.”

“And landed on his head,” Neil muttered.

The team found the adventure board notices and Henrietta looked them

over.

“There's nothing impressive here,” she said. “If you like, Asano, you can

stay here while the rest of us handle these and pick you up after. You seem to

have some catching up to do.”

“That would be nice,” Jason said. “I can call in on an old friend.”

“Three days, six months ago,” Neil said again. “How do you have old

friends?”

“The Magic Society have actually been looking into it,” Jason said. “It

turns out that once you cross a certain charisma threshold, its starts warping

reality around you.”

“Just to be clear,” Clive said to the others, “the Magic Society has not

been doing that.”

Jason was sitting in the yard of Hiram, the caretaker of the local astral space

aperture. They had been thrown off the mountain together and fought the

monsters that emerged from it. His home faced onto the lake, where his

granddaughter splashed about with some of the neighbours' children.

“Things here have been just fine,” Hiram said. “I want to hear all about

your exciting adventures.”

“I might have had a close call or two,” Jason said. “There was actually

something of a contest for adventurers that…”

Jason trailed off as rainbow light started shining from the middle of the

lake. He leapt out of the lounger, his stern gaze locked onto that light. It grew

rapidly, to a size indicating a bronze, or possibly even silver manifestation.

“What is it with this village? Hiram, you need to evacuate. Everyone, the

whole village. If you have some kind of shelter, put them in it. Otherwise,

just get everyone as far away as you can.”

“How long before it finishes manifesting?” Hiram asked.

“If it's bronze-rank,” Jason said, “maybe quarter of an hour. I can

probably handle that, though. If it's silver you have twice as long, but there

won't be anything I can do.”

Hiram nodded and headed for the children who had stopped playing and

were looking at the beautiful rainbow vortex.

13

swat

J ason extended his shadow arm to the roof of Hiram's house as his

shadow cloak appeared around him. He reduced his weight and

retracted the arm, pulling himself lightly onto the roof. He looked

around the village and saw people scrambling to get their families and go.

They knew what a monster manifestation meant and none of them had seen

anything as large as the rainbow vortex now shining over the surface of the

lake.

The rest of his team was out of voice communication range. They would

be back some time in the next few hours, depending on how long it took them

to chase down the monsters they were hunting.

Jason turned his grim gaze back to the vortex. It was definitely going to

be silver rank. That would give the villagers more time, but it wouldn't be

enough. There was no way to evacuate the whole village in half an hour, not

with children and the elderly. Someone was going to have to buy them time

and the only person on hand was him.

Jason had no illusions of defeating a silver-rank monster. He was

confident against a bronze-ranked one, even a bronze-rank essence user, if

they were of the mediocre variety that clung to Greenstone's lower rungs. A

silver-ranked monster, though, was not something he could beat. Even with

his powers to reduce the resistances of an enemy, his afflictions would spatter

off anything silver-rank like rain off an umbrella.

Essence users advanced in a well-rounded manner, with all their attributes

going up with rank. Even if they had no powers to boost them, every essence

user would be faster and stronger than they were at the rank before. Monsters

did not conform to that balance. Some were fast, some were strong; others

were physically weak yet possessed potent magical powers. If he was going

accomplish anything more than get ignored or killed, Jason needed the silver

rank monster to be big and slow.

If it was nice and lumbering, there was a good chance he could kite the

monster away from the villagers. If it was fast, or had some strange powers, it

might well kill Jason in just moments before rampaging through the fleeing

villagers. Jason watched the rainbow light and waited, knowing that life or

death for himself and hundreds of others was just a matter of fortune.

This was the third magic manifestation Jason had witnessed, after the

awakening stone and the other silver rank monster in the city. Silver-rank

monsters were rare in the low magic region, yet he had been close to two of

them manifesting in a month. It was possible the monster surge was imminent

after all.

He had been told that no two manifestations happened exactly the same

way, although he was having trouble getting excited for it, with his mind

dwelling on his likely imminent death. Eventually, the rainbow vortex started

to shrink, coalescing into a sphere that grew brighter and brighter, until Jason

had to shield his eyes against it. He could see the village washed in blue light,

as if a cerulean sun had appeared over the lake. Then the light dimmed and he

was able to look again. He watched the sphere of blue light drop into the

water and vanish.

There was an odd stillness from Jason's perspective, although in the

distance he could still see villagers scrambling to flee. The light show had

done nothing to allay their fears. Around Jason, though, all was quiet.

The silent moment passed. A humungous plume of water erupted from

the lake, geysering into the air like a bomb had gone off in the depths. Waves

rippled outward, rocking the boats tied up at jetties along the shore. Lake

water fell like rain and Jason feared a repeat of what happened in the city

with the small army of elementals.

Jason strained his aura senses at every pool and puddle that was forming,

looking for manifesting elementals. The water seemed blessedly inert, aside

from the single silver-rank aura bulging out from the centre of the lake. His

eyes tracked to the very centre of the lake, where not all the water had fallen

back down. Some had taken the form of an elemental, standing on the surface

of the lake.

This elemental was unlike the formless blobs he had seen in the past. It

resembled a statue, carved from water and filled with chunks of rock floating

through its liquid body. It looked like a person, an armoured woman with

greaves, breastplate, helmet, and even a shield in one hand. In the other was a

long whip, trailing from her grip down to the lake. The whip was filled with

what looked like razor-sharp stones along its length.

Quest: Evacuation

The villagers of North East Quarry Village Number Four need time to get

their people away from the monster that appeared in their midst. You are

all that stands between them and a quick death.

Objective: Delay Oasis Tyrant until the villagers escape or help arrives.

Reward: Amulet of the Dark Guardian.

Jason let out a breath, realising that all the news was good. Normally an

elemental was a bad matchup for him, but anything at silver-rank would be

immune to his afflictions as an elemental anyway. Elementals of the water

and earth variety were not known for speed, which was the province of wind

and fire types. Most importantly, it was alone. It would be powerful, but all

he had to do was distract the one monster for as long as the villagers took to

get away.

If he could keep it from going after the villagers until they were gone,

then that would be a win. If he could do it long enough for the others to get

back, it would be a triumph. Henrietta was the only one who would have the

power to fight the monster and even that would be no easy fight.

Jason called out Shade and Gordon. Colin would be most useful

remaining in his bloodstream, healing the injuries Jason would inevitably be

taking.

“Shade, I'll be relying on you for movement. One of you stays with me,

keep your other bodies where I can jump to them at need. The villagers are

escaping to the north, so we'll start by heading south. We'll use the buildings

ringing the lake for cover and slowly work our way around. By the time we

reach where the villagers are now, they should be gone. Gordon, stick with

me. When I shadow jump, catch up as quick as you can.”

Jason drew his sword and looked at the elemental. Despite not having

eyes, it turned its head as if panning its gaze around the village.

“Gordon, grab its attention.”

Twin beams blasted out from the eyes orbiting the avatar of doom,

signalling the start of the fight. The elemental, standing on the surface of the

lake, turned its gaze from the village to home in on Gordon.

The elemental was a towering figure, three times the height of the house

Jason was standing on. Just as he had hoped, its steps were slow and

ponderous, even though it walked over the surface of the water as if it

weighed nothing. Once it drew closer, however, Jason discovered he hadn't

gotten off as lightly as he believed. The elemental flicked its tree trunk-thick

whip of water and razor rocks in Jason's direction.

The elemental might have been slow, but the whip was not. Jason barely

had time to leap off the roof before the whip smashed through the front wall

of Hiram's house. As it yanked the whip back again, the roof was torn in half,

what was left collapsing into the interior.

Gordon had followed Jason from Hiram's rooftop to that of the next

cottage by turning into a nebula cloud of blue and orange energy. In cloud

form he made a rapid dash through the air before returning to his normal

state. Jason was able to make such a huge leap to the next rooftop through the

jumping magic on his boots. At that moment, he sent a silent blessing in the

direction of the Bert brothers, Gilbert and Filbert, who had found them for

him.

The fight between Jason and the elemental was not a fight at all. It was a

cat-and-mouse game, a housekeeper swatting at a skittering bug. Gordon

would emerge from between a pair of buildings and fire beams at the

elemental. Jason would use that distraction to extend his shadow arm and

land a blow with his sword, striking at the whip.

While the elemental used it as if it were a separate weapon, it was part of

the elemental itself. It didn't really matter, since the sword was all but

harmless. The goal was to hold the elemental's attention. After attacking,

Jason would vanish into Shade before Shade himself flickered away like the

shadow of a cloud.

The game was not an easy one. Because the whip was an animate part of

the elemental, it was not bound by the motion of an actual whip. It lashed and

flailed, snaked and sought in pursuit of its elusive prey. As Jason and Gordon

hid amongst the trees and garden, homes and shops, the passage of the whip

devastated them all. Cottages were smashed to rubble, trees slapped right out

of the ground in the creature's attempt to swat down Jason and his familiars.

Jason ducked amongst the trees and buildings, sprinting, leaping,

teleporting. It was close call after close call as the whip snaked around or

smashed right through the obstructions he was using as cover. He was

continually forced to find new ground to hide in as the monster smashed its

way around the village in a circle. Jason realised that he was burning through

village faster than the villagers could evacuate it. The contest was not just

whether Jason could survive, but whether the villagers could evacuate while

there was village to evacuate from.

From his first day of training, Gary had been hammering movement skills

into Jason, and Sophie had taught him even more. She seemed to have a

preternatural sense for motion, helping him incorporate each new power in

efficient, innovative ways. All that training and practise demonstrated its

value as he was pushed to the limit of his abilities and beyond.

In the crucible of action, Jason was pulling off wild stunts he had barely

learned for the simple reason that he had to. He wasn't even sure he

physiologically had adrenaline anymore, but it felt like his whole body was

flush with it. He would leap up high, floating with his cloak as he tugged

himself though the air by gripping a tree or building with his shadow arm. It

allowed him to dodge the crashing whip as it tried to slap him into the

ground.

He dashed wildly through the increasingly ruined village, retaliating only

enough to make sure the elemental kept coming after him. The pinpricks of

his sword weren't truly hurting it, but seemed to annoy and frustrate as it

became more wild in thrashing the whip.

Gordon was a loyal companion, following Jason's wild rush through the

ruins of the once-beautiful village. Gordon's normal form was not swift, so

he spent more time in his rapid, nebulous cloud form than not. Meanwhile,

Shade was constantly repositioning his bodies to give Jason places to teleport

to.

One of Shade's bodies was the first casualty, left behind as Jason barely

teleported through it in time. The whip did not have any inherent power to

affect incorporeal objects, but the silver-rank monster was so infused with

magic that it ripped apart the iron-rank familiar.

Gordon was the second casualty. His cloud dash was fast, but his reflexes

were otherwise sluggish. He took one glancing hit, then a second, before a

square blow slapped him into nothingness, his vessel dissipating entirely.

Jason increasingly felt the pressure. Losing one of the Shades hampered

his mobility and he no longer had Gordon as a secondary distraction. When

he had the chance he glanced to the evacuating villagers. His fears were

confirmed—he wasn't buying enough time. The village was being wrecked

faster than they could vacate it, the destruction moving closer and closer to

their evacuation point. Just as despair began to well up, he received blessed

relief.

Contact Clive Standish has entered communication range.

Contact Henrietta Geller has entered communication range.

Contact Sophie Wexler has entered communication range.

Contact Belinda Callahan has entered communication range.

Contact Neil Davone has entered communication range.

Contact Humphrey Geller has entered communication range.

“Help!” he screamed through the voice chat. “Silver-Rank

Monster!”

Henrietta's voice came back through the voice chat in a stream of

expletives.

“She means we're on our way,” Humphrey said. “How long do you think

you can hold out?”

“Frankly, I'm surprised I lasted this—” Jason said before cutting himself

off to duck under a sweeping whip strike that shattered the wall behind him

and showered him in debris.

“If you could hear extraneous sounds,” Jason said as he sprinted off, “you

would have just heard a house collapse. Can't really talk.”

“Stay sharp and stay alive, Asano,” Henrietta said. “We're on our way.”

Renewed hope filled Jason with fresh determination. The villagers needed

him to keep the monster away from them and he was running out of village,

so he was forced to stay longer in the already-wrecked sections where the

cover wasn't as plentiful and the elemental could more easily track his

movements. He took greater risks and more desperate chances. Finally, one

of the increasingly close calls was too close. The whip found its mark.

It was little more than a glancing blow, but Jason felt like he'd been hit

by a truck, his body skipping like a stone across the ground before crashing

into a wall. Barely able to move, he reached down and took a vial from his

potion belt. The enchantment on the belt protecting them from incidental

damage was one of his oldest items and he silently thanked Gary for insisting

he buy it. Thumbing the stopper from the vial, he tipped it down his throat.

Item: Lesser Miracle Potion (iron rank, legendary)

Salvation in a bottle (consumable, potion).

Effect: Fully restore health, mana and stamina. This potion is

only effective on normal and iron-rank individuals. The magic of

this potion lingers in the body longer than normal potions,

preventing additional healing and recovery items from being

effective for a longer period.

Jason experienced a sensation unlike anything he had ever felt. Power,

strength and vitality combined into a raging river, crashing through his body.

It was performing at a packed-out arena, winning a grand final. It was being

born while having an orgasm. He vaulted to his feet, ignoring the rents in his

combat robes. The whip was coming in to finish the job, but Jason suddenly

felt like he could beat the elemental single-handed.

Fortunately, that delusion passed quickly and he got out of the way of the

whip. His shadow hand snaked out, much like the whip that was chasing him,

to snatch up his dropped sword and continue the fight.

Over the course of the chase, Jason had landed many hits with his sword

and built up considerable charges of extra force damage in the blade. He

estimated it was more than any previous encounter, yet the iron-rank weapon

took no more than thumbnail-sized divots out of the silver-rank elemental.

Jason continued his mad dash, buying as much time as he could as his

situation deteriorated. Shade's second body was destroyed, then his third. In

Shade's absence he was conjuring and re-conjuring his cloak as he teleported

through it to any shadow he could see. The reinvigorating effect of the potion

was spent as he burned through stamina and mana both, riding more and

more on the edge. Hiding had become a constant state of evasion, his body

riddled with cuts from debris smashed into flying shards. He no longer had

time to check on the villagers, or to slow down the destruction of their

village.

The end came when he sensed a bundle of new auras approaching. He

recognised his team and let out a weary laugh. That moment's distraction

proved costly as the whip slammed into him. A stone shard within the whip

tore across his torso as it sent him careening through the air. He was already

unconscious when he hit a wall like a bug on a windshield.

14

the Purpose of the Adventure Society

J ason returned to consciousness to find a small face looking down at

him.

“Grandpa!” she yelled at a brain-rattling volume. “He's awake!”

“He's also a little delicate,” Jason croaked as Hiram's granddaughter

skipped off to find her grandfather.

He brushed aside the waiting system messages for the moment to push

himself into a sitting position and look around. He was in one of the cottages

in the village from the looks of it, but not Hiram's. That had been the first

one destroyed under the whip that swept through the village like a wrecking

ball. The bed he was lying on was in a small bedroom, with a large open

window letting in pleasant fresh air.

As he was glancing around, Hiram entered the room, along with

Humphrey and Neil. Neil pushed his way to the front and started examining

Jason by pulling a crystal from his dimensional satchel and waving it over

Jason.

Jason looked down as he did, spotting a scar running from his right hip to

the middle of his torso on the other side. Neil spotted his gaze.

“Nothing I can do about that,” Neil said. “Soul scar. Physically, you're

fine, just very depleted. Don't go trying to rush your recovery with stamina

and mana potions, though. You've been asleep for four days, so take it slow.”

“Four days?”

“I'm not sure you realise how close to death you came,” Neil said. “We

almost fed you a lesser miracle potion before I checked for potion toxicity

and realised you were still getting over one. The state you were in, another

one would have finished you off. If it weren't for your outworlder body and

that familiar inside you, I doubt you'd have lived long enough for my healing

to take effect.”

“Thanks, Neil,” Jason said. “And thanks to you too, Colin. What about

the monster?”

“Henrietta took care of it,” Humphrey said. “It wasn't easy, though. She

lost a couple of her familiars and had to resummon them after.”

“I did too,” Jason said. “I'll need to get the materials, though. I only have

the bronze-rank equivalents I bought for when I rank up.”

He swung his feet off the bed and held out a hand. Humphrey took it and

helped him to his feet, supporting him when he staggered.

“Take it easy,” Neil said. “You're still recovering from all that healing.

We're not going anywhere for at least another day while you recover. I'm

guessing you're hungry?”

“Yeah, now you say it.”

“Spirit coins, one every hour or so to replenish your reserves. No food for

at least a day.”

“How flexible is the no food thing?”

“Not flexible at all,” Neil said. “Normally I'd tell you that if you want to

mess up your recovery, that's your business, but you're part of this team. We

have to rely on you, so get it right.”

Jason gave Neil a grateful smile.

“Alright, mate. The food stays stashed in my storage space for now.”

“You don't have to go that far,” Neil said. “The rest of us can eat food

while you watch and suck on a spirit coin.”

“Oh, that's cold.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Tingly. Weak.”

Jason looked himself up and down. He was wearing only the silk boxer

shorts he'd had on when he was knocked unconscious. The combat robes and

underclothes were gone, as was the blood and sweat he was certain had

stained them during the fight. Someone had clearly stripped him down and

tipped some crystal wash over him.

“That's normal,” Neil said. “As long as you keep eating spirit coins and

focus on rest, you'll be back to full strength in a day or two. I'd recommend

using the time to meditate.”

Jason spotted his combat robe on a wall hanger, dangling from a peg.

Like him, four days had been enough for it to recover as the self-repair magic

restored it to pristine condition. Also like him, it had been cleaned.

“Thank you for what you did,” Hiram said as Jason took the robe and

placed it into his inventory.

“Was it enough?” Jason asked. A dark mist appeared around his body,

obscuring him for a moment before disappearing, revealing Jason changed

into casual clothes. “Did everyone get away?”

“There was a lot of debris flying around, even at a distance,” Hiram said.

“There were a lot of cuts and scrapes, but your team's healer saw to everyone

after he had you settled. Hard worker, that one. We did lose a pair of elderly

people. Their family were out of the village and with everyone in a mad

panic, no one checked on them.”

Jason hung his head. “I'm sorry, Hiram.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Hiram admonished. “Nothing at all.

Do not even try and apologise after fighting a monster like that.”

“I wouldn't call it a fight,” Jason said. “More like a mad scramble to not

die.”

“You did better than anyone had any right to expect,” Humphrey said.

“Not many iron-rankers would have even tried what you did.”

“You would have done it,” Jason said.

“I wouldn't,” Neil volunteered. “I'd have run as fast as I could while

complaining I didn't have powers to run faster.”

“I get that,” Jason said with a chuckle. “That's pretty much what I did.”

Jason took out an iron spirit coin and slipped it into his mouth. He

grimaced at the ozone taste.

“Good boy,” Neil said and Jason groaned in complaint.

“Feel ready to go out?” Hiram asked. “There's a lot of people waiting to

thank you.”

“No thanks,” Jason said. “Let Belinda turn into me and they can thank

her.”

“If you're going to run around playing hero,” Neil said, “you'll have to

accept people treating you like one.”

“What Neil means is that the people here want to show you their

gratitude,” Henrietta said, walking into the room. “Part of the job is to let

them. They need to know that the Adventure Society will be there when they

need it most. The purpose of the Adventure Society, after all, is to let people

live, without living in fear.”

She glanced at her brother, then turned back to Jason.

“Our family has certain views on what makes a real adventurer,” she said.

“A lot of adventurers get caught up in the money and power of what we do

and put aside the responsibility. You're a real adventurer, Asano, and let no

one tell you differently. How are you, by the way?”

“He's as well as can be expected,” Neil said. “He's still a day or two from

getting back on the road, though.”

“Can't he rest sitting in the skimmer?” Henrietta asked.

“It would be better if he has the freedom to walk about a bit and the peace

to meditate without the skimmer's air intake roaring behind him.”

“Alright,” Henrietta said. “Are you ready to go out and meet with people,

Asano? You might as well get it over with.”

“No, I'd like a little time to gather myself. I'll be out in a minute.”

The others shuffled out of the small room and Jason sat back on the bed,

turning his attention to the system messages he had banished to the periphery

of his vision.

Quest: Evacuation

Objective complete: Delay Oasis Tyrant until the villagers escape or

help arrives.

Quest complete.

100 Silver Spirit Coins have been added to your inventory.

1,000 Bronze Spirit Coins have been added to your inventory.

10,000 Iron Spirit Coins have been added to your inventory.

Amulet of the Dark Guardian has been added to your inventory.

Jason took the item reward from his inventory. It hung on a chain made of

intricate links of carved obsidian. The amulet itself depicted a replica of

Jason's personal crest, a cloak filled with daylight sky, surrounded by the

night.

Item: Amulet of the Dark Guardian (growth, iron rank,

legendary)

A protective amulet with the power of a shadowy guardian

(jewellery, necklace).

This item is bound to you and cannot be used by anyone else.

Effect: For each instance of an affliction applied to an enemy,

gain an instance of Guardian's Blessing. You may bestow all

instances of Guardian's Blessing upon another person by touch.

Guardian's Blessing (boon, holy): Instances are consumed to

absorb damage from any source. Additional instances have a

cumulative effect. For each instance consumed, gain an instance

of Blessing's Bounty.

Blessing's Bounty (heal-over-time, holy, stacking): Heal over

time. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.

Growth Conditions (bronze):

Bound user must be at least bronze rank.

100 bronze-rank barrier quintessence gems.

100 bronze-rank renewal quintessence gems.

100 bronze-rank balance quintessence gems.

100 bronze-rank malign quintessence gems.

1000 bronze rank spirit coins.

Ritual of bronze ascension.

Jason clasped the chain behind his neck, slipping the amulet under his

clothes.

“I think you and I are going to get along just fine.”

It did mean more materials he had to buy, however. He had blown most

of his money on getting materials ready for bronze rank, plus the resources he

had been literally pouring into the cloud flask. He had brought two sets of

bronze-rank summoning materials for each of his familiars, in case their

vessels were destroyed, but he hadn't expected it to happen while he was still

iron rank. Replacing the materials to resummon Shade would be bearable, but

even the iron rank materials for Gordon were onerous.

Fortunately, the quest had given him a monetary haul, which should put a

dent in his costs. He also had the loot from the elemental. Neil had used his

own looting power on it after Henrietta defeated it. The team decided that

Jason and Henrietta should split the loot, as both had expensive summoning

rituals to perform as a direct result. Along with the spirit coins, Henrietta had

laid claim to a magical bronze-rank whip made of water filled with razor-

sharp stones. Jason received an epic-rarity discord essence.

He turned to the other system message.

New Title: Resolute

The damage you suffered in your stand against a much more powerful

enemy has marked your soul. Your resistance to the suppressive force of

higher-ranked auras is increased.

Your aura signature has changed. Your unflinching resolve can be

detected if your aura is examined by an aura sensing power or when

projecting your aura.

Jason unbuttoned his shirt and traced his fingers along the scar, from his

right hip, across his abdomen and curving a little way around the left side of

his torso. It was strange to see a scar that looked healed, yet he had only

found there minutes before.

Once again, he had edged right up to death. The more his powers grew,

the greater the dangers he faced. This time had been a greater escalation than

he had been looking for, though. He thought back to those moments when he

was waiting for the monster to manifest, unsure if he would live or die.

In the end, he was lucky with the monster that appeared. Too many times

it had been luck that kept him alive. From the beginning, he had become an

adventurer to seize control of his own fate. He had to get stronger, strong

enough to face any challenge. He stood up, his face full of steely resolve.

Then he got dizzy and sat down again, before getting up more slowly.

The waterfall sprayed out of the mountain, falling into the pool at the base,

flowing into the channel that fed the lake around which the village was built.

The force of the water sent it tumbling through the air instead of washing

down the cliff face, leaving a space under the waterfall at the base of the cliff.

It was a favourite play area of the village children, jumping from the rocks

into the pool. They were all strong swimmers, which was an oddity for

children of the desert.

None of the children were present, however, most of the families having

already left the village. Those still nearby weren't letting their children out of

their sight. With only a handful of homes left, most of the villagers had

already headed for the fortified town where the regional villages waited out

monster surges. Jason had visited that town himself, once, where Rufus had

introduced him to the adventuring boards.

The remaining villagers occupied the small cluster of intact buildings.

Leaving a small bedroom to Jason alone was a grand accommodation, given

the circumstances. They had never intended to stay the night, so Jason had

not set up his cloud house before the fight.

Quarry operations would not be resuming until the village was once again

in a state to support them. Those that stayed behind were the mayor, the

quarry operations manager and the other town leaders who were planning out

the reconstruction of the village. Their plans were very up in the air, however,

with the uncertainty surrounding the overdue monster surge.

Jason's experiences made him more comfortable with people being

annoyed, confused or both than with sincere displays of gratitude. He did a

lot of smiling and handshaking, while in his head he was waiting for a shoe

that never dropped. Eventually Henrietta rescued him, telling the people that

he needed more rest. Hiram quietly suggested the spot by the mountain,

knowing Jason was going to go off and meditate.

He sat alone on a wet rock, meditating as errant waterfall spray splashed

him with pleasant coolness. He let his mind drift and the weariness of his

body fade away. Periodically he would emerge from a trance state, slip a

spirit coin into his mouth and then resume meditation.

System messages appeared periodically, which he ignored until he felt a

wellspring of power building up, filling his chest with an uncomfortable

pressure. He coughed up phlegm speckled with blood, which splashed into

the water. Blue grey light started to shine from within his body.

Ability Hand of the Reaper (Dark) has reached Iron 2 (100%).

Ability Hand of the Reaper (Dark) has reached Iron 3 (00%).

All Dark Essence abilities have reached [Iron 3].

Linked attribute Speed has increased from [Iron 2] to [Iron 3].

Progress to bronze rank: 50% (4/4 essences complete).

Many of Jason's most advanced abilities had finally seen real movement

in the wake of the fight, including the Midnight Eyes power which, in spite of

barely being used, was within grasping distance of becoming Jason's first

bronze rank power.

The sun was going down and it was time to return to the village where he

had set up the cloud house. Before he left, though, he opened up his character

sheet to look at his progress.

Jason Asano

Attributes

Power (Blood): [Iron 7].

Speed (Dark): [Iron 3].

Spirit (Doom): [Iron 3].

Recovery (Sin): [Iron 7].

Essences (4/4)

Dark Speed (5/5)

Midnight Eyes (special ability): [Iron 9] 99%.

Cloak of Night (special ability): [Iron 9] 12%.

Path of Shadows (special ability): [Iron 8] 41%.

Hand of the Reaper (special ability): [Iron 3] 00%.

Shadow of the Reaper (familiar): [Iron 3] 09%.

Blood Power (5/5)

Blood Harvest (spell): [Iron 7] 41%.

Leech Bite (special attack): [Iron 8] 14%.

Feast of Blood (spell): [Iron 7] 02%.

Sanguine Horror (familiar): [Iron 8] 89%.

Haemorrhage (spell): [Iron 8] 92%.

Sin Recovery (5/5)

Punish (special attack): [Iron 8] 45%.

Feast of Absolution (spell): [Iron 7] 63%.

Sin Eater (special ability): [Iron 7] 69%.

Hegemony (aura): [Iron 9] 18%.

Castigate (spell): [Iron 8] 21%.

Doom Spirit (5/5)

Inexorable Doom (spell): [Iron 8] 97%.

Punition (spell): [Iron 8] 24%.

Blade of Doom (spell): [Iron 8] 26%.

Verdict (spell): [Iron 6] 94%.

Avatar of Doom (familiar): [Iron 3] 12%.

He was now well and truly on the path to bronze. His newest powers

hadn't been increasing much during training but the regular hunts as they

travelled around, clearing adventure notices, had seen a surge. By the time

they reached the heights of his older powers, it would probably take bronze-

rank monsters to really push him over the line in anything like a timely

fashion.

He got up and meandered back into the village, walking barefoot across

the lush grass that grew alongside the channel, in defiance of the desert

surrounds. He was struck again by the destruction visited upon the village. If

the sudden preponderance of silver-rank monsters was any indication, he

would have all the monsters he needed to rank up in the very near future.

15

Elven Storage Solutions

T he cloud house had taken the form of a large two-storey building of

desert stone. Jason found Clive and Belinda out front, working on the

scattered collection of parts that used to be the skimmer. After getting Jason's

cry for help over voice chat, Clive had used a quick and dirty ritual to

overcharge the skimmer. It had brought them to village in the nick of time,

but also taken a toll on the vehicle. While Jason recovered, he and Belinda

had been trying to repair it using the random collection of materials he

happened to have in his storage space.

“How's it going?” Jason asked.

“We've figured out something that should last us the rest of the trip,”

Clive said. “It'll put all the burden on the parts that are still good, though.”

“Which means the skimmer will be well and truly done by the time we

get to the river,” Belinda added. “It might not even make it, depending on

how much chasing around after monster notices we do.”

“We'll have it ready to go in the morning,” Clive said.

“Jason, have you seen Sophie, yet?” Belinda asked.

“Not since I woke up,” Jason said. “Was she looking for me for

something?”

“No,” Belinda said. “Just do me a favour and don't be too… you when

you see her.”

“Too me?”

“Yes,” Belinda said. “You know what I'm talking about.”

“I don't think he can help it,” Clive said.

“Don't believe it,” Belinda said. “He might seem all over the place, but

it's a lot more deliberate than you think. I know a flim-flam man when I see

one.”

Jason flashed her a grin and went inside the house.

The team looked at the dark hole leading into the earthen bank. It was hard to

think of it as a burrow when they could have driven the skimmer into it with

room to spare. Henrietta frowned at the dark opening, one of many they had

spotted nearby.

“This one is dangerous,” she said. “Dark hunters. Bronze rank, they

appear in large numbers and like to dig themselves a warren of dark tunnels.”

“I'll go,” Jason said.

“I don't think going in there alone is a good idea,” Henrietta said.

“Going with someone else would be more dangerous,” Jason said. “This

is my kind of fight.”

A fight in the dark against powerful monsters was exactly what he needed

to push his perception power over the edge. Humphrey and Clive, with their

human advantage, had already reached bronze rank with their perception

powers, gaining enhanced aura senses. Neil, who had been an essence user

longer than Jason, had likewise reached bronze with his perception power. It

gave him the ability to sense vulnerabilities in magical defences and detect

injuries, both in allies and enemies.

“I'm not sure going into the dark all alone is a good strategy.”

“Going alone into the dark is my best strategy,” Jason said. “I've been

practising fighting in various ways, this trip. Now it's time to fight my way.”

Henrietta looked at Jason; the usual whimsy was absent from his

expression. All that was there was confidence and determination.

“Very well,” she conceded. “I don't want you to hesitate to call on us if it

goes wrong, though. We've come close enough to losing you already.”

Jason walked forward, his cloak manifesting around him. As he went into

the tunnels, stars on his cloak floated into the air, turning pure darkness into

dancing shadows. The rest of the team waited, with no indications of

anything coming from the cave.

“Asano, are you alright?” Henrietta asked after a while.

“Yes,” Jason's voice came back. “It's about to begin.”

She concentrated on the hole in front of her, extending her aura senses.

“What is it?” Humphrey asked, seeing her focused gaze.

“Your aura senses are stronger now,” Henrietta told him. “Push them

forward, into the caves.”

“You said dark hunters were good at concealing their auras,” Humphrey

said.

“They are,” Henrietta said.

Humphrey did as he was told, concentrating his senses of the burrow

entrance in front. Sophie and Clive did the same, using their own enhanced

aura senses. It was hard to sense anything from within the warren, but they

picked out an aura radiating fear and panic. It was coming closer, towards the

burrow entrance directly in front of them.

A creature came stumbling out of the hole. It looked like a praying mantis

the size of a Saint Bernard but with the stinger-tail and hard black exterior of

a scorpion. It had lost a leg somewhere and was leaking dark fluids from

beneath chitinous plates. From the darkness behind it came a cold voice.

“Mine is the judgement, and the judgement is death.”

Light shone down on the monster from nowhere, a glorious mix of silver,

blue and gold. The beauty of it was belied by the effects of the transcendent

energy that rapidly evaporated the monster into rainbow smoke. Jason didn't

emerge from the hole. Only the team members with bronze-rank aura senses

caught a glimpse of his aura in the moment the spell was cast.

They spotted more monsters emerging from the other holes around them,

evacuating their underground warren. The creatures ignored the adventurers

as they skittered away as fast as their legs would carry them. Each radiated an

aura steeped in the same fear and panic as the first.

“That's odd,” Henrietta said, frowning at the fleeing monsters.

“What is?” Humphrey asked.

“They're called dark hunters for a reason,” Henrietta said. “I've never

heard of them escaping into sunlight before.”

Some of the monsters were faster than others, who were clearly impaired.

The most damaged started dropping dead shortly after making the surface,

while the others grew more and more sluggish over time until they too

collapsed to the ground. Jason's exit from the warren was presaged by

floating lights that returned to their place on his cloak as he emerged into the

light.

He started making his way around the dead monsters, using his blood

harvest power on all the bodies before looting them. He didn't need to refresh

his mana any more after the first couple of monsters, but kept doing it to level

his ability. Finally completing his rounds, he returned to the group as if he'd

been out for a stroll, nodding at the skimmer.

“Shall we?”

It finally happened as Jason meditated on the roof of the cloud house that

night. It began with a burning sensation behind the eyes, which became a

sharp, twisting pain until it suddenly stopped.

Ability Midnight Eyes (Dark) has reached Iron 9 (100%).

Ability Midnight Eyes (Dark) has reached Bronze 0 (00%).

Ability Midnight Eyes (Dark) has gained a new effect.

Ability: Midnight Eyes (Dark)

Special ability (perception).

Base cost: None.

Cooldown: None.

Current rank: Bronze 0 (00%).

Effect (iron): See through darkness.

Effect (bronze): Sense magic.

Ability Midnight Eyes (Dark) cannot advance further until all

attributes have reached bronze rank.

Jason's vision swam and he was struck with potent vertigo. He rolled

forward from his meditative pose, onto to all fours for stability. The world

felt like it was tipping and turning around him.

Jason's senses were filled with strange new stimuli. He could smell

something strange on the air, carrying a faint ozone tang like the aftertaste of

a spirit coin. He could feel his necklace and amulet, like electricity against his

skin but not at all painful. He took it out of his shirt and it visibly shimmered

with power. The much weaker magic woven into his everyday clothes was

milder, but still visible.

He pushed himself back into a sitting position as the dizziness became

manageable. Around him, even the ambient magic in the air had become

perceptible. It wasn't just his sight, either. He could feel the magic like a

breeze on his skin, smell and taste it in the air. Actual magic objects like his

amulet and boots had what looked like a shimmering heat mirage on them.

He conjured his cloak and dagger and was able to see the mana emerge from

his body like a blue mist before coalescing into the conjured objects. They

were similar to his magical items under his new senses but still noticeably

different.

The cloud house underneath him was a vast well of magic, although his

perception couldn't penetrate beyond the exterior. He carefully pushed

himself up on his feet, still a little unsteady. His vision was swimming, like

he was looking at the world through a fishbowl. He stood in place and

focused on regaining his equilibrium.

Eventually his sense of balance settled. His eyesight got under control

and he took stock of just how differently he was perceiving the world. He

could sense subtle shifts in the ambient magic around him but it was all too

new to make any sense out of it. He would need time to become acclimatised

to all the new sensory input.

Once he was sure of his balance, he made his way to the edge of the roof.

The cloud house was once again in the form of a two-storey building of

desert stone, the rooftop giving him a broad view of the desert vista. He

dropped lightly off the side, his cloak allowing him to drift gently down.

He could feel the conjured object like it was part of him as he fed it the

extra mana to reduce his weight. His new senses, however, suggested it was

not his weight that was being changed as he sensed it affect not him, but a

field around him. It explained how he was able to share the cloak's power

with others and he wondered if the actual functionality was to somehow

affect gravity.

He alighted on the ground next to Sophie, who was just coming out of the

building.

“Are you alright?” she asked. “I could sense your aura up on the roof and

it was all over the place. You aren't normally that sloppy.”

“I finally had that bronze breakthrough,” he said. “Probably not a big deal

for the person who got their first power to bronze years ago. So, are you

talking to me again now? Counting when I was unconscious, this is the first

thing you've said to me in a week.”

She shifted her gaze, not meeting his eyes. It was a stark contrast from

her normal mode of glaring at the world like it owed her money.

“It's kind of obvious that you're giving someone the silent treatment

when you're riding around the desert together in a half broken-down

skimmer,” he said.

“I'm not avoiding you,” she denyed.

“That might have sounded more plausible if you weren't avoiding eye

contact right in front of me when you said it.”

She lifted her head to stare defiantly at him but he spotted the

vulnerability behind her eyes. He gave her his best reassuring smile.

“How about you tell me what the issue is and we'll see what we can do?”

She frowned hesitantly and he watched her body language draw back.

“They told you that you were almost fed a potion that would have killed

you, right?” she asked, voice muted and reluctant.

“It rings a bell,” Jason said. “I'd just came out of a four-day healing

coma, so my retention rate wasn't ideal.”

“They didn't tell you it was me, though, did they?” she asked. “I was the

one who rushed ahead. If your voice chat wasn't still up, if Neil hadn't

realised what I was doing and called out for me to stop…”

Jason blinked a couple of times, then let out a chuckle.

“I almost killed you and you think it's funny?”

“It is now,” Jason said. “If you'd actually killed me I imagine I'd view it

differently. You rushed to my side, you say?”

“Rushed might be a strong word,” she back-pedalled. “I suppose you

could call it a brisk pace.”

He grinned and laughed again.

“I think some humanity is started to show under that stony facade,

Wexler. Celestinity? Is that a word? Look, I'll take a reckless desire to help

over cold indifference any day. Well, not any day. I can think of some

scenarios where… it doesn't matter. The point is, I'm glad you rushed to save

me. Yes, it didn't go as planned, but you learned for next time. Instead of

taking a potion, pick up Neil and carry him.”

“What was that?” Neil's voice came from inside. He wandered out of the

building to join the pair.

“Nothing, Neil,” Jason called back. “We're just discussing strategies to

render healing assistance when someone has already taken a potion.”

“Oh, alright,” Neil said, then clearly realised what must have prompted

the situation as an awkward expression crossed his face. “Uh…”

“You can go, Neil,” Jason said.

“Thank you,” Neil said quickly and ducked back inside.

“Oh, Neil,” Jason called after him.

“Yeah?” Neil's voice drifted back out.

“Is there any chance you could stitch handles into your clothes?”

“Handles?”

Sophie stifled a snort of laughter.

“Yeah,” Jason said. “One somewhere on the upper torso, maybe under

one arm, and the other on the thigh. That should be a good balance.”

“Asano,” Neil said, “I have no idea what you're up to, but the answer is

no.”

“Probably for the best,” Jason confided quietly in Sophie. “I think some

kind of ruck-sack situation would be better. You'll be able to run faster with

him slung over your back. One of those child-carrier backpacks, but sized for

a super-ripped elf. No, you don't want to carry that lot around. Do you have

occy straps here? Never mind, Belinda can probably knock some out with

that power she has for creating regular items. Do you know where she is?”

“Alright, seriously,” Neil said, coming back outside. “What are you two

talking about?”

“We're trying to find Belinda,” Jason said innocently. “You haven't seen

her, have you?”

16

Disbanded

T he criminal culture in Greenstone was in a state of extreme flux. The

Builder cult purge had turned over every rock in Old City, exposing

many criminal enterprises. That the cult had attached themselves to many

such clandestine operations only made things worse. Old City's criminal

leadership thrived on being ignored by the Island, but now the powerful

Island factions had placed their attention aggressively on Old City.

For the crime lords known as the big three, the purge had brought about

very different results. Adris Dorgan was on the rise in the wake of his

daughter being revealed as Director of the Adventure Society. When she

came through the subsequent inquiry still holding her position, Dorgan's

place in the city hierarchy was solidified.

He gained a powerful shield against pressure from the ruling elite. There

were also rumours that he was heavily involved in the more secretive

elements of investigating the Builder cult's activities, obtaining powerful

concessions for his trouble. Whatever the truth, his operations had somehow

come out of the purge stronger than before.

Clarissa Ventress had been extremely quiet, even before the purge. In the

summer she had been pushing into Cole Silva's territory, trying to snatch

away as much of it as she could. The goal had been to capitalise on the chaos

following the old patriarch's death but Ventress had suddenly halted all such

efforts overnight.

Rumours abounded as to the reason, but Ventress and her organisation

quietly managed their existing affairs until just over a week ago, when word

spread that Ventress was dead. The circumstances of her demise were being

closely contained by her people, with her former bodyguard, the leonid

Darnell, stepping into her position.

The change in leadership seemed to have been completed without too

much contention but the air of uncertainty remained, becoming a pall

dangling over their operations. Despite the relatively smooth transition,

Darnell's power was extremely unstable, especially coming in the wake of

the purge. The unease spread through his territory and his people, making

them vulnerable to outside forces. Oddly, Adris Dorgan had made no move to

exploit this weakness and expand, despite his own solid position. Instead, it

was Cole Silva who seized the opportunity.

Silva had experienced similar problems after seizing the reins his father

had left behind and was still in the process of consolidating power. Many in

his own organisation were unhappy with the changes he was making to how

they operated and much of the old leadership were in the extended process of

being pushed out.

The purge had hit Silva's operations hard. Cole had finally brought things

under control by making sweeping changes. The old guard were excised and

new avenues of operation were established. Unlike his father, Cole had

pursued his ambitions with no concern for whom he worked with or what

they worked on.

Interests his father had always avoided were suddenly on the table,

bringing in new sources of revenue and control. The lucrative nature of the

new operations was the factor that allowed him to finally unite the

organisation fully behind him.

Silva's lax approach to choosing partners to operate with allowed a

number of Builder cult operations to embed themselves within his

organisation. As a result, many of his rackets had been scoured by forces of

the Duke, the Adventure Society and even a coalition of noble families,

spearheaded by the Mercers.

Despite this, Silva was taking the chance to grab as much of the territory

Clarissa Ventress once controlled as he could. It left him juggling a lot of

balls at once and a personal project had been put aside. He had been willing

to let one of those projects hibernate as the object of his attentions had left the

city for an extended period. Now Silva had information that Asano was due

to return, and he was taking time from his territorial ambitions to set new

events into motion.

Silva left his office in the Fortress, gesturing at his bronze-ranker

bodyguard to follow. Silva himself was a bronze-ranker but he had nothing in

the way of combat skills. His taste in violence was to enact it upon those too

powerless to fight back. He had raised his rank purely through the

consumption of monster cores. His bodyguard was one of five other bronze-

rankers currently in his employ, the most powerful and valuable members of

his organisation.

The Fortress was neutral ground for the Big Three, each controlling their

own sections. Silva made his way to an elevating platform that only he and

his most trusted men could access. They descended into the bowels of the

building, deep into the underground vaults built centuries ago to shield the

citizens at the time from monsters.

Killian Laurent was waiting for him in a luxurious subterranean lounge

Silva used for his most clandestine meetings. His father had the room set out

in subdued décor, but Silva had redecorated, marking the organisation's most

private sanctum as his own. On the walls, wood panelling had been painted

black while the thick new carpet was a brazen red. The simple and elegant

furniture his father had favoured was replaced with plush satin chairs and

loungers. The simple recessed glow stone in the ceiling had been replaced

with a resplendent chandelier. In place of the restrained, old art works that

had adorned walls were bold images of sex, violence and power.

“Mr Silva,” Laurent greeted. The pallid elf got up from where he had

been perched on the edge of a chair, waiting. “If you are ready, I will bring

our first guest.”

“Why wasn't he already waiting here?” Silva asked.

“With respect, Mr Silva, this is a man you wait on, not a man who waits

on you.”

Silva's face grimaced with anger but he gave a curt nod and Killian

departed through another door from the one Silva had used. Silva had become

increasingly intolerant of anyone who challenged his power as he scraped his

father's old guard from the top of the organisation. Silver-rankers were not to

be trifled with, however. There were rumours that one of his guests had been

dealing with Clarissa Ventress and had ultimately been the object of her

demise.

Silva crashed into one of the soft armchairs, gesturing for his bodyguard

to fix him a drink. The drinks cabinet was one of the few things in the room

that had remained form his father's tenure.

“Bring the bottle, then wait outside.”

By the time Killian returned he was three drinks in, the spirits fuelling the

perpetually burning furnace of rage and resentment inside him. The man

Killian returned with was fully obscured under a robe. Silva's aura senses

stopped dead when they met it, suggesting silver-rank concealment magic.

“I usually like to know who I'm dealing with,” Silva said.

“Our guest is a man who greatly values his anonymity,” Killian said.

“You may call me Mr Sparrow,” the hooded figure said. There was a

slight reverb to his voice, indicating voice-disguising magic. “You have my

thanks for the accommodations you have made. The arrangements have been

very satisfactory.”

“Please, sit,” Killian said, although he remained standing as Silva and Mr

Sparrow sat down.

“I understand you are looking to have someone taken quickly and

quietly,” Mr Sparrow said.

“That's right,” Silva said. “I want him placed in my possession, but it

must be done in utmost secrecy. He's known to be slippery, resourceful and

elusive, so I need someone who can strike quickly and definitively. I am told

this is an area of specialty for you.”

“It is,” Sparrow said. “Utmost secrecy is my preferred method of

conducting my affairs, so I believe we should be able to reach a mutually

satisfactory arrangement. Who is the person you want taken?”

“An iron rank adventurer,” Silva said. “Jason Asano.”

Sparrow sat up straight in his chair.

“I've heard of this Asano; you make a difficult request. He has powerful

friends that will come looking for him.”

“They won't find him,” Killian said with confidence. “We have

established a secure and isolated location and Asano himself has an ability

that prevents him from being tracked. So long as he is taken cleanly, then he

cannot be traced using his Adventure Society badge.”

“That's an easy claim to make,” Sparrow said, “but harder to verify. I

have no interest in being hunted down by gold-rankers because your

information was bad.”

Killian looked to Silva, who nodded.

“We have another guest who can allay your suspicions,” Killian said. “I

shall go bring him in.”

“I'm not accustomed to waiting on others,” Sparrow said, a twang of

annoyance getting through the voice masking magic.

“My apologies, sir,” Killian said, “but for this man, you do.”

Silva smirked at Sparrow being told the same thing he had been earlier.

Killian left the room and Silva poured himself another drink, not bothering to

offer one to Sparrow. The pair sat in silence, Sparrow seemingly impassive

under the dark hood as Silva stewed in the feeling of not being the most

powerful man in the room.

That feeling reminded Silva unpleasantly of the time before his father

died. His father's chief people would look at him with disrespect, spreading

rumours that the old man would not pass the mantle to his son. Sophie

Wexler was meant to have been the symbol of him seizing power; the woman

his father had always shielded from him, finally in his grasp. Instead, she had

become a symbol of his impotence, flaunting herself in front of her new high

society friends.

Her Adventure Society membership had placed her truly out of his reach.

If an adventurer went looking for trouble in the criminal underworld and

found a knife in his gut, the Adventure Society would pass it off as self-

inflicted damage. If the criminal underworld went looking for adventurers,

though, the Adventure Society would crash down on them like a tsunami. It

meant that even if they used, killed and dumped Wexler's body quickly, there

would be too many threads leading back to him.

Instead, he would have to make do with Asano, the man who had

intervened to deny her to anyone. The inability to track Asano gave them an

opportunity that they would not have with other adventurers. It was still

dangerous, which is why he had been hesitant when his second guest had

suggested it. That guest was being led into the room by an obsequious

Killian, Silva and Sparrow both rising from their seats at the new arrival.

“Lucian Lamprey,” Sparrow said, his modulator failing to hide the

surprise in his voice.

Lamprey looked at the hooded figure and a smirk crossed his face.

“Hello, Lawrence,” Lamprey said. “Do say hello to your sister for me.”

Sparrow flinched but didn't respond to Lamprey's jibe.

“What's your interest in this?” Sparrow asked instead.

“The boy has aggravated me,” Lamprey said. “Anyone with eyes can see

that he's the kind of vermin you need to squash before it grows too large to

deal with.”

Sparrow turned to Silva.

“What do you need me for, if you already have a silver-ranker?” Sparrow

asked.

“Because when Asano vanishes and is never seen again, it won't be too

long before someone asks me where I was at the time. I'm going to make

sure I'm visible enough that I can round up people like cattle to give me an

alibi. Also, he has some kind of communication power. I can take him down,

but not before he gets word out. We need someone who can take him down

clean before he knows what hit him. That's your specialty.”

“You're certain he can't be traced?”

“Completely,” Lamprey said. “The problem with these low-rankers with

the power to avoid tracking is that any kind magic strong enough to punch

through it burns out the aura imprint it's trying to track. By the time they get

strong enough for the powers to work, the little pricks are strong enough that

then their power shields them from it. The Magic Society has been trying to

solve the problem for years so they can track Adventure Society badges

better. That same annoyance, though, gives us an opportunity to take Asano

that we wouldn't have with another adventurer. Otherwise, we'd take the

girl.”

“You seem confident,” Sparrow said.

“Yes,” Lamprey said. “You don't have to worry about anyone finding

anything at the scene. Even if you're sloppy enough that people find out

where you took him from, the Magic Society won't find anything useful, I'll

see to that.”

Sparrow started pacing back and forth.

“If I'm going to do this,” he said, “Asano can never see the light of day

again. He has to be dead and buried.”

“Forget buried,” Silva said gleefully. “He's going to be dead and

scattered across the delta in tiny pieces for wildlife to eat. Eventually,

anyway. Once there isn't enough flesh left on him to feel pain.”

“You are going to do this,” Lamprey told Sparrow. “You knew that from

the moment you saw me walk through the door, Lawrence. All that's left is to

haggle the price.”

“The price has been paid to my satisfaction,” Sparrow said.

“And what is Silva paying you?” Lamprey asked. “Actually, don't tell

me. Your predilections are appalling even to me, and that's saying

something.”

“Asano is already overdue to return to the city,” Killian said. “He could

be back at any time now.”

“He was caught up in a silver-rank manifestation,” Lamprey said.

“Another one?” Killian said, frowning. “If the monster surge is starting,

that will complicate the site we've set up to hold Asano in.”

“It isn't the monster surge,” Lamprey said. “These manifestations are just

precursor signs. It could be months before the surge hits in full force.”

“Then we act?” Silva asked.

“Yes,” Lamprey said.

“Then I will need details,” Sparrow said. “Everything you have on Asano,

and where you want me to bring him.”

Killian gave an unctuous smile.

“I have everything you need.”

Pantero's Bakery in the Cavendish district of Old City was always busy. For

Jason, however, both a regular customer and a young adventurer on the rise,

service always came quick.

“You bought a lot today, Mr Asano.”

“My team just got back into town, Mrs Pantero. We're having bit of a

celebration.”

“How long does it take to visit a bakery?” Sophie complained, then shook her

head. “Look who I'm talking about. I once saw him go through half a cart of

apples looking for the perfect ones for a pie. They're pie apples. They don't

have to be that good.”

The team was lounging on the deck of the cloud houseboat, returned to its

spot at the marina in Greenstone. Jory had joined them; he had spotted them

passing the clinic just as he was closing up for the day. He was now nestled

next to Belinda, the pair sharing a large cloud chair.

“He is taking a while,” Henrietta agreed.

“I bet he spotted some new food in the window of a shop,” Jory said.

“I've learned better than to walk down certain streets with him. If he sees

something new to eat, you're lucky if he just buys it instead of finding his

way to the kitchen.”

“Oh, gods, yes,” Clive said with a laugh. “I showed him this dumpling

soup place once—you know the one, Humphrey—and Jason got a job there

for about a week. Jory, you're lucky he hasn't suborned your alchemy lab for

some grand cooking experiment.”

“Has the alchemy association been hounding you about the miracle

potion recipe?” Neil asked him.

On their return, Jory had gifted the team with the first batch of lesser

miracle potions his alchemy facility produced. It was a thank you for Jason

giving him the funding to build the facility in the first place.

“They've been restricting themselves to fairly blatant hints that they'd

like the formula,” Jory said. “Now that I have the church of the Healer

backing me, they aren't pushing. I suspect if the Healer hadn't made the

clinic sanctified ground, they would have broken in to steal it by now.”

Suddenly the whole team went deathly still.

“What is it?” Jory asked.

Party leader Jason Asano has had his magical abilities suppressed.

Ability Party Interface has been negated.

Your party has been disbanded.

17

the Man behind the Mouth

T he room was almost entirely bare of features, a dark stone box with no

windows. There was a heavy steel door, a recessed glow stone in the

ceiling and a metal chain staked into the hard floor. The other end of the

chain was affixed to a power suppression collar around the neck of a naked

body. Jason was chained up and unconscious, lying on the hard stone.

On the other side of the door were Killian Laurent and the cloaked figure

of Mr Sparrow. They stood in another stone room, although this one was

largely stacked with crates.

“You are confident you got away clean?” Killian asked.

“Short of a gold-ranker specialised in stealth and tracking having

followed, then yes.”

“You have our gratitude, Mr Sparrow,” Killian said. “You will find your

usual arrangements waiting at the usual place, but I have also arranged a little

bonus I am confident you will find tantalising.”

“Then my part in this is done and I wash my hands of it,” Sparrow said.

“You would be well-advised to not bring this matter up again, Laurent. You

would be even better advised to make sure no one else brings up my

participation in it.”

“I shall keep your advice in mind,” Killian said. “I believe you know that

my discretion can be relied upon, Mr Sparrow.”

Sparrow's hooded head nodded, then he stepped into a shadow and

disappeared. With Sparrow gone, Laurent left the room. The building was

nothing more than those two rooms, located right where the delta met the

desert.

It had once been one of the way stations the Magic Society used to

transfer spirit coin shipments from the farms. Disused for a number of years,

the small outpost was both secure and isolated. It had been abandoned

decades ago as more coin farms went into operation, changing the transport

routes and requiring larger facilities. It had a paved area where shipments

were transferred, the once-level pavers now shifted and uneven.

There was a second, smaller building that had been the security station,

with large, reflective windows. The alchemically treated glass both helped

keep the interior cool and prevented those outside from seeing in.

Inside the security building were three people, including another of the

precious few bronze-rankers in Silva's organisation. Silva was intent on

keeping the location secure and had hand-picked the three to manage the site.

The bronze-ranker came out to meet Killian.

“Mr Laurent,” the man said respectfully. Of the bronze rankers under

Silva, Killian was the unquestionable leader. “Thank you for refreshing the

cooling magic on the security building.”

“Of course, Remi,” Killian said. “Mr Silva puts a great deal of value and

trust in you. How are your people?”

“Coburn is solid. Not what you'd call a deep thinker, but he knows when

to keep his ears open and mouth shut. The other one, Jerrick, has some real

potential; I've worked with him before. I was surprised to see him selected

him for this, though. He's only been in the organisation a few months.”

“Mr Silva prefers the newer people he recruited himself after clearing out

his father's old mainstays,” Killian said. “Those who have taken pains to

demonstrate their loyalty are his most valued people. Otherwise, he prefers

the people he has recruited and cultivated himself. It avoids any issues with

nostalgic loyalties.”

Remi nodded. “The old man had too many scruples, leaving money on

the table all over. Mr Silva isn't caught up in old ways of thinking.”

“Just so,” Killian said. “Jerrick has a history with our guest. Asano is

responsible for his being struck off the Adventure Society rolls, as well as

ruining the man's relationship with the nobleman he was working for.”

Remi frowned. “I don't like personal connections. It stops people from

doing their job properly.”

“I am not unsympathetic, Remi, but Mr Silva felt that Jerrick would share

his passion for seeing that Asano gets what is coming to him.”

“He's the boss,” Remi said. “If he wants it, he gets it.”

Killian smiled with his thin, pale lips.

“That's an attitude that will take you far, Remi. I am leaving now, to

bring Mr Silva. Remember that we want to maintain the illusion of this

location's abandonment.”

“We'll stay in the building and out of sight.”

“Check on our guest every hour,” Killian said. “Once he's awake, give

him a spirit coin to eat. Mr Silva wants him strong and healthy enough to

survive what we have planned.”

The ache in Jason's body as he regained consciousness paled in comparison

to the pain digging into his brain like a railroad spike. It was an unpleasantly

nostalgic feeling, taking him back to his first hours in this world when he had

been knocked out multiple times in quick succession. Only a few potions and

a dose of healing magic staved off a lethal brain haemorrhage at the time.

His first thought was to open his inventory and grab a potion, but his

inventory window appeared only in a haze of static before blinking out again.

He tried to bring up other interface windows, but received the same result.

Muscles protesting, he pushed himself to a sitting position and fumbled at his

neck, finding a thick iron choker. He had never worn a suppression collar but

had used them on others. It was obvious that this was the source of his power

problem.

He could still feel Colin inside his blood, but the connection to him that

Jason normally experienced seemed strangely obstructed. He could tell that

trying to bring out his familiar wouldn't work and the attempt might have a

painful backlash. On the bright side, Colin's power to heal him was still in

effect. He could already feel the aches in his body clearing up and the

fuzziness in his head fading away.

Jason took stock of his situation. His clothes were gone, although most of

his adventuring gear was safely stashed in his inventory. The only important

item missing was his new amulet. He sat cross-legged as he looked around.

He was in a room of desert stone. It was warm rather than cold, not too

unpleasant to sit on. The sun-warmed brick meant that he probably wasn't

underground, despite the lack of windows.

The chain linking him to the floor wasn't long enough for him to stand,

only sit or kneel. Even leaning too far forward caused it to tug at his neck in a

choking grip. The rest of the room had little to offer, just a heavy metal door

and a glow stone in the ceiling.

Jason had no idea who had come after him, remembering nothing but a

dark shape erupting out of an alley. It may have been a bronze-ranker,

although a silver was more likely. He had a high-enough opinion of his own

powers to think that even a bronze-ranker would have trouble so thoroughly

blindsiding him with darkness and stealth.

His circumstances weren't great, but not completely hopeless, either. If

whoever had taken him wanted him dead, then he would already be. He

didn't expect his near future to be pleasant, however. Colin's healing power

would likely be very useful.

If you can hear me in there, Colin, stop the healing until I say so. If they

don't know you can still help me, you can be my secret weapon for what

comes next.

Although the connection was dimmed, Jason got a sense of assent from

his familiar.

With no other options, Jason sat and meditated. A while later, Jason

sensed the approach of a bronze-rank aura, meaning at least his aura senses

remained intact. The person came into the room and Jason opened his eyes.

“You've got a henchman look about you,” Jason said. “I don't suppose I

could seduce you and secretly pocket the keys to this collar? Well, I say

pocket.”

He indicated his naked body.

“It's a figure of speech, obviously.”

The stony-faced man tossed a spirit coin at Jason, who caught it out of the

air. “Eat. The boss wants you healthy for what he's got planned.”

“I'm guessing it's not a charity fun run. So, who's the boss? If Tony

Danza walks in here, I'm going to lose it.”

The man gave a confused frown and left without answering. Jason

wondered how long he would be able to keep up the banter before whatever

was coming took its toll. He examined the coin, but his interface again gave a

fuzz of static and vanished without giving him any information. It seemed

like an ordinary spirit coin; the crystalline object was a dull iron colour.

It seemed unlikely to be some kind of trap. In his current situation they

didn't need subterfuge to make him ingest poison or some tainted object.

Keeping his strength up was an obviously good idea, but he ultimately tossed

the coin into the corner. In his studies of magic, Jason had learned there were

certain kinds of magic, usually involving the soul, that required willing

participation. Without it, the soul was largely inviolable, even to the most

potent magical forces. He wasn't willing to take the chance that eating the

coin was the acceptance of some magical end user licence agreement.

It was some time before the door opened again to admit two people. One

was dressed in the kind of expensive style that made sure everyone knew how

much their clothes cost. The cut seemed familiar and Jason suspected the man

used the same tailor as Thadwick Mercer.

The man in the fancy clothes looked young. That was hardly an

achievement, given the bronze-rank aura, but there was also an immaturity to

his snide expression. Jason had known enough high-rankers to recognise a

level of easy confidence and equanimity in those whose youthful face belied

their age. This man had the bearing of a boy.

The boy-man's aura, in addition to his looks, marked him as mediocre.

Jason's perception power wouldn't enhance his aura senses until it ranked up

a second time, but he could almost smell the monster cores the man had used,

as if he'd drenched himself in some nasty cologne. Jason doubted the man

had ever faced a monster in the wild.

Next to the human was a startlingly creepy elf, whose dark clothes made

his sickly, pallid skin stand out all the more. Jason suspected the man to have

been altered by his essence powers. The kinds of powers that fundamentally

changed a person were the kind that usually landed their original essences on

the restricted list. Jason would not have been at all surprised to find the death

essence in the man's repertoire.

“So,” the boy-man said. “You're the Jason Asano that's been causing

such a ruckus.”

“If I said you had the wrong guy, I don't suppose you'd let me go?”

Jason was still sitting, cross-legged on the floor. The chain would not

allow him to take his feet and face his captors.

“You have no idea how bad the rest of your short life is going to be,” the

boy-man said. “Do you even know who I am?”

“You're definitely not Tony Danza,” Jason said. “If you're Judith Light,

life has taken you down some very odd roads.”

“What are you babbling about?” the boy-man asked.

“He's spouting nonsense to put you off,” the elf said in a voice as creepy

as the rest of him. “Don't let him distract you.”

“So, you're the Palpatine to his Vader,” Jason said to the elf. “I know the

routine. Just to save you some time, giving in to my hatred will be an easy

sell, under the circumstances.”

“Shut up!” the boy-man yelled. “My name is Cole Silva.”

“You're Cole Silva?” Jason asked.

“That's right,” Silva said, gloatingly. “Now you understand what kind of

trouble you're in.”

“The name doesn't ring a bell,” Jason said, brow creasing as he strained

to recall. “Wait, did you sell me that dodgy magic food processor? The pulse

setting on that thing was rubbish. Is this revenge for complaining to the

Artifice Association about your shoddy standards? I think we both know

that's really on you.”

“I'm one of the Big Three!” Silva yelled. Jason suppressed a grin at the

elf's reaction. He clearly wanted to interject but was unwilling to risk the

younger man's temper.

“Oh, the crime lords,” Jason said, realisation dawning in his voice. “I've

met Adris Dorgan, very cool guy. He has that combination of class and

masculinity that lets him really carry off that dapper look. Then there's

Clarissa Ventress and that other one. I forget the name because everyone just

calls him the stupid one. I have to say, Clarissa, you don't look anything like

how you were described.”

Silva lunged at Jason, but bones spears erupted from the hard brick floor

like a wall to block him off. Silva turned his furious glare on the elf.

“Mr Silva,” the elf said. “Don't let him goad you into giving him a quick

death. Nothing you can do will be worse than what we already have in store

for him.”

Silva fumed but enough of the rage drained away that he got himself back

under control. Silva angrily tugged his clothes back into place as the bone

spears disappeared, leaving holes in the stone floor. He then turned a

malevolent grin on Jason.

“We'll see if you're still so clever once the pain begins,” Silva told Jason.

“I will be,” Jason said. “It just won't show because of the screaming and

begging. I'm pretty sure there'll be begging. I don't know what you want

from me, exactly, but I hope it's not dignity. You took my pants, though, so

I'm guessing that's not an issue.”

“All I want is for you to pay for the things you've taken from me,” Silva

said.

“Which didn't include fashion advice, thankfully,” Jason said. “You need

to tone it down, which is really saying something with the way people dress

in Greenstone.”

“I will be interested to see how long your courage holds,” the elf said.

“Oh, that's long gone,” Jason said. “This is pretty much terrified babble

I'm trying to pass off as bravado. The inability to wet myself is only thing

selling it, at this point.”

The elf gave Jason a hungry smile.

Silva snorted derision. “You willingly admit to fear?”

“I'm chained up, naked, in a room with the winner of a most obvious sex-

predator contest and the guy who got disqualified for being too creepy. Not

being scared is admitting to being an idiot.”

“Mr Silva, I think it's time to show him.”

“Will he even know what it is?” Silva asked.

“I didn't tell you?” the elf said. “Our friend here is the one who procured

it in the first place.”

“Really?” Silva said with a sinister chuckle. “That's almost poetry.”

A bone cabinet rose up out of the floor, reminding Jason of the stone

chest storage space that Farrah had. This also proved to be a storage space as

the elf took out an object Jason recognised. It was held in a cubic metal

frame, a sphere made up entirely of tiny little bricks the colour of grey stone.

“Star seed,” Jason said, his face turning pale. “You're with the Builder

cult?”

“Not at all,” the elf said. “This is the very same star seed that you

acquired and was taken by the church of Purity. When the temple's assets

were being seized, we managed to snag this little treasure. And now we are

going to return it to you.”

Jason said nothing, fierce eyes locked on the elf.

“There he is,” the elf said with delight. “The man behind the mouth.”

“You'd best be very careful about what happens next,” Jason said, “or

you might come to regret having met him.”

18

Search

K illian began the elaborate preparations to use the star seed. He started

by conjuring up skeletal arms that he used to hammer a spike into the

ceiling, which he then hung a pair of manacles from. He unlatched the chain

from Jason's suppression collar and then used the skeleton arms to force

Jason's wrists into the manacles. Jason didn't bother to struggle, saving his

strength.

Once Jason was hanging uncomfortably from the ceiling, Killian took a

series of pouches from his bone storage cabinet, pouring powder from them

to make a complex ritual circle under Jason's feet. When that was done, he

started placing objects into the circle. Some were simple bricks of precious

materials, others were tools made from exotic metals.

“How exactly do you know how to do all this?” Jason asked.

“That's actually a good question,” Silva said, watching from the side.

“How did you learn a Builder cult ritual?”

“From a Builder cultist, obviously,” Killian said. “You opened your

operations to people your father would never deal with and the Builder cult

seized the opportunity. When Thalia Mercer started kicking down doors, why

did you think so many of them were yours?”

“You facilitated this?” Silva asked.

“Your exact words were 'more money, less questions,'” Killian said.

“He's put you in bed with the enemy of the whole world,” Jason said.

“Do you even know what the Builder cult is doing? They're plundering

whole chunks of this world like dimensional pirates and they don't care who

or what is destroyed in the process. That's not an association you can run far

enough to escape, Silva.”

“Shut up,” Silva snarled.

“What's done is done,” Killian said calmly. “The only way forward is

forward.”

Killian placed the final object, the star seed, directly underneath Jason.

“And now we begin,” he said.

Thalia met Clive and Neil in one of the Mercer family's receiving parlours.

“Neil,” Thalia Mercer greeted. “Always a pleasure. And Mr Standish,

hello again. You'll have to accept my apology, but I can only spare a little

time. The Builder cult has gone underground, which has made rooting them

out all the more work.”

“Then we'll go directly to the point,” Neil said. “Jason Asano has gone

missing.”

Thalia frowned.

“You're sure it's foul play? I recall he went off without telling anyone

once before, during the time he was seeing Cassandra.”

“We're sure,” Neil said.

“I'm not sure exactly how I can help,” Thalia said.

“We're looking into anyone with the motivation to do something to

Jason,” Clive said. “You're the spearhead of the Builder cult investigation

now.”

“You think the Builder cult might be behind it?” Thalia asked. “Revenge

for taking a star seed from them? It seems like they would have larger

concerns.”

Clive and Neil both took on awkward expressions.

“That's true, Lady Mercer,” Clive said. “We were thinking of another

potential scenario. To be blunt, we're talking about Thadwick.”

Thalia's expression went dark. “Thadwick is a prisoner. A victim.”

“Most likely, yes,” Neil said. “We're simply exploring every possibility,

however remote.”

“We don't understand how much of the original personality survives once

a start seed takes over,” Clive said. “It may well be that Thadwick's own

personality is suppressed but the thing that's taken him over inherited his

hatred of Jason and is acting on it.”

“We both know that Thadwick had become fixated on Jason,” Neil said to

Thalia. “Jason had become the symbol of his recent setbacks.”

“Even if what you're saying were true,” Thalia said, “what could I do that

I haven't already done? You think I haven't been trying to get my son back?

He's been gone for months now. For all we know, he was in the pile of

corpses that Remore and his parents left on that island. They're still sorting

through the bodies, trying to identify them all.”

“The thing is,” Neil said, “we've all been operating under the assumption

that Thadwick has been wholly supplanted by the star seed.”

“If he is more of a gestalt entity,” Clive picked up, “then that may open

avenues of investigation that you otherwise may have overlooked. Places that

Thadwick would think to go.”

“I may be emotionally invested in my son's return,” Thalia said, “but I

am not blinded by emotion. From the point we realised the cult was acting on

Thadwick's knowledge we immediately tried every avenue we could think of

that might be driven by his thinking, instead of the cult.”

She got to her feet.

“That is all the time I have to spare,” she said, her voice cold and

dismissive. “You know the way out, Neil.”

“Mr Remore,” Dorgan greeted. “Of course, you are welcome in my home,

but I didn't realise we were meeting this openly.”

“Do you know why I'm here?” Rufus asked.

“The absentee Mr Asano, I can only assume,” Dorgan said. “My

understanding is that he's been known to go off without notice before.”

“This isn't that,” Rufus said.

“Well, let me begin by asserting that I am neither responsible nor

complicit.”

“Do you know who is?”

“I only met Mr Asano the one time,” Dorgan said. “He struck me as

someone who likes to play games above his rank with a rather insufferable

smugness. Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long for him to mysteriously

disappear.”

“I need answers, not more questions.”

“Well, while there are any number of candidates, there are not so many

stupid enough to risk the wrath of you and your friends. Or your parents.

Good gods, no sane person would cross a pair of gold rankers.”

“Who would?”

“Cole Silva, probably. Poor judgement, fierce temper. I've known him

since he was a boy. The girl too; she may be the only thing he was ever truly

denyed. I think you've deeply underestimated just how angry Cole is over

being frustrated in the moment he thought he finally had her. Ventress

understood the depths of that feeling and used it as a weapon.”

“You think Silva is responsible?”

“All I have for you is conjecture, based on my understanding of Cole.

He's arrogant enough but I'm not sure he would make the attempt without

prompting. Even if he's responsible, you may want to look elsewhere for the

origin of the scheme.”

“Whoever came up with the idea is secondary,” Rufus said. “Finding

Asano is the priority.”

“Well, I don't have him, or know who does. All I can offer is some

advice. If you look into Silva, don't look to Silva himself. Look for what he's

been doing. Even he isn't fool enough to take your friend without

precautions. Find those precautions and you find your friend. Presuming

Silva is the one that took him.”

Danielle and Humphrey Geller had come upon Lucian Lamprey as he was

reading in the Magic Society library. He was in an open area full of

comfortable reading chairs and didn't bother to get up from the one he was

occupying. He put his book down on a side table and convivially waved at

them to join him.

“You were very easy to find, Mr Lamprey,” Danielle said, sitting down.

Humphrey remained standing, next to her chair. “To the point of

conspicuousness, in fact. One might almost think you were being fastidious

about establishing an alibi.”

“And for exactly what dark deeds would I need an alibi, Lady Geller?”

“Jason Asano has gone missing.”

“Oh? I suppose I can see why you would look at me, but I have to

imagine I am but a single name on a very long list. He might have made allies

out of powerful people like yourself, but he's annoyed even more. Taking

opportunities that rightly belonged to Greenstone's nobility. A complete

disregard for propriety, decorum and the inherent superiority of the

aristocratic class. He's made enemies he's never even met.”

“But you're the one who threatened him in public,” Danielle said.

“That was just talk. I'd just lost out in court, and you can't deny he has

both the ability and intent to get under people's skin. If I genuinely intended

to have someone disposed of, then I would make it a point to be friendly,

rather than threaten them. Even putting aside the warning, it helps avoid

conversations like this one.”

Danielle gave him a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

“I assume we can count on the full support of the Magic Society in

finding him?”

“Naturally,” Lamprey said. “I'll hand pick anyone involved in trying to

find him and supervise everything personally. Of course, he does have that

little issue with tracking, doesn't he? Such a shame.”

Danielle stood back up.

“Mr Lamprey, if you did happen across someone involved in this

situation—through sheer happenstance, for example—then you would be

well served by convincing them to reconsider the whole enterprise.”

“Oh, I couldn't agree more,” Lamprey said. “With Bahadir and the

Remores, it means dealing with gold rankers. That's something only someone

as foolish as Asano would do.”

Danielle levied a penetrating gaze on Lamprey, then turned to leave,

Humphrey following after. Lamprey called out after them and they turned

around.

“Do let me know if a body turns up. It will reopen legal proceedings

regarding a young lady in dire need of some… strict guidance.”

“The Adventure Society won't let you touch her,” Humphrey said, face

creased with anger. “And even if they did, I wouldn't.”

“The yapping of a dog, hiding under its owner's skirts,” Lamprey said

dismissively. “Have you taken a liking to my thief, little doggy?”

“I'd never let you take her as an indentured servant,” Humphrey said. “I

wouldn't let you take anyone.”

“No?” Lamprey asked. “I didn't see you in court last year when I claimed

my previous one.”

He shook his head sadly.

“Poor girl. So pretty, but she went mysteriously missing, too. Of course,

she didn't have the heroic Geller clan rushing to her rescue. Do you only help

poor people when Asano tells you to? I do hope he's alright or you'll have to

go back to protecting heiresses.”

Danielle placed a hand on Humphrey's shoulder, silencing the reply he

was about to spit out.

“You should be careful, Lamprey,” she said. “Mysterious disappearances

seem to be going around.”

“Are you threatening me, Lady Geller?”

Danielle strode back across the room, Lamprey standing up to meet her.

The tall, muscular elf towered over the small woman, but she radiated threat

like a sword. The clash of their auras drew looks from the few library patrons

not already surreptitiously watching the confrontation between the Director

of the Magic Society and the city's most famous adventurer. Their auras

pushed against one another, until finally Lamprey's yielded under the

flawless, unflinching power and control of Danielle's.

“Lamprey, if Asano is dead and I find out you're involved, I'm going to

carve you up for chum on the steps of the Adventure Society, for everyone to

see, and then use you to go shark fishing. That was me threatening you.”

Belinda made her way down an alley in Old City, stopping in front of an

unmarked door and knocking twice. A panel on the door slid across,

revealing a pair of eyes that went wide on recognising Belinda.

“Is she in?” Belinda asked.

“You shouldn't be here,” the woman behind the door said. “There're all

kinds of stories going around about you and Wexler.”

“The reality is crazier than the stories, I promise.”

“Just go, Belinda.”

Belinda projected her aura through the door, suppressing that of the

woman behind it.

“I'm going through that door,” Belinda said. “It'll go better for both of us

if you open it first.”

“Let her in,” came another voice from inside. It was the rich, deep voice

of an older woman. The door opened, the woman behind it watching Belinda

warily as she went past. The older woman had a broad, mannish body and

curly hair down to her shoulders. She was in her early fifties, but fit and

strong.

“Hello, Marg,” Belinda greeted.

“Lindy,” Marg said warmly. “Please, come up.”

She led Belinda up some stairs and onto the flat roof, where picnic

furniture had been set up on a rug. Marg waved Belinda to a chair, taking

another for herself.

“You know, Lindy, we really have been hearing some strange stories. I

even heard you were an adventurer, now.”

“Not yet,” Belinda said. “Sophie is. I have the essences but put off the

field assessment while we went on a monster safari.”

“You have essences?”

Belinda shape shifted, becoming a duplicate of Marg.

“Now that's something we could get some use out of,” Marg said. “I

don't suppose I can talk you into taking a job?”

“Sorry, Marg. It's the straight and narrow for me.”

“That's a shame. What brings you here, then?”

“A man has gone missing. Sophie and I are looking into whether one of

the Big Three are behind it.”

“You think they are?”

“It's possible. He's annoyed them all in one way or another, largely in the

process of helping me and Sophie. So, we owe him.”

“Jason Asano,” Marg said.

“You've heard of him?”

“His name started floating around when he was working at the

Broadstreet Clinic. I hear you've been spending some time there yourself.”

Belinda blushed.

“Can you find out about Asano for me?”

“I can ask around,” Marg said. “How urgent is this?”

“I really would have gone through your door.”

“That door is stronger than it looks.”

“I know,” Belinda said. “I put it there, remember.”

“So you did. Any place I should start?”

“Adris Dorgan is too smart and has too much to lose, so it's unlikely to be

him. Ventress has the least reason to be annoyed at him, almost certainly not

enough for this.”

“Ventress is dead,” Marg said.

“Dead?”

“No one knows how long, but word got out around a week ago. That

bodyguard of hers, Darnell stepped in.”

“That won't last,” Belinda said. “He's not a flexible thinker.”

“Focus on Silva, then?” Marg asked.

“If it's one of them, it's almost certainly him,” Belinda said. “Considering

the friends Jason has made, Cole is the only one stupid enough to try

something.”

“What is Wexler doing, if you're here?”

“We already figured that if it was any of the Big Three, it was Cole,”

Belinda said. “Sophie is taking a more direct approach.”

Sophie stepped over broken glass and unconscious bodies, looking for

someone cognisant enough to interrogate. She followed the closest groan of

pain, and found a hefty man slumped behind the bar with a broken bottle

sticking out of his side. She easily hoisted him up on top the bar, causing him

to yell out as the bottle shifted.

“As I was saying,” Sophie said casually, “I want to know what Silva is up

to at the moment.”

“I haven't even met him,” the man groaned. “I answer to a guy who

answers to a guy who answers to a guy. No one tells me anything.”

“Who does get told?”

“You know what Silva will do to you?”

Sophie gripped the bottle and twisted, eliciting a scream.

“The docklands!” he yelled. “There's a tavern in the docklands called

Sailor's Rest.”

“I know it,” Wexler said. “There's a mist den operating out of the back.”

“Silva has been expanding the mist trade in a big way since you got out,”

the man said. “The guy who runs it is the area boss for all the mist dens on

that side of the city now.”

Crystal mist was a drug made from recording crystals, imbuing the

contents into a powder that was dissolved into water, vaporised and inhaled.

It would create a world inside the mind, based on the recordings.

Crystal mist was illegal, due to its deleterious effect on the brain. Over

time, it caused a residue to build up that slowly but inexorably inflicted

permanent damage. Even with magic, the damage couldn't be healed until the

residue was purged. Since the residue was resistant to most forms of

cleansing, that was an expensive, though not impossible, prospect.

Cole Silva's father had maintained a small operation, catering to members

of the nobility with low tastes. They had the money and connections to

discreetly arrange the expensive cleansing required. Cole had massively

expanded the operations, knowing there was never a shortage of

disenfranchised people looking for an escape.

There was a pile of people in front of the door, so Sophie left by hopping

lightly through the window and dropping down a storey to the ground. By the

time the third person had gone through it, very little of the glass was left and

she landed lightly amongst the shattered remnants of the window. The men

she sent through it had staggered off already. She could see one of them

helping the other down the street with an injured leg. She turned in the other

direction, towards the docklands, and started running.

The ritual chant was long; it sounded more like a sermon glorifying the

Builder than the incantation for a ritual. As Killian continued, an aura started

emitting from the star seed. It was faint but held an echo of vast power, like

the light of a star. The metal frame fell away from the sphere as it rose into

the air, its aura washing over Jason. His own aura was already suppressed

entirely by the collar around his neck.

The tiny fragments that made up the sphere separated, drifting up to

slowly float through the air around Jason. They rose off the sphere like

smoke from a fire until the seed was fully disassembled and the fragments

floated around him like a cloud. Suddenly their movement stopped, as if they

were frozen in time. The star seed's aura surged abruptly and the fragments

darted in, burying themselves in Jason's flesh.

19

Defiance

T he pain of the tiny objects digging into his flesh Jason could endure well

enough. In the last six months he had undergone enough suffering, both

mental and physical, that he could take the peppering of wounds in stride,

even as he dangled, helpless, from the ceiling. Below him, the magic circle

shone with a silver light.

“The star seed implantation process is not a swift one,” Killian said.

“First, the seed will carve itself throughout your body, suborning your flesh

in preparation for claiming your body as its own. The pain you feel now is

simply a slow, easy start. It will grow over time, escalating until your mind

can no longer endure it and breaks. But that will still only be the beginning.

You will be broken again and again until there is nothing left of you, until

only the will of the Builder remains. The star seed is a door that will allow

him to reach through and claim your soul.”

“And I'll be here to watch,” Silva said gleefully. “You know the best part,

though, Asano? Let me tell you the part that convinced me that this was the

way to punish you.”

“The chance for monologuing?” Jason guessed, his voice only slightly

strained. “You don't need a star seed for that. You could have just explained

your evil plot and then left, assuming everything would go as planned. That's

how they do it where I come from.”

“Go ahead and blabber, Asano.”

“Okay. You should seriously re-evaluate the ergonomics in here because I

don't think this is good for my shoulders.”

“Shut up!”

“Make up your mind, guy. You really need to—”

Jason was cut off by a stab of pain.

“Sorry, what was that, Asano?” Silva asked with a malevolent chuckle.

“This is going to be very, very hard for you.”

Jason let out a pain-tinged chuckle of his own.

“That's funny,” he groaned.

“What is?”

“I said the exact same thing to your mother last night.”

“Really, Asano? The pain must be getting to you if cheap jokes about my

mother are the best you can manage. My mother died a dozen years ago; her

ashes are interred in the family mausoleum.”

“That did take most of the fun out of it,” Jason admitted. “All I could

really do was take the lid off the urn and waggle my thing in there.”

Silva's face turned red with fury. He moved to attack Jason, but stopped

himself at the edge of the magic diagram.

“Please restrain yourself, Mr Silva,” Killian said. “Trust that the process

will slowly bring him a level of suffering that no amount of bravado can

withstand.”

Silva relaxed and the evil grin returned to his face.

“You're right, Killian,” he said. “You interrupted me, Asano, when I was

about to explain the best part of this whole thing. You see, it turns out that a

star seed can't take you over. Not unless you let it.”

“The inviolable soul,” Killian said. “One of the most fundamental rules of

magic.”

“So what the star seed does,” Silva continued, relishing every word, “is

just keep ramping up the pain, until your mind can't take it. Don't think you

will find relief in dark insensibility, though. After your body, it will come for

your soul. There's no hiding from that. It may not have a way to invade your

soul, Asano, but it can hurt it. You're going to suffer in ways you cannot

imagine. Fortunately, you won't have to, because you'll feel all of it. You

can't prevent it, avoid it or escape it. You will suffer and suffer until you

can't take any more and you give the Builder what he wants. You will open

the door and let him in, allowing his will supplant yours, just so the pain will

stop. You be nothing more than a vessel, an empty husk. A puppet, dancing

on a string.”

Silva moved close to Jason, carefully stepping over the lines of the magic

circle without disturbing them. He gripped Jason by the hair and spoke softly

into his ear.

“I'm going to watch it all,” Silva whispered. “I'm going to taste your

pain, revel in your suffering. The last thing you see, in the final moment

before your soul is snuffed out, will be my face. The last thought you have

will be the realisation that you have been completely, utterly and irrevocably

broken, and that it happened because you took something that was mine.”

Jason didn't respond, gritting his teeth against the pain, like icy-cold

worms burrowing through his body. Silva ran his hand down the side of

Jason's face.

“And when we're done, we'll let you go,” he said. “Of course, it won't

really be you. I wonder what the Builder will have you do. Run off to the

cultists? Perhaps you'll go back to your friends and see how much damage

you can do before they catch on that you aren't home anymore. I would really

like to hear that you killed Sophie. Would you do that for me? Make it ugly,

too. Make her ugly. Let everyone know that what's mine is mine, and no one

else's.”

“I don't know if anyone's told you this,” Jason forced out through gritted

teeth, “but you're kind of a prick.”

Jason felt the progress of the star seed as it invaded his body as biting cold,

like his veins were turning to ice. As the cold burrowed its way through his

body, however, the trails it left behind started to warm again. Jason could feel

Colin's presence, working to reclaim his body from the star seed. As the star

seed took hold throughout his body he realised that it felt like Colin's dark

mirror: cold and dead instead of warm and filled with vibrant life.

Colin's attempts to reclaim Jason's body didn't help with the pain. Just

the opposite, in fact, as the star seed and the familiar fought a war inside his

body. Colin was not truly in Jason's blood as a physical leech, however, but

instead as a spirit form within Jason's soul, anchored to the physical world

through the blood. In most cases, the death of a summoner would cause the

familiar spirit to return to the astral as its anchor was severed. If Jason's soul

was violated, however, Colin's spirit would be made vulnerable. Jason didn't

know what that would mean for his familiar but he was confident that it was

nothing good.

Jason knew Colin's efforts were inevitably doomed as the star seed

altered his flesh faster than Colin could restore it. In that moment, however,

he felt an incredible warmth for the life-devouring apocalypse beast working

so hard to help him. He was filled with fresh determination to fight on, to

protect his familiar the way his familiar was protecting him.

Silva never seemed to tire of taunting Jason, but as the pain escalated,

Jason was no longer hearing the words. All that he had was the pain, a world

of white noise with no sense of place or time. When the pain abruptly receded

and his senses started to return, he had no idea how long it had been.

“What happened?” Silva asked.

Jason had visibly relaxed and the silver glow of the magic circle had

significantly dimmed.

Killian frowned.

“The Builder is an entity so powerful that if it were to directly touch this

world, the world would be annihilated. The star seed is a conduit of its power,

but until it has a soul to feed on, we must supply it with power ourselves. The

purpose of this magic circle is to gather and concentrate the ambient magic to

fuel the star seed. The magic of this region is weak, however, and we will

need to periodically supplement the power with spirit coins to keep the ritual

circle active.”

“For how long do we have to keep spending coins?”

“Until Asano breaks and surrenders his soul to the Builder. He is only

mortal and the Builder is infinite. So long as we keep the circle fed, Asano

will capitulate eventually.”

“How eventually?” Silva asked. “We're hidden well out here but his

allies will be looking and they have both resources and power.”

“How long it will take depends on the strength of Asano's resolve. He

will last longer than you would, I suspect.”

“Why are you only telling me about this now?”

“The circle is depleting too quickly” Killian said.

“Did you even do it right?”

“If I failed to use the ritual correctly, the seed would not have become

active in the first place.”

Killian turned a curious gaze on Jason.

“Something about Asano is hindering the seed's work on his body,

forcing it to work harder and consume more rapidly.”

Jason, who they didn't realise was clinging once more to consciousness,

let out a pained laugh that turned into a choking cough. He grinned madly at

his captors, eyes bloodshot but still alive.

“Keep smiling,” Silva told him. “If you didn't have spirit, what would the

fun be in breaking it?”

The first reprieve lasted only a few minutes before Killian fed spirit coins to

the magic circle. It grew brighter and the pain resumed. Colin had used that

time to reclaim territory, but it wasn't enough. Jason was only vaguely aware

that the screams he heard were his own before returning to that white space of

pain.

There were other brief spells of reprieve as the star seed exhausted itself

against Jason and briefly went dormant, drawing more power from the circle.

To Jason, it felt like each break was shorter than the last, but In truth, they

were growing longer. It was his increasingly diminished capacities that were

no longer able to gauge it accurately. Colin's efforts were likewise becoming

less effective; as Jason weakened, so did he.

“It's taking longer and longer,” Silva complained. “The last time it was

stopped for hours. How long will this one be?”

“Probably most of the night,” Killian said. “The magical density in this

region to too low for the circle to collect magic efficiently and we can only

feed so many coins into the ritual circle without rupturing it. While the breaks

are lasting longer, though, so is the period between them. Asano is losing the

fight, as he inevitably will. He is one man against a power more vast than if

you burned the planet we're standing on for fuel. I suggest we take this time

to rest. I had Remi set up some beds in the next room. We'll know to come

back when the screaming resumes.”

“I don't want to miss him being broken,” Silva said.

“You won't,” Killian said. “He is proving much more resistant than I

anticipated. You'll have all the time you need to enjoy his suffering.”

“I want to watch him break.”

“You will, Mr Silva. After the body comes the mind, and then the soul.

What is the will of one man against a being greater than our entire world?”

“He's just hanging there,” Silva said with disgust. “No screams, no writhing.

He's practically relaxed.”

“The star seed has claimed his body now,” Killian said. “We are

approaching the end. Even his brain is no longer his own. Whatever remains

of his consciousness will have taken final refuge in the bastion of his soul.

Soon, he will yield and you shall see him break. Just as you wished.”

The pain was gone, but Jason's senses did not return. There was no sight, no

sound, no touch. He was in a place of pure will, the border between his soul

and the entity that sought to claim it. He felt adrift at sea, not one of water but

of an immense will. A will too large for Jason to even conceive its totality.

Greater than the sky, vaster than the sun. Older than the stars and more

unfathomable than the deepest voids of space.

Before that will, Jason was naked and exposed. It was more than being

weak and vulnerable. In the face of that unconscionable power, he realised

that not only was it beyond what he was, but it was beyond anything he ever

could be. Anything he could even conceive of. He was the smallest speck of

creation in front of a force that transcended creation.

Oddly, it was not a wholly unfamiliar sensation. From the moment he had

been cast adrift in a strange world full of power and danger, Jason had been

surrounded by forces larger than himself. Time and again he had been

brought to the brink, constantly under pressure. He had fought off death and

stood defiant in the face of gods. Life in his new world was a fire, burning

away everything he had believed himself to be and refining him down to

what he truly was.

He could feel the desire for capitulation radiating from that the vast will.

The pressure it exerted, pushing in on his soul. But he knew that pressure. He

had endured it from the very start. It was as if everything he encountered in

this world was preparing him for this moment. Next to the alien mind of the

Builder and its towering will, Jason was nothing. But he realised that even the

transcendent being with all its power could not open the doors to his soul.

Only Jason could do that. So long as he had the will to defy it, the Builder

could not claim him. He gathered his own will and threw it into the Builder's

own, a grain of sand in a hurricane.

“Is he… grinning?” Silva asked. “He's grinning! How is… what… Killian!

What is happening?”

“I have no idea,” Killian said. If Jason's ears still belonged to him he

would have recognised the same delighted tone Clive would use on

encountering something completely unexpected.

The two men were startled when Jason spoke.

“Is that all you've got, mate? You'll have to do better than that, you

interdimensional arsehole.”

Killian started laughing madly.

“You think this is funny?” Silva asked him.

“That shouldn't be possible,” Killian said, awestruck. “That really, really

shouldn't be possible.”

In the wake of Jason's outburst, the pressure of that vast will suddenly

vanished. Like a becalmed sea, the absolute stillness carried an ominous

sense of danger, isolation and helplessness. Most of all, it carried a silent

threat, an anticipation of what would come when the weather inevitably

turned.

Killian and Silva looked on as Jason once more hung limp and unmoving.

Silva was increasingly agitated while Killian had gone from curious

observation to avid fascination.

“We should kill him now,” Silva said. “I'll do it.”

“You would be well advised not to take back what you have offered to

the Builder,” Killian said. “We started this and have to see it through to the

end or pay the price.”

“What kind of price?”

“The worst kind,” Killian said. “The price you don't know until you pay

it. But you don't have to worry; a mere man cannot defy the will of a

transcendent being.”

“And if you're wrong?”

“Then that is the point we kill him, and make sure it's done right,” Killian

said. “A man who can defy that kind of power can do anything. That's not a

person you leave alive. Not after what we've done to him. But as I said, that

isn't possible.”

Silva opened his mouth to respond but stopped. Both men turned to face

the door. They had sensed the agitated aura of the guard, Remi, rapidly

approaching. His arrival was marked with a hammering knock.

“Mr Silva, Mr Laurent,” Remi's voice came through. Remi was in charge

of watching over the site while Silva and Killian dealt with Jason. He should

not have left the security room unless something went wrong.

Silva and Killian went to the outer room and Killian opened the exterior

door.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“We've been sleeping in shifts in the security room,” Remi said. “I just

woke up to find Coburn dead and Jerrick gone. I didn't feel any aura surge

from powers being used, so he must have killed Coburn without using them.

There was a stab wound in the back of Coburn's neck.”

“How long ago?” Killian asked.

“I can't be sure,” Remi said. “Hours. I don't know how many.”

“It makes no sense,” Silva said. “Why would he do that?”

“I don't know,” Remi said. “I can only assume it is something to do with

Jerrick's connection to Asano.”

“That's why I chose him,” Silva said. “Asano got him kicked out of the

Adventure Society. If anything, he should want to get his own kicks in. Why

kill Coburn and leave?”

“It doesn't matter,” Killian said. “It's over. Your errant henchman has

had hours to get back to the city and warn Asano's allies. They are doubtless

on their way here right now.”

“You don't know that,” Silva said. “Why would Jerrick help Asano? It

makes no sense.”

Killian's normal, obsequious posture straightened, his creepy, pandering

half-smile vanished. Silva hadn't noticed the dangerous change in Killian's

body language. Remi did, quietly backing away. Killian stood tall, his pale

face blank and expressionless, his eyes hard. Even his aura changed,

becoming steely hard.

“Just because you lack the imagination doesn't mean there isn't a

reason,” Killian said to Silva. “He may be trying to regain admittance to the

Adventure Society by helping the man who got him kicked out. He might

have realised that we were using the Builder cult's star seed and balked. In

the end, the reasons don't matter, only the result.”

“Wait, what was that about the Builder cult?” Remi asked.

Killian glanced at Remi and a bone spike shot out of the ground, impaling

the henchman. The difference between a skilled and powerful bronze-ranker

closing in on silver and a failed adventurer like Remi was made blindingly

obvious as the henchman's corpse slid limply down the spike. Silva looked

on in shock, finally realising that Killian was far stronger than he had ever let

on.

“We are done,” Killian said. “We're done here, we're done in Greenstone

and we are done as a collaboration.”

“What are you talking about?” Silva asked.

“Do you still not understand that this undertaking wasn't even a risk?”

Killian asked. “It was always going to go wrong. Your position in Greenstone

is untenable now. Asano's allies are too powerful, and I promise they are

coming for you, even as we speak. It was always going to come to this.”

“Then why did you go along with it?” Silva asked. “You arranged most

of this.”

“Because I have diverted enough resources from your operations over the

past year to meet my needs going forward,” Killian said. “When Lamprey

brought this idea to you it presented the perfect distraction to extricate myself

from you and this city. While everyone is chasing after you for killing Asano,

I can conclude my affairs and depart in peace. This is where we part ways,

Mr Silva.”

Silva reeled at the betrayal of his most trusted follower.

“You're turning against me?”

“Of course,” Killian said. “If anything, I'm amazed anyone is loyal to you

at all. You're completely oblivious to how much effort I had to expend on

holding your organisation together, in spite of your best efforts.”

Silva lunged at Killian, only for more bones to erupt from the ground,

spearing into the crime lord's flesh and holding him in place. Silva grabbed

two of the bones and flexed them outwards, but while the bones gave a little,

they held. Silva's strength-enhancing power was in the early stages of bronze.

It was no match for Killian's conjuration power that had already reached

silver.

“So pathetic,” Killian said. “You could put up more of a fight if you knew

how, but you don't even understand your own powers. All those monster

cores. Helpless victims instead of even the pretence of actual combat. You

truly are a wretched thing, but I won't kill you, Mr Silva. When you wake up,

I suggest you don't spare Asano the same mercy. If the Builder doesn't have

him by then, kill him and run. With Asano's friends after you, you'll be lucky

to live long enough to pay the price of denying the Builder.”

Silva glared at Killian with frenzied eyes.

“And if they catch me and I set them on you?”

“Mr Silva, you don't know a single thing about me. You don't know who

works for me, or what my holdings are. If you did, you'd wonder why so

many of them had gone missing from your own months ago.”

“I'm going to kill you,” Silva snarled.

“Unlikely, but good luck,” Killian said. A skeletal arm burst through the

pavers and started choking Silva. Silva tried to spit out more words, but they

came out as a choked-off gurgle. He tried to use his active powers but the

bone cage had a suppression effect that prevented them from activating. His

last thought before passing out was fury at a world that kept denying him the

things that were his by right.

All that was left of Jason's true self was hidden away in the fortress of his

soul. His body stolen, he had no brain to drive his thoughts. He was quickly

reduced to little more than that a last scrap of will, the innermost core of his

being. Beyond the impregnable walls of his soul, the power of the Builder

had undergone a change. If it could not cow Jason into capitulation, it would

go back to inflicting pain until he yielded.

The Builder's will became a hurricane of knives, scoring marks across

Jason's soul. It was a pain unlike anything the body could suffer, cutting not

at flesh but at the very essence of his being. Jason endured, the warm

presence of his familiar beside him. In his unthinking state he had a vague

sense of things that were missing. He no longer remembered the familiars he

had yet to resummon, yet he felt their absence.

It became worse, the knives were drills boring their way into his soul. Yet

still, they failed. So long as Jason had the will to resist, they could not breach

his soul. All they could do was bring pain that carried with it a promise. It

could stop, and all he had to do was give in.

The pain scoured away the echoes that were the remnants of what Jason

had been when his body and mind were his own. All that remained was a

meagre scrap of self, ragged and torn, yet still unyielding.

The days of torment since the star seed had been implanted were a

microcosm of every threat Jason had faced since arriving in his new world.

Those memories were now gone but their effects were still felt. The events

had made him anew, reforging the very core of his being into something that

would never stop struggling. Even against the indomitable will of an alien

mind, with power beyond imagining. Even when there was nothing left of

him but the will to struggle.

The Builder's will was unrelenting, sending pain into the reaches of

Jason's soul it could otherwise not reach, into the fortress of Jason's soul. All

that remained was a flickering ember, the last scrap of his true self. The alien

mind strove to extinguish that final spark but it refused to die out.

After stripping everything else away, only one part of Jason remained.

The one thing that had kept him going, every time he walked the line between

life and death. That pushed him on in the face of monsters, cultists, cannibals

and gods. The memories of those experiences were lost but the will they had

formed was the one thing he had left. The unwillingness to bend, to conform,

to capitulate.

All that remained of Jason Asano was pure, unadulterated defiance. He

could not out-endure the Builder any more than a dandelion could withstand

a tornado. But while the great astral being had no limits, the star seed

connecting it to Jason did. The harder the Builder pushed Jason, the faster its

power was consumed. Finally, the Builder's will faded as the seed went

dormant, forced to stop and replenish itself from the diminishing power left

in the magic circle feeding it.

In the aftermath of the storm, Jason's soul pulsed and throbbed, rattled by

the forces that had besieged it. From deep within, something shifted, as if the

alien power drilling into it had uncovered some vast power, buried and

forgotten. Power built and built within, pressure climbing like a volcano on

the verge of eruption. The fading ember of Jason's will ignited into a furious

flame that exploded out, burning at the icy clutches of the star seed that had

claimed his body. Colin's spirit soared out, the familiar adding its own power

as Jason's will strove to retake the body left undefended by the dormant star

seed.

The Builder's will returned, having sensed the danger to the star seed

posed by Jason's resurgence. There was only a fragment of power left within

the seed and Jason felt a flicker of uncertainty in that ancient, alien mind. It

had to stop Jason now before the star seed was fully overcome. The Builder

impinged upon him with all the strength of its will.

The seed, already drained of all but the last skerricks of energy, could not

take the strain. The Builder's attempt to head Jason off before he could turn

the tables on the seed had itself pushed the it past its limits, ruining the star

seed for good.

The connection was gone and the Builder's will with it. The seed was

dead and the conduit to the Builder with it. The physical remnants of the seed

were still in Jason's body, but they were inert, a spent force. The end of their

power was not the end of their threat, however. Those physical remnants

riddled Jason's body. Without the seed's power keeping him alive as it

transformed him, the foreign matter running though his body was now killing

him. If not for the strange nature of his outworlder body, he would have been

dead already.

Even as his body failed, however, his soul reclaimed it. Jason's

consciousness returned, only to fade away again, unable to function with the

remnants of the star seed riddling his brain.

Jason came to, still hanging from the ceiling. His body was wet with his own

blood, leaking from rents in his flesh where the star seed fragments had been

pushed back out of his body. Colin had somehow kept him alive through the

laborious task of purging his body of the star seed, restoring him to

something that only vaguely resembled health. He could feel Colin, now

dormant inside him. The familiar had given all that he had to keep Jason

alive.

“You did good, buddy,” Jason croaked. “You have yourself a good rest.”

His body was ravaged, more weak and exhausted than he had ever

thought possible. Yet somehow, he felt strong, stronger than he had ever

been. He could feel his soul, sense it in a way that he never could before. It

was his true self, his last refuge, not the meat shell he'd been walking around

in. Ever since finding out his body had been destroyed and remade from

magic, he had a sense of unease about himself and his very existence. That

was gone, now, as he realised that the body he wore was ultimately no more

important than a suit.

He craned his neck to look down at the fragments of star seed on the floor

underneath him. The magic circle had turned to ash. He laughed, hoarse and

painful, but he kept on cackling like a madman.

“I don't know if you can hear me through your dead, magic rectal probe,”

Jason growled, “but you need to listen up, you interdimensional soul bandit.

You just got beat by the assistant manager of an office supply retailer while

he was hanging from a hook and naked as the day he was born. And reborn,

for that matter. So you'd best pack up your piss-weak little cult and take them

back to your magic land in the sky because I'm coming for them. And this

time, I'm going to have pants.”

20

Hanging around

“W here the hell are the bad guys?”

Still hanging from the ceiling, Jason remembered that his

torture had come with torturers. They might have seemed inconsequential

when he was facing off against the Builder but now that fight was over and

he was still strung up like meat on a butcher's hook.

Even if he wasn't bound and he was wearing at least some underpants

instead of the suppression collar, both of his captors were higher rank than

him. At full strength, which he definitely wasn't, he thought he could

probably take Silva. The elf was a different matter.

The weird, pale elf had the kind of rigid aura control Jason associated

with expert essence users, and he knew enough of them to judge. What

someone with actual skill was doing working for Silva was a mystery.

The more Jason thought about it, the more odd the elf's presence seemed.

He claimed not to be part of the Builder cult, but he had known an awful lot

about how the star seed worked. Jason was willing to bet that whatever the elf

was up to, he was playing Silva for a fool. It might even be the reason the

pair were in absentia.

Jason considered his options. At full strength he could probably pull out

the hook the elf had hammered into the ceiling and free himself, even without

magical abilities. He was strong and well-trained enough that he could hoist

himself up and put his feet against the ceiling for leverage.

He was nowhere near full strength at the moment, however. His body was

visibly emaciated under the coating of blood and pocked with small injuries.

Jason could feel that inside him, Colin had gone dormant. The familiar had

exhausted himself keeping Jason alive and purging the star seed remnants.

The dead fragments had been pushed out of Jason's body by Colin's healing,

piling up under Jason's dangling feet. Far more than the mass that had been

the original seed, there was almost a fifth of Jason's body weight in metal,

sticky with Jason's blood.

“Good job, little mate.”

Jason could feel the sting of the remnant wounds all over his body. One

was right above his left eye, which he had to force open through the sticky

blood welding it shut. He could feel another just to the right of his chin,

underneath a scratchy beard that had grown during the time of his captivity.

Neither were drastic; like the other wounds, they were the places the star seed

had invaded his body, then pushed back out again. The real damage had been

wreaked on the inside of his body and the outside of his soul. The wounds

were present all across his body, although his most tender parts had been

mercifully spared.

The wounds weren't any particular threat to his wellbeing, but they

variously stung or itched, which he could do nothing about in his current

predicament. He laughed at the absurdity of a few itchy scratches annoying

him after the ordeal he had been through, or even the situation he was still in.

The goddess Knowledge had once denyed that Jason's mind had been

altered when he became an outworlder to better process the kind of trauma he

was suffered since. Now, considering his odd equanimity after days of

literally soul-scourging torture, he was pretty sure she'd been lying. She had

likewise skipped over the part about his outworlder body, but that was

probably for the best. At that point he hadn't been ready to hear any of that as

he clung desperately to any part of his old identity.

Jason considered his options. One: literally hang around and wait for

rescue. His friends were capable and would find him eventually, but would it

be before Silva and the elf came back? Option two was… still in the

formulation stage. He was too weak to move, too powerless to act.

His new awareness of his own soul brought with it a better sense of the

pressure being placed on it by the suppression collar. It was like his soul had

grown to touch the sides of that containment, like a balloon being inflated

inside a box. He felt an intense compulsion to push his way out of that box.

Could he? He was hardly in the best state right now and the collar was an

oppressive power. It presented no physical pressure but had the feel of an

inviolable boundary. In spite of this limitation, he couldn't shake the desire to

try. He pondered where that feeling was coming from.

Jason was certain that he had undergone significant changes as a result of

overcoming the challenge of the star seed, but for the first time he was

without a system message to explain it. Unlike other essence users, Jason had

never been forced to fathom out his abilities by feel. There was an element of

it, but he always had the system messages to guide and clarify. Was the

desire to push back against the suppression just wish fulfilment or an

instinctual understanding of an ability that had changed? Perhaps his astral

affinity had evolved from the contact with a great astral being.

He decided to go for it, closing his eyes and feeling out the power within

his soul. He was uncertain of how to actively use it. Following an instinct, he

used the aura projection technique that Farrah had taught him as a foundation,

and projected that power outward. The instinct proved itself true. He realised

through his attempt that the true nature of his aura was a projection of his

soul.

That first attempt was fumbling and inexpert, but armed with his new

revelation, he tried again. Jason's aura was completely suppressed by the

collar, but he could feel the strength within himself to push back against that

confinement. His second attempt felt more refined and powerful than the first

but it was like trying to push a boulder off his body. He strained and felt a

tantalising shift in the walls that bound his aura, but could not push them

back. Eventually he could not maintain the exertion and was forced to take a

pause.

He realised that continuing that way was not going to yield results. He

needed to significantly improve the way he wielded the power. With the

revelation that his aura and his soul were more intrinsically linked than he

had previously thought, he needed to alter the way he used his aura.

Jason had always considered his aura control very strong, and others had

told him as much. He thought of Rufus, and his realisation that people telling

him how excellent he was had stopped him from trying to get better. With his

improved sense of his own soul and the new understanding of his aura, Jason

realised that his aura use had been crude and inefficient. He needed to better

incorporate the power of his soul into the way he used his aura.

The foundation that Farrah had helped him lie down was a solid base

from which to inject the core power of his soul that his conflict with the

Builder had revealed. Once he mastered it, it would magnify his power and

control over his aura by an untold amount. The suppression collar would be

the crucible in which he remade his aura. Instead of just projecting it out into

nothing, that suppressive force would be the press that concentrated his

power, the whetstone on which he sharpened his control.

Previously, Jason had felt like his aura control was pushing the limit of

what he was capable of. He assumed only the next rank would offer a chance

to substantially improve. As he forced his aura up against the suppression

collar's power, he realised how foolish and arrogant he had been. He was

once again a fumbling amateur, taking him back to those first days, training

with Farrah. He had crested a hill he thought was end of his journey, only to

find a grand new vista before him.

There was a long new road ahead of him and he was not going to reach

the end here and now, dangling on a hook. What he needed in his current

situation was to push back the suppression collar's power, if only for a

fleeting moment.

When he had been training Jason, Rufus had often repeated advice his

family had hammered into him. This was especially true of his grandfather,

the famous, diamond-rank sword master, Roland Remore. From what Rufus

had passed on, Jason secretly suspected the Remore patriarch of spending his

diamond-rank lifespan figuring out how to sound as profound as possible.

This world didn't have fortune cookies, so he had to find the rhythms

himself.

Rufus had talked a lot about his grandfather's ideas on the difference

between a good adventurer and a great one. In the wake of Rufus's disastrous

foray against the blood cultists, it was a distinction that he obsessed on. He

became preoccupied with his failures, doubting his judgement, leadership and

even qualifications as an adventurer. It was a pattern that had played out

again with Farrah's death.

According to Rufus's grandfather, the difference between a good

adventurer and a great one was a matter of moments. The right decision in the

right moment was the difference between success and failure, between

triumph and death. Great adventurers were alchemists of circumstance,

turning opportunity into fortune. After how things played out with the blood

cult, Rufus believed Jason had an instinctual gift for this very thing.

Jason hoped Rufus was right. He threw everything he had against the

collar's containment, pushing his aura against it like he was shouldering a

boulder. He pushed and strained until a final surge finally caused it to shift.

He had bought himself a moment and now he had to use it.

System messages erupted in Jason's face but he ignored them, opening

his inventory next to his manacled hands and snatching out an item, barely

getting it in hand before the suppression snapped back into place, pushing his

aura back down. The system windows dissolved into static and vanished.

The backlash scraped against his very soul. The pain would have made

him pass out before his recent experiences. It did almost make him drop the

small vial he now had in his hand and panic flashed through him. He

convulsively clutched his fingers around the vial, almost breaking it with the

panicked ferocity of his grip.

He once again hung limply from the manacles, panting for breath.

Dangling from the ceiling made for a poor recovery position. As he regained

his breath he looked up at the small vial. He had used his original lesser

miracle potion fighting the giant water elemental, but Jory had replaced it

before they had even gotten all the way through Old City.

He craned his neck, lining up his mouth up as best he could before

thumbing the stopper off the vial. Some of the potion splashed onto his face

but most went into his mouth and he poked his tongue out to lick up what he

could of the rest.

The potion's effects were, as promised, miraculous. He felt the healing

sting as emaciated muscle was replenished and the wounds all over his body

finished healing. Looking down at his chest, Jason saw that the injuries had

left behind a series of small scars. Those on his face had likely done the

same.

His body was now flush with energy. The suppression collar had no

impact on the magic of the potion, although Jason had no way to use his

refilled mana pool. Instead, he went to work of expending some stamina,

straining his arms to grip the chain of the manacles.

Jason's fighting style, the Way of the Reaper, was much more

comprehensive than a simple martial art. It included mobility techniques,

stealth and, immediately relevant, escape methodology. Jason pulled himself

up, hand over hand, then shifted his weight to pivot his body, swinging his

legs up until his feet were pressed into the ceiling.

The ring the manacles were looped through was held in place by a spike

the elf had fixed it into place with conjured skeleton arms. It hadn't been a

carefully bored hole, just a smooth, unthreaded spike the was hammered

directly into the brickwork. Jason figured that he could combine leverage,

strength and body weight to yank it right out.

It was a task that proved easier to conceive of than to execute and Jason

was left hanging upside down, reefing on the chain. He had been at it some

time when the spike suddenly gave way and he fell to the floor in a heap.

He stood up, awkwardly reaching around with his manacled hands to

brush off the fragments of inert star seed that stuck to his body when he

landed. They had formed a pile underneath where he had been hanging and,

like Jason, were sticky with Jason's blood. The remnants of the ritual circle

were nothing but ash.

There was nothing else in the room and Jason wasted little time, making

for the door. Passing through the outer room to the exterior of the building,

he surveyed his surroundings. He quickly surmised he was somewhere on the

outskirts of the delta, where the last patches of scrubland gave out and the

dead sands took over. The layouts of the buildings were similar to spirit coin

exchange outposts he'd seen, although this one was obviously disused.

Patches of yellow grass grew between pavers dislodged and uneven from

time and weather.

To his surprise, Silva was out in the open, lying in a pool of his own

blood. Jason's aura senses were restricted alongside his aura, so he wasn't

sure if Silva was alive or dead. The same could not be said for another man

Jason recognised as the guard who had given him a spirit coin while he was

awaiting his fate. That man was definitively dead. A thick bone spike sticking

out of the ground went in through his groin and out the top of his head,

leaving him hanging like a macabre decoration.

Jason checked on Silva. He had brutal strangulation marks on his neck

and multiple stab wounds in his arms, legs and torso. Silva had bled quite a

lot, but while in a bad way, not enough to threaten a bronze-ranker with

death. His bronze rank recovery attribute would heal him faster than a normal

person, although it hadn't woken him up in all the time Jason had been

hanging in the building.

“Someone sure did a number on you,” Jason said as he searched Silva's

body. He discovered a small keychain in a jacket pocket, cheering when he

found the key to his manacles and the collar around his neck. The sensation

of removing the collar was like taking that first breath after almost drowning;

it was a relief like finding a toilet just in time to avoid soiling yourself in the

middle of a shopping centre.

Jason didn't waste more than a moment revelling as he felt his powers

return. He minimised all the system messages flooding his vision and

snapped the suppression collar around Silva's neck. Silva didn't react; he

remained unconscious as Jason then placed the manacles on Silva's ankles.

“Now we'll see how you like being a prisoner,” Jason told him. “No,

that's a crappy one-liner. You'll have plenty of time for sleep in the slammer?

That's worse, this is hard. Are eighties action movies not as good as I

remember? Colin, when we get back to my world, I'm going to show you

Gymkata. It's literally everything you need to know about western culture.”

Jason resumed his search of Silva's person, finding that a pocket in his

jacket led to a dimensional storage space. He emptied it out and stole

everything that looked interesting or valuable, shoving it all into his own

inventory except for his missing amulet, which he immediately clasped

around his neck.

It was time to get some clothes on, but he was still covered in blood.

Jason pulled out a bottle of crystal wash and tipped it over his head. It

washed the blood off his body and out of his hair, including his new beard.

There was no sign of his missing suit, so he summoned another from his

inventory. The dark mist covered his modesty but at this point it didn't really

matter. Even if Jason hadn't got used to the nudity, the only people here were

either unconscious or dead.

Jason was tweaking his cufflinks when he froze, seeing movement in the

distance. Three vehicles were careening over scrubby ground, a trio of

skimmers rocketing towards him. As he watched, most of the figures on one

of the skimmers vanished and he was suddenly surrounded by people.

Danielle Geller had teleported Rufus, Gary and Humphrey from their

skimmer directly next to him.

“Ah, you're here,” Jason said, and finished adjusting his cufflink. “And

here was me just needing a ride.”

Jason's attempt at dignity was immediately smothered as Gary grasped

him in a hug that was more like a rugby tackle.

21

what Doesn't Kill you

T he rest of Jason's team arrived in the three skimmers. Clive drove one

and a somewhat shaky Jory and Belinda drove the others, both for the

first time. Everyone poured off the vehicles before they had even fully

stopped, clamouring around Jason. He met their looks of concerns with easy

confidence, assuring them that he was fine.

Clive had so many questions he didn't actually manage to get any of them

out. Humphrey gripped Jason on the shoulder, giving him a beaming smile

that the young women of Greenstone would sell out their own families to

receive.

“We rush out here to rescue you,” Belinda said, “and you're standing here

like you're waiting for a ride to the damn symphony. Do have any idea how

many people we kicked the hell out of looking for you?”

“We?” Sophie asked.

“It was a team effort,” Belinda said.

“Sophie took out two barrooms full of thugs, single-handedly,” Neil said.

“One was full of criminals and the other was full of sailors.”

“In fairness, there's a lot of crossover,” Sophie said. “Are you really

alright, Asano?”

“I had time to stop and pick you up a gift,” Jason said. “It's a little

damaged but I don't think you'll mind.”

Everyone had been so fixated on Jason that they didn't even glance at the

bodies on the ground. Jason walked over to the unconscious Silva and poked

him with his foot.

“You got him,” Sophie said.

“Yep,” Jason said. “He's all yours.”

“No,” Danielle said. “He's all mine. I have questions Mr Silva there is

going to find himself extremely compelled to answer.”

“How did you end up kidnapping him?” Gary asked.

“It was an incredible fight,” Jason said. “Pitting myself against a bronze-

ranker, exhausted after my daring escape. Struggling back and forth until

finally I clinched the hard-fought victory.”

“He looks pretty fresh for having fought you,” Neil said. “There isn't

even any rot around the wounds.”

“Yeah, I don't know what happened there,” Jason said. “I found him like

this.”

“You found him like this?” Rufus asked.

“I should probably start at the beginning,” Jason said.

Suddenly a bird swooped out of the sky, transforming into a puppy that

slammed into his chest like an adorable bowling ball.

“Oh, hey mate,” Jason said. He held Stash in his arms and scratched him

behind the ears. Humphrey took his familiar back with an admonishing look.

“You have to be more careful,” Humphrey scolded. “What if Jason was

hurt? You don't know what he's been through.”

“Jason's fine,” Neil said. After reaching bronze rank, Neil's perception

power, eyes of opportunity, allowed him to see the vulnerabilities of others.

That included injuries, not just what they were but what effects they had on

the body. It was a powerful tool for a healer, letting him see the conditions of

his team at a glance.

“It got a little rough, I won't lie,” Jason said. “I chugged that miracle

potion Jory gave me. Thanks for that one, Jory.”

“Maybe stop putting yourself in situations where you need them?” Jory

said.

“Couldn't agree more,” Jason said. “No more dashing heroics for this

adventurer.”

“And here you just said you won't lie,” Sophie told him.

Jason ran them through events as best he could remember, but his

memory was rather hazy. Even for the parts for which he was in control of

his brain to form memories, the pain made his recollection rather sketchy.

The most important events took place when he retreated into his soul, which

he didn't exactly remember. Instead, it was like his feelings of that time were

imprinted on him. Fear, pain, power and defiance. It was difficult to put to

words in any way that made sense.

Jason's veneer of equanimity started to crack as he struggled to explain

those moments and Danielle put a stop to it, setting the others to work

securing the site.

With the sudden sense of safety, the door behind which Jason had been

pushing all the panic, horror and pain behind suddenly opened. His body

shuddered, a chill passing over it. Danielle placed a concerned hand on his

shoulder and felt him trembling, even as his face maintained a carefree smile.

His legs felt shaky and he pulled a chair from his inventory to sit down before

he stumbled. He leaned back, tilting his head to the sky to feel the sun on his

face.

The others threw frequent glances back at Jason as they went about their

tasks. Rufus and Gary searched the area, looking out for any sign of the

missing elf Jason had described. Clive took the building where Jason had

been tortured while Humphrey searched the second building with its

reflective glass.

Neil and Jory examined the unconscious Silva, while Sophie and Belinda

concentrated on the dead man lying near him. Belinda found a small, fresh

hole in the pavers and spotted more where Silva lay close by. Further

examination revealed that the holes were broken at the edges and tiny

fragments were scattered around them. It looked like something thin and hard

had broken through from below and Belinda looked from the holes in the

ground to the stab wound in Silva's body.

“That elf Jason described,” Belinda said to Sophie. “We're assuming

Killian Laurent, right?”

“The description fits,” Sophie said.

“Did I hear something about him conjuring bone spikes from the

ground?”

“I think I've heard that,” Sophie said.

“Who's Killian Laurent?” Jory asked from nearby.

“He's been hovering around the periphery of the Silva family for years,”

Belinda said. “Old Man Silva only kept him around because he was solid

with ritual magic.”

“There were also rumours that the old man used him to do the truly nasty

stuff on the quiet,” Sophie added. “The things that even criminals and

murders would think twice about.”

“Word is that Laurent rose up sharply after the old man died,” Belinda

said.

“Why would he do this to Silva?” Sophie wondered aloud. “It can't be a

takeover. Silva was unpalatable but he had the family connections and at least

some limits. No one would stand for that depraved elf being in charge.”

“I imagine the answers will have to wait until this guy wakes up,” Jory

said, kneeling over Silva. The two women moved to stand over the man who

was the genesis of so many of their misfortunes.

“We should kill him now,” Belinda said. “It's not like anyone would

care.”

“No,” Sophie said. “He can't suffer if he's dead.”

“I won't allow you to just start hurting him,” Neil said. “I'll remind you

that I'm part of the church of the Healer.”

“I wouldn't settle for physical pain,” Sophie said. “That fades and I want

him to suffer in ways that never end. I want him to see us and realise that

chasing us has cost him everything.”

“I think he was mostly chasing you,” Belinda told her. “I'm pretty sure

me, he could take or leave.”

“If you want to hurt his feelings, go ahead,” Neil said. “So long as you

don't stab him or anything, that's your business.”

Sophie looked over at Jason, then back down at Silva.

“What if I just kick him a little?”

Neil ignored that request, his eyes still panning over Silva's unconscious

body. Jory, also assessing the damage, didn't have Neil's perception power.

Instead, he relied on his knowledge and experience to make a physical

examination.

“The strangulation, right?” Jory asked Neil.

“Yes,” Neil concurred. “Whoever did it either came too close to killing

him or didn't come close enough, depending on what they were after. There's

damage to the brain that will take time to heal before he can wake up. He's

bronze rank, though, so he'll fully recover, even without intervention.”

Elsewhere, Rufus and Gary were sweeping the area, but other than the

building the others were searching, there was very little to find.

“You don't buy this act of Jason's about being fine because he doesn't

remember most of it, do you?” Gary asked quietly, glancing over to where

Jason was slumped wearily on his chair.

“Of course not,” Rufus said. “It was the same thing with the blood

cultists. He was alright so long as things were still wild and dangerous, but

once he was safe it all caught up with him. This time will be a lot worse.”

“Did you feel his aura?”

“Yes,” Rufus said gravely. “His aura power has definitely reached

bronze.”

“I think it might be stronger than mine,” Gary said. “I know my aura

control isn't the best, but that shouldn't affect the raw power and I'm almost

silver rank. Even if his aura power is bronze, he's still iron. What do you

have to do to a person's soul for that to happen?”

“Hopefully, have them fight off a star seed,” Rufus said.

“You think it actually took him over?”

“I'm hoping not.”

“How do we help him?” Gary asked.

“First, we make sure it's really him in there. Then, we be there for him.

Let him know he's safe and among friends. Beyond that, we leave it to my

mother. She's good at helping people through things like this.”

“You're right,” Gary said.

Rufus's mother, Arabella, had made a reputation for herself by helping

other adventurers through traumatic events that were an inevitable part of the

job. It was only once she arrived to help her son in the wake of Farrah's death

that Rufus was able to start truly moving past it.

Humphrey searched through the security building. Along with Jason's

missing suit he found another dead body, this with a stab wound in the back

of the neck. He knew this was likely Coburn, the man Jerrick had killed in

order to sneak back to the city and give them Jason's location.

Only Clive was excited by what he found. In the makeshift ritual room

where Jason had been tortured, he found the ashen remains of the ritual circle

and the inert remnants of the star seed. After making a record of everything

with a recording crystal, he started pulling out special sample boxes,

collecting ash and sealing away the star seed fragments.

Back outside, Danielle looked with concern at Jason, slumped in the

chair.

“I don't like that I have to tell you this,” Danielle said, “but after what

you told us…”

“You have to assume that I've been compromised by the Builder,” Jason

finished for her. “I know.”

“The church of the Healer has taken over from Purity in dealing with the

star seeds,” Danielle said. “Healer provided his people with the rituals they

needed.”

“Good,” Jason said. “If you tried to turn me over the Purists, I would not

go quietly,”

“I'm glad,” Danielle said. “I'm starting to realise that not going quietly is

kind of your thing.”

Jason looked up from and they shared a smile, hers as motherly as his was

weary.

Once the group made sure there were no surprises left behind at the site,

Danielle gathered everyone to teleport back to Greenstone.

“What about the skimmers?” Clive asked. “I can't just leave the Magic

Society's vehicles here.”

“Yes, you can,” Danielle said. “I'll make sure it's smoothed over. Once

the Adventure Society hears about what happened here, they'll be crawling

over this place, and roping Magic Society people in with them. They'll bring

them back.”

Danielle's teleportation power was unable to affect others without their

consent, so Jory fed Silva a potion to wake him up. He opened bleary eyes to

find he had been sat in Jason's chair with Jason and Sophie looking down at

him.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Jason said. “You're about to have a rough

day, mate.”

Silva's eyes went wide. He tried to leap out of the chair, only for Gary's

huge hands to land on his shoulders and push him back down. Silva was

strong but Gary was stronger.

“Asano!” Silva snarled. “Wexler? What happened? How are you not a

meat puppet?”

“Rugged good looks,” Jason said. “What happened to your creepy elf

mate?”

The fury continued to burn in Silva's eyes but he pulled himself under

control.

“You have to go after him. This was all his idea. I had no idea he was

going to use a star seed.”

“Mate, your words won't be as garbled if you stop talking out your arse.

You can lie all you like once we get back to town. Just shut up and accept the

teleport.”

“Teleport?”

Silva looked around, noticing the others.

“Why would I go along with you?”

“Because if you don't,” Sophie said, her voice an icy needle, “then you

get to stay here with me.”

Silva paled, then angrily covered the flash of fear.

“You're nothing, Wexler. If it wasn't for my father I'd have used you up

and then tossed you into a brothel. If you were even still alive at this point,

you'd be drugged to the eyeballs, lying in a filthy bed, waiting for the next

guy to take his turn.”

Sophie leaned forward, bring her face right up to Silva's, her mouth a

hungry smile and her eyes, silver daggers.

“Oh, I know,” she said. “That's why I'm hoping you make me take you

back to town the long way. The very, very long way.”

Jason was finally home, alone in his room in the cloud boathouse. With a

thought, dark mist swirled around him and all his clothing but his underwear

vanished. He staggered over and fell into the cool embrace of his cloud bed.

As the softness enveloped him, all the things he had been holding back were

fully unleashed. Everything he had pushed away since his capture flooded

over him in full force. He was left shuddering, curled up in a foetal position.

The exhaustion not of his body but of his soul finally caught up with him and

plunged him into a restless slumber.

He was woken by morning light coming through the transparent ceiling

he hadn't turned opaque before falling asleep. He was still shaky but

somewhat purged. His reaction of the day before had worked something out

of his system. He reconsidered that perhaps Knowledge hadn't been lying

after all. He was better than the day before, but that wasn't the same as good.

His experiences of the last few days were a blurry mess, yet he knew they

would haunt him for the rest of his life.

When his team brought him home, Danielle had suggested he remain

there with an Adventure Society official to watch over him, if only for the

sake of propriety. She knew he wasn't likely to want to leave anyway, and it

was only until the church of the Healer gave him a thorough examination.

“Just until we confirm you're all clear of the star seed,” she had told him.

The team gathered together on the deck for a big breakfast cooked by

Gary, which meant meat, more meat and some eggs. With meat.

Jason had his first genuine smile in what felt like forever as he looked

around at everyone happily tucking into breakfast. He was struck with the

feeling that he might, eventually, be okay. The team naturally coddled him

but he begged off after breakfast, asking for some time alone. He went up to

the top deck of the houseboat, staying outside where the Adventure Society

official could see him. He wasn't going to give the stranger access to the

internal areas of his houseboat.

It was a mild winter day, actually rather pleasant with clear blue skies.

With a mental command, a cloud-stuff lounger rose up out of the floor. He

laid down and used the wrist razor Gilbert had incorporated into all his outfits

to slash the back of his hand, letting a single member of Team Colin emerge.

Colin crawled up Jason's arm to rest on his shoulder.

“Feeling better, little mate? How about we take a look to see if you got

any stronger from all that?”

Jason looked at the system messages, still minimised at the corner of his

vision. Taking a deep breath, he started pulling them up, one by one. Many of

them were just warnings about his powers being suppressed, which wasn't

much use given he couldn't see them until his abilities were unsuppressed

again. Others were more important.

Outworlder racial ability Quest System has evolved to Defiant.

Ability: Defiant

Transfigured from Outworlder ability Quest System.

Previous effects of racial ability Quest System have been lost.

Ignore the enhanced resistances derived from rank disparity. This only

affects the enhanced resistance from being higher rank, not other

sources of resistance.

Ignore the enhanced aura suppression and aura suppression resistance

derived from rank disparity. This only affects the enhanced effects from

being higher rank, not the inherently superior strength of higher-rank

auras.

Looting abilities used on higher-rank monsters defeated by you will have

increased effect.

“Wait, no more quests? I have a lot of overhead costs coming up when I

hit bronze.”

The vast majority of the quests Jason had done were simple ones related

to his Adventure Society work, earning him a nice bundle of money. As for

the more exceptional quests, they had been the source of some of Jason's

most important items. His essences, if nothing else. It looked like that part, at

least, would still be a factor, with the new version enhancing the loot of more

powerful monsters.

The quest system was Jason's variant on the guidance power that all

outworlders apparently received. If the quests went away, did it mean he was

no longer in need of guidance? Had this world truly become home? He

suddenly felt further from his own world than ever.

Jason sorted through the system messages for the relevant ones. Some of

them were just garbled nonsense, he guessed due to a combination of the

suppression collar and the extreme stress being exerted on his soul, the source

of all his powers.

He dug out another relevant message.

“Hey, this one's about you.”

Ability Sanguine Horror (Blood) has reached Iron 8 (100%).

Ability Sanguine Horror (Blood) has reached Iron 9 (00%).

Ability Sanguine Horror (Blood) has reached Iron 9 (100%).

Ability Sanguine Horror (Blood) has reached Bronze 0 (00%).

Ability Sanguine Horror (Blood) has gained a new effect.

Ability: Sanguine Horror (Blood)

Familiar (ritual, summon).

Base cost: Extreme mana, extreme stamina, extreme health.

Cooldown: None.

Current rank: Bronze 0 (00%).

Effect (iron): Summon a sanguine horror to serve as a familiar.

Effect (bronze): Summon a bronze rank vessel for your familiar with

enhanced abilities.

Ability Sanguine Horror (Blood) cannot advance further until all

attributes have reached bronze rank.

“Look at you, mate, jumping all the way to bronze rank like a big boy.”

Colin wiggled happily.

“Good thing I already picked up the materials for your next summoning

ritual. I might have to brush up on the ritual knowledge, though, to make sure

I do it right.”

Jason pulled up another advancement message.

Ability Hegemony (Sin) has reached Iron 9 (100%).

Ability Hegemony (Sin) has reached Bronze 0 (00%).

Ability Hegemony (Sin) has gained a new effect.

Ability: Hegemony (Sin)

Aura (holy, unholy).

Base cost: None.

Cooldown: None.

Current rank: Bronze 0 (00%).

Effect (iron): Allies within the aura have increased resistance to

afflictions, while enemies within the aura have their resistance to

afflictions reduced. Enemy resistances are further reduced for each

instance of Sin they are suffering from.

Effect (bronze): Inflicts an instance of Sin on enemies that make

physical or magical attacks against allies within the aura. Instances

applied in this way cannot be resisted.

Ability Hegemony (Sin) cannot advance further until all attributes have

reached bronze rank.

“Strewth, that's a fair dinkum upgrade.”

Sin was Jason's power that increased the effect of necrotic damage, and

now any enemy attacking his team would stack up instances on themselves.

That would combine nicely not just with his own powers but the abilities that

Belinda and Neil had gotten from the awakening stones of the Reaper.

There was one more important system message before Jason cleared off

the stack.

New Title: Spirit Warrior

Fighting off a concerted attack on your soul by a transcendent entity has

awakened your awareness of your own soul and refined your ability to

use it as a weapon.

The suppressive force and resistance to suppression of your aura is

increased. You can use the suppression resistance of your aura to resist

forms of magical suppression beyond just aura suppression.

After fully suppressing the aura of others, you may use your aura to

attack their soul directly.

Your aura signature has changed. Your unyielding nature in the face of

even the greatest power can be detected if your aura is examined by an

aura sensing power or when projecting your aura. The echo of

transcendent power within your aura is increased.

Jason sat looking at the description for a long time. His recollection of the

Builder's attack on his soul wasn't a memory exactly. It was more like

something imprinted on his soul, deeper and more enduring. His own attacks

would doubtless be an empty echo of what the Builder had done to him, but it

still wasn't something he wanted to do to another person.

“It's good,” he told himself, unconvincingly. “Of course it's good.”

He couldn't shake the questions rising up in the back of his mind. Exactly

who and what were his experiences turning him into? He was already no

longer human. When he finally found his way home, would anyone even

recognise whatever it was he had become?

22

Lingering Doubts

A group of people made their way along to the marina towards the

houseboat. It was led by Danielle Geller, along with Rufus, his mother,

Arabelle, plus Clive and Vincent Trenslow, the Adventure Society official

with the grandiose moustache. With them was a gold rank priest from the

church of the Healer, freshly portalled into the city.

“How is he?” Danielle asked. It had been a little more than a week since

Jason had been returned home.

“He was asleep for four days,” Clive said. “Those miracle potions of

Jory's defer the need for healing recovery, which is impressive. But once it

hit him, it hit him hard.”

“Unsurprising,” the priest of the Healer said. His name was Carlos, a

broad-shouldered and swarthy man. His features had the polished perfection

that was universal at gold rank. His clothes were not the robes of the Healer

but a casual outfit. The brown colour and plain cut were reminiscent of the

church of the Healer's humble clerical wear, however. Only once they had

lost their way did the Healer's local clergy move into ostentatious variations.

“Even in the case of cultists who are accepting of it,” Carlos continued,

“introducing a star seed to the body is deeply traumatic. Removing it is even

worse.”

“I saw a star seed removed before it was rendered inert,” Danielle said.

“It wasn't traumatic, it was a meat grinder.”

“Sadly true,” Carlos said. “People were lost all over before we figured out

who the cult was and what they were doing. From what you've told me about

the situation here, you seemed to figure things out before the Adventure and

Magic Societies disseminated the information widely.”

“Clive here is largely responsible for that,” Danielle said. Clive looked

sheepish.

“While we may have a better idea of what we're doing now,” Carlos said,

“we aren't always successful in helping the people the cult has implanted.

Even when they're inert, extricating star seeds can be lethal without

continuous healing. If your friend really managed it on his own, with a

suppression collar around his neck, that's deeply impressive. What has he

been doing since he woke up?”

“He's been under self-imposed house arrest, at my suggestion,” Danielle

said.

“He's been on the roof deck of the houseboat for days,” Rufus said. “He

got up, had breakfast and went up there three days ago. I don't think he's

come back down since. He's just been up there, meditating the whole time.”

“It's very likely that he's aura training,” Carlos said. “In cases of soul

trauma, practising aura control can help re-establish the sense of self. Many

people realise this instinctively, while others we strongly suggest it to.

Actually having the instruction in aura manipulation beforehand is obviously

a tremendous help.”

They arrived at the houseboat. Vincent told the Adventure Society official

stationed on the dock that he could go. One way or another, Jason would no

longer be under confinement.

“He must be inside,” Danielle said. “I don't sense his aura at all.”

“He's up top,” Rufus's mother, Arabelle, said. She tilted her head, as if

straining to hear something, then frowned.

“His aura isn't retracted,” she said. “It's suppressed.”

Using her gold-rank strength, she vaulted directly up to the roof of the

houseboat, Danielle had the others all touch one another in a chain

connection ending in her and teleported them up. They found Jason sitting

peacefully, in a cross-legged meditation pose with a suppression collar

around his neck. He opened his eyes as they arrived on his rooftop.

“Jason,” Clive asked in horror. “What are you doing with that collar?”

This close, they could all feel the suppressive power of the collar with

their own aura senses. They were all startled as Jason's aura emerged from

within it, pushing it back. He took a key from his storage space, unlocking

the collar and putting it and the collar away.

“Aura training,” Jason said, pushing himself lightly to his feet.

“Fascinating,” Carlos said. “The ability to counter the magic suppression

with aura is a phenomenon that I've heard of, but never actually thought I'd

see.”

“I didn't know that something like that was even possible,” Rufus said.

“Extreme soul trauma can prompt some unusual reactions,” Carlos said.

“From time to time, some unscrupulous researcher will attempt to study it.

They'll take essence users and subject them to all manner of soul torture to

try and figure out a process by which to reliably gain special soul effects. The

cost in misery and lives is unconscionable. It's all for nothing, as well,

because the research never goes anywhere. The most anyone had ever

achieved was a few people with enhanced resistance to aura suppression and

a lot of people who died in agony.”

“I've heard of instances like that,” Clive said.

“Soul trauma is actually my speciality field of healing,” Carlos said. “I've

seen more victims of these atrocities than anyone and I've come to my own

conclusion. The soul withstanding the trauma and growing isn't about the

process, but the person.”

“Don't I feel special,” Jason said flatly. “Do you have a name, soul

trauma expert?”

“Sorry, I'm being rude. Carlos Quilido, church of the Healer.”

Jason looked at him coldly.

“You're here to decide my fate?”

“I'm here to help you,” Carlos said showing no signs of being affected by

Jason's rudeness. “If you truly don't have a star seed in you, I'm here to

prove that definitively and excise any lingering doubts. If you do have one

inside you, I'm here to excise it.”

Jason frowned, unhappily.

“You're right, I'm sorry,” he said. “It's just that I've been awaiting

judgement for days.”

“I completely understand,” Carlos said. “I have some experience with

people in similar circumstances to yours. Because of my specialty, the church

and the Adventure Society have had me travelling around to work with

people who've had star seeds extracted from them. For the most part, the cult

only implants their own members but, they will implant them in others when

it serves their purposes. You aren't the first in this city to endure that, I

understand. The church of Purity first developed the extraction techniques,

but we, the church of the Healer, have taken over that task.”

“I've never understood why Purities clergy would do that, if they're

secretly working with the cult,” Rufus said.

“Because the best way to hide a secret alliance is under the guise of an

enemy,” Jason said.

“Exactly,” Danielle agreed. “The implanting of star seeds in non-

members of the cult has always been a distraction from their actual goals.

That is as true everywhere else as it was here.”

“I have a question about the people who were implanted and had them

removed,” Jason said to Carlos. “It sounds like you might have the answer, if

you don't mind?”

“Certainly,” Carlos said.

“The people who implanted me,” Jason said. “They told me that once you

let the seed into the soul, the Builder has you. For good. That once you open

that door, you're done. It makes me wonder about the people who have had

the seeds extracted.”

“My understanding is that it was not the cult that implanted you. It sounds

like whoever these people were, their information about the star seeds was

not complete. It is true that the Builder imprints itself on the soul of those

who relinquish access. Without the star seed as a channel, however, the

Builder cannot exert control. As best we can understand, the people in

question do truly regain themselves, although obviously very changed for the

experience. Not to cheapen your experiences, but they suffered and were

changed even more than you. Unfortunately, they were damaged more than

you as well.”

“I can imagine,” Jason said. “I feel like a different person and my soul

wasn't breached. If I'd opened that door…”

“Quite,” Carlos said. “There is a rather disturbing trend we have

discovered of people previously implanted feeling a compulsion left behind

by the Builder.”

“What kind of compulsion?” Jason asked.

“To seek out another star seed. There seems to be a longing for the power

it promised. Most resist that urge, knowing how self-destructive it is. Some of

them no longer have the will to resist and give in to it. We have them all

watched now, including the ones here in Greenstone. I understand one local

was lost before that protocol was put in place.”

“It's unconfirmed,” Danielle said, “but yes. The son of a friend.”

“It's strange feeling sorry for Thadwick,” Jason said. “So, you're some

kind of big deal, Mr Quilido?”

“I wouldn't say that, and please call me Carlos. I just have a speciality

that is tragically useful in these unfortunate times. Arabelle and I have

worked together in the past and she contacted me after what happened to

you.”

Jason shared an apologetic smile between Carlos and Arabelle.

“You came all this way to help, and I was rude to you from the moment

we met.”

“Seriously?” Clive asked. “All this time, and you apologise to this guy?”

“I don't understand,” Carlos said.

“Don't mind Clive,” Jason said. “He's been crabby ever since I slept with

his wife.”

“I don't have a wife!”

“Yeah, I'm a homewrecker,” Jason said winsomely, turning to look off

into the middle distance. “When you're down with O.P.P. that's the life you

live.”

“What are you even looking at?” Clive asked.

“I feel like I'm missing something,” Carlos said.

“get used to that feeling,” Rufus said. “I think we just found out that it's

the real Jason in there. What is it that Humphrey says?”

“If you don't understand what Jason is talking about, he's probably up to

something,” Clive said. “If you do know what Jason's talking about, he's

definitely up to something.”

“Returning to normal behaviour is a good sign,” Carlos said. “Whatever

normal behaviour means. Do not underestimate the impact of these events,

however. Essence users are mentally resilient by nature, as a survival

mechanism. The damage is not gone, however, merely forestalled. If the seed

was resisted, we would expect to see behaviour consistent with trauma

emerging over time. There will be permanent changes. Soul damage is

something that marks you forever.”

“We would expect to see?” Jason said, echoing Carlos's words. “Surely

I'm not the only one to resist a seed implantation.”

“No,” Carlos said. “We know of at least six instances, but there are

doubtless more. Under normal circumstances, star seeds of the Builder are

implanted by cultists of the Builder. If a seed is rejected, it generally kills the

person. If they survive, the cult kills them. The unusual circumstances of your

implantation have allowed to you to escape without the cult killing you by

simple virtue of their absence. I am curious how you purged the seed from

your body and survived without assistance.”

“It wasn't without assistance,” Jason said. “My familiar heals me. He

worked like a trooper to keep me alive.”

“I would be fascinated to examine it.”

Jason's face froze.

“You can prod and poke me all you like,” he said in a voice of hard

granite. “You come after Colin, though, and I don't care who sent you or

what rank you are. I will find a way to kill you.”

The temperature dropped as everyone fell silent at Jason's sudden turn.

The group looked nervous at the revelation that Jason's return to his old self

was a constructed facade. Rufus thought back to Jason's first days in the city,

where his vulnerability was likewise hidden behind his over-the-top

personality. Only Carlos seemed unfazed by the outburst.

“Understood,” he said. “I will take you up on that prodding and poking.

There's a reason the church and Adventure Society so readily approved

Arabelle's request to have me portalled here. Your survival presents a unique

opportunity to learn more about the star seed implantation process. Hidden

within your body and experiences may be insight that lets us help others. Mr

Asano, you are the only known instance of someone both surviving the

rejection and the aftermath. The hope is that what we can improve the process

by which we extract star seeds from the cult's victims.”

“I'm sorry,” Jason said. “You have larger concerns than just me, I know.”

“You don't need to apologise to anyone after what you went through,”

Carlos said. “But you are right about larger concerns. In many respects, the

Builder has orchestrated a war on our world that we didn't even know about

until he was winning. Anything we can learn to catch up is essential

knowledge.”

“I'm not sure how much I can help you,” Jason said.

“Anything we can find out will obviously be excellent,” Carlos said with

an open smile. “First and foremost, though I am a priest of the Healer. Before

anything else, I'm here to help you, not for you to help me.”

23

Scars

C arlos worked with Clive, directing him to draw out a ritual circle on the

rooftop.

“This is a damage echo ritual,” Carlos explained. “It will let me examine

the history of physical damage to Mr Asano's body.”

As Jason stood in the middle of the circle, a man-shaped image of light

appeared above him, with red and blue lines running through it like veins.

Carlos waved his hand, manipulating the image. The mark of Jason's first

scar appeared, bright and glaring across his torso. Carlos slowly and

methodically went through everything, although much of the image was an

abstraction, incomprehensible without the appropriate knowledge.

“This is actually rather easy,” Carlos observed as he worked. “Because

your body is less than a year old, everything is quite clear. Excellent for

obtaining definitive results.”

Eventually he ended the ritual.

“This is consistent from what we've seen in others we believe to have

rejected the seeds,” Carlos said. “They were all dead, though, so we were

working from corpses. The information we have isn't ideal.”

“You said there had been six that you knew of?” Clive asked.

“Those are just the ones we found,” Carlos said. “We don't know what

the actual numbers are. Obviously, it requires a series of ameliorating factors

to even give someone a chance. As to how many more individuals resisted

the star seeds and were killed without being found we just don't know.”

“How accurately can you determine my condition if corpses are your

basis for comparison?” Jason asked.

“Even from the corpses we could find specific differences between those

who rejected the seed and those who were forced to accept it and then had it

removed. If you think of the body as a field, the seed ploughs that field over,

ready for planting. If the field accepts the seed, we see changes as the seed

takes root. If the seed is rejected, however, all we get is overturned earth. The

ground has been torn up, but the seed won't grow.”

“So, he's in the clear?” Rufus asked. “No star seed?”

Vincent, standing next to Rufus, could sense his agitation. He slipped his

hand into Rufus's and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Rufus gave him a grateful

glance.

“Provisionally, I am willing to say that indications are good. Because Mr

Asano's body is young enough, the results are unambiguous. The Adventure

Society and my church, however, require me to also conduct an examination

of your soul, Mr Asano.”

“If you're going to have a rummage in my soul,” Jason said, “we should

probably be on a first name basis.”

“The soul examination isn't invasive,” Carlos said. “It can't be. If the

Builder can't get in there, I certainly can't. It will expose your soul to

scrutiny, however, which I have found makes people feel very exposed. The

feeling is something like having your aura completely suppressed. I can tell

you this from experience, having had the same ritual performed on me.”

“We could have used that ritual a few months ago,” Danielle said.

“It's a gold rank ritual,” Carlos said. “Not easy to disseminate or use,

especially in a place like Greenstone. Also, this version of the ritual is new,

devised specifically for this circumstance. I had myself be the first person put

through it, to experience what others would be going through, but you are our

first actual living subject, Jason. The next ritual will create a projection of

your soul that I can examine to confirm that it has not been breached. The

sensation is something like projecting your aura, except there will be a

powerful flood of energy to make the projection much more powerful than

normal.”

“That's a reliable test?” Rufus asked.

“Very,” Carlos said. “If Mr Asano—Jason—has ever let anything alien

into his soul, it will be very evident. This ritual is only now being spread by

the Magic Society to test for suspected star seed recipients. Fortunately, the

Builder takes time to overcome the sense of self-preservation when he forces

unwilling victims to open up their souls. Only those who have been seeded

for extended periods are willing to detonate themselves when captured.”

“If he does have a star seed in him,” Danielle asked, “will this ritual harm

Jason before we can have it extracted?”

“No. It will just be a projection of the soul, nothing more. But as I said,

it's a profoundly uncomfortable experience. The sense of exposure, of

vulnerability, is very real.”

“Not an issue,” Jason said.

“That's easy to say,” Carlos said. “What the ritual reveals won't just be

visible, although that will be part of it. Anyone with aura senses will be able

to sense your fully exposed soul. This is especially true because the ritual

incorporates an amplification element. Jason, your soul is only iron rank and

I need to examine it clearly, so the projection will be more powerful than

your normal aura projection. For that reason, I suggest we move to an

enclosed ritual room instead of a high, open space on a busy marina.”

“No,” Jason said, his voice almost a growl. “I want people to see.”

His friends looked at him with concern but remained silent.

“Let's get started then,” Carlos said.

Clive used his powers to rebalance the ambient magic and start drawing

out the ritual circle from a book Carlos handed him.

“The visible representation will be quite noticeable,” Carlos explained as

he supervised Clive's work. “Particularly given our choice of venue. The

appearance will be rather similar to your personal crest, if you have one. I do

not, so I was rather curious when I underwent this ritual myself. My soul, as

it turns out, looks like a sparkly apple. Presumably because I'm sweet and

fresh.”

Jason chuckled as his friends looked on awkwardly. After his brooding

behaviour and recent outburst, they weren't sure how to look at him.

“That's an excellent job,” Carlos assessed, looking over the finished ritual

circle. It was easily the most sophisticated circle Jason had ever seen.

Normally, Clive's power drew out magic diagrams in glowing golden lines.

Most of the circle was still gold, but it featured a rainbow of colours in

various sections, from vibrant red to cool green and bright, sky blue.

“I'd be tempted to let you conduct the ritual yourself, Mr Standish, if

channelling the power of a gold rank ritual wouldn't make you explode.”

“You mentioned that this is a gold rank ritual earlier,” Rufus said. “I

didn't think a ritual of that rank was possible with the low magical density in

this region.”

“Normally, no,” Carlos said. “You could probably perform a silver-rank

ritual here, if you were careful, but not a gold. We'll be using mana

condensers.”

Carlos started taking what looked like simple lamps from his dimensional

bag and placing them in the corners of the rooftop deck. Where the glow

stone would go in a normal lamp, these had swirling lights of blue, silver and

gold. It looked very much like the light shed by the transcendent damage of

Jason's execute power.

“Mana condensers are a tool for performing rituals requiring a higher

magic density than is available in the local area,” Clive explained as Carlos

set them out. “You charge them up, quite slowly, in a low magic area, and

they can create an artificial field of high-density ambient magic. Very

inefficient, but if it's what you need, it's what you need.”

He set out the lamps, along with other materials, most of which seemed to

be different coloured crystals. There were also a number of gold spirit coins

that, if you ignored certain items like the cloud palace, was more than all the

wealth in Jason's possession.

“Seems like a waste of coin,” Jason said.

“If you're short on money, the church of the Healer will be happy to help

you out,” Carlos said. “The information we get here will be critical going

forward. If you're willing to dedicate a number of hours to go over your

experience and answers some questions as best you can, maybe undergo an

extra ritual or three to examine your condition, we can and will pay well for

information on a subject that is very hard to come by right now.”

“It'll help people, right?” Jason asked.

“Very much so,” Carlos said. “Even with the guidance of our god, the

current methods we have for extracting star seeds are crude and brutal. Not

everyone survives. The information we can potentially get from studying you

could help us improve those methods significantly.”

“Helping people and getting paid for my trouble,” Jason said. “Sounds

like adventuring to me.”

“Wait, you're letting this guy study you?” Clive complained. “I ask you

all the time.”

“He wants help healing people,” Jason said. “Not help streamlining his

bureaucratic process.”

“Bureaucratic process?” Clive complained. “Do you have any idea how

critical the work of the Magic Society is to…”

Clive trailed off as he saw Jason's familiar sly grin and started muttering

complaints to himself.

“Just about ready,” Carlos said. “For this one, everyone else should go

down to that lower deck. Mr Standish, you can stay, if you think you have the

expertise to avoid tainting the ritual.”

“I probably can but I'd rather not take the risk,” Clive said, following the

others down the stairs to the lower deck.

From below they could hear, but not see the ritual being conducted. The

chant was not in words, but unintelligible sounds.

“Non-linguistic chants are very difficult,” Clive said, “but they become

more and more common in the higher-rank rituals.”

Around them on the marina, the surge of magic from the roof deck was

drawing attention. The wealthy marina patrons tended to be essence users,

many with perception powers that could sense the changes in the ambient

magic. Those pointed out the surge in ambient magic density to others.

When the ritual was completed, every essence user in the marina and

many in the Marina North district of the city felt an aura blast out. Incredibly

domineering, but not the individual power of a sovereign. It was more like a

celestial law had passed over the area, filled with unyielding resolve and an

echo of divine power.

Beyond the feel of the aura, it carried with it an overbearing suppressive

force. Bronze-rankers and above were able to withstand the surging aura,

while iron-rankers without solid aura control found themselves shaken and

shivering. The only member of Jason's team present was Clive, who

weathered the aura surge despite being at the epicentre. After resuming his

adventuring after years as Magic Society official, he had benefited from

Farrah's aura training, alongside Jason.

The people without aura senses actually fared better than the essence

users. Their lack of sensitivity gave them no more than a foreboding sense of

unease.

High above the roof deck, darkness spread like a sinister cloud, covering

a huge space. It was not a complete darkness, but contained a spread of dim,

feeble stars like an oppressive night sky. Within the darkness, indistinct

shapes moved and shifted, defined only by being darker than the sky around

them. It was hard to make out their shapes or follow their movements, but

what onlookers could see of the unnerving, alien forms made them glad that

they could not.

In the centre of the darkness, a cluster of stars started glowing brighter,

taking on the form of a cloak. The cloak opened and expanded, revealing that

within was a clear blue sky and bright sun, like a universe contained within a

dark void.

The dark shapes immediately converged on the starlight cloak, tearing at

it with shadowy claws. They rent the cloak, but from every tear, sunlight

flared out in the form of bright, grasping tendrils, clutching at the dark

figures. They wrapped around the dark, alien shapes, which dissolved away

like morning mist exposed to the sun. As they did, horrifying shrieks

emerged from the projection with each dark entity that was annihilated.

People looked up at the projection from all across the marina, feeling the

source of the strange aura that had washed over them.

“This is Jason's soul?” Rufus asked. “You saw his personal crest, right,

Clive?”

“Yeah,” Clive said weakly. “It was kind of like this, but it didn't have

those things in it. Are they the star seed? Did it get in after all?”

“No,” Carlos called out from above. His gold rank senses easily heard

their conversation, even over the screeching. “They're the aftermath of the

war he fought for his soul. The soul doesn't scar the same way the body

does.”

Carlos had not been anticipating anything like the power of the soul

projection the ritual produced. He was worried that the gold-rank ritual was

filtering too much power through Jason's soul to create the projection but

Jason seemed unperturbed. He was standing in the middle of the circle, eyes

closed and completely relaxed.

Satisfied that Jason's soul was unviolated, Carlos brought the ritual to an

end, the aura fading away and the image dissolving into nothing.

24

I Won't let them Turn me into that

J ason didn't go straight back to adventuring after his ordeal with the star

seed. Instead he spent his time in training and recovery. His team spent

their days participating in the hunt for Killian Laurent, whose

possession and use of the star seed had made him a priority in the efforts to

locate and fight against the cultists. He potentially had valuable information

and unlike the suicide-prone cultists, he might be possible to capture.

At the same time, Silva had been locked up in the Adventure Society's

prison tower, being asked some very pointed questions. It didn't help with the

search for Laurent, only revealing the depth of ignorance Silva had about his

former henchman. Silva did volunteer other information that was more

actionable, however.

Unless someone had a specific power to do so, most long-distance

communication was conducted through speaking chambers. Two chambers

could be connected, allowing the person in each chamber to project into a

water clone in the other.

Most speaking chambers were housed within and operated by the Magic

Society branches. One of the perks of being a branch director was the use of a

private speaking chamber, annexed to their office. Lucian Lamprey was using

his, but the man on the other end was not telling him what he wanted to hear.

“We don't have anyone who's been there to open a portal, Lucian. Why

would we? It's just an out of the way, provincial city that probably wouldn't

exist if not for the spirit coin farms.”

“Surely you can find someone?” Lamprey asked.

“Probably, but I won't. You were banished there for a reason, Lucian.

You're all out of friends, here.”

“All I need is one portal out.”

The person on the other end of the communication sighed.

“I have someone who can portal to Hornis. If you can get there, I can

maybe arrange something. It'll cost you, though.”

“You owe me. From the old days.”

“The old days are over, Lucian. I don't owe you a thing. Get to Hornis

and message me again. We can work something out. If you have something

to offer.”

Lamprey went to speak but the person on the other end severed the

connection. The water that made up the clone lost its animating force and

splashed back into the pool.

Lamprey stormed out of the tiled booth.

“Hornis,” he muttered to himself. It was a port city, like Greenstone,

south and around the coast. He would either have to take a ship and risk

someone exposing his departure, or go overland, east into the veldt and then

south. He decided that was the safer route, as the desert was not a threat to a

silver ranker.

He opened the hidden safe in his office, shoving the contents into a

dimensional bag before making for the door. Just as he left his office, he

spotted Danielle Geller at the far end of the long hallway. She spotted him, in

turn.

“Leaving?” she called out to Lamprey. “That works out, because you

need to come with me.”

“I'm busy right now, Lady Geller,” Lamprey said. “Another day.”

“Oh, I insist,” Danielle said.

They stared at each other down the hall for a long moment. Then, as if

someone waved a starter's flag, they both sprang into motion. Lamprey

clapped his hands together in front of him, creating a wave of force that sent

cracks along the stone walls, floor and ceiling. The art lining the walls was

ripped apart, the windows shattered and floor tiles exploded, throwing up

dust and debris that shrouded the hallway.

His attack was late before it had even begun; trying to move faster than

Danielle Geller was an exercise in futility. By the time the hallway started

erupting she had already teleported behind him, her blade cutting into his

thick neck muscle. Lamprey was power to Danielle's speed, however, and

her sword barely dug into the flesh. He reached up and grabbed the blade

while ramming his other elbow back into Danielle's chest. His incredible

strength fired her back like a rocket, through the doorway and across his

office where she bounced roughly off the wall.

Lamprey turned around, Danielle's sword still gripped in his hand by the

blade. He probed the wound with his free hand as he watched her push

herself back to her feet.

“I knew you were tough,” she said, “but I thought that would do more.”

“You'll have to cut me like that a thousand times if you want me to go

down,” Lamprey sneered.

Danielle gave him a predatory smile in return.

“Deal.”

She vanished, as did her sword, leaving behind a cut in Lamprey's hand.

Bloody lines started appearing on his body, Danielle's movement nothing but

a blur.

Even once his Adventure Society minder was gone, Jason rarely left the

houseboat. Most of his time was spent refining his aura control. He quickly

reached the point where he could completely negate the effects of an iron-

rank suppression collar and had begun working with a bronze-rank one. He

could only hold off its effects for a few moments, but he knew exactly how

valuable a few moments could be.

When he did leave, he remained unnoticed. He moved through Old City

unseen, practicing his shadow teleportation. He needed it to reach bronze

rank, hopefully opening a path back to the Order of the Reaper's astral space

and the Builder cultists within.

Jason's friends clearly wanted to be supportive, although they were

largely at a loss as to how. Joining the pursuit for Killian was their way to try

to find some closure on Jason's ordeal. In the meantime, Carlos and Arabelle

both came by the houseboat daily, carefully talking Jason through the events

of his capture and escape.

Arabelle helped him explore the traumatic memories. For those strange

feelings imprinted on his soul from when he had no mind to form memories,

Carlos had techniques to help. Guided meditation was a large part of it, as

was teaching Jason about the soul from a magical theory perspective. Jason's

grasp of magical theory was continually improving and he was able to follow

along with at least the fundamentals of what Carlos was talking about.

“Some people find a more intuitive approach helpful,” Carlos told him.

“Others, like you, seem to get more from understanding the way the soul

functions magically. Understanding and breaking down what they went

through helps them process it.”

One day, Carlos and Arabelle arrived at the houseboat with Arabelle's old

team of her, her husband, the stealthy and enigmatic Callum Morse and Emir.

Also with them were Danielle Geller, Constance and Hester.

“We wanted to come earlier,” Emir told Jason. “Arabelle said it was best

to wait.”

Although his original purpose in Greenstone had been concluded, Emir's

operation at Sky Scar Lake continued. Knowing that the Builder cult had

infiltrated the astral space there, his people had been trying to find a way

back in. Jason had been keeping something under his hat, not wanting to

speak up until he was certain, but changed his mind.

“You asked me, before, if Shade had any insights that might help you get

back into the astral space,” Jason told him. “I didn't say anything at the time,

but there might be something.”

“Oh?” Emir asked.

“We can't test it out until my shadow teleport power reaches bronze

rank,” Jason said.

“Not what we're here for,” Arabelle said, heading off the conversation.

“What are you here for?” Jason asked. “Not that I don't appreciate the

well-wishes.”

Carlos and Arabelle, as it turned out, had arranged an adventurer group

therapy session. Jason had been through a lot, but no adventurer reached

silver and gold rank without their own horror stories.

In the past, Jason had felt a step between himself and the experienced

upper-rankers he knew. As they each shared their own tribulations, he felt a

new sense of belonging. It was something he had been missing even before

his recent troubles. His very nature as an outworlder marked him as an

outsider. To share his story with others and have them share theirs in turn was

like a puzzle piece fitting into the right space.

As they left the boathouse afterwards, Danielle took Jason aside.

“Someday, Humphrey and the others will face similar problems,” she told

him.

Jason nodded, understanding. Neither of them needed to say more.

It had been almost two months since Jason last set foot on the Adventure

Society campus. He glanced over at the prison tower where both Lucian

Lamprey and Cole Silva were incarcerated. The ultimate fate of neither man

had yet been decided.

After the disastrous expedition and the subsequent wave of demotions,

the campus had, for a time, become an almost desolate place. Then, after the

Reaper trials, it had been overrun with time-displaced priests. With the

expedition months gone and the priests sent off to whatever their new lives

had become, it was back to the same bustle of activity Jason remembered

from his early days as an adventurer. A lot of people were looking his way,

either with furtive glances or openly staring. One woman even pointed right

at him as she whispered to her companions. He ignored it as he made his way

into the administration building and rode the elevating platform to the fifth

floor.

“Morning, Bert.” Jason spotted Albert behind the executive level

reception desk. “I see from your aura that the training is coming along.”

“Oh, you're one to talk, Mr Asano. Bertram was working guard duty on

the bridge when you set off your little display. You gave him a right good

scare.”

“You can put that down to the ritual I was going through, not me.”

“If you say so, Mr Asano. Welcome back, by the way. It's good to see

you out and about, after what happened.”

“What exactly are people saying, Bert?”

“All sorts, Mr Asano; you know what rumours are like. Magic mind

control, crime lords, and now Director Lamprey locked up in the prison

tower. It's all very exciting but no one seems sure if you're victim or

perpetrator, if you don't mind me saying. And that's without that business

with the aura projection. Nobody knows what to make of that. Plus, there's

talk of some village that got destroyed, the Duke sending out all those people

and materials to rebuild.”

“Thank you, Bert.”

“If you don't mind me asking, Mr Asano, what did happen?”

Jason thought about it for a moment.

“Cole Silva and Lucian Lamprey tried to deal with me using the Builder

cult as a weapon.”

“It doesn't seem to have worked out so well for them,” Albert said. “You

being here and them locked up in the tower. It all came good in the end,

then.”

“It isn't the end,” Jason said grimly. “Not until the cultists have been

dragged out of their holes and tossed right out of our world.”

“Well, I don't think I'd bet against you, Mr Asano.”

“You know what, Bert? Neither would I.”

Jason sat down across from Elspeth Arella. Tabitha Gert and her inquiry team

had decamped from Greenstone while he had been on the road contract and

Arella was once again in charge.

“Mr Asano.”

“Director.”

“We have something of a contentious past, you and I.”

“We do,” Jason agreed. “Rufus Remore agreed to put his support behind

you in return for your father's help, however, and your father delivered. Since

Rufus's support absolutely includes me, then you can consider yourself to

have mine, for whatever worth you find that to have.”

Arella examined Jason for a moment in silence. He was worlds apart from

the brash, arrogant boy he had seemed in the past. The arrogance was still

there, an unmistakable challenge in the eyes. But the precocious boy had

been replaced with a steely-faced man.

“I have been looking at my tenure, following the enquiry as a fresh start,”

she said finally. “Perhaps you and I could do the same.”

“That seems fair,” Jason said.

“Very well, then on to business. I understand that Danielle Geller has

been keeping you apprised of the investigation into Silva and now Lamprey.”

“That's right.”

“As the primary charges against them are against an Adventure Society

member, the Adventure Society will be dealing with them. As it also involves

the Builder cult, the decisions regarding them will be made above my level. I

understand that Tabitha Gert will be portalling in to take them both. As the

victim, however, you have the right to be heard in regards to their ultimate

dispensation.”

“I prefer not to think of myself as a victim,” Jason said. “Also, giving the

victims a say might feel right, but that's a tool of vengeance, not justice.”

“You don't want revenge?”

“Of course I do,” Jason said. “If you'd asked me what to do with them

three weeks ago, I'd have said hang them from a tree and beat them until

fabulous prizes come out. But that's not the person I want to be and I won't

let them turn me into that. So long as they aren't put in a position to keep

hurting people, I don't care what happens to them.”

“How very considered. Does Miss Wexler feel the same way?”

“I don't think you should try for a fresh start with her,” Jason said. “She

knows that you tried to sell her off to Lamprey and has different feelings

about vengeance than I do. But you and I both made mistakes that she almost

paid the price for, so I won't go casting any stones.”

“We'll leave it at that, then, and move on to the next issue. North East

Quarry Village Number Four. You did excellent work, there.”

“Thank you,” Jason said.

“You and Henrietta Geller did a superlative job of building the Adventure

Society's reputation.”

“Also, helping people,” Jason said.

“Yes, of course. The society would like to show its gratitude by supplying

the materials required to resummon all your familiars. The ones you lost in

that encounter, as well as the one that has now reached bronze rank.”

“You seem to know a lot about the state of my familiars.”

“This reward was suggested by your team. Mr Standish provided the list

of supplies. I had to have someone portal them in, but after the expedition

I've made a policy of always keeping a portal user on hand. Sending them all

off together was a mistake I won't make again.”

Jason gave it a short moment's consideration, then nodded.

“Thank you,” he said.

“If you speak to the receptionist, he will direct you to pick them up. That

just leaves the issue of your star ranking. Tabitha Gert promised that if you

conduct yourself acceptably, your rank will be restored to three stars. I think

we can safely say that has happened. You will be needing a new badge

because of the changes to your aura and your personal crest, so please present

yourself to the Magic Society at your convenience.”

“Speaking of my aura,” Jason said, “are there any repercussions I need to

know about following the aura projection incident?”

“Not that you need to concern yourself with.”

25

Putting the Band back Together

I n the wake of Cole Silva's arrest, his organisation fell into chaos as

Silva's cousins fought to seize control. At first it was restricted to

carefully feeling out key people and quietly garnering loyalty. As days passed

into weeks without a definitive leader rising up, it started causing trouble

with street level operations and the conflict became bloodier.

In the midst of all this, Killian's trail was finally found, but far too late. It

was eventually discovered that he had decamped the city entirely, taking a

ship loaded with a good chunk of Cole Silva's ill-gotten holdings. Until the

crew of that boat turned up somewhere, it was a dead end.

Jason felt that he turned a corner in his recovery with the resummoning of his

familiars. He began with Gordon and then Shade, grateful to discover that

they were the same familiars he had previously. While the bodies of the

familiars would be the same with each summoning, the astral spirits

inhabiting them could be different, if the original spirits did not want to re-

enter his service.

“Your soul is rather changed,” Shade observed. “You have been through

an ordeal in the time I've been gone.”

“It's been rough,” Jason acknowledged. “Glad to have you back, mate.”

“I am also glad to return,” Shade said. “The Reaper's realm is a rather

monotonous place. I did take the time to make enquires while I was there,

however, under the assumption that you survived to resummon me. I am now

more confident about accessing the Order of the Reaper's astral space.”

Resummoning Colin was another thing entirely. Summoning his new

bronze-rank vessel would require a bronze-rank ritual. Part of his recovery

time had been spent continuing his study of magical theory and he had the

instinctive understanding of his power to guide him. Despite this, he wasn't

entirely confident about handling the increased sophistication and power the

higher-rank ritual would require. He discussed the issue with Clive, who had

a suggestion.

“You have that bronze-rank skill book, right? The one you took from

Landemere Vane?”

Jason did, indeed, still have skill books detailing bronze-rank ritual and

astral magic.

“They require bronze rank to use, though,” Jason said.

“So, fake it,” Clive said. “Use a spirit coin before you use the skill book.

It'll be a strain, but nothing you can't handle after what you've been

through.”

Jason took Clive's advice. Taking a seat in his cloud house, he consumed

a bronze-rank spirit coin under Clive's supervision, with Neil on hand in case

it became too much. Unlike his previous uses, his enhanced awareness of his

own soul let him sense exactly what the coin was doing to him. It flushed

through his soul harmlessly, merging with his own power before flooding

into his body. He gained a better understanding of the cost of using spirit

coins as he could clearly feel the power was more than his body could

contain. He would only be able to briefly use the power surge before his body

blew a fuse and shut off.

Hurriedly, he used the skill book. As with the previous one he had used,

the text floated out of the book, becoming a magical cloud hovering around

him. The power of the coin faded, leaving him feebly slumped in the chair,

but it had done its work. Without reaching a false bronze-rank state, he

wouldn't have been able to trigger the book at all.

When the cloud of magical text started injecting itself into Jason's body,

something went horribly wrong. Jason had experienced skill book use before

and this was less strenuous that the huge tome that had contained his martial

art. At the time he used that skill book, though, he hadn't experienced the star

seed implantation.

It started with a familiar feeling as his body was invaded. The skill book's

magic was entering his mind, not his soul but it was close enough that it

awakened buried flashes of memory. Suddenly he was back in that room,

hanging from the ceiling, vulnerable and helpless as his body and mind were

invaded.

Clive and Neil watched in horror as Jason tumbled out of the chair and

onto his knees, clutching at his head and screaming. Neil started to cast a

healing spell but Clive stopped him.

“Don't,” Clive warned urgently. “Muddling the magic going into him

right now could do some real damage.”

“What do we do?” Neil asked.

“All we can do it let him go through it,” Clive said unhappily.

Eventually the screaming stopped and Jason was lying on the floor,

looking up with blank eyes.

“He's not breathing,” Clive said.

“He's been training,” Neil said. “I've been helping him with it. He

doesn't breathe at all now.”

After the problem with the skill book, Jason didn't move on to resummoning

Colin right away. He continued to work with Arabelle, Carlos having

departed the city. He was important to the star seed implantation recovery

efforts and couldn't be spared for more than a couple of weeks on one person.

He helped Jason through the worst and Jason did everything he could to give

Carlos information he could use to help others; it was the only reason the

Adventure Society and his church had let him stay as long as he did.

Having his other familiars back helped. Their presence in his soul was a

comfort, a support when he awoke from a nightmare of suffered another

flashback.

He concentrated on other tasks. More training, but also more mundane

affairs. One of them was his new beard. It was trimmed light, with a line next

to the chin where a thin scar was. Another scar bisected his left eyebrow.

“I'm still not sure about the beard,” he said at breakfast.

“I like it,” Neil said. “It covers your face.”

“No, it's really good,” Belinda said. She was the one who suggested he

keep it in the first place.

“It doesn't make me look like a villain?”

“Isn't seeming like a villain kind of your thing?” Gary asked.

“Stop discouraging him,” Belinda said. “It looks good, doesn't it, Soph?”

Sophie looked up from her sausage and eggs to give Jason an intense

stare. Finally she nodded.

“Your face is too pointy,” she said. “It softens the edges.”

“I'd have said that it flatteringly frames your facial structure,” Belinda

said, “but I'd take it. For Sophie, that was a gushing compliment.”

Eventually Jason decided it was time to resummon Colin. After using the

skill book, he had delved into the theory to consolidate his knowledge. Now

he was as ready as he was going to be. After the skill book, his whole team

was going to be present for support, along with Rufus and Gary.

For each earlier familiar re-summoning, he had hired out a ritual room in

the Magic Society, rather than do it on the houseboat. The cloud floor of the

houseboat was not ideal for drawing out ritual circles, as it lacked the

dedicated, hard-floored ritual rooms of Emir's cloud palace.

Jason did so again for Colin's ritual. Clive helped him pick out the one

with the facilities to hose the room down afterward. He began preparations by

stripping down to his underwear. No one mentioned the scars speckling his

body, or the one long scar across his torso.

“Is that really necessary?” Neil asked. “No one wants to see your skinny

body.”

“This will be messy, if the last time is anything to go by,” Jason said.

“It really was,” Gary agreed. “We never actually cleaned that room after,

we just picked up his unconscious body and snuck off.”

“There's no point ruining good clothes,” Jason said. “Sorry we can't all

be super buff like you, Neil. Which reminds me, we need to take you to get

some more flattering clothes. Seriously, who makes that stuff?”

“My aunt is quite interested in fashion design.”

“Oh, I get it now,” Jason said. “Is she too influential to be honest with

about how bad her work is, or are you all just being nice?”

“She controls a fairly good portion of the family's holdings, yes,” Neil

acknowledged.

“Fair enough, then. Just tell her that your team leader made you get a new

wardrobe to fit in with the group.”

“Since when are you the team leader?” Neil asked.

“Of course I'm the team leader,” Jason said. “I have the best hair.”

“Sophie has the best hair,” Neil said.

“I'm the most handsome?”

“Not even top three,” Neil said.

“There's only four guys in the team,” Jason said dejectedly.

“Maybe you should start the ritual now?” Clive suggested.

Jason nodded and started setting out the circle and the materials, mostly

bronze-rank blood quintessence gems. Jason took a razor from his inventory

and sliced the back of his hand, letting Colin spill out onto the ground. The

leech pile spread out around the diagram, seeming to have an instinctive

understanding of where to go.

“Alright, little mate,” Jason told Colin. “See you again soon.”

Jason began the ritual. Lines of red life force drifted out of the leeches

and fed into Jason, the leeches withering into nothing. Even with that extra

life force, the ritual took a heavy toll on Jason. At the edge of his vision, his

mana and stamina bars emptied rapidly as mental and physical exhaustion

overtook him. The little body shape indicating damage went from green to

red all over as blood started seeping from his pores, spilling down his body to

flow into the middle of the circle where it vanished.

Once again, Jason's mind tried to drag him back to his torture, the

memory of his body being ravaged by the star seed. He willed himself to stay

in the moment. He felt his other familiars residing inside him. He glanced up

at his friends, looking on with concern.

He dropped to one knee, struggling to stay conscious. Half as much blood

loss would have killed a normal person. It all flowed into the circle and

vanished, until all that Jason had put in and more started spilling from the

floor like a wellspring, inundating the ritual circle. It stopped only when it

reached the edge.

Crawling up out of the pool came a leech, no different to Colin's previous

form. It had the same slick, wormy body and gaping maw with circular rings

of oversized lamprey teeth. It was joined by a second, then a third, more and

more emerged until they were being pushed out like meat from a grinder.

Strips of bloody cloth emerged from the mass, gathering the leeches

together and wrapping them up. Like compression bandages, they pushed the

leeches together into shape, slowly binding them up into a humanoid form.

The sanguine horror Jason, Gary, Rufus and Farrah had fought in that

cave had taken on the appearance of a mummy. While the basic form Colin

had taken was similar it was not identical. Along with bundling the leeches

into shape, the strips of cloth had formed a ragged cloak and hood, draping

off the humanoid figure.

“I think it's trying to look like you, Jason,” Humphrey said.

Jason didn't hear him, kneeling on the floor. His body was ravaged and

he was desperately trying to keep his mind from going back to the torture

room.

Once the figure finished forming, the bloody strips dried, leaving them a

rusty colour. It reached out to help Jason to his feet. He grasped the crude,

fingerless hand.

Colin (sanguine horror).

Familiar (bronze rank).

Swarm. Hive mind.

Bites from the leech swarm inflict Bleeding, Leech Toxin and

Necrotoxin.

Leech attacks drain health and stamina, allowing the rapid replacement

of destroyed biomass.

Ranged entangling attacks can be made using cloth strips. Grips inflict

minimal constriction damage but periodically inflict Leech Toxin and

Necrotoxin if an area with an open wound is grabbed or the target is

suffering the Bleeding condition.

While subsumed within the summoner, the summoner has accelerated

healing and stamina recovery. Healing and recovery rate is determined

by how much biomass was absorbed and increases with the summoner's

level of injury.

In addition to the changes to Colin's form, the healing he provided would

now increase the more Jason was injured, the value of which was obvious.

Jason had Colin walk around a little, which the familiar did, hesitantly at first

and then with increasing confidence. Its new pseudo-human guise was faster

than the leech pile of its previous form, although it still couldn't move much

faster than a hurried shuffle.

“Alright, Colin,” Jason said wearily. “Time to come home.”

Through his instinctive sense of the familiar ability, Jason could sense

that he would no longer need to cut himself for Colin to enter or leave his

body. He reached out a hand. Colin did the same and the familiar was

absorbed directly in through the skin. It happened in a comical rush, like a

cartoon character being sucked into a vacuum cleaner. Jason immediately felt

Colin go to work helping him heal and recover. He looked down at his

bloodied body and pulled out a bottle of crystal wash.

26

nothing speaks louder than power

T he return of Jason's familiars went a long way to helping him feel

better. With his improved soul sense he could feel their comforting

presence within him much more strongly than before. He even retained a

sense of connection when they were out of his body. It didn't match the

connection of a bonded familiar, like Humphrey had with Stash, but it was

enough to give him back a confidence that he had been lacking for some

time.

He had not yet returned to adventuring but he did start making some

social excursions. This started with Gary arriving at the houseboat to take

Jason out to the delta, to take a look at the construction site of the training

annex for Rufus's academy. They rode out using two of Shade's bodies in

horse form, void black but with glowing white hooves, mane and eyes. Mist

shrouded each of the hooves, leaving a trail as the horses sped along the delta

embankment roads.

“So these are the horses you keep talking about,” Gary said. “They're

kind of like heidels, but only having one head is weird.”

“Most things only have one head,” Jason said and patted Horse-Shade on

the neck. “Shade is quite a bit more handsome than regular horses, though.”

In horse form, Shade manifested with reins and saddle, but no bit. The

ride was soft and smooth, as Shade was not a true animal but a creature of

shadow-stuff. Shade was also able to run over the surface of water, which cut

time comfortably off their journey.

They rode around the huge walls marking the edge of the Geller Estate

grounds until they reached the construction site. Greenstone was to the west

of the estate, while the construction site was just outside the south walls.

The Remore Academy Training Annex would primarily be made of stone,

like most buildings in the region where wood was at a premium. Gary had

been recruited to create metal frames and reinforcement before the stone went

in, using the powers of his forge essence to create alloys heavier and stronger

than steel.

“I do a lot of construction work back in Vitesse,” Gary explained as he

and Rufus led Jason around the site. “Being only bronze rank, we don't get

the freedom to go out adventuring that we get here, so it's a nice little side

earner.”

“It's that restrictive?” Jason asked.

“It's not too bad,” Rufus said. “You don't go out without a silver-ranker,

though. Even if your team can handle a silver rank monster, if you get a

whole pack of them, a bad match-up for your team or a gold-rank monster

then your team can end up dead very quickly. At higher ranks, monsters tend

to be harder to run away from.”

“All that is especially true when a monster surge is due,” Gary said. “The

increase in silver-rank monsters here is a clearly a surge precursor, and in

Vitesse that increase is in gold-rank monsters.”

“It means the monster surge is close, right?” Jason asked.

“Maybe,” Rufus said. “It could be weeks, or even months, still, which is

why we went ahead with construction.”

Jason's friends continued to drag him out of the houseboat, to the point that

he realised Arabelle herself had suggested they help Jason break out of his

self-imposed isolation. He started taking his own steps out, including making

use of the Musical Society membership he had purchased months ago, only to

be too busy to use. Making use of his own private viewing booth at the

concert hall let him get out without needing to deal with other people too

much.

Jason's progress was not all forward, however. Nightmares were

frequent. Flashbacks could sneak up in him in unexpected moments. Arriving

early for the symphony one night, something about the orchestra tuning their

instruments triggered a flashback and he fled his booth, stumbling though the

hall and into one of the empty rooms around the concert hall. He was leaning

against a window when he felt a familiar aura draw closer. He turned, wild-

eyed, to the opening door.

“Hello, Jason.”

Cassandra's face was filled with concern.

“I saw you in the hall,” she said. “You didn't look well and your aura was

all over the place.”

“It's fine,” he said with a grimace, leaning back against the cool glass of

the window.

“I heard about what happened to you,” she said softly. She stayed at a

distance by the door, as if afraid of scaring off a skittish animal.

“What did you hear?” he asked.

“They put one of those things in you. Like Thadwick.”

“Not like Thadwick,” Jason snarled. His face flashed anger, then regret.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I know your brother is still missing. But I wasn't

taken over.”

“I heard that too,” she said. “A lot of people don't believe it.”

“I don't care what a lot of people think,” he said. “Everyone I care about

the opinion of knows better.”

“I'm sorry for how my family treated you,” she said. “Treated us.”

“They did what's right for them,” Jason said. “Don't we all?”

“No,” Cassandra said. “I heard about what happened in that village, too.

Not many would stand up to a silver rank monster like that.”

Jason's aura was settling. Hers was a calming presence, intermingling

with his in an echo of their former connection as lovers. She moved closer,

slowly making her way across the room.

“Your aura is so different,” she said. “I can barely recognise it.”

“A lot has happened since we last met.”

Her smile carried the bitterness of their last encounter.

“You got your promotion back.”

“Impatience seems to be a Mercer family trait.”

“It has cost us, more than once.”

She arrived in front of Jason. After a brief pause, she wrapped her arms

around him comfortingly and he didn't resist, resting his head on her chest.

“We could have been something, couldn't we?” she said sadly.

“Maybe,” he said.

“Probably for the best,” she said. “I would not be putting up with that

beard.”

Still leaning into her chest, he burst out laughing.

Danielle had Humphrey drag Jason and his team to a large social gathering at

the Geller townhouse on the Island. For Belinda and Sophie it was their first

time attending such an event without a plan to steal from the attendees. In an

elegant white dress, Sophie garnered no small amount of attention.

Humphrey, who was raised in such settings, helped her navigate the new

waters, adroitly driving away the sharks. If not for his social expertise she

would have had to resort to her own, which was not event appropriate. She

had made sure, that if it came to that, the slit in the leg of her dress would free

up her high kicks.

“I robbed that guy,” she said quietly as they circulated. “And that one.

Good thing Belinda is good at making disguises.”

Jason found himself in an odd social position, due to the various stories

and events he had been caught up in. His success in the Reaper trials, along

with his closeness to the gold rankers every social climber in the room

wanted to connect with lifted Jason's prestige. The rumours floating around

after his kidnapping and the aura projection incident made the waters rather

murky, however.

At one point in the evening, the bronze-rank scion of an aristocratic

family approached Jason. His breath reeked of drink and his aura reeked of

monster cores.

“You shouldn't even be allowed around decent people,” he slurred in

Jason's direction. “How do we know you don't still have one of those things

in you? You could be working for them.”

“That's enough, brother,” a woman said. She stepped up to try and lead

the man away. Jason recognised her as Liana Stelline, a member of mid-tier

aristocratic clan. She had been part of Jason and Humphrey's field

assessment group, joining the Adventure Society alongside them.

“Kyle, it's time to go home.”

Her brother shrugged her off, pointing a finger in Jason's face.

“What do you think you're doing, coming into our city? You were

probably one of them from the start. I bet you set up all our people that died

on the expedition!”

The room went very still. The high society of Greenstone had pushed

their way onto the expedition. Sophie and Belinda were the only ones in the

room other than the serving staff that had not lost someone close to them.

Kyle was the only one that didn't sense the shift in the atmosphere,

despite it being pointed at him. His aura senses were too addled by drink to

feel the auras around the room grow fierce and hard.

“You should take your sister's advice and go,” Jason said, restraining his

own aura. With the fury burning inside him, he didn't trust what he would do

with it if he let it go. The rage he had built up over recent events was more

than some drunken idiot deserved to have unleashed on him. Unfortunately,

the idiot in question took Jason's restraint for weakness.

Not sensing any aura, Kyle used his own aura to push down on Jason. His

aura control was sloppy, but still had a bronze-rank soul behind it. There was

a limit to Jason's tolerance, however, and Jason's own aura rose out like

monster from the deep. It devoured Kyle's bronze rank aura projection with

ease, biting down like a vast maw until Kyle felt its teeth against his naked

soul.

Jason stopped himself before following through with the soul attack. Kyle

had become stricken with fear and he collapsed to the floor. Jason stepped

forward to stand right over him.

“You should be very careful about accusing me of getting my friends

killed,” he said, his voice a jagged blade of ice. “Liana, take your brother

home.”

Jason retracted his aura and Liana quickly shuffled off her wide-eyed

sibling, his resistance now gone. Oddly, this encounter had the opposite

effect of what Jason anticipated, bringing the approval of many who had been

uncertain about him. In a world of adventurers, wealth and influence were

fine but unadulterated magical potency made their acquisition an

inevitability. Jason's display made it clear that his potential was blossoming

into capability.

Danielle swooped in to lock elbows with him, reminding everyone

present that she had the foresight to support him when others overlooked him.

“Nothing speaks louder than power,” she told him.

She wasn't foolish enough to miss a social opportunity when it presented

itself and guided Jason around the room to make introductions she had

previously been avoiding. One of these was to the Duke of Greenstone, who

was talking to his brother and his sister-in-law, Beaufort and Thalia Mercer.

“Beaufort, Thalia,” Danielle greeted. “You know Jason, of course.”

Thalia knew Jason better than her husband did, but Jason had met the

man during his relationship with Cassandra.

“I believe this will be your first time speaking with him, Duke,” Danielle

continued.

“A pleasure, Duke,” Jason said, shaking the man's hand. “Naturally, I've

seen you at various social functions but I daresay you never noticed a little

iron-ranker like me.”

“Well, everyone noticed you now,” the Duke said with a wry smile.

From what he had heard of the man, Jason hadn't anticipated liking the

Duke. To his surprise, he found the man very personable. He didn't seem to

look down on Jason at all for his rank or station.

“We've been discussing the issue of Old City,” the Duke said. “The

infighting in the Silva family as it looks for new leadership is escalating into

street violence. The organisation built up by the late Clarissa Ventress is

looking to go the same way. It was stable for a while, but her replacement

isn't keeping things together and is unlikely to hold his position. Fortunately,

Adris Dorgan is keeping quiet instead of fanning the flames. If he changes his

approach, however, the streets of Old City may well become a war zone. At

that point I will have no choice but to step in to restore order. I'd rather avoid

that outcome so soon after the Builder cult purge.”

“I still say you should just do it now, before things get out of hand,”

Beaufort said.

“Perhaps you can offer us some insight, Mr Asano,” the Duke said. “You

have some experience with the Big Three, do you not?”

“I've met Adris Dorgan and I liked the man. I've heard good things from

people I trust that know him better. I never met Clarissa Ventress or her

replacement, but again, I know people that did. They were less flattering. As

for Cole Silva, well… if you spend four days hanging from a ceiling with no

pants on while a guy stands there watching you the whole time, I guess you

could say you know him.”

“How colourful,” the Duke said with a chuckle. “So, what insights can

you offer?”

“Well,” Jason said. “I haven't really been paying attention, so I may be

missing some of the political nuance, but the solution seems obvious.”

“Oh?” the Duke prompted.

“It's time to end your hands-off approach of Old City and take direct

control. At this point, Adris Dorgan is essentially the mayor of Old City, so

you might as well make it official. Between his daughter running the

Adventure Society and his rising level of influence after his assistance

flushing out the Builder cult, he's heavily invested in legitimacy at this point.

Place him under you officially and you've got a handle on the one man who

has a genuine chance to take the pot off the fire before it boils over. It'll also

send a signal to the people scrabbling over the vacant positions in the Big

Three. Once they realise that era of criminal overlords is over, they won't be

willing to fight as hard. There will still be crime bosses, obviously, but they

won't have the power they did in the past, which will de-escalate the

infighting.”

The Duke raised his eyebrows, turning to Danielle.

“Is this you?” he asked.

Danielle held up her hands in a display of blamelessness as Jason looked

between her and the Duke.

“You told him the same thing?” Jason asked her.

“She did,” the Duke said. “She also used the word obvious.”

“That's just my uninformed opinion,” Jason said. “I have no doubt there

would be a slew of political obstacles to navigate. And, of course, nothing

will prevent the violence altogether. To be honest, I'm biased because I think

very poorly of the lack of actual civilian authority in Old City. The Big Three

may have done some good to keep order as a de facto government, but they

are ultimately a predatory one. They operate in a gap left by the inaction of

existing civil authorities.”

The Duke chortled.

“You do realise that the existing civil authorities is essentially me?”

“My friend Humphrey likes to say that privilege comes with

responsibility,” Jason said.

“He's a good boy,” Danielle said.

“I have to say, Mr Asano,” the Duke said. “You certainly live up to your

reputation.”

Jason shook his head sadly.

“When you're this handsome,” he bemoaned, “of course people are going

to talk. Why won't they let a guy live his life?”

Danielle ran a hand over her face.

“You just can't help yourself, can you?”

27

my name is Jason Asano

E lizabeth Silva stirred when she felt something press down on her large,

canopy bed. There was a young, bearded man in a dark suit sitting on

the other side, cross-legged. She opened her mouth to call for her guards,

before stopping herself. If they could have helped, they already would have.

Her bronze rank aura senses couldn't detect the man's aura at all, which

meant that he was dangerous.

“Hello, Miss Silva,” the man said. “I'm sorry to call on you so late.”

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I want you to understand that Old City is changing,” the man said. “The

days of criminal rule are coming to an end. Other members of your family

have come to understand this, but you've only seen weakness instead of

wisdom and pushed them all the harder. People are being hurt, innocent

people, and I'm here to convince you to stop.”

“So you're one of Dorgan's dogs,” she said.

“No,” the man said. “I'm an adventurer, and I have a contract. To make

people like you understand that these are new times. No one is saying you

can't be a crime boss. Wiping out crime altogether would be pointless and

foolish to even attempt. Having people like you retain a measure of power

keeps the chaos to a minimum. But that's what you get: a measure. The days

of the Big Three are over and trying to bring them back will only cause more

bloodshed, which I promise will include yours.”

“So the high and mighty Island government is going to bring us to heel

with death threats?”

The young man smiled.

“If I have to come back here, Miss Silva, you'll find my mercy does not

extend to killing you. My name is Jason Asano.”

A cold fear washed over her body as she recognised the name.

“Your cousin went to some effort to destroy me. I took longer than I

should have to rectify the scenario and my friends interrupted before I had

my taste of recompense. I would advise against being the means by which I

assuage my disappointment.”

A shadow rose up behind Asano, moved over his body and he was gone.

Belinda had finally undertaken her field assessment and the team was

gathered in the marshalling yard to await her return. With them was a rather

nervous Jory. The marshalling yard was crowded, with the many new essence

users that had appeared in the wake of the Reaper trials. The drop in market

price for essences wasn't a true democratisation of power, but many of

Greenstone's only reasonably well-off families were adding adventurers to

their ranks. An adventurer who found success would be able to raise their

family up with them.

Normally, the crowd gathered waiting would be the families of the

wealthy and powerful. This had been the case when Jason took his field

assessment. Before the expedition disaster shook their faith, they had been so

proud, so sure of themselves. In the wake of that, some families had realised

their errors and corrected. They instituted new training programs for their

essence users, frequently turning to the more successful adventuring families

like the Cavendish, Mercers and Geller clans for guidance. This helped

cement such families at the top of the Greenstone pile.

Other families had been looking for anywhere but themselves to place the

blame. Loudly decrying the failures of Danielle Geller and Elspeth Arella,

they had gone so far as to seek restitution from the Gellers and the Adventure

Society itself.

The results of these different approaches were reflected in the changes

brought about by the Adventure Society's inquiry team. The families that

looked to fix their mistakes and used the people they lost as a chance to grow

and improve saw their positions within the Adventure Society improve in

kind. After the sweeping demotions, these were the groups that most

frequently had their previous rankings reinstated.

Those that made an enemy of the Adventure Society obviously fared less

well. Arguably the single most powerful political entity on the planet, the

Adventure Society had no time for the admonitions of some lower-tier

aristocrats in one provincial city. Those families found their demotions

upheld, even to suffering additional waves of demotion. Many found their

family members had their Adventure Society membership revoked entirely.

Oddly, the outcry of fools railing against them was helpful to both

Danielle Geller and Elspeth Arella. The more they were blamed, the more

clearly the blame fell on systemic problems within the local adventurer

culture that neither Danielle nor Arella were responsible for. Danielle spent

most of her time away from the city, and whatever revelations had come out

regarding her motivations, Arella had been taking concrete steps to rectify the

corruption within her branch.

While the old adventuring families were undergoing changes in the wake

of the expedition, the people gathered in the marshalling yard represented a

new, post-expedition movement in Greenstone. Where the old guard had a

new sense of caution and humility, these new adventurers were filled with

optimism and hope.

The people around Jason's team were more aspirational than established,

anxious for the return of the person they had placed all their hopes on. For

many families, having an adventurer amongst them was a chance to lift all of

them up.

Jason knew that the reality was more harsh. Even amongst Greenstone's

elite, only a handful of families were producing quality adventurers. Jason

had seen the results of shattered illusions in young adventurers, like those

who fell under the sway of insidious nobility like Thadwick Mercer or

criminals like Cole Silva. Such people rarely met good ends. Of those that

had followed Thadwick, half had ended up dead at Jason's own hand. He

took solace that some of the others had managed to find fresh beginnings at

least.

Jason considered the group that had fallen under Thadwick's thumb. In

the course of investigating Thadwick's shady land-grab scheme, Jason had

decided the fate of most of them one way or another. The ones who had come

for him before had died at his hands.

Months later he was still troubled by how quickly and easily he had

turned to killing. He wondered if letting them go would have been better, but

they had come for him once before and brought larger numbers the second

time. Perhaps the longer he left it, the more killing it would have meant in the

end.

Two of Thadwick's former lackeys had managed to find some measure of

redemption. Dean was the one Jason had managed to put back on the straight

and narrow. Disillusioned when his dreams of being a grand adventurer fell

flat, he had been pulled into Thadwick's orbit at his lowest point. Jason

helped him find his way back, and while he was never going to be an

exceptional adventurer, there was still a place for him in Greenstone's

Adventure Society.

The other of the pair was Jerrick. Where Dean had surrendered

immediately that day, Jerrick had fought it out, and Jason had taken him

alive. Rather than being tried, he had been stricken from the Adventure

Society as part of the quiet covering-up of Thadwick's activities. After

Thadwick, Jerrick had fallen in with Cole Silva. He had then risked

everything to betray Silva and lead Jason's companions to him in his hour of

greatest need.

Whether or not it was a cynical choice to try and get his way back into the

Adventure Society, Jason didn't much care. When asked for his input, he

voiced no objection to Jerrick's reinstatement to the Adventure Society. Jason

met with him once after his reinstatement, advising him to work his way up

using his own strength, rather than attach himself to others. Whether Jerrick

took his advice or not was up to him, and was no longer Jason's concern.

Jason was stirred out of his thoughts by the attention his team was

getting. His aura senses detected the attention of normal people with no way

to control their own auras. Humphrey and himself were both fairly well-

known and his entire team were expensively outfitted. Jason had finally taken

Neil into Gilbert's Resilient Attire For the Discerning Gentleman and Neil

had come out looking annoyingly good. Occasionally, someone would try

and make a social approach, only to think better of it. Jason was helping this

along with the subtle aura he was projecting to heighten their unease. It was a

trick he had picked up from Humphrey's mother, who had been showing him

some nuances of aura control normally held off until bronze or even silver

rank.

“Has my mother spoken to you yet about the training program she was

talking about?” Humphrey asked Jason.

“She's mentioned it,” Jason said. “I don't hate the idea of what they're

doing.”

Danielle and Arella had a strained relationship since the expedition, but

both women recognised that as important figures in the adventuring

community they would need to put aside their differences. Danielle had told

Jason about a program they were looking to develop, offering the new wave

of adventurers some basic training. The goal was to prevent too many from

falling into the patterns that had put so many essence users under the sway of

the Big Three.

“Mother quietly thinks they can change the entire tenor of Greenstone's

adventuring culture,” Humphrey said.

“She and the director seem determined to have something good come out

of their shared mistake,” Jason said. “I have a lot of respect for that.”

“What do you think?” Humphrey asked. “Are you going to join in?”

“I'm not sure I'm qualified to teach anyone anything,” Jason said. “This

time last year I didn't even believe in magic.”

“It's just fundamental aura control,” Humphrey said. “Are you seriously

going to stand there, using your aura like that, and say you can't teach

someone the basics?”

“What's she roped you into teaching?” Jason asked.

“Basic martial technique. She's roped in a bunch of people, hasn't she,

Sophie?”

“If the Adventure Society is paying, I'll take it,” Sophie said.

“I've agreed to join in, too,” Neil said. “Not to teach anything, but make

sure Sophie's instruction doesn't kill anyone.”

“I'm not responsible for other people being weak,” Sophie said.

“Actually,” Jason said, “if you've agreed to teach people to fight, you're

directly responsible for them being weak.”

She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Huh. I guess you're right.”

The first wagon full of would-be adventurers arrived in the marshalling

yard. It was a large intake, so they had gone out in separate groups.

“She's going to pass, right?” Jory asked nervously.

“Of course she will,” Sophie said. “Right?”

“Right,” Neil said. “She has her full set of powers and she's been on a

road contract. She's more qualified than any of us were for our assessments.”

“So, what next?” Neil asked. “Back to adventuring?”

“We need to be looking for the right contracts, ones that will get us to

bronze,” Humphrey said. “The hardest iron-rank contracts we can find, plus

any bronze ones we can get. Now Jason is back to three stars, the application

process to claim a bronze-rank contract is much simpler.”

“We can do that?” Neil asked.

“It isn't done in Greenstone a lot,” Humphrey said. “Bethh Cavendish and

her team have been taking some bronze-rank contracts, since the Reaper

trials. The approval process is a pain unless you have a three star, which she

is.”

Groups of would-be adventurers started arriving, including Belinda's. She

dashed over to share hugs with Sophie and Jory.

“Any problems?” Jason asked.

“I'm quietly confident,” Belinda said. “I thought Vincent would go easy

on me, though. Aren't he and Rufus a thing?”

“The fact that he didn't go easy on you is the reason he and Rufus are a

thing,” Jason said. “They're both big on integrity.”

With the whole team officially on the Adventure Society rolls, they threw

themselves into contracts, with an eye to raising their abilities. Belinda and

Sophie had the most abilities in need of raising, so the team put them forward

more than the others. Aside from Clive, each member of the team had their

own new powers to master, though.

Clive was the closest to hitting bronze. He had been an adventurer the

longest and possessed the accelerated advancement speed of a human. He

was quietly letting the others take the forefront in the training, not wanting to

reach bronze yet. If it was possible to access the Order of the Reaper's astral

space, it was most likely that the iron-rank restriction was still in place. Once

inside they would all be free to hit bronze rank, as some of the Reaper trial

participants had done the first time through. Leaving the space had not been

an issue for them.

For Jason it was his familiars that required the most work, but his real

attention was on path of shadows, his shadow teleport ability. He had only

told Clive that there was a chance of finding a way back into the Order of the

Reaper's astral space and Clive had been quietly working on the issue using

information both from Emir's people and from Shade.

The iron-rank contracts were a chance for Belinda to keep cutting her

teeth on iron rank monsters, since her abilities were at the lowest level on the

team. They continued the technique they had learned from Henrietta of

mixing up combinations of team members and solo operations to push her

into using different powers. The team was always on hand to step in if

something went wrong.

The others sought out large groups of iron-rank monsters, or bronze-rank

ones when they could get them. Humphrey and Jason would even take them

on alone, both having powers that could bridge the rank gap.

As the mild desert winter moved almost imperceptibly into spring, the

team took an unconventional contract. East of Greenstone, inland beyond the

desert, lay the veldt. The people there were hardy and tough, beyond the

reach of the desert astral space and its oases. They rarely called on the

Adventure Society, but had sent word to Greenstone that a group of essence

user bandits had taken up in their area.

The inhabitants of the veldt kept mostly to themselves and even when it

came to monsters they usually handled them on their own. The use of every

essence found by the loose-knit band of communities was collectively

decided on, with a small group of local monster hunters serving them all.

They would only turn to the Adventure Society in Greenstone if something

beyond their abilities turned up. The people had an isolationist pride, but also

a practicality born of hardscrabble survivalist principles.

As the group was led by a bronze-ranker and had too many essence users

for the locals to deal with, the bandits had taken over a whole town, killing

most of the residents and enslaving the rest. They had started raiding the

other small towns of the veldt, trading loot and slaves to the nomadic tribes of

the north.

When Elspeth Arella had offered the team the contract, Jason and

Humphrey had discussed at length whether or not to take it. With the number

of bandits, the remoteness of their location and the chaos they had caused,

there was no stipulation for capture in the contract. The order was to put them

all down.

Jason was reluctant but Humphrey had been adamant.

“Jason, those people are going to die. The Adventure Society will send

someone out there to kill them and not everyone has your scruples. I'd rather

do it out of a sense of responsibility than send someone looking for a chance

to kill actual people instead of monsters.”

“Are there really adventurers that bloodthirsty?” Jason asked.

“Yes,” Humphrey said. “I've heard stories from my family. Been told

how to recognise the signs of adventurers I should never team up with. The

kind of people who will kill the bandits and then kill their victims because

they can. Then they'll blame it on the bandits and no one can say otherwise.”

“And the Adventure Society allows this?”

“Of course not,” Humphrey said. “But out in the wilderness, who's to say

what happened? Every now and again there'll be a push to implement rules

about using recording crystals when the contract is to take down real people

but there is always resistance. There are some valid arguments against it, like

the recording crystals being detectable, but mostly adventurers don't like

anything that reeks of shackles.”

“I can sympathise,” Jason said.

Eventually Jason came around. They took a boat upriver, then Clive

requisitioned a Magic Society skimmer from the local depot and they made

their way into the veldt. It was there that they met with Keith of the local

monster hunters, who led them to the bandit town. Jason had gone in alone to

scout before returning to the team.

He had discovered that the bandits were from Greenstone, criminal

essence users from the Silva and Ventress organisations. They had seen the

changes coming and left the city altogether, knowing the Big Three would no

longer provide them with the same level of reward. Many feared they would

be held to account for past misdeeds, when they had used their power within

the criminal underworld to live out their most depraved desires.

Under a charismatic leader, they had gone out into the veldt where they

believed the Greenstone authorities would not follow. Without the controlling

hand, however, they had gone wild. The escalating series of atrocities they

carried out as they raided the local townships had quickly led the locals to

call on the Adventure Society.

After scouting out their town, Jason told his team that he wanted to

handle the bandits alone. They immediately refused, but just as Humphrey

had talked him into taking the contract, he talked them into letting him do it

alone. They were reluctant but this situation was nothing like when he had

been taken by Silva. He would be fighting on his own terms, with his team

nearby to provide backup if things went wrong. The town, he argued, was

perfectly set up for him to fight using tactics that would allow him to use his

abilities to their fullest.

It took Jason some time to get them to come around. Ultimately, they

were convinced by his determination and resolve. The unflinching hardness

of his eyes was a perfect reflection of his aura. Once they agreed, their local

guide was flabbergasted.

“He's just one iron-ranker!”

Jason didn't respond as his shadow rose up, passing over him and he

vanished. Clive sent an expensive, long-range recording crystal flying high

up over the town. A projection crystal hovered in front of them, showing

what the first crystal recorded.

“You'll be able to see what happens for yourself,” Clive said.

28

while they watch me Kill you

T he town was little more than a cluster of stone and clay buildings along

a single main street. It was not the better for its new residents, with

signs of essence abilities being thrown about destructively. Walls were

cracked with impact rings and scorched with the flash-burn signature of fire

powers.

All seemed quiet, with no sign of Jason. There were bandits around the

town, along with some miserable-looking unfortunates that the bandits were

using as slaves. The bandits sat around, playing cards or molesting one of

their more attractive slaves. There were both men and women amongst the

bandits, who cared more about toughness and malevolence over gender.

Essences absolved any natural disparity in physical power between the sexes.

There was a corpse pinned to a wall with large stone spikes; the bandits

paid it no mind. Unseen in the shadows, Jason watched one of the enslaved

former residents look longing at the outskirts of the town, then fearfully at the

dead body. Even with a head start, there was nowhere to hide in the sparse,

flat terrain of the veldt. It was nothing but low grass marked by the

occasional lonely tree.

The bandits' languid day was disturbed when one came staggering out of

a building. It was a poor village and there were no doors on any of the

buildings which had the bandit loudly stumbling through a curtain of beads

before collapsing on the ground, blood pooling under his head. His fellows

rushed over and turned over the body, finding his throat cut.

“Someone killed Craig!”

Paying attention to the body, they didn't notice a pair of blood-red strips

of ragged cloth snake out of the doorway the dead bandit had emerged from.

Only once they had wrapped themselves around the corpse's legs were they

spotted, the bandits watching in startlement as the corpse was rapidly dragged

back into the building.

“What was that?”

“Go get the boss while I check it out. Someone thinks they can mess with

us and they're about to have a very bad day.”

One of the larger bandits flexed his muscles, dark, hard scales covering

his body. Others picked up weapons or conjured them out of thin air, some

wreathed in fire or sizzling with electric sparks. The one with the scales went

inside and the others heard him crashing about.

“Dammit, there's another one dead in here,” he called out, then stormed

back out of the room.

“Two of our guys are dead in there and none of you idiots saw or heard a

thing. What is wrong with you idiots?”

“Neither did you!”

That earned the speaker a punch to the face.

“I said go get the boss, idiots.”

He pointed out one of the bandits.

“You, go get him. Everyone else search the town. Whoever did this is

here somewhere, and roust everyone out while you're at it.”

Seeing the images recorded from high above, Jason's team watched as the

bandits started turning over the town. They found no sign of their attacker

beyond what had been left behind. Many of the buildings had dead bandits,

usually from a slice across the throat or a stab wound to the back of the neck.

Others looked like corpses left in the desert for weeks, their bodies dried out

and rotted, when they had been seen walking around hours or even just

minutes earlier.

The bandits dragged the bodies out into the sandy dirt of the main street

as they cleared the building one by one.

“Where's Vargas?”

“I saw him go into that building over there.”

“Did you see him come out?”

The bandits began to realise that more of their number were going

missing in the course of the search. They heard screams coming from one of

the buildings and then one of their number came staggering out, looking more

dead than alive. The big bandit with the scales rushed over and grabbed the

man's shoulders to keep him upright.

“Who was it?”

The man was barely able to cough out a response.

“Shadow… eye…”

They felt an ominous aura come from the building, along with an icy

voice.

“Suffer the cost of your transgressions.”

The bandit holding the man up felt flesh soften under his fingers. He

dropped the man as they watched his already corpse-like appearance fully rot

in front of their eyes. The big man burst into the building, but found it empty.

The bandits' leader emerged from the largest building in the town,

formerly the only tavern before the he had claimed it for himself. He had no

shirt and was still pulling up his pants, eyes going wide at the pile of the

bodies in the street. The remaining bandits, the better part of two dozen,

assembled in front of him.

The leader loudly demanded to know what was going on and a dozen

bandits all talked at once, unnerved at finding almost a quarter of their

number dead at the hands of unseen enemies.

“Shut up!” the leader bellowed.

He was about to make more demands when he looked behind the bandits

assembling in front of him. Following his gaze, they all turned around to see

four cloaked figures standing behind them in a line. One was a man in a cloak

made of darkness and stars. Another looked to be made of darkness entirely.

A third was wrapped head to foot in bloody rags, its hood and cloak made

from dangling strips. The final figure was just a cloak with no wearer. All

that was inside it was an eye, a little larger than a head, made of what looked

like blue and orange fire. Two orbs drifted around the floating cloak, slightly

smaller versions of the main eye.

The leader pushed his way forward through his men to stand in front of

them. He guessed the man in the cloak was an actual person; the others had

the looks of summons or familiars. The only aura he could sense from any of

them was a bronze-rank aura from the figure made of bloody rags.

Unsurprisingly, the sense he got from the aura was a blood drenched hunger.

“You killed my people?” the leader asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“So you would all gather in one place.”

“What for?”

“To kill the rest.”

The leader frowned. “You're Adventure Society?”

“Yes.”

“They just said to kill us, instead of bringing us in, right?”

“Yes.”

The leader was worried by his inability to sense the man's aura. If the

man was a strong bronze-ranker, his bandit clan might be enough to kill him

with numbers. If it was a silver ranker, they were all dead. Needing to know

either way, he pressed his aura down on the man.

The aura that emerged to block it left him almost laughing in surprise.

“An iron ranker?” he asked, disbelievingly. “You really thought you

could take us all out and you're an iron ranker?”

“I still think that,” came the cold reply.

“Who do you think you are?”

“Jason Asano.”

Many of the bandits, formerly operating under Cole Silva, turned pale.

They had all heard different stories but it was a fact that going after Asano

had brought down Cole Silva and scattered his organisation into pieces. It

was the very thing that brought many of them out into the veldt.

“Is that supposed to scare me?” the leader asked.

“No,” Jason said. “It's meant to scare them, while they watch me kill

you.”

The bandit sneered. He pressed his aura down on Jason's but was startled

to find he might as well be throwing an egg against a rock. The sneer

vanished as his aura was pushed back by a force that felt as inexorable as the

dawning sun.

“Kill this fool!” the leader barked, but Jason's aura flooded out and over

the bandits. It clamped down onto each one, grinding their own auras into

nothing. They were flooded with feelings of exposure and vulnerability, then

something sharp pricked not against their bodies but their very souls. As if

encased in a spiritual iron maiden, the bandits felt like any movement would

leave them pained and punctured.

The big bandit with the scales mustered his courage and lunged in Jason's

direction, He immediately collapsed, letting out an alien, whistling shriek

until suddenly he stopped. Lying on the ground, he looked like he was still

screaming but was issuing no sound. His eyes were wide and watering,

drenched in soul-deep fear. His whole body was rigid and trembling, as if

caught in a seizure.

The bandit leader looked down at the fallen bandit, then the others. They

were frozen in place, skin slick with cold sweat and eyes filled with terror. He

turned back to Jason.

“You expect me to surrender?”

Jason turned his head to look at the corpse pinned to the wall, then back

at the bandit.

“The contract has no terms of surrender.”

The bandit leader's expression went hard, fierce eyes locked on Jason.

Jason's perception power now included magical senses, which allowed

him to detect the magic surging under his feet. He dodged aside as a thick

stone spike burst from the ground in the spot where he had been standing.

The spike then exploded, showering him in stone fragments. An army of

short tendrils shot out from Jason's shadow cloak, intercepting any that were

about to strike him. He was completely unharmed.

Ability: Cloak of Night (Dark)

Conjuration (darkness, light, dimension).

Base cost: Moderate mana.

Cooldown: None.

Current rank: Bronze 0 (00%).

Effect (iron): Conjures a magical cloak that can alter the wearer. Offers

limited physical protection. Can generate light, or blend into shadows.

Cloak can reduce the weight of the wearer for a low mana-per-second

cost, allowing reduced falling speed and water walking. Cannot be given

or taken away, although effects can be extended to others in very close

proximity.

Effect (bronze): Cloak reflexively intercepts projectiles. Highly effective

against rapid, weaker attacks, but less effective against powerful,

singular attacks. Cloak allows gliding for low mana-per-second. Weight

reduction no longer costs mana unless affecting additional people.

Jason moved into the midst of the bandits, his movements light and quick,

his cloak floating around him. The bandits didn't move, frozen by the

sensation of knives against their soul and the memory of what happened to

their fellow.

A rack of stag horns grew from the bandit leader's forehead and he

barrelled through his own people to get at Jason. One was killed by the

spearpoint horns of their leader, while another two were knocked down. They

tried scrambling away but then screamed a moment before falling silent, like

their fellow before them.

Jason and the leader fought amongst the other bandits like duellists in a

statue garden. The leader was stronger and faster but Jason had learned to

fight from Rufus Remore. Compared the that, the skills of a failed backwater

adventurer were crude and buffoonish. He was all power and no finesse; if it

weren't for his bronze-rank reflexes, the fight would have been laughable.

Colin and Gordon remained where they were, not moving to assist.

Shade's three bodies, on the other hand, joined Jason and the bandit leader in

dancing amongst the other bandits. Jason teleported between Shade's bodies

to run rings around the bandit leader, dodging the powerful, but slow attacks.

It bought him the space to cast a spell or let him reposition to make attacks of

his own, with his dagger shooting forward in the grip of a shadow arm.

Not many of the bandits actually had aura powers. One who did had been

biding her time and when she found herself behind Jason, she pushed back

against his aura and lunged at his back with her knife, imbued with electrical

energy as she used an essence power on it. The instant she moved, Jason's

aura crushed hers like a bug in a fist. She too collapsed to the ground,

shrieking like the god of death had grabbed her.

Human essence users typically had a preponderance of special attacks and

the bandit leader was no different. Many involved flinging fragments of earth

over a wide area, which the leader did to try and catch the fast-moving Jason.

He quickly realised this was pointless, as the cloak absorbed the attacks with

ease. The leader tried a variety of other approaches, from conjuring and

throwing hammers to hurling stone spears. As Jason continued to dance

around him, the bandit's legs transformed into stag's legs, increasing his

agility. Chunks of stone erupted from the ground to encase his arms in

battering rams and he sprung about on the stag legs, trying to catch and

hammer down Jason.

Catching Jason still remained an elusive prospect. Every time he thought

he had landed a blow, it turned out Jason had hidden his true position within

his cloak, the blow coming close but hitting nothing.

Jason, in turn, had used a few spells at the beginning that seemed to do

nothing. The bandit leader assumed they had failed due to rank disparity.

Since then, all Jason could manage were superficial wounds from his dagger,

which the leader derisively sneered at. It was hardly surprising that a stealth

specialist couldn't truly harm a higher ranker in open combat.

The bandit paid no mind to the tiny wounds as he struggled to pin Jason

down. One good hit was all it would take. It took some time before he

realised something was horribly wrong. He had an increasing sense of dread,

then spotted the black veins under his skin.

“Poison,” he spat, coming to a stop.

“Disease, actually,” Jason said, doing likewise. “Not that it matters.”

“You think this iron-rank crap is enough to take me down?”

“Yes.”

As the bandit lunged, again, Jason once more disappeared into one of

Shade's bodies, emerging at a distance from the shadow of one of the

buildings. He was already chanting a spell.

“Suffer the cost of your transgressions.”

The punition spell withered the bandit leader's affliction-riddled body

with necrosis, his muscle atrophying on the spot. He staggered in place even

as Jason cast another spell.

“Feed me your sins.”

Ability: Feast of Absolution (Sin)

Spell (recovery, cleanse, holy).

Base cost: Low mana.

Cooldown: None.

Current rank: Bronze 0 (00%).

Effect (iron): Cleanse all curses, diseases, poisons and unholy afflictions

from a single target. Additionally cleanse all holy afflictions if the target

is an ally. Recover stamina and mana for each affliction cleansed. This

ability ignores any effect that prevents cleansing. Cannot target self.

Effect (bronze): Enemies suffer an instance each of Penance and

Legacy of Sin for each condition cleansed from them.

Penance (affliction, holy, damage-over-time, stacking): Deals ongoing

transcendent damage. Additional instances have a cumulative effect,

dropping off as damage is dealt.

Legacy of Sin (affliction, holy, stacking): You are considered more

damaged for the purposes of execute ability damage scaling. Additional

instances have a cumulative effect.

The bandit leader's life force became visible, shining from within his

body. It was tainted with afflictions, marked in swirls of bruise colours: ugly

shades of yellow, purple and red. The taint streamed out of the bandit leader's

life force and into Jason's outstretched hand. What it left behind was shining

light of gold and silver blue, sinking back into the bandit's body with his life

force and lighting him up from within, shining through his skin. The

transcendent light rapidly ate away at his already stricken body as the bandit

leader started to scream.

Jason cast one more spell, to finish the job.

“Mine is the judgement, and the judgement is death.”

More transcendent light appeared, hammering down from above like a

deity's wrath. The leader's crippled body was entirely eradicated and Jason

turned his attention to the remaining bandits.

“You aren't going to just kill us, right?” one of them asked, voice strained

with panic.

Jason looked round the little town and saw the people the bandits had

taken as slaves, watching from hiding. His eyes once again fell on the corpse

pinned to the wall.

“How many innocent people have you killed?” Jason asked. “There are

adventurers heading north, even as we speak, to bring back the people you

sold into slavery. In the face of that, you ask for mercy? If I took you back to

the city, they would just kill you there.”

Horror filled the bandits' faces as the realised they were about to die. The

bandits started scattering, in spite of the fear Jason's aura suppression was

still inflicting. The results were the same as those who had gone before as

they all immediately collapsed, screaming with a pain unlike anything they

had ever known before going silent, like the others.

Jason looked over them writhing on the ground and took a shuddering

breath. He had killed before, quite a lot now. This would be his first

execution. He was troubled by how little that prospect troubled him.

“Colin,” he said flatly. “Feed.”

Still standing by, Colin suddenly exploded like a bomb had hit him,

raining leeches down onto the bandits. Caught up in Jason's soul attack, none

of them screamed until Colin's afflictions claimed their lives.

Jason stood in the middle of the dead bandits, held his arms out to his side

and chanted a spell.

“As your lives were mine to reap, your deaths are mine to harvest.”

Ability: Blood Harvest (Blood)

Spell (drain).

Base cost: Low mana.

Cooldown: None.

Current rank: Bronze 0 (00%).

Effect (iron): Drain the remnant life force of a recently deceased body,

replenishing health, stamina and mana. Only affects targets with blood.

Effect (bronze): Affects any number of bodies in a wide area.

Using their remote viewing crystal, the team watched as blood-red life

force streamed out of the bodies and into Jason. From above, he looked like a

spider at the centre of a bloody web.

“Now, I'm not looking to give no offence,” their guide said, “but your

man there seems worse than the folk he was sent after.”

“An opinion you'll keep to yourself,” Humphrey said sharply, although

his eyes didn't waver from the projection. “If I hear you say that where he

can hear it, you'll be answering to me.”

“Oh, don't worry on that account,” the man said. “He's going to find

everyone real polite.”

29

inherently corrupting

T he ordinary people left in the town weren't inclined to come out after

Jason's display. From their perspective, the shadowy figure with the

monstrous companions was demonstrably more dangerous than the bandits.

Jason left, leaving the heroic-looking Humphrey and their local guide to

come in and play rescuer.

There was a floating barge coming to take the townsfolk away. It moved

slower than the skimmer they had arrived in and would be waiting in another

town for the all-clear. Jason volunteered to go and bring back the barge.

“You've done your part,” Humphrey told him. “Clive can go back in the

skimmer.”

“I'd like to do it,” Jason told him. “I could use a ride to clear my head.”

“At least take someone with you. Sophie isn't the exactly the sensitive

rescuing type.”

“What I'm looking for is some solitude, Humphrey. Some time to settle

myself after…”

Jason looked over at the remains of the bandits, not finishing the

sentence.

In horse form, Shade at full gallop was no slower than the skimmer and

just as tireless. The midnight horse with glowing white eyes, hooves and

mane sped across the grassy flatland of the veldt, leaving behind a trail of

white mist, rising off the hooves. Shade's horse form was made of shadow-

stuff, rather than flesh and bone, and had a similar feel to the soft cloud-

substance that made up Jason's cloud house. It made for a smooth,

comfortable ride.

He reached the town that was being used as a base of operations for the

Adventure Society. It had turned out that the criminals coming from

Greenstone had set up a number of bandit operations and Jason had only

wiped out one of several groups. More teams like Jason's had been

dispatched to key areas while the Adventure Society set up an operations hub.

Jason went inside and reported that his team had been successful to the silver-

ranker in charge, someone he hadn't met before.

The Adventure Society wasn't just going to leave the people Jason had

liberated in a town full of the dead, so the barge was sent off. Jason made his

way onto the roof, sitting down to quietly meditate as the hovering vehicle

smoothly made its way across the veldt.

Jason's meditation was uneasy. He had become accustomed to his life

being one of violence and he felt largely untouched by it anymore. This was a

source of concern since, while it was useful, he worried about losing his

humanity. He was, after all, no longer human.

Each time he killed people, rather than monsters, he thought back to his

first night in his new world and his conversation with Rufus. Every time, he

felt more and more separate from the man who wondered if his innocence

was a worthwhile price for power.

Meditation had long been one of Jason's key coping mechanisms. After

his encounter with the star seed, he had a much stronger sense of his own

soul, which made meditation a very different experience. It was more

involved, more controlled, a journey through an inner world.

He began by guiding his thoughts and feelings away, placing his mind

and soul into a state of perfect stillness. His sense of his surroundings was

somehow both heightened yet pushed aside, not intruding as he cultivated an

inner peace.

In the past, his deepest meditative state had felt like a vast, still

emptiness. Now he was able to sense things within that inner space. There

was the comforting presence of his familiars, residing in his soul. As he

reached a state of stillness and calm, he felt them do likewise. Over time he

had come to feel the symbiosis between them much more clearly.

Within his soul, Jason opened his eyes and was standing in a garden, lit

up by the sun, shining in a blue sky. The plant beds were his powers,

flowering in shades of red, white and black. The flowers of his bronze-rank

powers had grown to fill their space, unable to grow further until the garden

was enlarged.

The borders of the garden were marked by a high fortress wall of dark

stone. There was damage, as if they had been besieged, but the gaps were

filled with black metal. The damage had uncovered something stronger and

stranger beneath the surface. The metal was polished mirror smooth, dark and

reflective with an eerie and fathomless feel to it. It was easy to sense that it

was much harder than the stone of the original construction, which it made

seem like a facade, daring an invader to strip it away.

Jason walked through the gardens, letting his finger touch the flower

petals. When he first began his training, Rufus had told Jason of the three

pillars of effective advancement: training, practise and consolidation. At the

time he had simply trusted Rufus's word, training his body and skills, then

using them in combat and using meditation to make the most of his gains,

building a foundation and growing his power upon it.

Now, Jason had a much better sense of that process. Above his head,

unconsolidated power shimmered like a heat haze. He could feel it, shaped by

his training and stimulated by combat. He drew that power down and fed it

into the garden beds, fertiliser to be soaked up by the roots of his powers. He

worked carefully, methodically, always respecting the power and never

acting with haste. He cultivated the garden to grow well, rather than quickly,

and grow it did.

Ability Path of Shadows (Dark) has reached Iron 9 (100%).

Ability Path of Shadows (Dark) has reached Bronze 0 (00%).

Ability Path of Shadows (Dark) has gained a new effect.

Ability Path of Shadows (Dark) has changed from Special Ability to

[Special Ability/Conjuration]. The type for any given use of the ability is

based on the effect.

Ability Path of Shadows (Dark) has gained the Darkness subtype.

Base cost of ability Path of Shadows (Dark) has changed from Low to

Varies.

Cooldown of ability Path of Shadows (Dark) has changed from None

to Varies.

Ability: Path of Shadows (Dark)

Special Ability/Conjuration (dimension, teleport, darkness).

Base cost: Varies.

Cooldown: Varies.

Current rank: Bronze 0 (00%).

Effect (iron): Teleport using shadows as a portal. You must be able to see

the destination shadow. This effect is a special ability with a low mana

cost and no cooldown.

Effect (bronze): You can sense nearby shadows and teleport to them

without requiring line of sight. By increasing the cost to moderate, small

shadows can be enlarged to serve as viable portals at both the ingress

and egress points. Alternatively, conjure a shadow gate between two

locations on a regional scale. The distant gate must appear in a location

you have previously visited. This effect is a conjuration with a very high

mana cost and a 10 minute cooldown. The iron-rank effect can still be

used while this ability is on cooldown.

With his new awareness and more controlled advancement, an ability

transitioning to bronze was a different experience to what he had gone

through in the past. The advancement of his perception power had been

unpleasant, painful and disorienting. This time he slowed and guided the

process, making it painless, smooth and invigorating.

“Very impressive,” Arabelle said.

Jason's eyes snapped open. In spite of his aura senses being heightened

by his meditation, he had not sensed her approach at all. Of course, if a gold

ranker with even basic aura control wanted to avoid his senses, they could.

He still couldn't detect her presence with his aura senses, which was a little

off-putting while looking right at her. It made her seem illusory and unreal.

She was standing casually at the edge of the barge roof, looking down at

him, still sat in a meditative pose.

“You're not here as part of the barge team,” Jason said. “You've been

hiding. From me.”

“Yes,” she said. “I couldn't help but tell you how impressed I am, though.

Most people reach bronze or even or silver before they can self-guide their

advancement like that.”

“You could see that?”

“I can see your soul, Jason.”

“Because that's not ominous at all.”

She gave him a warm smile.

“I can see the scars on your soul,” she said. “More clearly than the ones

on your body, even if you were standing naked before me.”

“Best not,” Jason said. “A bloke can't go around doing funny business

with his mate's mum.”

She let out an easy laugh.

“Aren't you going to ask me what I'm doing here?” she asked.

“People wanted to make sure nothing happened to me again,” Jason said.

“And that you weren't doing anything foolish,” she added. “I almost

intervened when you convinced your team to let you face the bandits alone.”

“They have faith in me.”

“I heard you didn't care much for faith.”

“Yeah, but you use what you've got,” Jason said.

“That's an interesting choice of words,” Arabelle said. “You said 'use.'

These are your friends and companions we're talking about. You use them?”

“Manipulation is just a tool,” Jason said. “Like killing. Dangerous when

used inappropriately, but sometimes it's the right choice, even when people

look down on you for it.”

“And you wanted to manipulate them into letting you do the killing. Why

is that?”

“Slaughtering some thirty-odd people isn't a small thing, even if you've

killed before, which not all of the others have.”

“But it's alright for you to do it alone?”

“I've been working my way up. I'm alright with it.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

“No.”

“Good, because we will be talking about this again. Just not on the

rooftop of a barge, a hundred miles from a decent cup of tea.”

“I have some iced tea, if that interests you.”

“Really?”

Jason hopped lightly to his feet and took a pair of tall glasses filled with

fruit-flavoured iced tea, the chunk of ice in each clinking against the glass.

“Thanks,” Arabelle said, taking the proffered glass and sipping at the

paper straw. “That's a good straw.”

“I know a guy with the paper essence,” Jason said as they sat on the edge

of the roof, their legs hanging over the side. “Mostly he works in publishing

but I've been talking him into some side projects. Ever had a drink with a

tiny umbrella in it?”

“Why would a drink have a tiny umbrella?”

“It makes it better.”

“How?”

“It's a kind of magic from my world.”

“I thought your world didn't have magic.”

“That's why we have to get creative. There's a magician in my world

who made a ninety-metre statue vanish and reappear, right in front of people.

It's probably the most famous statue on the whole planet. It's called Liberty

Enlightening the World, which ultimately proved a bit ironic.”

“How can someone be a magician in a world without magic?”

“With misdirection and deceit, which aren't inherently bad. They can be

used to entertain and delight. It's just that people can also use them for

untoward ends, because there's money and power in it. Let me tell you,

politics in this world is child's play. In my world, everyone has a recording

crystal device and no one has magic. Even the most ignorant, at least in my

homeland, just have a better idea of how it all works. No inherent hierarchies

of power. You have to build them yourself, or be born into them.”

“That's why you are so dismissive of them,” Arabelle said.

“That, and they shaft people over.”

“It sounds fertile soil for corruption,” Arabelle said.

“There's no such thing as an incorruptible system. All you can do is your

best to make it less crappy.”

“What about if a god was running it? Who could influence a god to

corrupt them?”

“I'll refer that question to the church of Purity,” Jason said.

Arabelle scowled.

“I don't like what's happening there,” she said. “Why would Purity throw

his followers in with these cultists? They're defilers.”

“You don't have to tell me,” Jason said. “I've got the scars on my soul to

prove it.”

“Yes, your soul is almost unrecognisable from when we first met. Actual,

aura-changing events are rare and you've had three in a series of months. It's

probably for the best that you have that personal crest, because between the

changes and your anti-tracking ability, trying to identify you from your aura

without it would be an unreliable prospect.”

“The changes aren't completely bereft of benefits,” Jason said.

“Yes, your ability to suppress auras and attack souls is impressive in

action,” she said. “At iron-rank, only those with highly trained aura control or

an ability to counter aura suppression will be able to stand up to you. That

said, don't go thinking you could do to the likes of Humphrey or your friend

Valdis what you did to a bunch of untrained dregs. You should keep in mind

all the elite adventurers who assembled for Emir's event. They are your

contemporaries, not these locals.”

“I'm aware,” Jason said. “We sparred with some great teams and they

handed back our butts in a box on the regular.”

“I recommend you practice your aura control with your teammates,”

Arabelle said. “It's hard to find people you can trust to do suppression and

anti-suppression drills with.”

“I'm wary of that,” Jason said. “When I first gained the power to use soul

attacks, I told myself I wouldn't if I didn't have to. Of course, that didn't last

long. It's almost as if power were inherently corrupting.”

“We can discuss that at length, later,” Arabelle said.

“There may not be time for that,” Jason said. “The ability I've been

waiting on was the one that just reached bronze. It's time to start trying to get

into the astral space in earnest.”

When the sand barge arrived, the Adventure Society officials on board took

over from Jason's team in managing the rescued people. The team gathered

around Jason, obviously worried.

“I'm fine,” he assured them, not mentioning Arabelle's presence in the

veldt. If she wanted to remain hidden, he wasn't going to spoil it.

As his team prepared to return to Greenstone via the skimmer they had

rode out on, Jason tested his newly bronze-rank power. He waved his hand

and a line of substantive shadows appeared on the ground, dancing like dark

flames. Then an archway rose up out of it, made from what looked like of a

whole piece of polished obsidian. The dark fire then rose to fill the arch.

“That looks an awful lot like the shadow gates in the Order of the

Reaper's astral space,” Humphrey said, then looked to Jason and Clive.

“Something neither of you seem surprised about.”

“I had an inkling,” Jason said. “Shade has seen that power before.”

“What aren't you telling us?” Humphrey asked.

“That's a conversation for later,” Jason said.

“Where does the gate go?” Clive asked.

“Back to the town where the Adventure Society set up their management

hub.”

Jason squared his shoulders before walking through, emerging in the

middle of the town's main street. The sensation was very familiar to him: a

disembodied sensation of movement, as if the world was turning around him.

It was more intense than his usual shadow jumps, but he had experienced it a

number of times now, with Hester's portals.

A number of people were looking at him, having seen the archway rise up

out of the ground. Sophie came through the portal after him, then Clive. He

lacked the astral affinity that made portal travel more of an exhilarating rush

than stomach-churning lurch.

“Alright, test over,” Jason said. “Back we go.”

“Give me a moment,” Clive groaned.

On the way back to the city they experimented with the power, finding three

major limitations. One was distance. As best they could tell, the range was

around forty kilometres. Clive told Jason that was normal for a portal ability

and he could expect it to rapidly improve. It would increase by its current

range at each minor threshold of advancement, meaning that by the time it

reached the peak of bronze rank, it would have ten times the range.

The next second limitation was capacity. Ten iron-rankers or one bronze

ranker could pass through the gate in either direction before the power was

consumed. One iron ranker would be able to pass through and come back five

times before the gate was depleted.

They were able to talk a bronze-ranker they encountered on the way back

into testing it, but could not find enough regular people willing to walk

through the sinister magic archway for testing purposes. Suggesting that the

ones who were up for it go through and back multiple times resulted in the

few they could find backing out. It was at that point that Belinda asked the

obvious question.

“Why not just ask your interface power?”

Jason and Clive looked at each other, then shared a nod.

Help: Ability limitations, Path of Shadows (Dark).

Capacity (Bronze 0): 1 bronze-rank, living entity. Alternatively, 10 iron-

rank instead of 1 bronze, and 10 normal-rank instead of 1 iron-rank.

Capacity is reduced by taking large amounts of non-living material

through, either directly or in dimensional bags. Items in dimensional

storage generated by personal powers do not count against the capacity.

Range (Bronze 0): 40 kilometres. Destination must have been previously

visited, before or after obtaining this ability.

“That was deliberate,” Jason said.

“We wanted to field-test the power with unbiased views before looking to

the interface,” Clive added.

“You forgot the blindingly obvious thing, didn't you?” Belinda asked.

“Yes,” Clive said immediately. “Yes, we did.”

“Seriously, Clive?” Jason asked. “You folded like an origami swan you

have to put somewhere without throwing it away for long enough that the

person who made it for you won't get offended when you finally throw it out

and claim the humidity made it fall over or something.”

“That was very specific,” Sophie said.

“Completely hypothetical,” Jason asserted firmly.

“What's origami?” Neil asked.

After getting back to the city, Clive and Jason told the team about the idea of

going back into the Order of the Reaper's astral space.

“There are no guarantees,” Clive said. “Jason's ability doesn't say

anything about breaching dimensional barriers. That means we have no idea

if we can get it to work, or how long it will take to figure that out. I'll be

going to stay with Emir's team at Sky Scar Lake to work on the issue and

Jason will be portalling in every day so we can do a series of tests.”

“In the meantime,” Jason suggested, “those of us who planned to work at

the training centre being set up should do just that. We can also use this time

to decide, as a team, if going back to the astral space is something we want to

do. We have no idea how many unknown dangers we would face, so even if

we can go back, it doesn't mean that we should.”

30

beholden to no One

O ne of the ways Jason had made positive use of his recovery time was to

get himself back into a training pattern. Rufus, Gary and Farrah had

worked to instil good habits during his initial training, but the eventful life of

an adventurer inevitably led to him letting things slide.

Rufus, Gary and Jason's team had often felt helpless at their inability to

help Jason after his ordeal. They were forced to leave things in the hands of

first Carlos and then Arabelle, who had the experience and expertise to give