As the ship approached Greenstone’s artificial isnd, Jason and his panions were gathering in a spaot unlike a hotel lobby. Aspects of the vessel were simir to a cruise ship, although heavier oy and utility spaces and lighter on aodation. Even Emir only travelled around with fifty or so staff, and Jason had far fewer people on board than that.

  Jason was walking towards the lobby with Sophie and Humphrey as Sophie voiced her unhappiness with the destination. She hadn’t joined Belinda in their early visit to their hometown, and she wasn’t keen on going now.

  “I don’t see why we’re even here,” she said. “What does this pce have to offer us anymore? And I know you don’t like all this pageantry, Jason.”

  “You’ve always liked your ostentation spontaneous,” Humphrey pointed out. “Having it scheduled and anised doesn’t seem like you.”

  “It’s not for me,” Jason said. “Or for you, Humphrey. A special event doesn’t seem special to you because you’re the prince of this town. It may have a Duke, but everyone knows that the Gellers are the real power here. You were born fger things than this town has to offer, so a triumphaurn visit doesn’t mean much.”

  “Then what is all this for?” Humphrey asked.

  “Every aristocratic house ione will be represented in the crowd waiting for us. Not just some pointless nephew, either. Elders, heads of house. anisations, too. Directors of the Magic Society, the Adventure Society, the Alchemy association. There are as many of Greenstone’s silver rankers gathered here as have ever e together in one pce before.”

  “What do you care about the nobility of some low-magic backwater?” Sophie asked, not hesitating to talk down about her hometown. “You socialise with gods and kings and diamond rankers.”

  “I told you, it’s not about me. Right now, all those people are gathered at the Adventure Society’s VIP dock. And who are they waiting for? It’s not me. People haven’t been talking about me for years, and I was only famous amongst Adventure Society insiders. These people are gathering for Team Biscuit. Adventuring legends and hometown heroes. For you, Humphrey, that’s not a big deal. Everyone expected big things of you. But think about all those people, and who else they’re here to see.”

  He g Sophie.

  “People know your story, Sophie. They’ve doubtless mythologised it well outside anything that’s actually true, but that’s not what matters. What matters is that a pair of girls from Old City became famous adventurers. And now they’re ing home, celebrated by the city’s elite.”

  “I never wao be a role model.”

  “Too bad. And it’s not just for the little Sophie and Belinda, either. Neil’s family have been stuck as what amounts to servants to the Mercer’s for years, but now the most powerful people iy have to show them respect. Today they get to stand tall as Neil es home, probably dressed in his aunt’s awful clothes. And you know who else is waiting for us? A of eel farmers. The important people of this city would cross the road to avoid them, but today, those eel farmers will be front are, waiting for their boy to e home. And those important people are stuck standing behind them.”

  “Does it always have to be a speech with you?” Sophie asked. “You could have just said it will be nice for Neil and Clive’s families to see.”

  “That seems a little reductive.”

  “I think you just like hearing yourself talk.”

  “What are you talking about? Everyone loves hearialk.”

  ***

  The Adventure Society VIP dock was on the o side of Greenstone’s artificial isnd. The expectation was that if your vessel needed a sheltered harbour, you weren’t important enough to use it. he dock was a rge building normally used for social events, as the dock itself spent most of its time empty. This also allowed the attending lumio save face. They could tell themselves they were attending a social fun, not standing around, waiting for more important people thao arrive.

  The building had beeructured just a couple of years ago, and most of its three stories were gss walls. Elspeth Arel looked out at the o from the third floor, radiating a ck of desire for pany. Most of the attendees were looking to ingratiate themselves with the Geller boy and his famous team. Jason Asano was a hat hadered their minds in years, and it seemed only Elspeth herself was focused on him. If they were all very lucky, that wouldn’t ge.

  She had been expeg to sehe ship before she saw it, but roven wrong as it crested the horizon. Even as it drew closer, revealing he it was, she sensed nothing, even staring right at it. She khat most of the attendees would not notice, let alone uand the significe. They were socialites and mert barons, not warriors and soldiers. The Messenger War had left Greenstely untouched.

  That vessel was a message about power and who held it, and it was not ohat the Director of the Adventure Society missed. She also khat it was not actal; Danielle Geller was on that ship. She did not send unintended signals, and she did not like Elspeth.

  As the ship he shore, the collective group went outside. She gnced around, watg the crowd with her aura senses as well as her eyes. She’d put reliable people in key positions, hoping to keep votile elements under trol, but the potential for disaster was very real. One moment, a lord’s idiot son might be mog the of eel farmers, unhappy they were given pride of pce. The idiot would be hurtling out to sea at the hands of a gold ranker in about three seds and things would only devolve from there. Elspeth’s spectrum for the success of the event ranged from a brawl to a massacre.

  The massive vessel pulled up at the dock, rger than the building in which people had been waiting for it. Elspeth couldn’t help but remember the simir se of Emir Bahadir’s arrival. This ship was different, in that the aterial of the vessel was only visible iioween rge pahat covered it.

  Elspeth wondered if the different ship signalled a different oute. Emir Bahadir wasn’t easy to handle, but the treasure hunter knew how to navigate the locals on a visit like this. Jason Asano was smooth as sandpaper, always rubbing people wrong. During his time ione, he’d somehow befriended every person who owerful and indepe enough to make Elspeth’s job hard, and annoyed everyone else.

  Clouds wafted from the ship to create a wide bridge, and a gap opened in the side of the ship. The Gellers emerged, Danielle and her son who was being as famous as she was. o the Geller boy was a man who looked simir enough to be a younger brother, but with silver hair and eyes.

  It was only after Humphrey Geller left Greenstohat Elspeth discovered that he’d been wandering around with an actual gods-bedamned dragon the whole time. She’d known he had a shapeshifting familiar, of course, but an actual, true bloon? His mother had told her it was a lyre drake, but Elspeth should have knower than to trust Danielle Geller.

  She catalogued the rest as they came over the bridge. The thieves she’d oasked her society branch to hunt down, not knowing the chaos that would ensue. Asano, the mairator of that chaos. The Magic Research Association’s archcellor. The uncultured cheering that arose from the grubby-looking farmers at the appearance of the refined man of magic was a strange ingruity.

  Elspeth’s gaze moved back to Asano. He caught her gaze for a moment before looking away, chatting amiably with the Devone boy. Then she felt a strange shimmer of aura around her and the sounds around her deafened. Asano’s voice came out of nowhere.

  “It’s not me you have to worry about, director. I’m not the one you tried to sell to Lu Lamprey as a means to ske his deprived appetites. But you don’t really have to worry about Sophie, either, because she’s dedicated herself to being a good person. She has this friend, though. You might want to cheder your bed for alchemical bombs until we’re gone again.”

  Elspeth was at the front of the line for meet and greets. Asano olite, as if meeting a passing acquaintaer a long time.

  “I’d like the ce for you and I to talk, Mr Asano. Adventurer business.”

  “Of course, director.”

  What came was a lengthy and tedious sequence of introdus arodus, carefully orchestrated in order ah. After her experiences with Asano in the past, she was amazed that it all went to pn. There was none of his signature disruption or anti-authoritarian antics. It seemed that he had learned some diploma the st couple of decades. As for who had male the lunatic, she noticed Danielle Geller throwing gnces his way.

  By the time it was all over, the ohing Elspeth least expected to happen had taken pce: everything had goo pn. No aristocratic feuds fring up. No spoiled rich kids had made trouble out and pride. Asano hadn’t decided to take umbrage with anyone and start throwing people into the o now he was gold rank and no one could stop him.

  As she made her way back to her office, she felt a strange relief, even as a new wued at her mind. She would o look closer into those former thieves, and she had just the person to ask. On reag her office, she ged into a hooded outfit that would not look out of p the Old City, then headed out to see her father.

  ***

  Adris Dan py man. Once a powerful crime lord, he found that legitimacy sat very well with him. As mayor of Old City, he’d dragged it kig and screaming from the old days into a new era. Aristocratic families, as it turned out, were far more criminal than the old crime families, and with none of the sense of code or unity. Now that Adris could shield the people from at least some of that, Old City was being a better pce for its people.

  His daughter was less happy. She had wao leave the city and rise through the ranks of the Adventure Society, and that had all e to nothing. Ohat had angered him, but those days were long gone. Greenstone was quiet, far from the Messenger War. The days of the Builder cult and the strange monster surges were almost two decades gone, and Greenstone was safe. Having his daughter safe and close were treasures to a father.

  Walking through his library, he stopped dead. His mind fshed back to an enter twenty years ago, where he found a young man staring at a picture in the library of his old home. The library was different, but it was the same man doing the same thing now, having once again ignored his security. Adris moved to where the man was staring at the painting.

  “A long time ago,” Asano said, not looking from the painting “you offered to help me get my hands of a work or two by Moher. Said he was a family friend.”

  “He still is.”

  “I might take you up on that, if the offer is still open.”

  “I suppose that depends on what your iions are otherwise.”

  “I gave your daughter a little prod and she’ll be ing to see you. I thought it might be a good idea for her and I to have a little chat.”

  “I once warned you about interfering in my daughter’s affairs, Asano. I don’t care if you’re some all-powerful gold ranker, and I’m just a politi who got to silver with cores. If you do anything to her, I’ll find a way to kill you.”

  Asano finally turned from the painting to fsh a smile.

  “I like you, Mr Dan. Family is important. Nothing will happen to your daughter from my people, even if she does have it ing. That’s not what we’re here for. I’d like to clear the air, now the power dynamic has shifted since my st stay ione. Also, there’s something she wants to discuss with me, and I thought it might be awkward in a room where she once dangled me in the air by the throat.”

  “And you’re sure she’s ing here?”

  “She’s crossing the bridge to Old City now.”

  “You’re having her watched?”

  “No, I’m just trag her with my aura senses.”

  “How do you extend your perception that far without washing the city in your aura?”

  “Practise.”

  “Well, I offer you a cup of tea while we wait?”

  “That would be lovely, thank you.”

  ***

  Jason sat across from Elspeth in one of her father’s eaining courtyards. It had enclosed walls covered in pnts growing out of alcoves, and en to the sky. The furniture was ornate wrought metal, with plush padding. A tea set occupied most of the table between them, plete with ses with gemberry jam and huge dollops of whipped cream. Jason paid more attention to those than he did the Adventure Society director.

  “What I do for you?” he asked as he dabbed at the cream around his mouth with a napkin.

  “How familiar are you with Boko, Mr Asano?”

  “A city to the north of here. A lot older thaone, with a popution native to the area. If I recall correctly, most of Greenstone’s people are desded from the iercost immigrants, I think, only a few turies ago. Boko is a city of academics, if I recall correctly.”

  “Schors of the arts. Painting, poetry, sculpture, dance. People travel from across the ti and beyond to visit their theatres.”

  “I only passed through briefly. A portal stop, iermath of that disastrous expedition. It’s pretty, as I recall. Lots of gardens.”

  “Do you happen to recall a group of raiders that came south during your time here?”

  “I do. I art of the group that dealt with them. They were rural tribesfolk, weren’t they? From the areas around Boko?”

  “That’s what we thought at the time. As it turns out, their ins were in Boko proper. It began as some kind of anti-intellectual movement amongst low rankers aed from there. Moved out of the city and into areas where education was less of a priority. There, it festered like a setting back to primal manhood, that kind of thing. It thrives on low-rank, disenfranchised young men.”

  “I’m familiar with the basic idea.”

  “We had thought this particur movement had died out, but there has been a resurgen the st few years.”

  “Why bring this to me? Isn’t this a loroblem?”

  “It’s not your rank that makes me want you involved. I’ve been keeping an eye on this alongside my terpart in Boko. Our initial belief was that this was a naturally arising, detralised movement. It probably was, in the beginning, but we’re starting to suspeanner anisational force behind it. Whether they were there at the beginning, or co-opted an emerging cultural phenomenon, we believe they are using it building a powerful political block, the arms of which don’t even realise they are heads of the same hydra. They keep their hands hidden, using populist groups as their faow it tre portions of the rural areas around Greenstone, Boko and the Veldt. If we tried to reach out and quash it, we’d have towns and vilges across half the ti in borderline rebellion.”

  “Do you have any sense of their objective?”

  “Industry, to start. The produ of spirit s and nature green stone is a lot of money, when taken as a whole.”

  “You think someone is looking to trol small local govers? Extort shady tariffs on everyone operating in the region?”

  “Something like that. If money is their end goal, we live with some graft. It’s not like the aristocrats are aer. Our is if they have a rger and more sinister agenda. Moving their power base into Greenstone and Boko, maybe. Or quietly supp more traditional problem groups in ions. Illegal magical research requires funding, after all, just like the legitimate research. Whatever the ultimate purpose, it’s an ongoing .”

  “So, why not go in and clear them out?”

  “We haven’t seen an approach like this before. It’s a matter of mi. On this world, we always think top-down first. Rank hierarchy, which is why you get to e into my city and make a giant mess. The golds do what they like, the silvers run most of it and the bronze rankers do what they’re told.”

  “I never had much time for that.”

  “Oh, I remember. This operation, movement, whatever it is, they think differently too. Bottom up. People barely think about the iron-rankers and the normal. Even in a low-magie like Greenstohey don’t hold a lot of influehis movement takes the people our way of thinking ignores and melds them into a power built not on magical strength but ideological indoation. Taking disenfranchisement and isotion and turning it into a sense of belonging, welded to cultural cepts that make them easy to manipute.”

  “You’re saying that whoever is behind this isn’t operating like someone from your world.”

  “Back when you were living here ione, even I kept hearing about your endless pontifig about how our society was all wrong. People were dodging you in the admin building so they didn’t have to listen to it. And I remembered my horror at hearing that more of your kind had arrived. That was two monster surges ago, and I never heard anything else about it. But when we heard you were ing back, Virenslow remembered enough of what you would talk about then to put things together. Power derived frroups of the weak.”

  “That’s not how I put it.”

  “But I think Vi was right. He suggested that whoever is behind all this might e, not from our world, but from yours.”

  Annou

  TL;DR:

  No chapters st week of August and first week of September

  Dragon appearance schedule below

  I'll be taking some time off to attend Dragon at the end of August into the start of September. That's a lot of travel time, to and from Australia, especially my part of it, which is an isnd south of the mainnd. I'll be taking two weeks, which will include a little time to recharge the batteries.

  For those who will be attending Dragon and want to see what I'm up to, here is my event schedule (subject to ge by anisers):

  Wednesday (Pre- event): In versation with Matt Dinniman, author of Dungeon Crawler Carl. There will be signings at the ends, but this is more Matt's event than mine, and will require purchasing one of his new re-releases to attend. https://eagleeyebooks./event/2024-08-28/matt-dinniman-talks-dungeon-crawler-carl-w-shirtaloon

  Friday 2pm: Book signing session at the Aethon booth (booth 3502).

  Saturday 10am and 2:30pm: Panels, both at the Embassy CD Hyatt Sunday 7pm: litRPG event at the Iional North-South Hyatt

  Sunday 7pm: litRPG event, Iional North-South Hyatt

  Monday 1pm: Panel, Embassy CD Hyatt