“Let’s assume,” Jason told Elspeth, “that someone from Earth is pulling the strings. There were a bunch of them iercost and I left them twisting in the wind for years. It only makes sehat they’ve go and started doing things. But, even assuming that someone from Earth is your problem, my being from Earth too doesn’t solve it.”

  He sighed, then sipped at his tea appreciatively.

  “You know, Greenstone really does have the best tea I’ve had in Pallimustus.”

  “We’re not here to talk about tea.”

  “That’s a shame,” he said, a his teacup down with a regretful gnce. “I was enjoying making purely social calls tely.”

  “Asano…”

  He groaned.

  “Director, let’s take a look at your situation. The Ustei tribesmen who came south during my time here ione predate the arrival of more people from Earth by what? Three years, give or take? Assuming that there is someone maniputing this movement of yours, and further assuming that they’re from Earth, this means that they ied themselves into aing situation.”

  “The violent ones aren’t the issue. Those we just deal with. It’s the groups that are building up, growing their influence amongst the popution, but not taking any violent a. They’re digging into the small rural unities. Influeng the popud putting their own people into positions of local authority.”

  “And that’s your real problem. Hidden powers moving i to manipute one or mrassroots movements. The movements themselves aren’t aware that they are slowly but surely being twisted to serve the very forces they believe they stand against. This happens in my world across the political spectrum.”

  “What do we do about it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How do they deal with this issue oh?”

  “Most with sensationalist journalism and calling each other Hitler oer.”

  “What?”

  “We don’t, Director, and that’s your problem. If we knew how to stop it, we would.”

  “You’re saying you ’t help.”

  “No, I’m not. Your hidden influencers, robably deal with. My group includes some people who excel at infiltration and information gathering. They probably root out your masterminds, and then I’ll deal with it, if they are from Earth. If not, we’ll leave them to you. That will stop whatever agenda they have, but that doesn’t solve yer issue.”

  “Which is?”

  “Whoever you’re after didn’t ihese groups. They came in and made use of what was already there. You delete the person behind the ses, the groups themselves won’t even notice. They’re going to keep winnis and minds in all these small towns and vilges. The pces where people with power and money only visit if they absolutely have to. Those groups rose up for a reason. Yoing to be dealing with them until the reasons they formed in the first pce get addressed.”

  “I have no problem with these groups existing. That’s for the Dukes to deal with. My is someone using this movement to fund things the Adventure Society has to deal with. Red Table cultists, restricted essence research, messenger colboration. Things that get a lot harder to stamp out if we don’t catch them early.”

  “That’s all well and good, Director, but whoever is maniputing these people is an opportunist. We get rid of them, fine, but if the opportunity is still there, you’re just going to get someone else moving in. This is a very Earth-style operation they’re running, but there’s no reason someone from this world ’t do it. Especially now that someone has demonstrated how.”

  “I’m not responsible for unhappy low rankers.”

  “Then don’t do anything. Spend the rest of your career ing out maggots because you refuse to remove the rot.”

  “What exactly are you suggesting?”

  “Oh, I’ve got my own political mess to walk into, ba Earth. You sort this o. But, maybe try asking these people what they want, instead of telling them they don’t matter and to shut up.”

  “That’s not what we’re doing.”

  “Yes, it is. You think these people don’t have power because they ’t throw lightning or breathe fire. They ’t rise up in violence, but they down tools in protest. What happens if all the quarry workers and spirit farmers stop w?”

  “The families who own the quarries and farms get more workers.”

  “Oh, e on, Elspeth. You’re too smart not to see where that road goes, long term. It just keeps getting worse, and how long Greenstone’s export ey survive like that? Once supply interruptions bee a regur thing, trade partners start looking for more reliable alternatives.”

  “Still not my problem.”

  “Then stand by and watch the city die. I’ll be long gone.”

  Elspeth scowled, picked up a se and shoved it in her mouth, chewing angrily.

  “Elspeth, I’m n to tell you how to approach social ge. I’ve figured out that I’m really bad at it. But maybe try to vihe Duke to sit down with some of these people. Find out what they want and maybe even think about giving it to them. It’s probably not that much.”

  Elspeth finished her se, looking slightly embarrassed as she wiped the cream from around her mouth.

  “You missed a bit on your ,” Jason said. “No, the other side. Yeah, that’s it.”

  She put down her napkin and sighed.

  “So,” she said. “That was the famous Jason Asano ‘ge everything about your society’ speech, was it?”

  “I suppose it was. Look, I did oer of political sce before dropping out irl, so my expertise is limited.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means that I once learned just enough to be wrong about a lot of things. But sometimes, when you have power, you have to deal with those things anyway. Despite your insistehat this is the Duke’s problem, I think you know that.”

  “I do,” Elspeth ceded.

  “I have my owhat I’ll be walking into oh. I’m trying to find people who help me not make a giant mess of things.”

  “Geller?”

  “Amongst others, hopefully. I think you would be a good fit, but while you have the political a, I wouldn’t trust you to make moral choices. I’ve doerrible things, out of anger, frustratinorance, but I’ve always regretted them. You do them out of cold calcution.”

  “This is about the Wexler girl.”

  “You don’t sell people to twisted deviants, Director, however much doing so might advantage you.”

  “Not all of us get to waltz through life with gods and high rankers giving us special treatment, Asano. Some of us have to fight and scrape for every little thi. Not everyoo walk the easy road and have things just hao them.”

  Jason smiled.

  “Do you remember, back when I was iron rank, and I didn’t give much of a care for what rank difference meant you could say to someone?”

  “How could I fet?”

  “You should be very grateful that, for all that I have ged sihen, that has remaihe same.”

  He stood up.

  “I’ll find your masterminds, Director. If they’re from Earth, I’ll deal with them myself.”

  “You said that before. You should hand them over to the Adventure Society.”

  “I tried that once, Director. You sold them to a pervert.”

  “And your hands are , are they? I remember someone who murdered five Adventure Society members, not that far from where we’re sitting.”

  “My hands are filthy, Director. But at least I try.”

  “So? It’s results that matter, Asan doesn’t matter a damn.”

  He sighed.

  “I don’t think anything productive will e from us tinuing this versation.”

  “Agreed. Are you still willing to loahose infiltration and information experts you mentiohe only ones we field here ione belong to the aristocratic families, and are deployed against each other. They aren’t up to something on this level. I checked.”

  “I set them to work about ten minutes ago.”

  “While we were talking?”

  “You aren’t worth my undivided attention, Director.”

  She also stood up.

  “I’m going tret you ing bay city, aren’t I?”

  “You don’t already?”

  “I suppose I do.”

  ***

  Li Li Mei loved Boko. It was a beautiful city, filled with geous architecture and wondrous gardens. She was going to miss it. Someone was looking for her, and had gotten far too close before she noticed. Despite the go-betweens, cut-outs and false identities, someone was zeroing in on her. For weeks they’d been digging their way through her yers of prote, and she only notiow through sheer luck. Whoever it was, they were extremely good at what they did.

  Her decision to abandoire uaking was immediate and without hesitation. She was leaving behind a lucrative operation, but she’d sent enough money away that it hadn’t been wasted time. Gold rank cores were wildly expensive, but at least they could be had for money. Oh, they were the rarest and most valuable odity, perhaps other thay cores.

  The only thing she stopped to grab was a go-bag she had stashed for this exact eventuality. She took it and desded the tower she owned, not by the elevating ptform but by the stairs. A secret door led into a basement that no o a long-dead stone-shaper knew about. From there, a long tunnel led into the sewers. The sewer tunnels were massive, reminding her of a video game more thaual sewers of Earth. There were siypes to be found down here, but she let out just enough silver-rank aura to warn them off.

  Li Mei had learhe importance of good aura trol over the st decade and a half. She’d known that Jason Asano had far superior aura trol to anyone else oh, but she hadn’t realised how bad they all were until she arrived in Pallimustus. Looking back, it was no wonder he treated Earth’s magical fas like p children.

  She absently wondered what had happeo the man. The Earth refugees had all been cooped up at the Geller pound in Cyrion waiting for him. Then they were told that he wasn’t ing. The stories as to what had happened were unclear, but many of the Earthlings believed him dead. Li Mei did not share that opinion.

  She took to the streets further from her storehouse than she would like. It was close to one of the city gates, and had no ties to her on paper. It would be fouually, she was certain, but she inteo be long gone by then. A well-dressed ese woman walking through one of the seedier ses of a city full of bck people would be easy for her pursuers to find out about. Hopefully, she would be well away before that happened.

  The storehouse had a rge, fully loaded camping skimmer. It had amenities and supplies that would let her y low on the inner reaches of the ti until she made her way to other parts of the world. She didn’t trust hiring a portal specialist, and while ships were also a risk, it was one she could ameliorate. She wouldn’t use her own shipping tacts, but she had a list of dockmasters who would reliably stay bribed and direct her to a captain to discreetly sail her out.

  She breathed a sigh of relief as she reached the storehouse. She slipped down an alley beside it and carefully swept her sehrough the building. Sensing nothing but the skimmer and its supplies, she used a very expensive crystal to unlock the reinforced door. She ope and duside, using the crystal to lock it again.

  “Yeah, that’s her.”

  Li Mei froze. She slowly turo find three people looking at her, including two women she didn’t reise. The man looked different, and it had been more than fifteen years, but she reised him immediately.

  “G’day, Miss Li. It’s been a while.”

  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