Jason walked with Clive and Valdis down a tuowards the mirage chamber’s partit lobby. The passage was cavernous, their footsteps eg on the blue tiles. Glow stones set into the walls, ceiling and even the floor let off a teal light with a shimmer effect that made the hallway feel like it was uer.

  “This reminds me of the uer subway ba Greenstone,” Clive said.

  “Don’t ge the subject,” Jason said. “This is not a good idea.”

  “It’s a great idea,” Valdis said. “I tell because it was mine.”

  “We have no idea how my avatar will i with the mirage chamber’s soul projector.”

  “I know,” Clive said. “Maybe if someoook five mio answer a few questions, we’d have a better idea of what is going to happen.”

  “Five minutes? I know a dy who more or less stop time, and even she couldn’t get through your questions in five minutes. And if I did give you some time, are you suggesting we’d get around to ‘how does your prime avatar affect mirage chambers?’ in the first five minutes?”

  “We might have,” Clive said unvingly. “Anyway, it should produe iing iions. I wonder if they’ll let me set up some testing equipment in their trol chamber.”

  “Clive was the one who peer pressured me into this. I should be fighting him.”

  “Proposal rejected,” Valdis said. “You couldn’t duel worth a damn at iron rank, so I want to see what you’ve got now. I heard about your duel in Rimaros. They said you dropped your oppo by looking at him and a gold ranker had to step in so you didn’t kill him.”

  “Yeah,” Jason said with a sigh. “I’m pretty sure that’s why the diamond rankers wao check I wasn’t a violent madman now.”

  “Which diamond rankers?” Clive asked.

  “Um, all of them, I think?”

  “That would expin why my father was asking about you,” Valdis said. “I think he loaned me his portal specialist so he interrogate me about you ter.”

  “Fet that guy,” Jason said. “Just bunk off to another universe with me.”

  “Deal,” Valdis said, then looked slightly shifty. “If the wife says yes.”

  ***

  The Yaresh mirage chamber was a ler and more involved than the one Jason had used ba Greenstohere was a of trol and servis, access shafts and mana duit tunnels, and they were just the magical aspects. Like a sports arena oh, most of the attendees would be normal rankers, which meant toilets. Lots and lots of toilets. He had growo their absence, spending most of his time around high rankers, so it was jarring to see so much plumbing infrastructure.

  Valdis led them to a tral partits lobby. This was a waiting area fhters, and quite like the VIP room upstairs, with a lounge area, bar and huge viewing s. Some of Jason’s friends were down here, having already fought or waiting to go. The local fighters were watg them all like hawks, especially Valdis.

  Jason and Valdis circuted for a while, waiting for their turn. The walls in the lobby were artfully painted metal panels, and Clive was intercepted trying to discretely remove one in the er. Jasohat behind as attendants led him and Valdis down different tuowards the proje booths.

  ***

  “I just don’t think we should jump right in without some kind of testing first,” Jason expio the attendant.

  “It will be just fine, Mr Asano. We’ve had Lord Charist himself use this mirage chamber. You’re not saying you’ve got more power running through you than he does, are you?”

  “Actually, that’s a plex question with no definitive answer, which is kind of the whole point of…”

  Jason stopped trying wheendant closed the door in his face, leaving him alone in the booth. There was no more to it than walls painted dark green, a ft coud a dim glow stone in the ceiling.

  “He’s right,” Jason told himself. “If it handle a diamond ranker, one gold rank flesh puppet isn’t going to blow the whole thing up.”

  He y down on the couch, expeg everything to go bck, and his sciousness shift to an illusionary double. Instead, he felt the magic of it settle over him and bounce off. It seemed that Dominion’s gift to help Jason tained his presence didn’t leave enough for the chamber to t to.

  He rexed his trol, letting out enough for the chamber’s magic to get a read on him. He hadn’t dohis in a long time and was now able to sehe magic going to work. It also wasn’t powerful enough to knock him out. Instead, it split his attention in multiple pces, much like when he went ‘overseer god mode’ in his soul realm. He put his hands behind his head, y bad let his attention focus on the repliow standing in the main chamber.

  ***

  In the mirage chamber’s core power distribution node, several artificers were supervising and maintaining the flow of power. The mirage chamber was more than just a spectacle for the popuce, als as a regution hub for the city’s magical infrastructure. The o rebuild the ey had been a ce to recreate it as a unified, effit and ied system.

  One of the artificers, Munsen, was both o his position and disgruo be in it. At fifteen years old, he preificer. He should have been learning to build sky ships inons for the walls. Instead, he was stu a humid room with a pair of old men.

  Munsen bmed his parents, mostly for calling him Munsen. Yes, he uood that an adventurer saved them while his mother regnant, but Munsen was no name for an elf. It was a name for someou a room watg magical readings not ge.

  Then one did.

  Munsen immediately unslouched, sitting bolt upright. His eyes sed over the panel in front of him, made up of tightly packed crystals. He watched lights trace their way through crystals in plex patterns. His eyebrows rose as he deciphered the light sequences, for while Munsen was a piner, he was not a scker. He might be o the job, but he khe job.

  “Bob?” Munsen said, turning to look at the chief supervisor. Names really did curse people into this job.

  “I’ve told you to call me Roberto or Chief Supervisor,” Bob said.

  “Alright, Chief Supervisor,” Munsen said. “What does it meahe mana flow duit is showing on the board as teal?”

  “Teal?”

  “Yeah, teal. Blue-green. This one here.”

  He pointed and the other two crowded around Munsen’s chair to see. Bob was in charge, but Munsen had quickly learhat it was Aeoliandor who uood how it all worked. How he’d wound up here despite having a proper elf name Munsen had no idea.

  “Look,” Munsen said pointing. “There’s an ongoing power surge in projector booth seven.”

  “We o close that booth before someone uses it,” Bob said. “That much power would kill a gold ranker.”

  “Clearly not,” Aeoliandor tered. “It’s marked as active, with a gold ranker in there right now. But we should get them out, yes.”

  Bob waowards his offid the unication tablet he had in there. The remaining two tio watch the board.

  “Some kind of accumutor misalig?” Munsen suggested. “Feeding in too much power?”

  “No, look,” Aeoliandor said. “It’s not feeding into the booth. It’s ing out. An overflow, slowly spreading though the whole system and imprinting on all the mana.”

  “Imprinting it with what?”

  “I’m not sure, but we o put a stop to it. Trigger the emergency shutdown.”

  “I ’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Bob had the system removed. He said there shouldn’t be a way to bckout the whole city just sitting around.”

  Aeoliandred in the dire of Bob’s office.

  “It wasn’t just sitting arou… damn it, Bob. Munny, you remember the procedure I showed you for manual shutdown?”

  “Yeah, but doesn’t that take a while?”

  “Yes, Munsen, it does. That’s why we had an emergency shutdown system.”

  ***

  The illusionary double of Valdis arrived in the arena first. That wasn’t a surprise as he was well used to the process and Jason had still been pining the st Valdis had seen him. The prince hoped it really was just grumbling, as he didn’t want to miss this opportunity.

  Valdis had always loved pitting himself against well-known warriors. Winning or losing didn’t matter. It was about pushing himself that little bit harder. Stretg his limits a little further. Jason Asano was a rare treat: a specialty Valdis had never faced before. Affli skirmisher was a rare power set, and a very differe to a normal affli specialist. As for what kind of oppo he would make, he couldn’t wait to see.

  The randomly selected battleground was disappointingly the same sandy arena he had faced Sophie Wexler in. It opur as it made it easy for the crowds to see the a, but it advantaged some power sets over others. For Valdis, it was excellent, but it should be the opposite for Asano. His uanding was that Jason’s style favoured plex enviros.

  Finally, Asano appeared in the opposite alcove. He was still wearing the suit from the party, quickly put together by his tailor friend. Asano looked at him and started walking out, and Valdis did the same. Dark mist shrouded Asano for a moment, and he looked very different when he emerged. He now wore dark red robes, mostly obscured by a cloak unlike anything Valdis had ever seen. He knew Asano had the Cloak of Night ability, and that the look grew more individual to the user as it ranked up. This was the first time he’d seen it look like a portal into some distant, starry void.

  Asano’s human eyes were gone, repced with twin nebus glowing from within the dark hood. He was also not walking, instead gliding over the ground, his feet fully obscured by the cloak ed around him. Valdis grinned as they moved closer and drew his longsword.

  “Very intimidating,” he said. “Too bad about the arena, though. I would have liked to face you in a jungle or something. This open space is perfee, so maybe we do best two out of three.”

  “That’s why you’ll lose,” Jason said. His voice was different, g the usual pyfulness. Valdis hoped that he had more to offer than just theatrics.

  “You think I’ll lose because I have the advantage?” Valdis asked.

  “You’ll lose because you look at the world and think you’re the ohat o ge.”

  Valdis ughed with delight.

  “That’s the spirit! Ready to go?”

  “Proceed.”

  With no more warning than that, Valdis vanished. He appeared behind Jason, his sword already cutting a horizontal path at Jason’s neck. He abahe strike when he realised that shadow arms were stabbing out of Jason’s cloak like a pore’s quills, each holding a sinister bd red dagger. Valdis withdrew as Jason slowly turned, letting out a murderer’s chuckle as the arms retrag bato his cloak.

  “I hope that was just a test,” Jason said. “If yoing to be that predictable, this isn’t going to take long.”

  Valdis loved this kind of fight. Hit and run, trading barbs along with bdes.

  “You think you’re disappointed?” he shot back. “What happeo that talk about ging the world?”

  “As you wish.”

  Jason turned his head to the right, then pa around. Everything that fell into his sight lunged into darkness as the illusionary sun was blotted out. Not a plete absence of light but a deep twilight where tless shadows careehough the gloom.

  Fortunately, it could only impede Valdis so far. The dang shadows were something real, but no more than blurs in the dark to his vision. His Mind’s Eye ability pe cle, allowing him to perfectly sehe space around him. At greater distances, he could feel the auras moving around that had to be Asano’s shadow familiar.

  Less fortunate was the fact that every shadow was duplig Asano’s aura. There had to be well over a hundred of them, maybe two hundred. It was good that this was a new, high-end arena that allowed summoned familiars to be called upon. Older and smaller venues cked the feature. This suited Valdis just fine, as he wao face Asano’s full capability. Asano’s real body could be any of the auras Valdis picked up, or none of them at all. Making his aura vanish was ari the list Valdis was familiar with.

  “rick,” Valdis called into the dark. “What ability are using to blot out the light?”

  “Midnight Eyes,” Jason’s voice came from all around in a chorus. “Perception ability. Let’s me suppress light sources as far as I see, to the limits of my aura.”

  “So, if I suppress your aura, I turn it off?”

  The only response was sinister ughter ing from every dire. Valdis was long past the point of being shaken by theatrics, but there was an uling glee to it that felt genuinely unhinged.

  Valdis grinned as a jolt of excitement ran through him. His normal duelling strategy was to keep the enemy of the back foot, interspersing quick exges with banter, at least in the early stage. The idea was to make the oppo fall into his pad feel like they were being pyed with. trolled. Asan the tactic ba him dispelled any lingering disappoi about the areion.

  Asano was clearly in no rush, either. Oop of the threat list for Asano, at least to Valdis, were his deceptively simple spells. Valdis excelled at defleg magic projectiles and avoiding area spells, but Asano used little to none of either. His spells had minimal immediate effect, but they just nded. Without powerful resistances, a fully enclosed barrier or a few other niche protes, there was no evading them.

  Jason might not be a traditional affli specialist, but afflis were still his bread and butter. If he wasn’t jumping at the first ce to apply them, it meant that he was toying with Valdis. Rather than be offended, he was excited. If Asano was this fident, he would surely make this an epic csh.

  “Have you had enough time to adjust to the dark?” the chorus asked. “Are you ready to start for real now?”

  “It sounds like you’re looking down on me.”

  “I would never do that,” Asano said, this time only one voice. Valdis focused his attention that way and saw a lighter patch within the gloom. He suddenly could sense which of the auras was real, and saw Asano standing on the spot, casually eating a sandwich.

  Valdis almost took the bait. He felt the mana surge inside him to un attack, but his instincts pulled him back.

  “You won’t get me that easily.”

  “No?” Jason asked. He reached out and plucked from the air a half ut with a straw and a little umbrel.

  “No,” Valdis said, but he gave Jason a ft look. “Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you?”

  “Are you kidding? I just picked up fresh ingredients for the first time in years. You feel free to run around in the dark while I eat this and we talk after you lose.”

  It was almost enough to make Valdis lu Asano, but he held back from the obvious trap yet agaiook a breath, clearing his mind from Asano’s provocation. Then he swung his sword.

  At gold rank, seeker bde fired off a storm of curved force bdes that sought out every enemy he could perceive. It was one of his favourites, a precious area attack when he had been limited in that area for so long. One of the bdes shot out after Asano and his sandwich, but the real targets were all the other auras in range.

  Valdis felt the closer shadow bodies get mowed down, too close to avoid the bdes. It was a good start, but most of the other bodies were startlingly effective at avoiding the attack. They could shadow jump freely in the gloom, but telep wasn’t enough to avoid the bdes. They would simply turn and hunt you down again.

  The trick with telep was to do so at the very st moment. The bdes would explode on striking the target, so pinpoint timing was required. It also required an uanding of the ability, but it was both on and famous, so that was no surprise. The shadow familiar’s precision was uny, almost none of the bodies falling after the initial burst. In total, he estimated having felled around a fifth of them.

  As for the bde that went for Asano himself, he ig a eating his sandwich. Four blue and e orbs appeared around him, ourning into a shield that absorbed the strike.

  As the shield turned back to an orb, Valdis saw Jason dip the sandwito the hood and it came out with another bite missing. As Asano looked back, Valdis couldn’t see his expression uhe hood, yet he was certain it was a grin. The half-finished snad beverage vanished into dimensional ste and Jason casually brushed off his hand. Then he looked up at Valdis and spoke.

  “Bleed for me.”