When she’d been young — well, younger — Jennifer Landry had loved having visiting adventurers stay at her b house. All those powerful and attractive young people, politely calling her ‘Madam Landry.’ As years went on, the desire for excitement slowly gave way to a desire for reliability. Rather than cater to out-of-towners who were often iing but frequently votile, she shifted to catering to locals.

  She didn’t aim for the top-shelf adventurers, which they actually had now iohe training program set up by the Geller and Remore families were produg better adventurers, especially now that Adventure Society assessments were being ducted legitimately.

  Madam Landry found that the sed-tier adventurers were the perfect tele. Loenants, they had the moo pay but the humility of not being the cocks of the roost. It was an unventional bit of excitement, then, when one of her adventurers came bursting to the lobby, almost taking the door off the hinges.

  “Dean Tuckell, if you take that door off, you’re the one paying for a new one,” she scolded.

  “Sorry, Madam Landry, but I just heard something incredible at the Adventure Society. Is Jerrick here?”

  “He’s ih house, dear, but I…”

  Dean shot off without listening.

  “…don’t think he’s alone.”

  ***

  Gold-rankers were figures of legend in a low-magic town like Greenstone, making Emir’s visit all those years ago a real event. Jason remembered his cloud ship sailing up to the private Adventure Society do grandiose fashion. But he had also known that Emir had been iy for days before, i.

  Jason followed this model, quietly reag the city with several of his friends, days before his official arrival. His goal was to reacquaint himself with the city, indulging in the nostalgia of his early days as an adventurer. Jason, Belinda ael Warnock portalled to an old spirit transport waystation, not too far from the city. It had been abandoned years ago, after the local Magic Society director and a local crime boss had an adveortured ioreroom.

  Emerging from the portal, The trio immediately staggered.

  “It’s like trying to breathe when the air’s too thin,” Belinda gasped. “What’s happening?”

  You have entered a region of low magical density. High ranking individuals will suffer deleterious effects without supplemental magic.Stamina recovery reduced by 50%.Health Recovery reduced by 75%.Mana recovery reduced by 99%.ing a spirit of your rank or ten spirit s of one rank lower will restore your recovery rates to normal fht hours. This duration is reduced by using active magic abilities.Rituals and summoning abilities require spirit s to enact, in addition to any spirit cost they already have. Rituals will be uo fun without artificially enhang the density of local ambient magic.Summoned familiars will o e a spirit of their rank or ten s of one rank lower to sustain their vessels. ption of spirit s will allow them to maintain their vessels outside of the summoner for one day before requiring additional s. This duration is reduced by using active magic abilities.“Oh,” Belinda said, reading the system message.

  She pulled out her summoned familiars, an astral hat orbited droopily around her, and an echo spirit that looked like a blurry version of her. She plucked a handful of spirit s from her ste space, pushed oo the ntern and hahe others to Gemini, the echo spirit, ael. She ate one herself as Jason deed the one she held out to him.

  “I think I pensate by drawing magiy astral kingdom,” he said. He was half crouched, hands on his knees. “I’m still figuring out what I and ’t do with this body. Just give me a few minutes.”

  While Jason trated, occasionally making sounds like he was having trouble using the toilet, Estel and Belinda looked around. They were in an area between the sprawling river delta and the bone-dry desert. The waystation itself was an area of magically ftteone, rgely covered in wi sand. There was a security booth, the gss in the windows long gone, and a rge ste bunker. Of the bunker’s double doors, one was missing and the other dangled precariously from the remaining hinge. Beyond, stairs led down.

  “How is this a memorable enough pce to portal to?” Estel asked. “You haven’t been to this city in a couple of decades, right?”

  “Yeah,” Jason croaked.

  Belinda looked around, ending with her gaze fixed on the broken door.

  “Jason, is this…?”

  “Yeah,” he firmed.

  “Why would y us here?”

  “Like Stel said, it’s memorable. You still feel a little of my aura imprinted down there, if you look closely. Some things linger. Oh, bugger this, I’ll try again ter.”

  Jason took out a spirit and ate it, making a distasteful face as it melted on his tongue. Shade and Gordon appeared. Shade took a from his own ste spad ed it while Jason tossed another into the nebulous void that was Gordon. He held his palm out and a leech crawled out through his skin. Jason held out a spirit for the leech to eat, but it tur’s toed maw away.

  “e on, .”

  The leech let out an alien screech of reje.

  “If you dohis, you won’t be able to e out a anything else.”

  While Jason was coaxing iing something that wasn’t at least retly alive, Belinda ael made their way to the door.

  “That’s a good boy,” Jason said, scratg the top of the leech after it finally ate the . As retreated bader Jason’s skin, Jason moved to joihers as they looked dowairs.

  “Shade and Gordon weren’t with me when this happened,” he said. “We’d just fought a water tyrant. Silver rank. It destroyed both of their vessels a me with what, to this day, remains my rgest scar. was with me for this, though. Wouldn’t have made it through without him.”

  “Made it through what?” Estel asked.

  Instead of answering, Jason walked around them a dowairs.

  “Jason,” Belinda called after him. “Are you sure you want to go down there?”

  ***

  Elspeth Arel was not happy. Being director of Greenstone’s Adventure Society branch was always inteo be a stepping stohe first stage in a career that would lead her out of the magical and literal desert that was Greenstohen came the disastrous expedition. The aftermath of that failure, and the iigation that followed, undid everything she had worked for.

  Her ba dealings were dragged into the light, as was her status as daughter of an Old City crime lord. She barely held on to her position, which went from the first step in a storied career to a purgatory she could not escape. Twenty years ter, nothing had ged. Even her father had risen, from st man standing of the Big Three crime lords to legitimate mayor of Old City. They were both important members of Greenstone Society, now, but where he felt elevated, she felt trapped.

  Leaning against the desk in her office, Elspeth rubbed her temples as she stared at a spot on the floor. Twenty years ago, she had used her powers to lift some jumped up iron-ranker by the throat, dropping him on that very spot. Now, that same speck of nothing was scheduled to arrive in just a few days, to great fanfare.

  Twenty years on, things were very different. He was a gold-ranker, well-trained and battle hardened, with tless accodes to his name. She was a core-using silver-rank bureaucrat with a dead-end career. She’d heard the stories, even across the world. Running around with diamond rankers, ing back from the dead. Driving off the Builder, which was even more nonsensical than the rest. It all sounded like fanciful nonsense. But she’d seen the missives from the Adventure Society, and they weren’t treating it like nonsehere was an actual standing order to put a bran low alert if he es jurisdi.

  She had been much happier when Asano was dead the first time. Giving his life to save the city made him a useful figure of noble sacrifice, but martyrs were awkward if they didn’t stay dead. There was even a statue of him somewhere on the campus grounds. She’d had a bush grown in front of it after he came back to life.

  She doubted he would fet that she tried to teach him a lesson that didn’t take. Two ranks higher than him, her power ed around his throat. She didn’t even remember what it was about. What she didn’t fet was the defiant eyes that would rather let her choke him out thao her authority.

  Would he kill her on this very spot, where it happehe Adventure Society would give him a sp on the wrist, if that. They wouldn’t chastise their interdimensional golden boy over a dead bureaucrat with a dead-end career. Not after everything he’d gotten away with already.

  She sighed and pushed herself off her desk. There were a lot more feathers thao unruffle before Asano arrived, so she might as well get to it, on the off ce that she survived his visit.

  ***

  Jason reached the basement ste area. The dry climate had preserved the interior enough that it hadn’t pletely degraded, but it showed the years of abando. A little sand had blown dowairs, although not so much as to cover the bloodstain spread out like a carpet. The blood pool spread out through the rge ste room, too much to have e from one person under normal circumstances. Jason’s self-healing had replenished him over and over as he bled out, but only ’s help sustained him. His eive power had been insuffit to st him through the ordeal.

  The s were still there, seized and rusty now. They y on the floor where he’d yahem from the ceiling in his escape. When he was st in the room, there had been a pile of tiny star seed fragments, pushed out of his body and leaving many small scars behind in the process. Those were long gone, no doubt cimed by the magic Society. Those were the early days of the Builder cult being active, making the fragments prime materials for study.

  Belinda ael followed Jason dowairs. They didn’t share Jason’s ability to see perfectly through the dark, so Belinda tossed out a floating glow stoo reveal the macabre se.

  “What is this?” Estel asked. “Is that your blood?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All of it?”

  “It was a rough day.”

  “What happened here?”

  “This is where I found out who I am,” Jason said. “When you strip away everything until there’s nothio take. I don’t reend the experience.”

  His gaze didn’t shift from the blood stain. The two women shared a side ghen looked at Jason still fag the other way.

  “This seems like a bad pce te a personal identity,” Estel said.

  Jason ughed, the sound ingruous in the grim remnants of the torture chamber.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It very much is. But sometimes, you don’t get to choose.”

  “You said you found yourself down here,” Estel said. “That’s a little ing, if I’m being ho. Who did you find out you were?”

  “Don’t ence him,” Belinda hissed. “We don’t want him going all dark and broody again.”

  Jason turned and gave her a smile.

  “It’s fine, Lindy. Sometimes we need scars to remind us that we heal. Yes, the worst experieny life happened in this room. But a lot of who I am, good and bad, began right here. If I ’t face that, I’ll be stu this room my whole life. And as for your question, Stel, I ut here by a spiracy of forces that included a church, a cult, a crime lord, a corrupt Magic Society director and a great astral being. I was iron rank. Ambushed by a silver ranker and ed up, naked but for a suppression colr.”

  “How does that expin who you are?” Estel asked.

  “Lindy, do you remember what I was doing when you all arrived and found me?”

  “You were upstairs, adjusting the cuff links on your suit like you’d just walked out of the theatre.”

  “That’s who I am, Estel. The guy who wins. It doesn’t matter who or what you are. Hoeople or how much power you have. You might kill me, you might sy soul, but I’ll e back stronger, and I still won. That’s who I am.”

  He walked past them and back up the stairs.

  “That,” Estel said, “is the single most arrogant thing I have ever heard in my life. And I spend a lot of my time spying on aristocrats.”

  “Well, sure,” Belinda said, “but we’re all shaped by our experiences. I’ve seen Jason fight a god, but I’ve never seen him lose.”

  Estel looked at the blood stain again.

  “Did all that really happeel asked. “The crime boss, the church, everything.”

  “It was the Church of Purity, before people started to realise they were going bad. We actually killed the archbishop not that long after this.”

  “And Jason just walked away?”

  “Oh, gods, no. That thing with the cuff links? It was basically the st vestiges of his mind doing what he does, which is put on a smug fa?ade to hid that he’s half a step from losing his mind. What he didn’t mention was the months of catatonia and inteherapy that followed. Not many people mao throw off a star seed impntation, so they called in a mental specialist and a soul specialist. The best the church of the Healer had. It still took them months to stitch a funal person back together.”

  “So, the cult and the corrupt official and whatever else. What did an iron ranker do to get that many people going after him?”

  Belinda looked up the stairs.

  “You remember Jory?”

  Her face took on an unfortable expression.

  “Yes.”

  “Me and Soph were in a real bad spot. And I mean it started bad and had beeing worse for months, like fermenting a turd.”

  “Lindy…”

  “Sorry. But the whole city was hunting us. Duke’s guards, adventurers, everyone. Even the crime boss that was meant to be proteg us was getting ready to sell us out. Jason and Clive were the ohat caught us. Jory wao help, but how could he? He’d have to go up against some of the most powerful people iy.”

  “Which sounds like exactly what Jason would do.”

  “Now yetting it.”

  “But he was the ohat caught you?”

  “Clive caught me. Didn’t think the Magic Society had ahat smart. Jason caught Sophie; messed her up bad in the process. Those afflis of his, you know? Caught up to her being healed by Jory, and that’s where things get iing. He found out that Jory wao help us, and Jory was his friend, so he did. Just like that. No questions, atio up against the Director’s of the Adventure Society and the Magic Society, for two thieves he only knew from the time one of them kicked him in the face. We all thought he was crazy.”

  “But he wasn’t.”

  “Yes, he was! The guy’s a lunatic. Make those sorts of enemies and you’ll find yourself ed up in a hole somewhere, being bled out.”

  Estel turned back to look at the blood stain and the rusty s. Belinda leaned against the taller woman, slipping an arm around her.

  “He saved Sophie and me when everyone else couldn’t or wouldn’t,” she said. “He went up against powerful people to make that happen, but he won. This was the price he paid.”

  “Is he going to be alright, ing back here?

  “I don’t think he would have, if he wasn’t. It’s kind of his thing. Oime, we were out on a road tract, aook us to a pce where a cult tried to sacrifice him to summon a blood monster.”

  “Is that the same cult involved in all this?” Estel asked, gesturing at the blood pool.

  “No, it was a different cult.”

  “And different to that Order of Redeeming Light Purity cult ba Rimaros? The one Sophie’s mum beloo?”

  “Yeah. Also different to the Order of the Reaper, which Sophie’s mum also beloo, and the Cult of the Reaper, which Sophie’s mum’s boyfriend belongs to.”

  “Why does he keep getting involved with cults?”

  “I stopped asking questions like that a long time ago. You just have to go with it.”

  ***

  Dean didn’t notice the sounds ing from ihe bath house as he tossed aside the ‘occupied’ sign in front the door, which he flung open and rushed through. There was an immediate spshing and yelling.

  A few moments ter, Dean had his back turned and his arm over his eyes food measure. His teammate was ih, half-standing to shield the elf dy sharing the bath and using him as a privacy s.

  “I’m charging ara half if he’s going to watch,” she said.

  “Dean,” Jerrick growled. “What in the Healer’s bag of smoking herbs inspired you to e in here like that?”

  Dean moved to turn around in his excitement but mao stop himself.

  “I heard something at the Adventure Society,” he said.

  “You’d have heard something ihis bathhouse if you weren’t fired up like a bog lurker i. What’s got you so—”

  “He’s ing back! Jason Asano is ing back to Greenstone!”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. I just heard it and rushed straight over.”

  “Well, we o find out more.”

  “Yeah!”

  Jerrick lurched out of the bath and started rubbing himself dry with a towel.

  “Sorry, Lucy, I have to go. Feel free to charge me for the whole hour.”

  “Damn straight, I’m charging you for the whole hour. I don’t care how big your—”

  “Jerrick, are you ing or what?” Dean called from outside.

  ***

  Jason parted ways with Belinda ael, after several reassurao Belinda that he was fine. Once she accepted that he wasn’t lying too much, she took off with Estel for the city, in a Shade-produd skimmer.

  Jason looked to the nearby delta edge, a shift from desert to verdant growth so it could only be magic. The Mistrun River carried water deh life and water energy, making for the rid sy delta. Greenstone rid tea from further upriver were both local specialties, although a small slice of trade pared to spirit export.

  Back before he had a team, Jason would blow off steam by heading into the delta on foot. He’d roam the tall emba roads that raween mangrove ss and paddy fields, moving from vilge to vilge. He developed a gliding-running style that used his cloak to reduce his weight. It allowed him to travel at retively swift speeds without exhausting his mana or stamina.

  It was a teique he had long ago left behind. Before Shade, before he had a team around him. Before the Builder’s star seed ut inside him, setting him on a course to fight angels, gods and monsters with the fate of worlds on the line.

  He had used the teique to roam the delta for a week or more at a time, taking trips aloo clear his head. He’d roam the towns and vilges of the delta, healing the sid clearing off tracts from their adventure boards. He looked back at the ste room door, then back at the delta. He ughed to himself, jured his cloak a off.

  Almost immediately, he stumbled and nded face first in the sand.

  He ughed again as Shade emerged from his shadow.

  “Mr Asano, what are you doing?”

  “An old trick. I seem to have lost the knack.”