In the end, only one pce had the space, resources and accessibility to immediately shelter and house a city worth of people on short notice. The brighthearts had oned a massive queue to file into Jason’s soul realm for shelter, and now the people of Boko did the same. Little expnation was given and little was needed; escape from the sun to a pce of shelter and abundance was all most people o see.

  Jason built a city in a desert for them to occupy. Another oasis city, remi of the home they had lost. He’d been unsure about using that design, worried about causing fresh trauma, but ultimately decided that something familiar would be best. Putting them in a pletely alien pce would only ule them further.

  Days after the citizens of Boko had been evacuated to the astral kingdom, the area around the crater was occupied by outsiders. Civic authorities from Boko, the Adventure Society and a dozen anisations had people in the area. Some were iigators, others were ing up the temporary camps. Many seemed to have no purpose at all, but refused to be excluded from the goings on.

  There was a new panic as portals once more appeared in the sky, high above the crater. These were even rger and more numerous than those used by the messenger army days earlier, and food reason. Messengers poured out of them, far more than the invasion force, but they never came close to the people scrambling below.

  On the ground, Jason was with his team and his team leader’s mother. They were running a catering operation, pretending like they weren’t waiting for the event that would kick a fresh hor’s . The people uhe vas suer couldn’t see what was happening, only the panic of those outside. Soon they were dropping everything and running.

  Jason sighed, looking at the food that had been tossed aside on the ground. He figured something like this would happen, which is why he’d been running a sausage sizzle with cheap bread and bruschard sausages. The giant worm meat lentiful in the area, and the first alie Jason had learo cook.

  Among the yelling and screaming, he calmly took off his apron and walked out to look up at the sky. His team moved to stand around him protectively, although no one aying attention. The only threat was being bumped into by people who couldn’t seem to agree on which way to run.

  Jasoended his power and a humong of white stone appeared in the air. Larger even than the portals spewing out a deluge of messengers, it ositioned between them and the ground. It fred to life with portal energy, a massive sheet of silver, gold and blue light. Jason had gritted teeth as he exerted his power. To maintain such a rge portal, he was tapping into his astral gate, pushing the limits of what his avatar body could manage.

  The people on the ground were unsure of what to do. The handful of adventurers on site would have no ce if they frohe messengers and they k. Everyone else was just fleeing, running for skimmers or esg through portals of their own.

  “We should have warned people this would happen,” Humphrey said for the huh time i few days.

  “We discussed this,” Danielle said. “For ohere was ainty it would happen. More importantly, the tial cil would want to ihemselves. plicate matters that o be kept simple. There is a time to act with caution and care, but also a time to be bold. As much as Jasoo learn circumspe, the approach that es more naturally to him has its pce.”

  The messengers didn’t e he ground. It was soon evident that they were disappearing into Jason’s portal as suddenly as they appeared from their own. That didn’t stop the panic below, but it gave the advehinking they were about to die hope that the chaos above would leave them be.

  “Jason,” Humphrey said. “O’s over and people calm down, people will e looking. They watched the entire popution of Boko troop through one of your soul realm portals, and it won’t take them long to realise that’s a giant-size version up there.”

  Jason only nodded, still trating. Humphrey didn’t bother him further, having discussed all this before. The pn was to leave Humphrey, Danielle and Farrah to deal with the immediate fallout.

  “The i in you will be bad enough right away,” Danielle said. “But ohey realise where all those messengers decamped from, the real storm begins. Everyone is going to want answers. Everyone.”

  Finally, the st of the messenger deluge vahe portals all disappeared, leaving ay sky above and a fused crowd below. One of Jason’s regur shadow portals opened beside him, and he led most of his team through. The st three stayed, as pnned, and stepped bato the shade of the cateri.

  “Is Jason alright?” Humphrey asked. “He’s still barely talking.”

  “He’s not as fragile as he used to be,” Farrah said. “He hates what happehat he couldn’t save everyone. Same as the rest of us.”

  “The rest of us didn’t die,” Humphrey argued. “I know he cheated death — again — but he feels it, doesn’t he? When he’s dying?”

  “He does, but it’s not the dying that bothers him. He’s used to it. Used to the pain. And he doesn’t bme himself for the casualties of the messetack, even though it was his power. He knows he wasn’t responsible. His problem is the killing he did on purpose. I have trouble looking at the messengers as anything but enemies, but he sees them as indoated sves. To his mind, he killed ten thousand victims.”

  “I’m not sure how anyone is meant to move on from something like that,” Danielle said. “I’ve had extreme experiences as an adventurer, but what happehat day wasn’t adventuring. That was the wrath of an angry god.”

  “And that’s how he deals with it,” Farrah said. “Part of him is beyond mortality, and he has to accept that part of himself to unleash the power that es with it. The mi of a god. His mind while he was in his phoenix form was much like when he fought Uh’s avatar iransformation zone. He’s better at holding himself together, but there’s a detat that helps him.”

  “You seem fident in your insights,” Danielle said.

  Farrah tapped her forehead.

  “It’s the bond we share,” she said. “I feel what he’s feeling. I could feel it when he was the phoenix, and I feel it now. He hide his emotions from me if he wants, but he’s not doing that. He wants me to know he’s not spiralling. He hates what happened, but he knows that it had to be dohat if he hadn’t killed the messengers, it would have been a fight that the adventurers of Boko weren’t ready for. It would have been ugly, and we probably would have lost.”

  “That’s certainly true,” Danielle said. “But even if he’s e to terms with what happened, others haven’t. The power he showed that day already has people on edge, and this will only make it worse. Messerongholds across the entire p just depoputed. Everyone will want to know to why, whether they’re ing bad what Jason intends to do with them. Very uandable questions that I’d quite like to see answered myself.”

  “He said that they won’t be anyone else’s now,” Humphrey said. “That they won’t be ing back. For now, we trust his word, and the details will e ter.”

  “I know. But he o be stable right now. How he hahe Adventure Society and other authorities over the few days will defihose retionships into the foreseeable future.”

  “How widely do people know he was the big magic bird?” Farrah asked. “Is his name being thrown around by people in general?”

  “Not from what Stel and Lindy could tell,” Humphrey said. “I’ve had them keeping ears and eyes out for trouble. The Boko popution, and even most of the people here now aren’t talking about Jason by hey’re talking about the Hegemon as some mysterious figure, and erroneous rumours are already cirg.”

  “The Adventure Society officials and aively well informed know, of course,” Danielle said. “That the Hegemon was Jason isn’t a secret, exactly, but Jason’s name wasn’t in those system messages, and the Adventure Society isn’t making any annous. They seem happy to not point out how much power belongs to one gold ranker. If he was diamond, that’s ohing, but this breaks the uood power hierarchy, even if it’s a ti event. For now, the society seems happier to let the Hegemon be a strange and powerful mystery.”

  “Speaking of which,” Farrah said, nodding her head at an approag group. “I think we’re about to be asked some pointed questions.”

  ***

  Jamis Fran Muskar’s dimensional ship looked out of p Pallimustus. The sleek, sweeping lines were more akin to a spaceship than anything else in a world of wizards and dragons. It floated over an expanse of wn that had beloo a local lord before the messengers quered the region.

  Jamis reparing to take the ship and leave Pallimustus when a Voice of the Will approached. The messenger nded and immediately dropped to one khe image of her astral king appeared above her.

  “Many question your as, Jamis Fran Muskar. It is unlike you to be so overt. Your influence has been damaged by this.”

  “Is that so, Astrid E Dain? Then why have you been supp me? You saved me several plications in pushing the lesser kings to surreheir forces.”

  “I see where this road ends. When you have yrand kingdom, just remember who helped you cim it.”

  “I always remember those of good fht and sound judgement.”

  “So long as you maintain yours. The lesser kings fear you, but they have always feared you. Now they question you behind your back. Your enemies on the cil are already looking to make use of them.”

  Jamis smiled.

  “Let things rest for the moment. Remairal, and don’t push bay behalf.”

  “Why not? Disrespect leads to ambition arayal. This is a tumour that o be cut out before it spreads.”

  “There is a time to slumber in the depths of the ke. To let the weak and the foolish froli the shores, telling themselves it belongs to them. And then there is a time to rise from the ke, and remind the world why those waters are best left undisturbed.”

  “You want your eo gather. To feel emboldened. You’re waiting for the so rear before you cut off its head.”

  “Exposing an artificial weakness is always a risk. Authenticity is always best, and since I o expend some of my influehis makes a good opportunity. Our losses today are the seeds of tomorrow’s gain. And I thank you, Astrid E Dain, for your support in minimising those losses.”

  “Is he worth it, this man? Our success here is a break point for your pn.”

  “There is little loss in angering those who have bee distracted, like Vesta Carmis Zell. It sends a message to the others about maintaining focus. And yes, it is worth not setting this man on a vea against us.”

  ***

  “Help me uand, Mr Asano—”

  “I’ve already expihe events iion, Mr Billings. Several times. At this stage, your ck of prehension is your failure, not mine.”

  Ione Adventure Society feren, Jason was allowing himself to be debriefed by an iigator from the tial cil. On the iigator’s side of the table was a small crowd of assistants and akers. On Jason’s side he had only himself and Danielle Geller.

  “The issue, Mr Asano, is that I don’t see why the closest thing the messengers have to a supreme leader would see you as a suffit threat to make the cessions that they have.”

  Jason’s gaze fixed on the man across the table like a rifle scope.

  “That sounds like you’re acg me of being a liar, Mr Billings. You phrase it as a specutive question all you like, but I will remind you that I am here as a courtesy. If what you are looking for is discourtesy, I find myself increasingly enthused to aodate you.”

  Danielle pced a gentle restraining tou his forearm.

  “Mr Asano has made himself very clear as to what transpired,” she said. “His role here is to tell you what happened, Mr Billings. He has done so multiple times, in defereo your requests for crification. It’s not going to get any clearer, and I think we’ve reached the end of what this meeting productively achieve.”

  “Five me, Lady Geller, but the events as described simply do not make sense.”

  “That’s because you refuse to look at them through any lens but your own power paradigm,” Jason said. “I’m not a gold ranker when I’m iating with the Builder or the gods or the leader of the messengers. I ’t afford to be that small.”

  “Nor when you are fighting an army alo would seem. We have a record of your essence abilities, Mr Asano, but there is a question of where your other capabilities e from. What is the source of the power you dispyed in Boko?”

  “Spinach.”

  “We are done here,” Danielle announced. She rose from her chair and pced a hand on Jason’s shoulder. He gnced up at her, nodded and likewise stood up.

  “Mr Billings,” he said, giving the man a nod, then followed Danielle out of the room.

  As soon as they were in the hall, she tapped a brooch to activate a privacy s.

  “I know you don’t want to do this,” she told him. “Putting up with it now, however, will make things easier with the Adventure Society down the line.”

  “I don’t think it will help if I start murdering their executives.”

  “You did well,” she said.

  “I was getting stroppy at the end.”

  “But you mao keep your aura restrained.”

  “I’m not going to lose trol of it.”

  “I’m not worried about what you’ll do with it by act. I’m worried about what you’ll do on purpose.”

  “Billings is a gold ranker, and he might use cores, but his aura training is obviously thh.”

  “That’s my . If you thought he could take it, you might be ined to show him what he was failing to learn by listening.”

  “I’m not unstable, Danielle, just frustrated. And what I need isn’t to take out those frustrations on some bureaucrat.”

  “Then, what do you need?”