“Good to go Sam.” Gavin said, tossing the crackling blade across the room.

  Sam snatched the hilt out of the air easily. She rolled her new weapon around her wrist before inspecting it more thoroughly.

  “Uhh, what did you do to my sword Gavin?”

  “You don't like it?”

  “It's amazing, thank you, I just- its just different.”

  [Item: Samania's Sword]

  type: Weapon, greatsword

  rank: Level 3, Legendary

  Description: A sword forged with the fires of friendship with the hope this blade will remind its owner of the importnance of seizing your own destiny, and also looking totally fucking cool while you fight evil.

  Effect: Deals radiant damage. Deals additional damage to enemies of a higher level than the user

  Effect: Activate to adjust blade length for a variable mana cost.

  Effect: When user misses with a special attack with this weapon, create an energy blade that tracks the target. Attack weakens proportionally to distance of target.

  Effect: Soulbound

  Samanias new sword was notably different in a number of different ways. She could no longer consciously change its size and shape, at least until she herself reached level three and could activate the enchantment with her own mana. The blade was no longer edged with mithril over an adamantium core, that had been rcompletely replaced with a razor sharp bar of ethherium and had been so heavily enchanted it radiated brilliant white energy that hummed and crackled as she swung it. The sword felt as if it scratched at the fabric of the world with each slice.

  Finally, Gavin's favourite feature; it could throw slices of energy around the battlefield. He was fairly confident she could use her melee special attacks with it to make ranged attacks, though with a lesser effect. They would deal friendly fire, so the team would have to train hard at their situational awareness so they wouldn't get blindsided if an enemy dodged an attack.

  “I'm going to start making a quick batch of utility items for myself next, then I'll work on your bow Judy, then a full suite of swords for you Val, I'll leave that as my own special treat to look forward to”

  “I was actually going to talk to you about that. Can you make me a copy of your gun instead of a bow?” Judy said.

  “You're sure?”

  “Yes. My arrows don't travel quickly enough, and I can see that you're going to be able to scale up the effectiveness of your guns faster than my bows as you rank up.”

  “Well, okay, if you're sure.” Gavin shrugged.

  “Enough of that, let's try your sword out.” Val said, equipping her armour.

  “Ahh, just an FYI, that sword is quite a bit stronger than our armour, it's designed to kill level three monsters, if you get through the energy shield it will annihilate whatever it hits, especially if what's inside is level two, a severed arm would be the best case scenario. Its not dealing a little bit of additional radiant damage, its dealing radiant damage, just radiant damage. The metal the blade is made out of wont even touch you before it cuts you in half.”

  “Maybe not then.” Val said.

  “He's right, this thing has as much power as the rest of my gear combined, if he gets any better at this his weapons are going to start eclipsing our abilities.”

  “That's the plan.” Gavin said proudly. “It’s the ultimate force multiplier. Just keep in mind my usefulness isn't how strong I can make each item, it's how much stronger each item is than the gear you otherwise would have been using.”

  “Did- did you just? What sort of brag is that Gavin? It's not like you to bring attention to anything that makes you look less useful.”

  “Just trying rational modesty on for size.” Gavin said brightly.

  “It doesn't suit you.” Sam said, her face twisting like she'd sucked a lemon.

  “Fine, you're all basically just my semi-selfaware minions that exist to swing the weapons I make, I could probably just use my force of will power to simulate the whole team.”

  “That's more like it.” Sam said, dismissing her sword.

  “Have you had any luck remembering that skillbook?” Judy said, standing to retrieve a drink from the kitchen.

  “Bits and pieces, It's hard to think about, it's like trying to describe what each individual muscle is doing when you fight, most of it just happens.”

  “Can you make a portal?” Judy asked.

  “I doubt it, not yet, I know what I need, but not why. I'm also not super confident on how to choose a world to go to, assuming there's more than one.”

  “You assume? You've met another outworlder.” Sam said.

  “How do I know they aren't constructs with memories implanted in their brains, or that they did come from my world and I just missed a magical underground cabal of elves and goblins?”

  “Are people more competent at hiding secrets back in your world?”

  “Actually, no. A decade or two ago this bloke, the guy in charge of the biggest military power in the world got a BJ from his secretary in his office, literally the entire planet found out about it.”

  “What's a BJ?”

  “Sam. I say this as a close personal friend, this is one of the things you don't want to ask me to explain to you.”

  “Noted.”

  “Okay, so, we're assuming there's more than one possible world to go to, you need an anchor point at each end, but you can send an anchor from one end to the other and pull yourself through. There's an easy way and a hard way, the easy way is how I got here, you send a signal out into the ether, latch on to whatever the first thing is you find, a soul works well apparently, then you yank on them and you go there, and they come here.”

  “Sounds imprecise.” Sam said.

  “It definitely is, you've got like, no control over where you end up.”

  “What's the hard way?” Judy.

  “You make a physical anchor on each side of the jump, then you can make a portal between each point, like how I used my connection to Sam to make a portal back in that Entropy themed dimensional pocket, except you have to try to enchant the anchor point through a keyhole to another dimension. Ever see someone make a ship in a bottle? It's like that but you can't see what you're doing and the bottle is in another universe.”

  “So the hard way is out of the question until you're much stronger? And since you got here the easy way there's not an anchor back on your world?”

  “Yeah, sort of, maybe. The actual anchor is quite complex to make, like, way beyond my ability, it's transcendent level enchanting, but if I could find an existing one here and get it back to my world somehow, jumping between here and there would be easy enough.”

  “Just find an existing transcendent level dimensional anchor lying around somewhere? Then just somehow get it back to your homeworld or hope theres already one there and the one you find here is connected to it?” Sam said.

  “I mean, it's a work in progress.” Gavin said defensively.

  “And you can't get back the easy way?”

  “That's also transcendent level magic, It's easy in the sense that anyone can learn to do it, you just have to learn how, and not ‘give a bloke a skill book and he can go yeeting himself across the cosmos’ levels of knowledge, I'm talking understanding the fundamental forces of the universe level of knowledge. You've also got to protect yourself against the raw ethereal plane, you've got to figure out a way to shield yourself from being torn apart the same way monsters disintegrate when they die.”

  “And that's possible?”

  “Yeah, definitely, you just have to tap into your soul. It's pretty much got infinite power, so long as your body can handle it.

  “Unlimited?”

  “Yeah, more or less, it's strong enough that gods can't touch it unless you let them, it's how you can resummon your weapons when they're destroyed, like, if one of Judy's arrows breaks, she can resummon it completely full of mana because her soul is filling it, there's just a little tax on your body but its way less than just summoning a bunch of matter from nothing. We're be able to use level twenty mana, basically raw ether, like right now, it's our bodies that can't handle it.”

  “Is that how we can soulbond to items above our level?” Judy asked.

  “Yeah, pretty much, our bodies don't have to deal with channelling the initial mana so it's okay.”

  “Could you make an item that channels your soul energy directly as a weapon.” Sam asked, the conversation steering towards something she was interested in.

  “You definitely could.” Gavin said, grinning widely “big bada boom.”

  “Oh.”

  “I'm actually a little surprised there aren't zealots that go and get an enchanting power and start blowing up cities.”

  “There were, thousands of years ago, it's- frowned on.” Judy said.

  “I fuckin bet, zealots aren't really the ‘care what you think' sort though?”

  “Paragon takes a particularly dim view on people that try to kill civilians.” Val said.

  “Soliece too, I bet. Wiping out a city with everyone and everything they knew is about as close to wounding a god as you can get.” Sam added.

  “Oh, right, makes sense.” Gavin said.

  “So, back on topic” Val said, cutting into the rambling conversation, “can you or can't you make a portal back to your home world.”

  “It's complicated, if I can find a portal here and if there's an anchor back on earth I might be able to use them though that's a pretty big might, if that works then we're good to go. If there's not an anchor there then that's a hard no until I get to at least rank ten and somehow vastly increase my etherial theory knowledge.”

  “That's not very helpful.”

  “I'm assuming since Soliece got me the skill book that the information will actually be usable on a useful time scale.”

  “This is an uncomfortable amount of assumptions we're working off of.” Sam said.

  “Just muddling our way through is what we're good at.” Gavin said, unconcerned.

  “Every time you get cocky you almost die, one of these days you won't have luck to save you.”

  “And when that day comes, I'd die happy” Gavin said.

  “You certainly won't die happy, I think anything other than immortality would be a letdown for you.”

  “Immortality does sound pretty sweet, is that actually an option?”

  “Some people say when you get to level twenty you become immortal.”

  “That sounds like nonsense” Gavin said

  “People definitely live longer as they become more magical, you get more control over your body as you rank up, you can consciously stop ageing.”

  “If you were immortal as soon as you hit twenty, we'd be tripping over them every time we went outside, even if like one person a year got to level twenty there'd be thousands and thousands of them wandering around.”

  “How do you know there's not?” Sam said.

  “Actually, that's a good point, but if there is, then why would the gods bother getting us to figure out their bullshit instead of getting the big kids to sort it all out?”

  “I don't think it's productive to speculate like this, we don't have any good information to work off, all we’re doing is guessing, again.” Val said.

  “Fine. Wanna have a long session of DnD tonight then? We can-” Gavin began before a knock at the door interrupted him.

  Frowning he stood, walking from the room, turning to walk down the hall and into the foyer. The door swung open to reveal Simon of the Storm Wardens standing outside in the shade of the fortress.

  “Yo, Simon, come in. Just you today?”

  “Yeah, just me.” he said, his tanned face cracking into an impish grin. “I have those books Judy wanted.”

  “No way, that's fuckin sweet my dude, come on in.”

  Gavin about-faced and marched back into the dining room where his team all sat pulling dice and sheets of paper out ready to use. They looked up to see Simon produce a stack of books from a storage pouch and place them on the table.

  “You got the books?” Judy said, face brightening.

  “I did, most of them are children's stories, but I did get a history book too.”

  “It’s odd, I didn't picture them as the sort of people that would have books or a written language, I guess that's just a cultural bias because they seem a lot like the various tribal peoples from my world.” Gavin said.

  “They have been in contact with the outside world for thousands of years, there are many who are fluent in the common tongue, though usually the warrior caste are very insular by nature.” Simon said, laying the books out for the team to inspect.

  “I kinda wish the guild did let us talk with them, I'm curious to see how they make the tattoos with the soul crystals.” Gavin said, taking a book and flicking through it before floating it across the room to Judy.

  “My team were curious about that too, it's something they absolutely won't share with outsiders though, we looked into it and have been told categorically from the guild not to push.”

  “Huh. No shit? Well, if I ever find out I'll let you know.”

  “Gavin, I strongly advise you do not find out. I don't know what scheme your team is cooking, I don't want to know, but for your sakes don't cause an incident.”

  “We would never.” Gavin said, placing a hand to his chest in false shock.

  “I'm serious, there's some business the guild wants out here and I think we should all stay well clear of it.”

  “What have you heard? Ahh, so we can better avoid trouble.”

  “I've heard that a team of high level officials sometimes investigate contracts themselves, they came here twice already.”

  “Twice? I thought it was just the once when I- when they came and shut down my enchanting experiment out in the forest.”

  “They came out to investigate a site a few minutes after we got the beacon up a week ago, we hadn't even unpacked our lunch and they portalled in, tore up a chunk of forest, and left.”

  “Strange. Anything else?”

  “There's a lot of politics going on, lots of officials trying to outmanoeuvre each other, like they all want to get into commander Kalistas’ good graces and sabotage everyone else. Somethings going to happen out here, and it's going to be the people on the ground doing the work that suffer for it if we’re not careful.”

  “We'll take that under advisement. Cheers mate, and if I ever figure out what that shit storm is, I’ll let you know what way the wind is blowing.” Gavin said seriously.

  “Likewise, I’ll see you tomorrow for the resupply yeah?”

  “Sure thing boss.” Gavin said, giving him a double thumbs up.

  The moment Simon left the building the team tore into the books, each taking a different one and finding a quiet corner to devour them. Gavins first book was a children's fable about a goat that ate too much and in turn was caught and eaten by a snake, but since the goat was too fat it choked on the goat and both died. He was left wondering what sort of message the story was supposed to impart before he gave up, figuring the same could be said for any number of stories from his world.

  He placed the book in the ‘read’ pile and took another. This one was about a little girl exploring the wilderness against her parents explicit orders, narrowly avoiding monsters, feeling it was no big deal because she kept getting away with it. One day she stumbled on the entrance to an old ruin, little more than a hole in the ground that led to a dungeon and decided to explore it. Her parents found her mangled body, in their rage they used the power of their ancestors to flood the valley, burying the dungeon underwater forever.

  “Could be promising.” Gavin Said handing the book off to Sam to read, “how's the history book Judy?”

  “Dry.” she said, frowning as she flipped a yellowed page, “There's plenty of war, nothing I can see has any outsiders, magical swords, or forbidden towers.”

  “Any reference to a new lake being made anywhere?”

  “Not that I've seen so far.”

  “Back on my world we can sort through documents for keywords, it'd make this sort of thing much easier.”

  “You could always just go back to your world, then we can use the technology there to figure out how to get back to your world.” Val said, tossing another book into the read pile.

  “Har har.” Gavin said, without emotion picking up the book she'd just put down.

  “Here's something.” Judy said, quickly rereading a page, “two villages had been skirmishing with each other for years, building up to a huge conflict. They each sent every warrior to battle, and the armies just vanished, no bodies, no survivors.”

  “Sounds ominous.” Sam said.

  “Where was it? What villages?”

  “Sedorath and Nastak.”

  “Hold on, we need a map. I'm gonna go find Haylee to see if we can get one of the whole area.” Gavin said, chair scraping stone as he stood.

  “No need, I have one.” Sam said taking a long roll from a dimensional storage bag.

  “Wait, you do? Since when?” Gavin asked sitting back down.

  “Since we came out here, I bought it while we went out for supplies.”

  “And you didn't mention it earlier?”

  “We haven't needed it, it's not like we need to know any geography outside the area we're responsible for, and the guild contracts come with a map of the area we need to get to anyway.”

  “Okay, fair” Gavin said, peering over the map with his team.

  He highlighted Nastak and Sedorath with Judy's illusion powers, they weren't especially close, there was one other village vaguely between them, it'd be quite a journey on foot if it weren't for the sprawling lake that divided the area.

  “Oh damn. Looks like I'm going to have to brush up on my water breathing enchantments.”

  “At this point I don't even think it's worth it to blast you for jumping to conclusions.” Val said.

  “No it is, that way when I'm right I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside.” Gavin said genially.

  “Well in that case, Gavin, there is no way the wizard tower is in that lake.” Val boasted, “it's a long shot at best.”

  “We'll see then I guess.”

  “How are we going to find time to explore the area? Contracts can come in at any time and we need to be here.” Sam said.

  “Not on sixthday.” Judy added.

  “I don't want to wait that long.” Gavin said.

  “Why not, it's not like it's going anywhere, if it's there it's been there for hundreds of years.” Val said, still reading through the pile of books.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “It could be discovered at any time though.”

  “We split up, send two at a time, one person waits in between in case they need backup, we keep the portals open so we can quickly get to and from the lake.” Sam said decisively.

  “Sounds good to me.” Gavin said, accompanied by nods from his team mates.

  “We'll start going out there once you have a workable underwater breathing enchantment and some way for us to get around and fight in our armour. I don't want to meet a monster down there.”

  “Yes boss.” Gavin said, the thought of not being able to just charge off to investigate putting a bit of a damper on his excitement.

  ***

  “No side quest today, we've got contracts.” Sam said, throwing out a handful of papers that Gavin caught in mid air and floated over to his open hands.

  “Lame, easy stuff.” Gavin said, flicking through the documents.

  “Hmm?” Val said through a mouthful of lizard steak and eggs.

  “Six level one encounters. Two in the same area we were last time and four out around where the Storm Wardens have been setting up their beacons.” Sam said, letting the others know what Gavin was reading for himself.

  “Split the party again?” Gavin said.

  “Yes, Judy and I will take the two, Val, take Gavin out to do the rest. If you get done in time you can spend the afternoon doing whatever you were just about to do.” Sam said.

  “Sweet as, come on Val, let's go Leroy Jenkins some trash mobs.”

  Gavin opened his portal out to the middle of nowhere, right where the Storm Wardens had camped the night before. The four contracts were scattered around them approximately every few kilometers. Instead of waiting for his portal to come off cooldown they set off at a moderate jog through the dense undergrowth and uneven ground.

  Val ran with the grace and agility of a star athlete while wearing plate armour, Gavin was somewhat less coordinated, though he used his telekinetic powers to keep himself oriented and on pace with his team mate. He was continually amazed at his fitness since coming to this world, not only was he running constantly but he was getting physically stronger and tougher each time he ranked up a power.

  They arrived at their first destination barely warmed up from their run only to find they weren't the first ones there. A fortified outpost surrounded a hole in the ground, a dozen Nalan warriors armed and armoured with their hand crafted weapons and intricate battle attire made from ironoak and animal hides.

  The defenders formed up around Val and Gavin as they approached. They radiated nervous energy and projected a strong front that washed over the two knights. They all held their weapons at ease, not directly threatening, but showing they were ready to defend themselves.

  ‘How do you think we play this?’ Gavin said to Val through their link.

  ‘Let me do the talking, we don't want an incident.’

  ‘You're the boss’ Gavin shrugged, stepping slightly to the side to show difference to his companion.

  “Do any of you speak the common tongue?” Val asked, her tone neutral and in control.

  “Atalan eru, quin mao sunt.” Said one of the warriors, stepping forward.

  “We are here to destroy the monsters here.” Val said, holding her hand out as Gavin passed her the contract.

  She presented it to the Nalan warrior who took it and flicked through, pausing to examine the map with the spot that marked their current location. He handed the contract back and examined Val and Gavin for a long moment, his eyes passing over their bright metal armour and curious weapons.

  “Karaham esunt calerimei.” He said, gesturing to his men.

  “We don't speak your language, but we have to go there and kill monsters.” Val said, pointing to herself and Gavin then down to the hole.

  The warriors tensed, their hands gripping their weapons. They tightened up to physically block the way, Val stepped back and sheathed her swords, muttering under her breath.

  She slipped a hand into the collar of her armour and extracted a small iron sphere. She activated a rune and spoke into it, glancing over to Gavin uneasily as his eyes flashed with keen interest.

  “You there Hales?” Val whispered into the device. “Hales?”

  “Oh hey V. Did the team leave-”

  “Not now, I'm out with Gavin on one of the contracts.”

  “I asked you not to-”

  “Yes, it's important though, there's a group of Nalan’s here, they don't seem to want us to kill whatevers down in a hole they’re guarding.”

  “What? Hold on.”

  They waited in silence for several uncomfortable minutes. The warriors seemed to understand that they were kicking the problem up the chain of command and had relaxed somewhat.

  “What contract are you on?” Came Haylee’s voice through the sending stone.

  “Contract number U, L, zero, three, eight, one.” Val annunciated slowly and clearly.

  “That contract is now closed, proceed on as normal. In future, move on and report to me as soon as possible.”

  “Understood.” Val said, tucking the sphere back into her armour.

  Gavin put away his weapon and the two made a show of backing away from the encampment. Gavin opened a portal up to the top of a nearby Ridge he would be able to get line of sight from. They backed through and appeared half a kilometre distant.

  “So, you and-”

  “Not. A. Word.” Val said through her teeth.

  “Understood.” Gavin said in mock imitation of her last words to Haylee.

  Val slugged him in the arm with a punch he didn't see until after it'd hit him.

  “Oi, what was that for?” Gavin said, rubbing his pauldron.

  “You know why.”

  “What was that walkie talkie thing you were using? Chuck us a turn.”

  “Haylee asked me not to tell anyone about it.”

  “Oh, okay then.” Gavin said, lowering his hand.

  “Just like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “We thought you'd be a bit more enthusiastic about getting your hands on it.”

  “Yeah, well, I'm not gonna break your promise. I'm not that much of a dick.”

  “Thats- Thank you.”

  “No worries mate. So, what's next?” Gavin said, taking out the remaining contracts and marking their locations in his user interface. “There's one close over there, and the others are that way.”

  “I think it's safe to say that dimensional pocket is the one we're looking for over there.” Val said nodding to a mirrored bubble vaguely in the direction Gavin had indicated.

  “Oh damn.” Gavin said, noting its immense size, it was easily bigger than any bubble the team had seen thus far. “We're definitely hitting that one up.”

  “Best for last? At least we know that'll be a challenge, if the others are non-starters like the last one it'll be really unsatisfying.” Val said.

  “That is a fantastic point, and Sam said you had the worst ideas, who would have thought?”

  “She said you had the worst ideas.” Val said, flicking his helmet.

  “Oh, yeah, right.”

  “We need Sam here to lower the cooldown of your portal. Judy is much better at this sort of thing.”

  “Did I ever tell you I hate you?”

  “You have. Repeatedly.” Val said, cracking a rare smile.

  “So Val, on an unrelated note, when is Haylee moving into the fortress?”

  Vals face instantly went beet red with embarrassment then anger. She shoved Gavin with both hands, sending him careening off the ridge. He arrested his fall and jumped back up beside her, laughing hysterically.

  “It's not like that.” Val said when he composed himself.

  “Right.” Gavin said sceptically, “you can invite her over for movie nights if you want, I can make you a double sized beanbag, a big blanket…”

  “You're disgusting.” Val said

  “No but seriously, I'm glad for you. At least someone out here is getting some.”

  “You could too you know.”

  “Not touching that topic. Back in my world we have a saying, don't screw the crew.”

  “Good. I've seen good teams fall apart over that sort of thing. The good news is when you level up a bit you can just turn those feelings off.”

  “Huh, no shit.”

  “It's one of the big perks of getting powers.”

  “Aside from getting to use actual magic?”

  “Yes. You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to being able to turn off having my monthly-”

  “Noooope.” Gavin said, summoning his portal and launching himself through.

  They came through in the dense forest nearly all of the way to the next contract. Gavin was extremely glad that his mapping ability tracked his location relative to the geography, it meant he could easily point out the direction they needed to head rather than appear in the middle of nowhere and wander aimlessly until he got his bearings.

  The sun was climbing steadily into the sky, insects and birds were out and the shade of the trees felt refreshing rather than cold and dank. The ground out here sloped away from the rise they'd come from and down towards one of the many snaking rivers that criss-crossed the area.

  “You are such a child.” Val said as she caught up to Gavin.

  “We should stay focused on the mission.” Gavin said bluntly.

  “You're not getting squeamish on me are you? You live in a house of women, you should really be desensitised to this sort of thing by now.”

  “Have you and Haylee said any four letter words yet?”

  “Or we can focus on the mission.” Val said.

  “Yeah, thought so.” Gavin scoffed.

  They slowed their pace as they approached the area indicated on the map. Gavin took to hovering above the air to cut down on the noise he made while Val picked her way from soft mossy ground to thick roots and forgiving earth, her enchanted armour making less sound than Gavin thought it would.

  They spotted the water elemental at the same time, it lurked in the river like a small hillock rising up from the rapids. It gave the impression of a static wave in a wave pool, rippling with whitewash and mist.

  “Gods damned elementals.” Gavin said, halting in his tracks.

  “We can take it easy.” Val said.

  “Yeah.” Gavin said half heartedly, “Give me a sec.”

  He fabricated a rod of steel from his inventory and gave it a simple enchantment, the process taking only a few seconds.

  “That was quick.” Val said.

  “Yeah, it's not great, but it'll do. You've got a couple of lightning swords right?”

  “I do.”

  “Then let's get this over with.”

  Gavin trudged down the hill towards the elemental. It surged up the bank the moment it noticed him like a rogue wave in a storm. Two swords careened past to slam straight into it as he lifted his wand and shot a bolt of crackling blue lightning at it. The water sizzled and arced as the continuous stream of electricity jumped across its massive bulk, water cascaded off it in torrents where the lightning hit and swords severed chunks of its mass from the bulk of its form.

  It hadn't come half way to them before it had been reduced to a puddle seeping into the mulch. Sighing, Gavin dipped a boot into the water and looted the residual magic. The coins were enough to replenish what Sam had used the last time he had to reset her radiance of the dawn spell, and there was a potion of mana regeneration, but otherwise barely seemed worth the effort.

  They ran to the next location which followed the river downstream a way and cut back up the slope a few hundred metres. They stumbled right into an ambush, a dozen of the same variety of dire wolves they'd fought a week ago set upon them as they dashed through the forest. Gavin launched himself into the air and started blasting, narrowly avoiding being taken down from the flank. Val set amongst the pack, dipping through their attacks as her swords hacked them to pieces in moments.

  Each sword severed a neck or pierced a heart with brutal efficiency while Gavin punched holes through their heads from above. The fight was over as quickly as it had begun, neither of them had so much as been touched, their raw speed and agility able to see them through these low risk encounters with ease.

  “Well, at least the last one should be fun.” Gavin said as he looted the corpses that lay conveniently in a pile.

  “It better be.” Val said.

  Gavin was able to portal them almost on top of the mirrored bubble that could be seen from kilometres away raising up above the canopy. It appeared completely smooth and stable as if newly formed and expanded out like a giant soap bubble that completely enveloped the trees caught within its area.

  “Shall we?” Gavin asked, holding out an elbow like a dapper gentleman.

  “You are such a tool.” Val said and stepped through the barrier.

  “Rude.” Gavin said, before following her inside.

  The dimensional space was verdant forest that exuded a heady vibrant energy. The plants and trees were in full flower and the air was heavy with the tingle of raw magic. Vivid greens, yellows and whites assaulted their senses, inundating them with a medley of colours that threatened to overwhelm the senses. If they hadn't spent so long training under the effects of Judy's illusion power they would have struggled to make sense of the almost psychedelic landscape.

  “Woah.” Gavin said, feeling the rush of magic pressing in on him from all directions.

  “Tell me about it.” Val said.

  “This place is absolutely saturated in level one mana.”

  “Can you use it?”

  “Yeah, but not for anything useful.”

  “We don't need useful, especially if you can absorb it later to reset our cooldowns.”

  “That's wildly inefficient, eating low ranked items is basically worthless.”

  “How long will it take to absorb it all?”

  “Maybe a day?”

  “Well, we could just have a fight, if we're going all out I bet this place restores our mana as fast as we can use it.”

  “Yeah okay.” Gavin said, jumping away from Val the instant four swords crashed into the spot he'd just been standing.

  He retrieved his spear and threw it like a javelin, it passed through Vals illusory double as she darted to the side and charged forward faster than he could react. His armour erupted into a shower of blue sparks as her swords hammered against it, her layered special attacks breaking the shield and cleaving through the steel like paper.

  He teleported again, summoning his rifle and reforging his armour. He began unloading his big boom bullets down range, blasting Val and everything near her while she dumped all available mana into recovering her armour's mana shield.

  Val charged forward, zigzagging to avoid the worst of the devastation while she sent her swords out to the sides. It was a tactic he was well used to, she'd force him to teleport away and have her swords positioned nearby to attack before he could jump again. The tactic was somewhat less reliable now his power had hit level two and given him an additional charge on a separate cooldown, but Val was nothing if not dedicated to efficiently dispatching her opponents.

  He jumped a second time as Vals sword closed in, he had no desire to let her hit him unnecessarily. He'd been under the effects of her soporific attacks that slowed and debilitated too many times to weather them lightly.

  His intentions weren't matched with the reality of the situation. His second jump brought him to within metres of one of her animated swords and instantly it was shooting straight at him. It whipped through the air dipping and diving as Val controlled its flight to be as difficult to block as possible. It zipped past his guard and cracked his mana shield, her layered abilities punching through his defences.

  He slapped the blade before it could pierce his physical armour deconstructing it into raw resources and harvesting its latent magic, a pile of coins dumping themselves into his inventory as well as a weak vial of poison.

  “Hey.” Val shouted as she crashed through the forest towards him.

  She threw one of her held swords as she summoned a replacement for the one she'd just lost.

  Gavin jumped away before he could be turned into a pincushion leaving behind a present where he'd been standing. An explosion of vines blanketed the forest floor, tangling Val as she skittered to a halt at the edge of the effect. She hacked the vines apart easily, but it had bought him several seconds of reprieve.

  Bullets thundered across the gap slamming into her back as she tore herself free. Her armour crackled with power as he ate through her reserves. Gritting her teeth she activated her lightning fast charge ability a second time.

  Gavin jumped behind her and was about to resume his assault with his rifle when he found Val rocketing back towards him.

  “Oh shi-” He shouted as she closed in.

  He had a split second to react, summoning his spear and trying to use it to deflect her charge. He managed to get the point up in time as she dodged, feeling the hardened tip bite into her armour before pain lanced through his body.

  Val impaled herself on his spear up to where he'd gripped the shaft, her two swords plunged into his chest as the others slashed the backs of his legs. He jumped away before she could cut off any limbs and deconstructed the embedded weapons and watched with irritation as she pulled his spear out the other side of her torso knowing the damage she'd dealt him would be healing her back up to full while he was still injured.

  They fought for several more minutes, Gavin topping his health up with potions, but Val had done her job, each hit slowed him while she grew stronger. He didn't go down easy, he made it as brutal and frustrating as he possibly could, but Val was an experienced sword master and was dedicated her craft having spent the better part of a year studying his fighting style.

  As they used the last of the mana and the space began to collapse they walked out exhausted and satisfied.

  “You've got a tell.” Val said to him as they passed though his portal and sat down for a break between cooldowns.

  “I figured you'd seen something.”

  “You prepare before you jump, and you like to get behind your enemy, you never jump to a spot close by or in front, it's always behind and where you can see me.”

  “Huh. Good spotting Morocco.”

  “What?”

  “Morocco mole.”

  “Just. No.” Val said, holding g up a hand to forestall any more nonsense.