“How did you get your portal power up to level three Gavin.” Sam demanded when everyone had left later that night.

  “So uhh, it's complicated.” he began lamely.

  “How about you uncomplicate it.” Val said.

  “Well, you know how when we train we work out the ability, and how you can instinctively feel how your power works by cycling mana through it?”

  “Yes.” Sam said hesitantly.

  “Well, I have a couple abilities at level three, I could see how they changed when I levelled them up, see how the mana flows through them differently, so I started trying to force some level three mana through my portal power the same way and it shot right up. It was half the way there anyway, I was going to start on force of will next.”

  “Gavin no.” Sam said her voice hard and flinty. “Definitely do not do that”

  “Why not?”

  “Its really really bad for your soul. It might not show now, but if you do it repeatedly over several abilities you run the risk of permanent damage. I'm talking break the power permanently sort of damage.”

  “What do you mean break.” Gavin said, worry creeping into his voice.

  “I mean your power stops working, you get a big scar on your soul where it used to be, and it can't be healed, ever.”

  “Oh, ahh, okay, that's fair.”

  “Could you please not experiment on your soul Gavin.” Sam said, exasperated.

  “Fine” he said

  “No, not fine. We’ve been doing this for thousands of years Gavin, you think no one ever thought to try that? You didn't think maybe I should ask my team how this works before I go tinkering with my own soul?”

  “It wasn't some big plan or revelation, I just sorta did it.”

  “Without thinking.” Sam said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “That seems to be a theme with you recently.”

  “Yeah, sorry.” Gavin said with genuine remorse.

  “It's not like we didn't sign up for you doing this sort of thing.” Sam said, as if accepting part of the blame.

  “So, how did everyone get on anyway?” Gavin asked, changing the subject.

  “I got a map of the Wardens beacon locations, only the next week's worth though.”

  “That's Fine, show us” Gavin said taking a seat at the dining table.

  Judy laid out her map, marking off the old beacon locations and the Wardens route from memory

  “Excellent work. I can go get my part done in the morning, then we should get some useful data.”

  ***

  The knights completed several contracts over the following days, making short work of them all owing mainly to their new and improved gear. The team couldn't help but butcher their way through everything they came across. Haylee was cold towards Gavin when he turned in the team's reports.

  “Hey, about the other night” Gavin said when he couldn't take the stilted conversation any longer, “I'm sorry for putting you in an awkward position”

  She sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose, putting down her fountain pen. “It's fine. I'm well used to how different teams interact with each other. I'm just glad everyone seems to want to forget it happened.”

  “I don't think Gerome will forget any time soon. I just hope he's smarter than the last guy.”

  “The one you killed?”

  “Yeah, that one.” Gavin said, a dark cloud crossing his face.

  “Well, if that's all, I have work to do.”

  “Yeah, alright mate. I shouldn't have lost control like that, I'm sorry.” Gavin said dejectedly.

  “You don't need to apologise to me.” Haylee said, the edge of irritation creeping into her tone.

  “I kinda do, you're the only one I really feel I wronged. I didn't respect your authority and let myself get carried away, just so you know, the team and I have had a chat and I'll work on not antagonising the others quire so much.”

  “You don't feel bad about what you did to Gerome?”

  “Back in Sam's home town we trained under a priest of Paragon, she said we should train to fight people, not monsters. Monsters are easy, it's people that will get you killed. Almost all of our training is against each other, so when he got all fighty I figured the best way to deal with it was to put him down hard and fast so he wouldn't come back for more.”

  “We're here to fight monsters Gavin, not people.”

  “Yeah, true, but I've had to fight for my life against much stronger people before, they put me into corner and I've spent a lot of time training to fight my way out of corners.”

  “Benjamin Devore wasn't stronger than you.” haylee said.

  “Debatable. His team outnumbered ours and he got the drop on us, but I'm not talking about that. Our team was abducted by a group of level threes when we were first rank. Then the director of a local guild, who I won't identify, tried to kill me and one of my friends. We barely escaped with our lives each time.”

  “The director? This wouldn't be-”

  “Not going to accuse anyone of anything that would make all of our lives more complicated. You know our team has the forged in battle trait, we didn't get that at level one from fighting monsters, it takes some pretty drastic life or death stuff to make your souls bond to each other for survival.”

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  “How- wait, is that a portal out there?” Haylee said, looking past Gavin.

  “Ahh, yeah, looks like.” Gavin confirmed, watching a delegation file out of the portal, including Commander Kalista.

  “The commander?”

  “Oh damn, wonder what that's about” he said, as a second portal opened up swallowing the party of guild officials.

  “Something serious.” Haylee said.

  “Well, I'm sure we'll find out, or not.” Gavin said, shrugging, “anyway, i should get going, catcha later Haylee, and sorry again for making your life harder.”

  Gavin was nearly back to his fortress before the commanders name boomed out from behind him.

  “Gavin Pene.” she said, waves of psychic energy flowing over him locking him in place.

  “Yo.” he said, barely keeping his fear in check.

  “What is that contraption out in the wilderness?”

  “Ahh, an experiment.” Gavin stammered.

  “What, pray tell, are you experimenting with?”

  “Well, ahh, it's complicated.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “Well, I ahh, I've been working on some new enchantments of my own design I'm not one hundred percent confident on, and I figured it was better to do it out in the middle of nowhere instead of like, in my house.” Gavin said, sweat forming on his brow “You know, in case it went boom.”

  Commander Kalista huffed, turning to her offsider who dumped a pile of detritus on the flagstones.

  “Don't.” she said, barely paying him attention as she turned away from him.

  “Understood, commander.” Gavin said, watching as the officials stepped back through their first portal.

  He collected his half ruined stuff, seeing the important items were still intact. He beat a hasty retreat back to the fortress.

  “Guys. It worked.” he shouted as soon as he was inside

  He poured himself a juice and retrieved a pie from his inventory, sitting down for lunch at the table to calm his nerves.

  “What happened?” Vam said, the first to enter.

  “The Commander just showed up, tore apart my lab.”

  “And this is a good thing?”

  “Yeah, it means that the commander is out here to find that tower too, she doesn't know where it is, and they're using the beacons to find it. I set up a device that would fluctuate energy in a pattern right in the path of the wardens last beacon. I reckon they must have got it online this morning and Kalista came straight away to check it out.”

  “How does this help us now?” Sam said “she will find the tower before us if she has information on the beacons immediately while we have to go fumbling around guessing, there's no way we can track it down and get there before her.”

  “Yeah, that is a problem.” Gavin said.

  “We could try the local legends angle. That could turn up a location.” Judy said.

  “Good, yeah, you wanna work on that one? I'll try to think of other ways we could find it.”

  “Simon said he'd like to coordinate with you more often, we can ask him if he can get some local stories.”

  “Sounds good, I'll go out and talk to him today then, anyone want to come with?”

  “We could all go. It's not like we're doing anything else aside from training.” Sam said.

  “I might stay here just in case some contracts come in, if you use Judys portal to get out there and leave it open it should be far enough to ping you if I need to find you.”

  “Good call, well, I reckon they'll be at location two by now.”

  Judy opened her portal and the three filed through, leaving Val behind in the fortress. The team had explored large sections of the jungle, leaving them able to take more direct routes to their destination. This coupled with Gavins newly level three portal power with its increased range and cooldown it took the team only minutes to track down the Storm Wardens.

  The Wardens were in the process of setting up the site to plant their enchanted pillar, a clearing of levelled ground had been landscaped while the team manoeuvred the stone rod into place.

  “Greetings all.” Gavin said.

  “Gods Gavin, you could give us a warning next time.” Simon said, having half jumped out of his skin.

  “Sorry, bit hard to call ahead without going there first.”

  “What brings you out here?” Simon asked stepping away from his team.

  “Wanted to ask a favour.”

  “This sounds dangerous.”

  “Nah, she’s all good. Just wanting to see if you guys could get us a book of some local legends. We aren't allowed to talk with the locals, see? Only rank two in the guild.”

  “That… isn't anywhere close to what I'd expected, but sure, why?”

  “Well, uhh. ”

  “It's me” Judy said, interrupting him before he could make up an obvious lie. “Gavin’s been creating illusions from memory of legends from his homeworld, I want to try doing the same thing but creating the illusions myself. I figured a good way to practise would be with stories I'd never heard before.”

  “And it wouldn't hurt your chances of getting a promotion in the guild right? Your team must be about due for one.” Simon said, guessing at the teams motivations.

  “Not with Gavin at the helm.” Sam said, a wry grin on her face, “he’s political poison, none of the higher-ups want him anywhere near a delicate political situation.”

  “So you want to try to angle to rank up individually rather than as a group?”

  “It's pretty obvious they won't touch me.” Gavin said, he was getting good at using the truth to lie for him, “I even told haylee not to stick her neck out for me. I don't much care, but that doesnt mean the rest of my team needs to suffer.”

  “God’s know we suffer enough already.” Sam said, sighing dramatically.

  “Fuckin calm down.” Gavin said before turning back to Simon, “so, that's a yes?”

  “That's a yes.”

  “Good, well, in the interest of furthering team relations, my portal can take level threes now. If you want I can help ferry your team around the bush when I can.”

  Simon thought for a moment, glancing back at his team obviously having a telepathic conversation with them like he was doing with his if a little less subtly. The Knights had gotten pretty good at pressing feelings of intent at each other rather than whole fully formed conversations, something that the Wardens hadn't worked on or thought to try, apparently.

  “That's not a good idea.” Simon said after a minute.

  “Oh?”

  “We're on a schedule. If we start completing our job faster than we should it'll put pressure on everyone else. Your team are going to start having to push yourselves to keep up with demand, doubling the area you have to work in in a week or two might be too much too fast.”

  “Yeah, that's a good point.” Gavin said.

  “I bet they're going to bring secondary teams out here in waves as more areas come under our control.” Judy said, nodding in agreement, “having to bring that time up is only going to cause the administrators headaches.”

  “I can at least portal you back to base every night so you can have a proper bed.”

  “Our field accommodations are quite a bit better than the barracks, we actually like it out here. I wouldn't say no to a food resupply though.”

  “We can arrange that, I think.” Gavin said, slapping him on the shoulder.

  ‘Contract’ Val's message came through in the backs of their minds.

  “Anyway mate, duty calls. I'll come find you tonight before sundown with some kai.”

  “Some what?” Simon said to the air in front of him, watching the portal sink into the ground.