He was kicked awake the next morning by a stern looking Sam. The sun was well up and streaming in through the windows, baking Gavin with harsh light. She was dressed in her training armour and looked unimpressed with him snuggling up in the mess of blankets.

  “Aargh.” Gavin groaned. “What time is it?”

  “It's late. I've been waiting for you in the training hall for an hour.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You’re not sorry yet” Sam said, ripping his blanket off.

  “I’m going to hate today aren’t I?” Gavin said, pulling his pillow over his face.

  “It’ll be fine. I promise.” Sam said, flashing an evil smile as she turned and left.

  Sam and Gavin stood apart in the Starborne training hall. Other members of the family and some assorted guards spared a respectful distance from them. Their skill looked impressive to Gavin, who was only vaguely familiar with what actual fighting looked like, his experience came from movies and occasionally watching exhibition MMA fights at his friend Will’s house over beers while they played armchair coach.

  “Alright. You ready for this?”

  “Ready as I'll ever be” Gavin said, resigned to the fact that he, a novice on the tier of star wars YouTube kid would be about to fight a veteran who'd been training since her hands were capable of the ability to grip.

  Sam launched forward, her wooden training sword swinging in at a wide arc. The attack was impressively quick and Gavin responded with the appropriate counter, deflecting the blow with his training spear and lashing out with a kick to maintain distance. Samania was already moving, flowing her strike into another and another each from an unexpected angle and picking up more and more speed.

  Soon Gavin was taking as many blows as he was avoiding or deflecting, Sam's training sword finding vulnerabilities and driving home without mercy.

  Gavin was quickly learning the limitations of his skillbook use, the information was essentially force-learned muscle memory, where the author had supplied formulaic responses to textbook examples, not how to respond to an increasingly hectic fight. He would need to learn how to adapt to the chaos, which was a skill he suspected would take months or years of beatings.

  He was sent sprawling across the wooden floor after a particularly vicious blow to the jaw. He wiped at his mouth leaving a streak of crimson across his hand. Sam put up her sword in a non threatening pose as she walked over to inspect the injury.

  “Had enough? We should take a break” she said, tossing a small red vial to him from her bag.

  “No chance. I've got a lesson to learn.”

  “I think you've already learned it.” Sam said, nodding to the blood stain on his chin as he gulped down the potion.

  “I've learned skill books aren't a shortcut to experience. But I haven't learned how to adapt that knowledge, I think you're going to have to beat it into me. Come on Shefu Starborne, got the stomach to kick me around the gym a little more?”

  Gavin dashed forward, leaping through the air with an obvious and easily avoidable attack. Sam dodged aside, thrusting her sword at him as he passed. He thrashed in the air, pivoting to try to catch the sword. His hand grasped the tip and he yanked it hard. Samania had a firm grip on the hilt which resulted in Gavin flailing through the air to crash wildly into the floor.

  He was up in a flash, circling more cautiously, trying to mentally note patterns or her preferred responses to his attacks. He tried dodging, ducking, dipping, diving, and dodging again to get in behind Sam's attacks. He felt if he could get in past her guard he'd be able to find an advantage, her practice sword was as long as his spear, but a significant part of his fighting skill now came from hand to hand combat.

  Half an hour later Gavin could barely stand, covered in welts and bruises, blood mingling with sweat. He'd been unable to get inside her guard and had paid the price for trying dearly.

  “It's pointless to continue Gavin.” Samania stated, she'd barely broken a sweat and had taken exactly zero hits while Gavin was barely standing.

  “Want to have lunch then get back into it?” Gavin wheezed, cracking a smile.

  “You really think you'll be in any better condition? We should train when you've rested.”

  “This?” Gavin said, wiping blood and sweat off his brow, “Barely a scratch.”

  “After lunch I'll teach you something a little less strenuous."

  “Sounds good Shifu.”

  “Shifu? Is that a term from your home world?”

  “Yeah, it's something you'd call your martial arts master- I think.”

  “I think getting used to your slang will take some getting used to.”

  “Nah yeah cuz, I reckon you're spot on mate.”

  Sam's brow crinkled in a disappointed frown “Don't ever do that again.”

  A few minutes later Sam and Gavin were in the dining hall eating a traditional mid day meal. It was a lot like a raw samosa made with a leafy vegetable wrapped around fresh salad ingredients and cold cooked meat that had been garnished with local spices.

  “This is bloody tasty.” Gavin said wolfing the meal down “I need to get my hands on some cooking skill books.”

  “So you can figure out how to make your meat pie?”

  “Yes. My country makes the best pies in the world and it's not close. I could revolutionise the culinary landscape.”

  “So you're going to revolutionise the magic world with your awesome powers and also the cooking world? Any other revolutions you're planning?”

  “Just those for now, I'm sure there will be other things I want to have a go at later, maybe an industrial revolution.”

  “Is everyone from your world this strange?”

  “Yeah, I guess? Some more some less, I bet there are much stranger people in this world once you start getting magic involved.”

  “That's fair. Power can do strange things to people, and more or less anyone can get as much power as they can take in this world. I imagine without magic the power systems would be more entrenched and social mobility would be more static.” Sam guessed.

  “I haven't seen enough of your world to comment, but by and large breaking into the ultra wealthy isn't something anyone can just do. In my world the top one percent of the population controls something like seventy five percent of the wealth.”

  “That's a figure you just know?”

  “More like a guestimate. Our technology and ability to track and store information is leagues beyond anything I've seen here.”

  “Really? Do you know how any of it works?” Sam asked.

  “The knowledge is very highly specialised, I know enough that I could describe the broad strokes but not any of the actual nuts and bolts. Soliece really wouldn't like me trying to explain much of it I don't think. I do have the understanding to figure out a few things, speaking of, one thing I've been wondering is if there is a use for having work done in areas where you can't use magic?”

  “Yes actually, lots of delicate rituals need to be in highly stable areas, they can't have any magic anywhere near them because it interferes with them.”

  “Excellent. Does your world also have the concept of intellectual property?”

  “Yes, for some things, no for others.”

  “I'm really going to have to go to a temple of Soliece to find out what I can get away with here, unless the lady herself wants to pay a visit?” Gavin said looking upwards “Didn't think so.”

  “The gods don't just answer your prayers like that unless you’re one of their clergy.”

  “Doesn't seem to have stopped her in the past.”

  “I wouldn't make a habit of expecting it.”

  “If you say so” Gavin said as if he fully expected to ignore the suggestion. “One thing I want to know, since this is a pretty generic fantasy world, are there non-humans around? I’ve only seen humans so far.”

  “There used to be. They were wiped out thousands of years ago when the monsters and demons nearly took over the planet. You know how I said the barrier to the ether breaks down if we don't clear the dimensional spaces quickly enough? That's why. There was a war, they got neglected out in what is now the unclaimed lands and it took the whole world banding together to push the invasion back. After that the guilds were formed to make sure it never happened again.”

  “That's pretty heavy,” Gavin said.

  “It is. I think we're done training for the day, I'm sure you have things you want to do, I have my own lessons I need to attend.”

  “Awesome. Well, if you don't mind, I’d really like to get back to reading, I have a bet to win” Gavin said, brushing his clothes down.

  Gavin retreated to his room to continue his enthusiastic research, confident that his growing knowledge of how it worked would pay off. He stayed there, parchment notes piling up in more haphazard clumps around his room just as quickly as he compiled them in his interface. He was growing more confident that he knew what range of abilities he wanted and how he should spend his stat points.

  He'd learned enough magical theory that he was confident about some of the abilities he should pick. He had a dozen item creation powers that were all mutually exclusive that all worked in subtly different ways on his short list. He was beginning to understand that some of them were essentially paint by numbers, basic and easily repeatable, probably good for spamming out mid quality gear quickly, others imbued specific effects that couldn't be altered. He was pretty confident that he should be aiming at some of the more high skill high reward abilities, he'd have to know a lot more underlying theory to get any use out of the powers but the ceiling on what he could make would be a lot higher.

  He was also pretty confident he'd need to prioritise mana regeneration, everything he looked at told him he'd be using a staggering amount of mana even with his one regeneration power it might not be enough. He'd found a few cute synergies to think about but nothing especially busted yet. He was beginning to think that his best path forward was just picking a high difficulty build then just getting really good.

  He wanted Sam present when he started making final decisions and picking powers, just on the off chance he was missing something super obvious. He left his room to find her, but discovered that Lady Alana Starbourne had returned and had sequestered her for a private meeting.

  Feeling let down but giddy with anticipation, he made his way to the dining hall. Griffon was there conversing with a man and what looked like his two children, none of whom Gavin recognised. He sat down politely outside their conversation but not so far away as to appear cold.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Gavin, this is Luke Luskan, and his children Lucy and Lachlan. Luke is one of the members of my staff here for dinner. Luke, this is Gavin, the outworlder who saved my daughter and killed the bonesnapper out in the forest the other day.”

  “Good to meet you mate.” Gavin said, shuffling over to shake Luke, Lucy and Lachlan's hands in turn.

  “I'm fascinated to learn about your world, I understand it doesn't have magic?” Luke said.

  “Luke is a member of the Guild of Magic Users, I'm sure the idea of a magic free world is absolutely fascinating to him.” Griffin clarified.

  “Yeah nah, no magic as far as I know. We have some pretty neat technology though, but Soliece doesn't want me telling people about the specifics.”

  “What about more broadly? What did you do before you came here?”

  “Well, I had several hobbies that I don't think exist here, but my job was an electrician, which is like an artificer who uses controlled lightning to make machines work.”

  “I thought you didn't have magic?”

  “We don't. We, and by we I mean other, smarter people have a better idea on some of the underlying mechanics of how non magical things work, one of those things is how to convert diff-”

  “Gavin, you are treading dangerous ground.”

  “Sorry mate” Gavin said, duly chastised “got a bit carried away there, anyway, my job is basically to put different coloured wires into the right coloured holes, and also make a mess that I then don't clean up.”

  The other people in the room had gone a deathly pale.

  “Was that… Soliece?” Lucy asked

  “Yeah, probably not a great idea to repeat anything I just told you, just in case right? When I last had a yarn with her she kinda threatened some light smiting if I started disseminating too much knowledge from my home world.” Gavin said nonchalantly, having no doubt that the people in the room would take the last few seconds to their graves.

  Footsteps entered the room, Gavin didn't need to turn to recognise Sam's precise gait. She sat down next to her father at the table, barely contained anguish lay behind the indifferent mask she put on. Another woman sat down next to Griffon on his other side, she had the same pale gold hair her daughter did, but with green eyes instead of blue. Her presence felt like a loaded gun on a table at a kids party. This woman was an extremely dangerous person who Gavin felt on a deep, animalistic level he should never try to fuck with.

  Gavin stood to greet Alana. Shaking her hand over the table “Nice to meet you mam, Samania told me about you.” He said, pushing aside the urge to prostrate himself before her commanding presence.

  Alana nodded in recognition before greeting the other guests.

  “Good to meet you too Gavin, and thank you.” she said, her menacing presence flowing over him.

  “No worries, your husband has made me feel very welcome in your home.”

  “I'm glad to hear it, now, why is everyone acting like they've seen a mirrorfiend?”

  Gavin spent a good portion of dinner making smalltalk with the guests while trying to communicate with Sam using facial expressions and gestures. She seemed okay, if a little fragile. Alana made a point of asking about Gavin’s intentions regarding joining her organisation.

  “Sam tells me your guild protects people that can't protect themselves.”

  “Amongst other things, but yes, our primary purpose is to destroy any threat to the city and humanity at large. Samania tells me you have some strong ethical beliefs regarding power and responsibility. When Samania has trained you up more thoroughly I will allow you to take the test to join my guild. Keep in mind that you will not be given special favour.”

  “I wouldn't ask you to. I've been given an object lesson in what can happen out there if you're not prepared.” Gavin said, nodding in the direction of the main door. “I've got some tricks up my sleeve Mistress Srarbourne, though they will need a lot of preparation before they bear fruit.”

  The rest of the meal went by rather pleasantly. Samania and Gavin retreated to Gavin's room. He sat on his desk, feet on the chair and back to the wall while Sam took the bed

  “How was your chat with your mum?”

  “Not great. She's furious with me.”

  Gavin nodded. He knew the whole situation put her mother in an awkward position that would be tough to navigate.

  “She's prohibited me from forming or leading a team indefinitely. I won't be able to regain that privilege until I reach the second guild rank, by then it’ll be too late.”

  “That's rough. So you're stuck doing grunt work for the foreseeable future?”

  “Yes, that about sums it up. I always wanted to lead my own team, now it's going to be next to impossible to have a competent one in the next decade. By the time I have a tier two guild rank everyone capable will have been snapped up long ago not to mention the stigma of joining a team where anyone who ever got remotely close died.”

  “I don't plan on dying any time soon. What happened with Gail and Allan was pretty shitty, but I saw how they were fighting, it wasn't much better than what I could do after one day of training.”

  “It wasn't just Allan and Gail. They weren't the first team I lost.” Sam said, her voice creaking under the weight of her words.

  “You never told me that?” Gavin said.

  “I- I'm sorry. I should have told you” Sam said, not meeting his eyes.

  “I'm not gonna lie and say I'd like to have known, but it's not like it's going to change my mind. You've been a genuine friend to me over these past few days, and where I'm from that means something. You don't just pack it in when it gets hard, that's when you support your mates the most.”

  “Thanks.” She said in a small voice.

  “No bullshit Sam, I think you've just had a lot of bad luck. We can do this” Gavin said as Saam nodded her half-hearted agreement.

  They sat in silence for a time, Sam brooding and Gavin laying back, looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully.

  “Hey Sam.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What if when I join the guild, I form a team and delegated some of the more tedious things like, say, leading to you?”

  Sam looked up, the first glimmer of a genuine smile he'd seen in days growing across her face. It felt to Gavin like the sun coming out from behind the clouds on a chilly spring morning.

  “That could work. We could be co-leaders, I could handle training and tactics while you handle logistics?”

  “If by logistics you mean I get to be the dashing face of the party while you do all the stabbing, that sounds good to me”

  “I can live with that” Sam said

  “Also, I'm ready to start choosing powers. I've got some abilities in mind.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, still not sure on some of them, but I'm pretty confident on the gate of infinity, and deconstruct, that one synergises with pretty much every crafting power and will let me train up my skills quickly, they all work in with the empower intellect ability as well.”

  “What's the teleport power do exactly? I knew it was one, but what are the limitations?”

  Gavin brought up the description he'd saved in his notes and read it off.

  [Gate of infinity]

  [Description: Create a portal to a distant location.]

  [Effect: Create a portal gate to a visible location up to a distance determined by your [Intelligence] attribute. Gate may be infused with additional mana to transport additional people of a level up to your level in this ability, number of additional people cannot exceed your level in this ability.]

  “It says it needs line of sight but I'm actually pretty sure I can combine it with my map power to draw line of sight to places I've been before within range.” Gavin said, excitement building.

  “That makes sense, there are a lot of powers that need line of sight that people with scrying powers can use wherever they can scry to.”

  “It also keys off my intelligence attribute, and with that empower intellect ability Soliece gave me should push the range out even further.”

  “What about the other power?”

  [Deconstruct]

  [Description: Description: Consume the latent magical energy in an item to restore it to its base components.]

  (Level 1): Break down items up to your level in this ability into raw resources. Mana cost varies based your [Dexterity] attribute and complexity of item construction

  “That seems pretty mundane,” Sam said, why is it any better than any of the other abilities you can unlock?”

  “It's the later effects that I want access to, there’s one that let's me get more resources when I deconstruct something, and the one after that lets me loot the excess magic from items I deconstruct the same way i can loot monsters, it basically goes infinite with any item crafting ability so long as I have the mana.”

  “I'm not sold on that, you're going to have enough money to just buy everything you could possibly need”

  “Maybe, but I think it's going to be important. I don't like the idea of needing to go back to town to resupply if I ever get caught out. I'd like to have everything I need to work with me at all times, being able to make a wall with a pebble or get money out of trees seems like it could be a good skill to have, especially if I can figure out how to use the magic in the coins to enhance my other spells.”

  “Well if you're sure” Sam said, shrugging her shoulders.

  “Why, what's wrong with them?”

  “Nothing, they're excellent, a lot of warden teams would kill to have a mass teleport power, it’s just that you seem to be angling for most of your abilities to be utility powers, they’re not going to be useful in combat.”

  “Excuse me, they are useful in combat.”

  “Like what?”

  “I'll show you in the training hall tomorrow, in the meantime, let's try out this new teleport ability” said Gavin activating the orb in his inventory.

  He felt a familiar wave of energy flood his body and a door to a new world of possibilities opened. Once he’d recovered he gestured to the side with his hand with a flourish. An arrow shaped gothic arch made from solid marble slabs rose from the ground and filled with a swirling pearlescent void. Gavin stood back and admired his new power, the most overtly magical effect he'd seen in this world.

  “If we go through this and there’s some unicorns trying to get us to go to candy mountain we’re coming right back.”