The following day was sixthday, the teams rest day. Gavin was up early, leaving the fortress at dawn. He'd summoned his portal into the city for the team to come and go from the house and headed off up into the woods by himself.

  The mountain was tranquil at this early hour, birds were just beginning their morning chorus, beams of light pierced the canopies of mist shrouded trees. It was cool up here, though his confident pace soon had him warm.

  He'd grown strong over these past few months, and his magical abilities and equipment were aiding that immensely. His body of iron ability that increased his resilience seemed to prevent mundane things like pulled muscles and rolled ankles, while his ring of stamina regeneration and increased endurance meant he could keep up a pace much longer than normal.

  His walk took him on a meandering path through the bush, having no destination in mind he was just out to explore. Aware of potential dangers lurking in the wilderness he was keeping his eyes peeled for signs of monsters. He picked out several alchemical plants, taking care to harvest them correctly with knowledge he'd picked up from a skillbook. He wouldn't have a use for the ingredients, nor did he need the money from selling them, but the local apothecaries were always grateful when people bought them piles of herbs and magical plants, sometimes the warm fuzzy feeling for doing a good deed was enough.

  He broke for a small meal when the sun was high in the sky, a glass of ice cold mystery fruit juice and a cold cut sandwich with a local bitter condiment that filled the same role mustard would to give a bit of tang to the rich fatty slabs of meat. He sat, looking out over the mountain ranges from a vantage point where The large trees had been blasted away in a small area, potentially a small extradimensional space had collapsed here some time ago, destroying the larger trees so only thin shrubs had been given time to grow.

  When he was done he stood and looked around, contemplating the direction he should walk now. Something odd caught his eye, standing out in amongst the untouched tranquility of the overgrown trees. The mountain behind him had a bit of a sheer cliff where it'd been smashed by the same force that had blown away the surrounding trees. At the base of that cliff a pile of rubble had formed as rock and dirt had cascaded down the face. At the top of that pile was a crack in the rock that looked older than the more recent damage. Moving closer to inspect it he found it was the covered entrance to an old cave.

  Gavin began funnelling the rocks into his inventory making very short work of the task. when he'd cleared a good chunk of the cave he floated his dancing lights inside to get a look. The cavernous crag Delved down into the depths of the mountain. He figured He could easily traverse it, he had a natural aversion to caves and a healthy respect of the dangers of spelunking. He did have two teleport powers, a stronger body than a normal human, a supply of magic items and the ability to craft new magic items or deconstruct his surroundings on the fly.

  “What's the worst that could happen?” Gavin said, taking a step into the cave.

  Inside was dark and dank, his lights glinted off the slick walls. He took out his spear periodically, using it as a walking stick in trickier areas. The cave looked unnatural, it wasn't carved by hand, but it wasn't all erosion either. The whole thing looked like it was designed to look like a cave by someone who didn't understand how caves were formed.

  Bone white stalactites clung to the ceiling at regular intervals mirrored below by stalagmites, the effect felt like he was walking into the jaws of some great stone beast. The cave widened out to a pool filled with crystal clear water. Around the pool a small track barely wide enough to walk scribed a path to where the cave carried on down. Gavin looked into the pool, feeling that this perfectly still body of water would be the ideal place for some hidden monster to lurk unseen.

  Sending his lights into the water he had them explore all the nooks and crannies looking for any sign of movement. Satisfied there was nothing alive in there he teleported across the cave. As he appeared on the other side the rock gave way, sending him slipping down the winding path right at some glowing green and purple fungus that grew on the rock walls below.

  “Shit a brick!” Gavin yelled, stepping through time once then a second time to get up and out of the passageway back up into the chamber above. He felt a deep boom in the rocks beneath his feet followed by a concussive wave that pushed him back into the water. Above him purple green flames washed over the surface as he used his force of will to press himself into the rocks below, keeping himself fully submerged in the rapidly warming ice-water.

  Chunks of rock splashed down around him, trailing sizzling bubbles. Gavin let them rain down on him, unwilling to dodge out of the way for fear of putting himself into a worse situation. The flames subsided after a time, though he stayed under the water with held breath. He sent his lights up to illuminate the area around him, surprised to see the smoke slowly clearing as a gentle wind carried it up and out of the cavern.

  He waited there until his lungs screamed for air, his ring of stamina regeneration pushing that time out to minutes even with his rapidly beating heart.

  Breaking the surface he prepared to summon his portal, but found the air, although acrid with ash and burnt chemicals was breathable, moreso when he retrieved a cloth to breathe through from his inventory.

  Shining his lights down to the source of the explosion he saw something curious. A spiderweb of iridescent metal had been exposed and left completely unharmed as the rock around it had disintegrated.

  “So uhh… that's neat.” Gavin said.

  Picking his way down to the strange metallic formation he stretched his hand out to touch it

  [Etherium]

  [Type: metal]

  [Rank: Tier 3]

  [Description: Metal that has an affinity for magical enchantments, safe enchanting capacity significantly higher than other metals of its rank at the expense of malleability and ductility]

  “Damn.” Gavin whistled, reaching a hand out to deconstruct it, and, nothing. “Fucks sakes.” he swore.

  Standing back to look at the glittering metal, he wondered what he was going to do about it. He fabricated an adamantium bar, then, jamming it into a gap between slivers of etherium he pulled with all his physical and mental strength. Nothing. Returning his bar to his inventory he inspected the metal. The razor thin edge hadn't even crinkled over where he'd been hauling on it.

  Well shit” he said as he sat down to think of a way to harvest the metal, realising with horror that the smoke from the explosion would waft out of the cave. Surely someone would come to investigate and take his horde. He suddenly had an appreciation for the greedy dwarves in Tolkein's novels; concerned with the glittering wealth of the deep mines.

  “Gavin you dumbass.” he said, snapping his fingers.

  Placing a hand to the rock wall, he deconstructed part of the rock it was embedded in. With a widening smile Gavin worked, carving out a wider and wider section of rock, revealing the true scope of the seam of etherium.

  When his mana ran low he equipped his armour, drawing on that to sustain his deconstruct ability. While his ability didn't typically use a lot of mana, disintegrating dozens of cubic metres of solid rock was beginning to tax him. His armour more than compensated however, the deep reserve of mana as well as its regenerative property was enough that he didn't have to pause until he had the whole chunk of metal free.

  With a deep groaning sound the weight of the etherium tore itself free of its rocky confines. Gavin teleported back up the tunnel to get clear of the tumbling chunk that would easily crush him. When it settled he jumped back down to it, touching it to add it to his inventory. He felt even with his seemingly unlimited storage space trying to take this chunk of metal would put him well over that limit. The higher tier material taking up more space than it otherwise would if it was of a lower level.

  “Oh bugger off.” Gavin groaned, jumping back up the cavern in bursts as his short range teleport power came off cooldown. He dumped vast quantities of raw materials from his inventory, stacks of wood, piles of ore and rubble, dirt and water jettisoned down the side of the hill.

  Finally feeling a lot emptier he returned to his prize, stuffing the entire seam of metal into his inventory. He had found that typically rank one objects took up one slot in his inventory and were stackable out to ninety nine items, rank two Objects typically took up four slots, and were likewise stackable. This block of etherium took up an entire tab of space by itself and pressed up against the edges of that power. He'd found in the past that certain things in his inventory gave him a visceral feeling, human corpses especially felt disgusting. The lump of etherium left him feeling like the wolf stitched up with a belly full of rocks in a story his mum used to read to him.

  Jumping back out of the tunnel again he picked his way back to the fortress, a spring in his step. He left the prodigious amounts of crafting materials and waste items on the side of the mountain, none of them were worth coming back for.

  It was late afternoon when he stumbled back into the house. He was exhausted, but satisfied. He had no idea how to go about doing anything with the metal, but he was definitely excited to try.

  “Gavin?” Judy exclaimed as he walked through the dining hall. “What happened to you?”

  “Went for a walk.”

  “No, you're filthy, it looks like you've been in a fight.”

  “Nah, didn't see anything bigger than birds.”

  “Is that ash?” Sam said coming up from behind and swiping a finger over the side of his cheek. You smell like that explosive fungus you used to make that bomb. Did you try to harvest some yourself?”

  “He would be dumb enough to try.” Val said walking into the room eating a hunk of meat straight off the leg bone.

  “Hand on heart I haven't gotten any of that stuff since that one time.” Gavin said honestly.

  “I bet he stumbled into it and nearly killed himself.” Val said.

  “Yeah, that's definitely what happened.” Judy agreed.

  “Gavin you moron, Why'd you go and do that?” Sam said with the same tone his mother used. “Where did you find it anyway? That stuff only grows deep underground and in tier three dimensional spaces.”

  “Uhh- deep underground, I found a cave that goes into the mountain.” Gavin admitted.

  “You're lucky the mountain didn't collapse on top of you.” Sam said.

  “I was fine, didn't even get hurt, and I found something cool down there” Gavin said proudly, taking the intact chunk of metal from his inventory and dumping it on the floor of the dining hall. It rocked perilously as it found its stable orientation then came to a halt, scattering chips of stone as it ground against the floor.

  “What's that?” Judy asked, inspecting it.

  “Some exotic level three metal, I can't even scratch it let alone deconstruct it.”

  “What are you going to do with it? You wont be strong enough to craft with this until you’re level three in all your crafting abilities, that'll take a year.” Val said tapping it with a finger.

  “Haven't figured that one out yet. I can actually enchant it as is, technically. It might be a rank three material, but that doesnt mean I can't put a level one enchantment on it, it’d just take me actual years to fill all the way, and carrying the whole thing around as a necklace probably isn't super practical. Anyway, how was your day, I see you all got new clothes.” Gavin asked, looking over his companions. “They look good.”

  “We didn't actually do a lot.” Val admitted “We got a couple of outfits, Sam got some new bed linen, then had lunch at a nice little Valerian cafe, then we found a bath house to relax.”

  “Nice, I could use one myself.” Gavin said, lifting an arm to sniff himself.

  “Gross.” Judy gagged.

  “What? Like you haven't reeked after coming back from a day of adventuring.” Gavin said frowning at her.

  “Not like that I haven’t.”

  “Ya-ha. You might not be as bad as Sam when she takes her boots off, but it's not great.” He laughed, ducking Sam's thrown steel boot.

  “You're an ass, Gav.” Judy laughed.

  “Is this new information for you?” Val asked.

  “You guys suck.” Gavin said. “Anyway, I'm gonna go wash up.”

  “Good. We bought take-out for dinner, then we can, uhh, play some Dungeons and Dragons?” Sam asked haltingly as she shot a glance at Judy.

  “Sounds good to me.” Gavin said, his grin widening as he skipped to his bedroom to have a long soak in his enchanted copper bath.

  Afterwards, feeling refreshed, he led the group through the adventure he had prepared, the party managed to fight their way through a cave system and rescue a man held captive by some goblins under the command of a bugbear and return to the local town.

  He'd constructed the cave from actual rock, with running water and wooden miniatures. Judy used her prestidigitation power to add glowing effects to torches, eerie darkness, and sound effects. While they played, Gavin had idea he wanted to try, though it would require practice.

  They ended in high spirits, Sam and Val joining Judy in getting right into the game. He retired to bed that night feeling fully content for the first time since he could remember.

  The next morning was the start of the week. They ran their morning loop around the mountain, a trail they'd cut over months of running the same route before returning to their training hall in the fortress. They took turns sparring against each other, Gavin and Judy paired off first using melee weapons while Sam and Val bludgeoned eachother with training swords.

  Gavin and Judy made a wicked team, Judy being able to copy any of Gavins abilities with her Divine Imitation ability, and Gavin being able to copy that spell, using it to copy another of her abilities, or one of their opponents. Both of them had teleport powers, and favoured non-linear fighting, though their approaches were subtly different, Gavin tried to confuse and tie his enemies in knots while she tried to find unexpected angles and exploit weaknesses.

  Sam and Val made a complementary pair too, with their own similar approaches to combat, Val easily had an edge with her natural strength and speed, but had taken to fighting with a handicap, either using only her animated swords, no weapons, fighting on low mana or stamina, or while Judy and Gavin blasted her with attacks unexpectedly while they trained.

  In one on one fights all four of them agreed Gavin was easily the most frustrating opponent, even though he never managed to actually win more than his fair share of fights. Every time any of the women beat him, they were left feeling as though they lost, emotionally and physically worn out. Even Val, was pressed hard to beat him when he was fully suited up and fighting in earnest, when he reached rank two he would be a menace.

  They broke for their mid-day meal while their exhausted bodies recovered from the intense training. Sam was right on the cusp of levelling up, and Gavin estimated with a few decent fights it'd put him over the line too.

  “How's this for an idea” Gavin said, staring up at the sky as the team relaxed in the hot tub out on the deck, overlooking the forest

  “What idea?” Sam asked suspiciously.

  “Sam, you and Val go take some level two contracts this afternoon, Val, you just act as backup, let Sam push herself, I go out with judy, we take some high level one contracts, it's good practice for all of us.”

  “Except me.” Val pointed out.

  “You can do some knitting or whatever.”

  “What? Is that because I'm older than you? It's two years Gavin, I'm not an old woman” she complained, splashing him with water.

  “I like it.” Sam said “Val, you can jump in and work on your evasion, you tend to trade attacks or stand out of the fighting instead of dodging or parrying.”

  “Fine.” Valerie said.

  “Alright, let's go grab some contracts, come back here, I'll open up a portal for you two, and Judy can open up a copy for us.”

  “Okay, Let's go.” Sam said, hopping out of the tub, trailing water as she made for her towel.

  Gavin did the same, though instead of towelling off, he used his force of will to scrape the water off himself, leaving him completely dry.

  “Neat trick” Judy said, copying his ability and trying it herself to moderate success. “It's harder than it looks, your control is really good Gav.”

  “I do practise with it a lot more than you.”

  “Do me.” Val suggested hopping out of the tub last.

  “Ahh.” Gavin stammered.

  “Its ahh, a pretty intimate feeling.” Judy said.

  “Oh.” Val said, eyes going wide “No, no thank you then, I don't need Gavin’s mind touching every part of me.”

  “Why'd you have to make that sound so dirty? Gavin gagged. “Judy could have done it.”

  “I don't think so.” Judy said.

  “You'd like that wouldn't you, pervert.” Val teased.

  “You two are the worst.” Gavin said with mock frustration.

  Twenty minutes later the team was back in the fortress, fresh contracts in hand. Gavin opened a portal out to Vivek, a small mining town South of Edomont, while Judy took them back out to the North of Starhaven.

  “You kids have fun.” Val said as she and Sam disappeared through his portal.

  Their first destination was a dimensional pocket near the village of hampstead, one of the villages that branched off Starhaven. This one was only small but had appeared right in the middle of a sheep farm of one of the local villagers.

  Gavin portalled up to the farmhouse door and knocked, the sound starting a flurry of activity. An excited child wrenched the door open, his jaw dropping as he saw Gavin and Judy standing there in their full adventurer regalia.

  “Muuum!” He screeched racing back into the house. “Wardens are here! Can I go with them?”

  “Sorry about him, you're here about the dimensional pocket?” the kids mum asked as he dragged her to the front door.

  “That's right, just wanted to let you know we were here. I'm Gavin and this is Judy, we should be done in no time.” Gavin said, offering his hand to shake.

  “Thanks, I've had to stop this one trying to look inside for himself a half dozen times today.”

  “You told him it's dangerous right?”

  “I did, but he's as block headed as his dad.”

  “Can I go with them mum? I'll be safe.”

  “Not a chance” Gavin said at the same time his mum said “No.”

  “You'll be cleaning out the chicken coop if I see you so much as glance at that thing again.”

  “Well, we best get going, I'll come back and let you know when it's safe, missus?”

  “Harriet.”

  “See you soon Harriet.”

  Gavin waved the kid goodbye and walked back down and out of their fenced front yard then cut around until he got sight of the mirrored ball undulating in the middle of their paddock a short way off. The two jumped the distance in a blink, popping up an arms reach from the dimensional space.

  They stepped through the mirrored sphere into a world of rolling grassy hills. On the hill where they'd appeared, lay scattered statues half buried in the ground. At the top of the hill was a transparent dome of golden light, surrounded by slate plinths. On an altar in the middle of a dome sat a tiara of fine filigree with a large square cut amethyst set in the centre. Inspecting the statues, they discovered the statues were all monsters of every variety, though each subtly themed with elemental effects.

  “There's fifteen elements and fifteen plinths.” Judy said after a moment.

  “You're right, good spotting Morocco. Reckon we need one of each on those plinths?”

  “That would be my guess, come on, let's grab some.”

  They each took a pile into their inventories, placing them on the plinths. When the last was placed, nothing happened.

  “Wonder if they have to go on in a particular order?”

  “They must do, I can't see anything that would show us what ones go where though.” Judy said, crouching down To inspect each plinth in turn.

  “Any ideas?”

  “I'm assuming they're going to be in divine order.”

  “Come again?” Gavin said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Like the diagram of the fundamental forces?” Judy said, cocking an eyebrow to match his “You haven't seen it?”

  “No?”

  “Here” Judy said, materialising an image of a five pointed star encompassed in a circle.

  The diagram had the symbols of several churches Gavin recognised at each point of the star as well as one midway between each point. Floating around the outside of the circle were more images though these ones depicted things like fire, water and lightning as well as a dozen others he could only guess at.

  “You're gonna have to explain this one to me” Gavin said, what's this one? He said pointing at a circle filled with wavy lines.

  “Thats ether-”

  “Ether is an elemental force?” Gavin asked cutting her off “are there ether elementals? How is that different to arcane?”

  “There are, and I don't know-”

  “Wait, does this mean? Hold on, I have an idea.” Gavin said, zoning out as his mind began to work on a problem.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Can it wait until after I've explained how all this works and we've completed these contracts?”

  “Fine.” Gavin said, forcing himself back to attention.

  “So, this shows the original five major gods and ten minor gods. No interrupting” Judy said holding up a finger to forestall Gavin from starting in on another tangent. “Each minor god fills sort of a midway point between each of the major ones, see balance is between Creation and Entropy?”

  “Yeah, makes sense.”

  “Then we have the fundamental forces, which are closely related to each of the gods they're near on the diagram, like necrotic is a mix of Spirit, Death and Simulacrum but is more anchored in death, then as we go around to ice it gets a bit closer to spirit and further from Simulacrum.”

  “Okay. I think I follow, one quick question, when I first got here Sam said there were thirty six gods, eight major and twenty eight minor ones?”

  “Yes, there used to be fifteen, then we got more. Some of the old gods changed their domains and others abdicated their power or split up.”

  “What do you mean abdicated? They handed their power over? To who?”

  “To mortals, Intellect and Life gave their power over to members of their church.”

  “Soliece and Florrin?”

  “Yes. It was a whole thing.”

  “I bet.”

  “It was what set off the calamity.”

  “This seems like the sort of thing that would have been important to know earlier.”

  “Then you should read more history books.” Judy said unapologetically.

  “I mean, fair, but like- how do you know all this?”

  “I can have hobbies too dumbass.” Judy said, rolling her eyes.

  “Okay, fair. So, we find the right statues and put them in that order?”

  After a bit of searching they arranged the statues, when that didn't work they sat back to think again.

  “I wonder if the monster types have anything to do with it?” Gavin asked.

  “Maybe, we've got two minotaurs here.”

  “Yeah, I wonder if this owl is too close to this roc?”

  They tried various combinations until Judy stumbled on the idea that they should look for monsters that would typically be associated with the elements

  Together they found a water themed turtle, fire salamander and so on. Placing the last statue on the plinth the golden dome faded to nothing.

  “Fuckin nailed it!” Gavin said, high fiving Judy who was looking very chuffed with their problem solving. “Would the lady like to do the honours?” said Gavin gesturing towards the tiara.

  “Magic items are your area.” Judy said, flourishing her hands as she too gestured towards the tiara.

  “Okay, that's fair, but I am definitely not wearing it even if it's really good.”

  [Item: Diadem of the spirit thief]

  [Type: Jewellery, head]

  [Rarity: Level, rare]

  [Effect: Activate to drain mana from target enemy once per day, effect lasts until target is completely drained of mana or line of sight is broken]

  “This could be good.” Gavin said, tossing the tiara to Judy to inspect.

  “Drains mana as long as you don't break line of sight? Too situational for combat, if an enemy ducks behind a wall it'll be a waste.”

  “I can strip it for a general mana drain effect.” Gavin shrugged.

  “Oh, yeah, that would be good.”

  “Alright let's blow this popsicle stand”

  They sauntered out of the bubble as it started to collapse, the field and henge behind them crumbling to ash. True to his word, Gavin returned to the house to let Harriet know they were done.

  “That didn't take long” She said as she opened up the door.

  “Yeah, it was just a puzzle, we, uhh, Judy got it figured out pretty quick.” Gavin said, glancing over at his team mate.

  “Before you go, I- Nevermind” Harriet said, apparently changing her mind.

  “What?” Asked Gavin

  “It's Theo, he wants to be a warden.”

  “Yeah, I got that.” Gavin smiled.

  “It's just, I-”

  “Don't want him to?” Gavin asked, guessing at her apprehension.

  “Yes.”

  “And you want us to talk him out of it?”

  “I know what you do is important, but he's my boy.” Harriet said, her pent up worry bubbling to the surface.

  “No worries Harriet. I'll have a yarn with him.”

  “I don't think-” Judy began before Gavin cut her off.

  “It's fine Jude.” Gavin said waving her concern away with a gesture. “Where is he?”

  “Down in the chicken coop.” Harriet said wryly.

  Gavin found Theo covered in filth raking out soiled straw surrounded by a mess of flapping chickens. He looked on the verge of tears as he worked, muttering to himself as he worked.

  “How's it going mate.” Gavin said, leaning on the fence.

  “Fine.” Theo said, turning away.

  “Here, chuck us a turn.” Gavin said vaulting the fence with a surge of will.

  “Huh?” Theo said, not understanding as he held out his hand expectantly.

  “Your mum asked us to come talk to you.” Gavin said, taking the rake.

  “She doesn't want me to be a warden like you.”

  “No, because she cares about you.” Gavin said, hauling out more straw From the coop.

  “She thinks I'm not strong enough, but I am.”

  “No, you're not. Not yet at least. Back before I had any powers I accidentally walked into a dimensional space like that one.” Gavin said pointing over to the now empty field “There was a monster inside that killed two adventurers and was about to kill a third before I got there. We got lucky and killed it, but it could have easily gone the other way.”

  “Everything worked out though?” Theo asked.

  “For me and my friend Sam, but her two teammates went home in boxes because they weren't ready. Once you step into a dimensional pocket the only way out is to win. If you aren't ready to face absolutely anything that could be inside you die. Your mum is right to be worried, I wouldn't want my kid doing what I do.”

  “Your parents let you though.”

  “They don't care about me as much as your mum cares about you. I haven't seen them in four years, I don't think they even know if I'm alive or not.”

  “What about her?” Theo said pointing at Judy.

  “They're dead. My mum was an adventurer, she died on the job.”

  “Oh.” Theo said, his mood dampening.

  “I'm not going to pretend being a warden isn't fun a lot of the time, but you have to have the right attitude. You have to be willing to get your hands dirty without complaint, use your skills to do the most good where it's needed, not just where and what you want.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Good. Right now your skills are best used here helping your family. I'll make you a deal, when you get to twenty one and you still want to be an adventurer come find me and I'll help you out.”

  “Twenty one? That's forever.” Theo complained.

  “It is, but you don't get anything for free in this world, and my price is for you to work hard and do what your parents say until you're old enough to understand what you're getting into and what you're giving up.”

  Theo looked at him a long moment and nodded, resolving himself to fulfil Gavin's pledge. Gavin handed him back the rake with a toothy smile. Theo returned it and bent to finish the last of the cleaning.

  “One last thing.” Gavin said, holding out a hand, palm up.

  A leather strap with a small metal charm appeared in his hand, radiating energy as he infused it with arcane power. He let the charm drop to his fingers to dangle in front of Theos bulging eyes.

  “Take it and remember your oath. Work hard and do what needs to be done because it needs to be done.”

  “I will” Theo said, taking it reverently and slipping it over his head. “It's magic? What does it do?”

  “You'll work it out.” Gavin said, winking “Better soul bind it before anyone sees you with it.”

  “Thanks mister.”

  “Call me Gavin.” Gavin said, shaking his hand a final time before letting go and vanishing.

  One portal jump later and they emerged on the far side of a mountain just a few short kilometres from their fortress. It was heading into the middle of the afternoon and Gavin was eager to get this done so they could return to base.

  “Any ideas on how we should fight this?” Gavin asked as he looked over the contract again.

  “Gavin, what was that necklace?” Judy said, putting her hands on her hips.

  “Oh, mainly just stamina and health regen, it gets more potent if he's injured.”

  “Mainly?” Judy said with a mild hint of accusation in her voice.

  “Maybe just a small boost to his attributes too.”

  “That's all?”

  “Yeah, aside from the soulbinding enchantment. I'm not gonna give a kid some broken relic on a whim.”

  “Thats- actually really thoughtful Gavin.” Judy said, her expression softening.

  “Yeah, well, we can get back to dealing with what we're actually meant to be doing out here.” Gavin said gesturing at the forest “Ideas on fighting an aberration?”

  “Aberrations don't usually have ranged attacks; we can just let it follow us and shoot it,” Judy said nonchalantly.

  “Okay, fair, let's find the thing.” Gavin said feeling completely at ease.

  They tracked backwards and forwards all over the mountain. Judy stumbled on its trail several hours later. Her vision power making her exceptionally sharp at picking up small details others would miss. Soon even Gavin could follow the trail, trees pushed aside with large teeth and Claw marks, dirt churned up in a wide track. It looked as though someone had taken A piece of heavy machinery through the trees and hadn't much cared about the condition of it or the forest afterwards.

  Picking up their pace they leapfrogged forward with their short range teleport powers.

  “I see it” said Judy pointing at the mass of writhing flesh that towered over the trees. “Up ahead, over there, see? It's a big one, level two I think”

  “Big means slow, right?” Gavin hoped.

  “Wouldn't count on it, aberrations don't follow the normal rules.”

  “There are rules?”

  “I think that's probably the most you thing you've ever said” Judy said fixing him with a smirk.

  “Ha, maybe. Want to bail on this one? It's tougher than the contract said it would be.”

  “Aaand that's probably the least you thing you've ever said.”

  “Want to start us off then? It'll take a while to get here if we start shooting from this far away”

  Judy took out her bow, Readying it, she began shooting arrows in rapid succession, each splitting into two as it shot free. Her three soulbound arrows first, followed by five rune etched arrows, then her enchanted arrows again as the first volley hit their target. Gavin could see from here small explosions that cratered into the mass of flesh in the distance.

  It reacted instantly, bulldozing its way through the trees towards them, smashing thick trunks aside in its path.

  “Ahh, so not slow then” Gavin said “We're going to need our A game for this he said, shouldering his rifle.

  He began hammering shots down range at the same pace Judy was shooting beside him, finding now that he'd had some practice his aim had improved significantly. He looped his magical secrets ability, copying Judy's spell that let her copy abilities then used that to copy her multishot power. As he shot, his bullets split into two bullets, nearly doubling their effectiveness against the massive sack of health points that was barrelling towards them.

  Gavin fed Judy his stamina as she depleted hers, keeping her topped up. Her armour was more than adequate for her mana requirements, it served an almost identical function to those he'd crafted for the team, though hers was more focused on regeneration than storage capacity in contrast to Sams that focused on capacity over regeneration and Gavin’s that filled a middle ground. Stamina was Judy's limiting factor in a prolonged engagement, mana was only an issue if she started taking damage or needed to rapidly use her teleport power.

  As it drew close the pair jumped to their maximum teleport range away from it, shooting it again, though Gavin had to duck aside as an entire tree was launched their way, crashing down to tumble end over end from the exact point he'd been standing

  “Lucky shot?” Gavin said as he readied his rifle again, getting one shot off before another tree launched his way with blistering speed, forcing him to jump again.

  “Doubt it” Judy said through gritted teeth as they jumped back again through the trees.

  The aberration came into Gavin’s view crashing through at them, a house of rippling flesh, eyes, mouths, and an impossible number of clawed arms. It cast a bow-wake of rock and soil, the world bending to get out of its way.

  He sprinted off its path, blasting it with his gun as Judy jumped the opposite way, her arrows lighting up like tracers from opposite directions as she teleported. The monster appeared not to notice, barreling straight past her to get to him.

  “Shit, fuck, shit.” Gavin swore as it thundered towards him.

  He was forced to jump, then jump again to get out of range. His teleport power working at maximum efficiency as he used it the instant it came off cooldown.

  “Shit Gav, get out of here.” Judy yelled, seeing the aberration had eyes only for him.

  “We need to slow this thing down, somehow.” Gavin said, his spear appearing in his hand.

  He took three running strides, launching his spear like a javelin and pushing on it with all his strength. The golden dart shot at the aberration, punching through an open eye as it erupted viscous goo. A moment later there was a dull thud as the spear detonated inside the colossal abomination, its stored energy exploding violently inside.

  Judy jumped out in front of the monster, casting an illusory screen of rainbow lights over the thing. It made no difference, the monster tracked Gavin wherever he was, launching trees and rocks his way the instant he tried to attack it.

  Teleporting to its opposite side, they watched as the aberration capsized as it tried to stop on the spot, arms flailing and mouths screeching silent cries.

  ‘It can't turn around quickly’ Judy said through their link.

  ‘Okay, good, let's play keep away with it then.’ Gavin sent back.

  They popped over the aberration, blasting it from one direction then the other as it turned to fight them. Judy's arrows and Gavin's spear, rifle, and spiked hexahedrons having a mild effect on the creature as he dumped all his mana into pushing on them.

  “We're going to need a better plan” Gavin said, chugging a large mana potion as his armours stored charge gave out.

  “Use the tiara.” Judy said.

  “I won't be able to jump with it on.”

  “I'll distract it.” Judy said.

  “I don't think it cares about distractions.”

  “Try me.”

  Gavin ran, getting further away from the aberration as Judy popped up on the other side, shooting arrows its way

  ‘It's still after me’ Gavin sent, ‘why is this thing after me? I'm not even attacking it.”

  ‘I got it. Stop Gavin, I think it's attracted to sound’ Gavin slid to a halt as Judy created a deep thrum that vibrated through the ground. Instantly the aberration tumbled over, tearing great rents in the earth.

  Gavin retrieved the tiara from his inventory and placed it on his forehead “This is so fuckin lame” he grumbled, activating the enchantment.

  A wave of mana sapped from the aberration flowed into him. It was not a magic user but still, as a tier two entity it had a gaping chasm of mana that was now his to command.

  He stood his ground, launching his spear again and again while his D12's battered it mercilessly, using the aberrations own mana to shoot the deadly weapons at their foe.

  Apparently tired of Judy's cat and mouse game it stopped on the spot, shooting out waves of shrapnel in all directions, splinters of bone, teeth, and consumed wooden shards blasting out of the hundreds of open mouths. Judy fell back, a spray of arm sized wooden splinters punching her armour, cracking the shield and denting the breastplate.

  ‘Ahh, it got me Gav, I can't breathe’ she wheezed through their mental link.

  ‘I got you, get to me’ Gavin said, maintaining eye contact with the beast.

  Judy appeared next to him taking strained short shallow breaths. Gavin slapped a hand to her breastplate, reforming the metal in an instant back to its former glory.

  “Thanks” she huffed, leaping back into the fight.

  ‘No worries mate.’ Gavin thought after her as she teleported away.

  More wary of the aberration now, she jumped a greater distance, thumping the ground to draw it away from Gavin who was acting as their stationary weapon emplacement, shooting out his missiles of divine energy to detonate inside the writhing beast.

  Their plan had worked, the aberration had no chance of catching Judy, and it was too single minded to do anything other than react to external stimuli. Soon Gavin had sapped all of its mana, the aberration sagging to a puddle of formless flesh.

  They didn't let up. It may not have been able to do anything without mana to sustain its form but it was still alive. Gavin stalked up to the helpless creature, soaking up mana as it regenerated, blasting it straight back.

  He thrust his newly materialised spear into the pile of flesh, funnelling mana back into it, letting its radiant light burn the aberration. The two of them unleashed shot after shot into it. Judy sat at point blank range, shattering soul bound arrows into it, her bow so powerful that each magically reinforced shaft disintegrated on impact.b

  Finally they felt its life force give out, its flailing arms went limp and its many eyes lost their integrity, oozing out of their sockets. Gavin tentatively touched a toe to the creature, not wanting to get too close.

  [You have looted: level 2 abyssal aberration]

  [you have looted:]

  [Amulet of eldritch horror]

  [1673 level 1 copper coins]

  [1232 level 1 iron coins]

  [6783 level 1 bronze coins]

  [453 level 1 silver coins]

  [341 level 1 gold coins]

  [298 level 1 platinum coins]

  [209 level 2 copper coins]

  [163 level 2 iron coins]

  [99 level 2 bronze coins]

  [46 level 2 silver coins]

  [41 level 2 gold coins]

  [18 level 2 platinum coins]

  “I uhh, I think I'm just going to sell this” Gavin said holding up the Amulet for Judy to see. It was a chain made of what looked like sinew and umbilical cord pulsing with strange fluid, the Amulet itself was a flap of flesh with nine eyes blinking back at Gavin, tracking him as the Amulet swayed between them.

  [Item: Amulet of eldritch horror]

  [Type: Jewellery, amulet]

  [Rarity: Level 2, legendary]

  [Description: Mortal minds are not made to understand the true horrors from beyond reality]

  [Effect: Cast a random spell. Cooldown depends on the nature of the spell cast]

  [Effect: Can be soulbound]

  “How about you just deconstruct it, I don't think anyone should have that thing.”

  “No way am I going to let anything this is made of into my inventory. It feels- wrong.”

  “That's fair. Come on, let's go turn in these contracts, I definitely need another wash after today, and you smell like chickens.”

  The two portalled back to Edomont, filled in their paperwork, sold their various unnecessary items including the amulet and returned home. Finally, they dumped their cash into the storage chest and sat down for a break at the dining hall table both opting for a cold beer as a reward for a job well done.

  “We made a good team today” Judy said, slurping her ice cold drink and taking a handful of chips from the bowl on the table

  “Yeah, we did. I know it's usually bad juju to split the party, but It's good training for when shit really hits the fan. I'll talk to Sam about having us go out as different teams again. I had fun though, just us.”

  “Same here.” Judy said, clamping her mouth shut as she began to say something else.

  “Well, I'm gonna go have another bath. I've got a surprise for after dinner” Gavin said, slapping his knees and teleporting from the room.

  “Oh, you're back. Where's Gavin?” Sam asked, stepping through the portal “how'd you guys get on?”

  “What? Oh, ahh, that aberration turned out to be a level two aberration, took a while to kill.”

  “Oh nice, you figured out that you need acid to stop its health regenerating then?”

  “What? No? We just shot it until it died.”

  “Judy, I'd expect that level of bumbling pigheadedness from Gavin but not from you. Did Gavin not think to check his interface power again for weaknesses?”

  “I don't know, he didn't say. We figured out it was attracted to sound and Gavin mana drained it with this new tiara we found in an extradimensional pocket.”

  “Oh, this I have to see.” Sam said.

  Judy created an illusion of Gavin, rifle shouldered, covered in ash, blood, robe flowing in the wind with a determined look on his face, his piercing brown eyes staring fury at an unseen enemy, a comically pretty tiara, bright and shining in the afternoon glow on his forehead.

  “Oh, did Gavin's more attractive older brother turn up to fight too?” Val teased standing beside Sam.

  “Oh, shut it you.” Sam said punching vals arm, hard.

  The illusion winked out as Judy's face turned red.

  “Well, I'm going to go have a wash.” she said in a huff.

  It was Vals turn to cook, she’d made coal-roasted fish over boiled grain. It was simple and tasty. After they'd eaten, Gavin took them into the lounge, which was just the far end of the dining hall where he'd set up several comfortable ‘L’ shaped couches

  “Alright team. I had this idea while we were playing DnD, you know how I sometimes talk about legends from my world?”

  “...yeah?” Sam said hesitantly.

  “Well, some of them are like, recordings of people acting out a story. My memory is a bit better now im levelling up and getting free intelect points off my mana power, and I’m pretty sure I can make some of the ones I know the best, when I get to tier two I should be able to do a lot better, anyway, I think this is a good opportunity to practise copying Judy's illusion power.”

  “Oh gods, what are you going to inflict on us?”

  “Calm down, I’m not going to give you anything too intense, just a half hour show to start out with, I'll have to work you up to the good stuff.”

  “Can you show us other stuff from your world? What it looks like?”

  “Yeah, fine, after though” Gavin said dismissively as an image appeared on the wall, music booming from all directions.

  “What language is this Gavin?” Sam asked “is that a translation down the bottom?”

  “It's Japanese, or at least I think it is, it sounds about right.” he said offhandedly As he concentrated on his illusion “Yeah, Those are subtitles.”

  “I thought you said these were recordings? These are like drawn pictures.” Judy asked.

  “Yeah, it's a style we sometimes use. Just watch the show, it's hard talking while I'm concentrating.”

  “Shut it Jude, let him concentrate,” Val said, giving her a pointed look.

  Judy mouthed an ‘oh’ and turned to look at Gavins illusion, hoping it wasn't all going to be a singing montage. She idly wondered if she could make something like this, she was no great storyteller, but she was vastly more practised with her power than Gavin; his illusion seemed to be a series of still images played at a high rate of speed rather than a smooth recording. She'd have to show him some better techniques there.

  The story had an odd charm she enjoyed, even though there were obvious cultural aspects she was missing. Why the odd language? Surely Gavin's homeworld with its purported vastly better technology could translate the audio instead of text at the bottom of the screen? Also, why were the characters acting with so much exaggeration? It looked unnatural.

  Judy was full of nitpicks and questions to ask after Gavin was done that she was surprised to find herself oddly invested in the story as it unfolded. She was even disappointed when it ended, and was about to ask for another until she saw the strain on Gavin's face, sweat sheeting his brow.

  “That was awesome Gavin” Sam said “having two necromancers as the main characters is an odd choice, but I'm interested to see where the story goes.”

  “When I've leveled up a bit, I'm buggered after that” he laughed.

  “Thanks for sharing that with us, you haven't really talked about your life back on earth much.” Sam said.

  “My world is way less cool than this one” he said, grabbing a chip and popping into his mouth.

  “Well, that can't be true, everything you have shown us from your world is pretty cool. Even Dungeons and Dragons, we don't have anything like that here.”

  “Can you show us your old home?” Judy asked, sitting forward.

  “Yeah, give me a minute,” Gavin said, watching his mana creep back up. He felt exhausted after that. His ability to multitask had increased, but keeping so much information in his head at once had been taxing.

  “Take your time.” Judy said excitedly.

  “Nah, it’s okay, this is my country” he said, creating an image of New Zealand on the wall, annotated with place names. This is where I lived, here, in Auckland.”

  “That is an enormous city, how many people live there?” Val said in wonder.

  “Ahh, more than a million, probably one and a half, I'm not really sure.”

  “More than a million? One million?”

  “Yeah, it's the biggest one in the country, but it's actually a pretty small city compared to some other countries, there are a lot of cities that have more people than my entire country in them. The country that made that anime I just showed you has a city that's forty million people.”

  “In just one city?”

  “Yeah, their whole country has like a hundred twenty million.”

  “That must be a massive country.” Sam said “That's a little bit more than we have in the whole world, I think”

  “Not that big, here” Gavin said, creating a new image, showing a map of the whole world “New Zealand is down here, in the middle of nowhere, and Japan is up here”

  “They're tiny,” Judy said. “How many people live on your planet?”

  “Close to eight billion I think”

  “Eight Billion?” Sam asked incredulously “how do you feed that many people without magic?”

  “Good farming techniques I guess? There's no monsters, so we can just bowl down a bunch of forest to use as farmland. My country's most deadly animal is probably a wild pig, that's an animal that looks a bit like a swamp trotter, or we have a spider that can give you a bit of a sore bite.”

  “Hey Gavin,” Judy asked, getting up to look at his map “Why doesn't the ice go up the sides of the map?”

  “Huh?” he asked “what do you mean?”

  “Here, you’ve got the ice wall up top and down the bottom, but not up the sides”

  “Ice wall? Those are continents”

  “What stops the water sloshing off the edge?” Sam asked sceptically.

  “Wait. No.” Gavin said horror dawning on his face “You guys are flat earthers?”