Looking over at Monty, Jack saw he had relaxed slightly but was still staring at Brandt with a worried look on his face. Jack glanced back just in time to see the metal armour around the Overseer slough off in a display that left him wide-eyed. One moment Brandt was covered in a full suit of armour; the next, it turned liquid and pooled around his feet as he stepped out of it.

  As the Overseer walked away from the pile of discarded metal, his weapon retracted to its normal size. This one had no excess metal; it simply shrank. He placed it somewhere on his waist and then, in a motion that was universal for a hurt finger, violently flicked his wrist with one digit pointing out.

  Jack could hear the cursing even as far away as he was, and based on his interactions so far, he wasn't sure he wanted to be around an upset Overseer Brandt. As the man approached, Jack saw a number of people emerge from nearby buildings, a few from the residence they were heading towards. They were a mix of races; some looked like they might be Zerraians, while others seemed human. A few were even Groctons or at least very similar to the granite-skinned race of Riven, the navigator from Monty’s vessel.

  Brandt walked quickly towards them, ignoring the people racing around on clean-up duty. They wielded shovels, hammers, and picks, while others pulled carts, hauling the embedded icicles out of the ground where possible and smashing them when they couldn't. The debris was piled onto the carts and pulled away, melting slightly in the heat as it left the vicinity of the portal.

  “Jack, please, no questions until we are inside and settled. We should not be careless while his blood is pumping. I will do the talking,” Monty said as he stepped forward towards Brandt. Turrel was still turning the shard of ice over in his hands, inspecting something in the centre of it.

  One of the human staff members approached the Overseer as he neared the group; he took a deep bow and spoke quietly enough that Jack couldn't hear.

  “No! And find me Durrel. Bring him to my office in twenty minutes. He is going to have to explain to me why so much snow was allowed to build up inside the designated zone. That is unforgivable. Look at this!” Overseer Brandt held out the hand he had shaken before, waving a finger in front of the attendant's face.

  “Broken! That thing was much more powerful than it should have been. All because someone was slacking in their duties! Get in touch with Master Oxhaed and inform him I will need his services to repair this. Stress the urgency to him and prepare for him to access the secured transporter.” He turned back to look at the people working to clear the battlefield behind him, raising his voice.

  “I want this cleared before Durrel is sent to me. No excuses. The Zerraians will be sending a representative to meet with our guests. Their market space will be cleaned before they arrive. Understood, Zarn?” Overseer Brandt said, placing a heavy hand on Zarn's shoulder.

  The man nodded rapidly, then turned on his heel and walked off, back straight and head held high. His legs moved at a rapid pace as he disappeared into the distance while Monty met Brandt as he came closer. Jack tapped Turrel on the shoulder as they also moved forward.

  “Would you mind if I provided some assistance for your finger?” Monty asked, staring at the hand Brandt had locked his vision on while shaking his head.

  The Overseer's head snapped up, looking at Monty for a moment. His eyes were filled with a silver glow, and Jack could still feel mana emanating from him. Seeing who was in front of him, his shoulders dropped slightly as he let out a sigh.

  “Montarg… Yes, of course. I would appreciate that,” Brandt said.

  “Can I have a closer look for a moment? It will help me speed up the healing,” Monty asked.

  Brandt nodded and held the hand out. It wasn't until now that Jack got a look at what was causing such discomfort. The pointer finger was red and raw, looking as if all the skin had been stripped off it. Small spots of blood beaded all over the digit, looking like some sort of road rash. A ring at the base of the finger was cracked and missing a chunk. Jack assumed this was what was broken; judging by the recent conversation, it was likely a piece of Magitech.

  “Yes, go ahead. A moment of inattention.” He shook his head “I wasn't able to protect the armour before that stupid frost attack hit. I isolated it to that finger, but when I took the ring off, the skin came with it. These Riftspawn are frustrating to deal with; give me the dumb Yetis a hundred times over those Elementals,” Brandt ranted as Monty took his hand, turning it over to inspect the damage.

  “Can you take this off? I don’t want the skin to merge with it when I heal you,” Monty said, pointing at the damaged ring.

  “Of course. It had to be that finger too. That is going to be an expensive fix.” Brandt slid the broken ring off while Jack felt Monty pull in a little mana.

  He watched closely, trying to see if he could pick up anything Monty did, but he caught nothing other than a momentary feeling of growth. As he watched, the skin started to grow over the exposed parts of the finger. As if knitting new flesh from the knuckle outwards, it flowed down to the tip, and a new nail filled in, like watching a timelapse in real life.

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  Brandt pursed his lips slightly as he inspected his healed finger. Nodding to Monty, he turned and motioned for everyone to follow him. He pulled the broken gold ring out of his pocket. Channeling a small amount of mana, a golden sheen flowed over the metal, filling in the cracks and sealing the break before he slid it back onto his healed finger. He started to walk towards the large, multi-storey castle-like building they were originally moving towards; after seeing the man in action, Jack was happy his joke hadn’t pissed off the Overseer too much.

  They walked in relative silence. Turrel, holding the shard of ice as it melted, covered it in a ball of water that began to swirl quickly. In a moment, Turrel reached into the orb and pulled out a tiny black rock. The orb shot into the air where it burst apart, leaving a light mist to fall behind them. He twirled the rock between his fingers and then placed it into a pocket on his pants, saying nothing else.

  Jack watched the people working to clear the area around the portal. He could see them hauling the snow further away and dumping it into small trenches that seemed made expressly for this purpose. The snow melted, and water flowed away, pooling in larger trenches before the heat evaporated it.

  As he watched them swinging their hammers to remove the ice shards, some taking multiple hits to shatter, his resolve to help these people firmed.

  Jack wasn't a bad person; he tried to do the right thing when given the chance. He liked helping others, but he hated feeling obligated to do it. He could be a little cynical at times; he never cried at movies or got emotional at sob stories with a little emotional music on TV. But what he saw here... this was a real problem that needed to be fixed.

  The situation was frustrating because he had been thinking about Monty’s motivation a lot since the man had told him his story. There was no situation in which an entire population should be at the mercy of a creature like he had just seen. If assistance could be provided, it should be. There was no question about that in his mind.

  He couldn't help but imagine that creature appearing in the middle of a skyscrapered city on Earth. While he felt guns and explosions would probably have dealt with the Yeti with little trouble, he wasn't too sure about the elemental. Brandt had dealt with it swiftly and with some level of practised ease, sure. But Jack knew these people were on a different level. This man was trusted to be so powerful and imposing that he was to oversee not just the entire planet, but all of its inhabitants regardless of their level of technology.

  He was trusted to be able to enforce laws and deter people like Monty from simply doing what they wanted to interrupt the world's development. So sure, hitting the elemental with a few massive missiles would probably shatter its core, but how much damage would be done to a city in the meantime? How many tens of thousands of lives would be taken before it was stopped?

  Looking at the city around him, Jack could almost imagine what life was like here. Staring at the tents and stalls, the shade structures and buildings in the mountain. The weather was harsh, but it seemed peaceful and relaxed.

  No, he wasn't struggling with the decision to help Monty find a way to assist these people. He was wondering about what came next. Why, in a universe so large and with people as powerful as Brandt and the ability to cover massive distances in the blink of an eye, was it a steadfast rule not to interfere?

  He had some ideas, but they were all just musings at the moment. If this were a video game, there would be some scripted reason. The Origin was a "big bad" that somehow absorbed worlds when they perished or something like that. Some secret hidden and protected by the Overseers.

  Real life was seldom like that; there was nuance and a million variables that fed into a rule that would force a group of people to watch an entire world's worth of life die. He wouldn't rule out some evil secret plan, he just had no evidence or reason to suspect it; it honestly did seem like Brandt at least wanted to try to help.

  It didn’t seem like there were other people here to offer help. Whether they simply had not arrived or were not coming, Jack had no idea. He was sure if this was a rich or valuable planet, however, the situation would be very different. Which was probably why the rules existed the way they did, to allow the offer of help.

  He was snapped out of his daydream by Turrel speaking to him.

  “Jack, are you alright?”

  “Huh… oh, yeah. Just wondering about the world, life and greed. Totally normal things,” Jack said.

  “There will be time to wonder soon; let's keep focused for a little while longer. Once I have reset, I will be happy to chat philosophy with you. You are missing a number of lessons that may make the universe seem like a strange place.”

  Jack nodded and patted Turrel on the back as he looked up at the large metallic wall in front of him. From a distance, it had looked like stone or brick, but as they got closer, it was obviously a very dull, matted brown metal. They had approached a large arch in the structure; it was open at the moment, but there was what appeared to be a door that would drop down from above to close it.

  As they entered the space following behind Brandt, there was a rush of activity inside the walls. Looking around, there was a large courtyard inside the walls, with at least ten metres between the walls and the building on the interior. The space was at least three times that distance wide, and Jack could see two large decorative gardens, one to each side of the building's entrance.

  The gardens hosted a collection of squat, barrel-chested trees with bark that looked like overlapping armour plates, reminding him of a pangolin. They were topped by massive, fan-like leaves that cast deep shadows over the stone path. Underneath, carpets of vibrant yellow creepers seemed to release a faint scent of spiced honey that lightly filled the courtyard. Jack wanted to get a closer look but had his attention drawn away as a very short man with silver skin approached the Overseer.

  “Overseer, I have prepared your waiting room for guests with food and drinks. Is there anything else I can do to be of assistance?” the man asked as he bowed deeply. Being about four feet tall, when he bowed, his head was perfectly in line with Brandt's knee.

  “Thank you, Plint. Talk with Zarn. We are expecting more guests soon; advise me when they arrive,” Brandt said as he strode past the bowing man.

  The small man straightened, smoothing out his fancy vest and pants, and looked the following party over before rushing to the entrance.

  Brandt approached, and the doors before him opened. From what Jack could see already, if he thought the outside was a little over the top, the interior was something else entirely. No comments would be made this time.