Chapter 11

Long-range teleportation was considered high-level magic for literal ages. It wasn’t until the late era of the Age of Tempered Glass that teleportation stations became commonplace in most city-sized settlements in Tier 2 and 3 nations. There are normally between three and eight stations placed in a secure zone near the city center. These secure zones are to prevent invading armies or powerful hostile entities from using the site for an ambush on the settlements.

Master Navor led the newly minted squad of trainees to the holo-boards at the back of the room. She stepped up beside one display in particular and pointed to a time slot. “Alright, kiddos. For the duration of this mission, this is our group’s title. Read it. Learn it. Memorize it.” The slot she pointed to read ‘Dinner Party’ beside a time stamp that was a half hour from then.

“Not a fan of the name.” commented Demierra in a gruff female voice. “Sounds too stuffy.”

“I wouldn’t mind having a classy group name.” came Ozwald. “But, Dinner Party makes us sound like pushovers.”

Kharmor rubbed his bread in thought as he said, “I don’t know. Isn’t it better to go overlooked by anyone of importance?”

I liked the way S18 thought. He seemed like a thoughtful soft and inspected everything before acting.

“It’s also a witty play off the Master’s nickname.” I pointed out.

“Nickname?” asked Zynna.

“Don’t you guys know?” I asked the four strangers. As they all shook their heads in the negative, I caught a glimpse of Nel and Ferris looking proud. “Master Navor picked up the nickname Beast Eater because of her propensity for cooking anything she kills. I’ve heard this also includes the Bellicose Species as well.”

I got my own sense of satisfaction when Zynna, Demierra, and Ozwald each gave small signs of discomfort and shock. When everyone turned to look at the Master, she gave me a peeved look before saying, “It’s not that big a deal. Now, let’s get back on track. Ya’ll are going to be operating under the cover of Novitiate rank Adventurers. I’ll be acting as your instructor. So that’ll keep our roles pretty simple and straightforward. Anytime you catch word of a group called Dinner Party meeting somewhere, that’s your cue to come find me because we have business or serious trouble.”

Navor made her way over to the back-most teleporter and waved for us to follow, and she continued her explanation. “For the length of this mission, I’ll be giving you all odd jobs around Grimvale. I’ll have you each working solo for some jobs and in groups for others. Each of these jobs you’ll be sent on should be thought of as tests. I’ll be testing each of you on a range of topics. You’ll be tested on your sect skills, reasoning, morals, teamwork, leadership, and so on.”

Navor then slapped one of the teleportation station pylons as she said, “Now for your first lesson under me. Who here can explain the magic mechanics of teleportation to me?”

“It’s just instant matter displacement.” I said, but my tone carried just as much question as answer.

“That’s the basic physics principle it operates on. So, half credit, but I want more details.”

This time, Kharmor spoke up. “It’s based on the fundamental abstract use of the Air element.”

Navor pointed to him from a commanding stance as she simply said, “Elaborate.”

Kharmor gave a bored shrug as he looked past the master to the device that was being discussed. “Its fundamental concept isn’t that hard. If you apply Arcane Myst to Air Myst with the right frequency and other variables, then the element affects the core aspects of space. If you pair spatial warping with Fate Myst to target a desired location, then with enough power, you can instantly transport someone or something a large distance in an instant.”

I raised my brows in surprise. I was impressed that he had just a firm grasp on a subject that I had been struggling with for a long while. The abstract uses of the Core Elements was some seriously advanced stuff that any normal student at the academy wouldn’t even be touching until the sixth tier at the earliest. And yet this guy just explained the basic concept of warping space like it was grade school magic theory class. I felt a lot stupider with Kharmor in the room, and I kinda hated it.

“Well done, Mr. Gaibhnigh. Full marks. After we settle down at our home base, remind me, and I’ll treat you to some good food.”

I watched the Half-Dwarf in curiosity as his brows raised at this statement, and a gleam came to his eyes. I turned back to Navor as I asked her, “Pardon me, Master, but I was told by Mystagogue Thrasher that we were going to travel across country to get to Grimvale. What changed?”

All of the new students looked at me in annoyance, and I shrunk under the weight of their judgment. “Well, Mr. Maverick, that was the original plan. But I greased some palms to get us permission to use these lovely teleportation stations. Are you telling me that you would rather trek across hostile wilds for weeks, sleeping in the mud or the trees?”

“What? No, no. Sorry, ma’am.” I hurried to backtrack to get out of the hole I had just dug for myself.

While the other students asked questions both to Navor and each other, I focused on the teleporter. It was a raised decagon-shaped platform. At every other edge was a multi-jointed arm-like pylon. Each of these structures leaned outward while their limbs arched overhead to point straight down at the center. Held in the center by each of these arms was a large yellow crystal. As I looked closer, I noticed that each tip joint of the arms was embedded with smaller crystals that glowed with swirling purple and white light.

Given what S18 had just explained, that would make the large yellow crystal an Air Myst crystal that looked to be battery-class sized. Then that would make the smaller crystals in close proximity to the Air crystal Arcane crystals. The Arcane crystals looked to be cluster-sized. I couldn’t help but wonder just how often those myst crystals needed to be replaced.

I was snapped out of my ruminations when Navor said, “Alright. Are ya’ll ready to get this show on the road?”

I gave as confident a nod as I could muster. That didn’t say much, seeing as I was terrified. I had never been to a larger than my hometown of Black Rock City, and Grimvale was a hive-city, large enough to be considered a small nation of its own. On top of that, my hometown was a Green Threat Zone, which meant that death by murder or monster attack was highly unlikely. But Grimvale was an Orange Threat Zone. I was about to skip Yellow Theat Zone rating altogether and get dumped in an alien environment with a reasonably high chance of serious injury, if not death. And I was getting dumped there while in charge of four strangers who not only would ignore anything I had to say but also might kill me if given the chance. I was doomed. Plain and simple.

As we all stepped atop the teleporter, I felt a friendly slap across my shoulder. I turned to find Ferris wearing this big, goofy grin. “You ready for a real adventure?” he asked, and from the way he said it, he clearly expected me to give a hearty agreement.

Instead, I gave him a timid half smile before saying, “Yeah. Sure.” in a tone that was half sarcasm and half dread.

Nennel stepped up to the other side of me. “Come on, Ives’. It won’t be that-” She was cut off as space warped and distorted. There was a flash of flight before I was falling through a dark tunnel lined with stars. I could feel my body both stretching past natural limits and getting compacted into a space the size of a marble. I tried to scream when I felt like I was getting twisted like a dishrag, but there was no air.

Suddenly, there was another flash as my body snapped back to normal. “-Bad.” Nel finished her line as I fell to my knees and vomited everything in my stomach up at velocity.

I could feel the glares of disgust from the new party members as I lay there on all fours, dry heaving. “Oh, shit.” Master Navor cursed while Nennel kneeled down beside me and rubbed my back in a gentle and comforting manner. “I forgot to make sure everything has teleported before.” The Master stepped over to me and single-handedly lifted me to my feet. “Sorry about that, kid. I’ll buy you something to eat too, after we settled in.” She turned away from me and began a stroll towards the area’s exit as she waved for the party to follow. Ferris slipped in under one shoulder and helped me walk even as I rubbed the tears from my eyes with my free hand.

Once my vision was clear, I checked out my surroundings. We appeared to have arrived in a large courtyard with eight teleporter stations evenly spread out across the space. Between each of these stations were patches of grass and a few trees. But as I walked through a patch of the so-called grass, I found it to be synth-turf. Completely artificial grass. I really was far from home. It was when I looked up that I was truly shown that I was out of my depth. Surrounding the courtyard were walls. All of them were five or six stories tall and capped with massive gun turret stations every few dozen yards. Overhead, the sky gave off a faint glow and shimmered, which I realized was an energy field. I also noticed that we were heading toward the only exit from the space. That exit looked to be a heavily guarded blast door and scanner checkpoint.

I gave the space another look from a tactical perspective instead of a foreigner’s. It was a kill box. There was no hiding it. If anything teleported into that space that was not meant to be there, it would get reduced to atoms before it could even move from the station.

As we approached the exit, the party formed a single-file line. The only exception was Ferris holding me up because my legs were still weak. One by one, we passed through a full body scanner, but they didn’t stop any of us because of our weapons beyond a quick inspection of the tools. When it was my turn Ferris and I stepped up to the scanner, which was being operated from an armored booth by a Human.

“First time teleporting?” Asked the tall male Human. I gave a wordless nod in answer. “Of course, it would be a damned Fiend-kin I would have to clean up after.” He mumbled before he addressed me. “I don’t care how weak you are. You go through the field alone.”

“Isn’t it just a scanner?” I asked.

The guard gave an exasperated sigh before saying, “This city is going to chew up a noob like you, boy.” The ‘boy’ comment at the end of his statement made me flinch in reflexive thought of Thallos. “This field scans for illegal material, eldritch weapons, and so on, as well as killing any foreign viruses and bacteria on your person. The last thing we need is you bringing the Weeping Plague into the city. Now, move it Fiend-fucker.” This last line was a command with no small amount of hostility.

I tried to stand on my own to find that I could bear my weight. After I waited a few seconds to make sure it wasn’t a flook, I nodded to Ferris, telling him I was okay, before stepping through. The blue-green wall of shimmering light washed over me, leaving behind a slight tingling sensation.

I moved to the next station, run by an Orc woman with dark brown skin and a broken left tusk. “Please empty your pockets and remove your weapons and boots. Any boots or weapons are to be set on the table before you for inspection. Do you have anything to declare?” She said this as a rehearsed line that had lost all meaning to the woman.

I slipped off Venna and set her on the table before I did the same with my boots. “What would I have to declare?” I asked.

The brawny woman raised an eyebrow at me in challenge. “You really have never been through customs before?”

“No, ma’am. I’ve never left my hometown.” That was a bald-faced lie, but it was an easy way to explain my ignorance.

“Before your luggage is transported to you, it will go through a thorough inspection. If you have any foreign fruits, pets, or restricted substances like MyCast, anything of that manner, you are to declare it here, with me.”

“I don’t have anything like that. But I do have a question.”

Just like the man before, the Orc woman gave a heavy sigh before giving me a hand sign to give her my question. “Why are weapons allowed in the city? Wouldn’t it be safer to deny weapons?”

Before she answered, she leaned in, propping her arm against the table. “Listen up, kid. You need to get smart before you get dead. Even if we stopped weapons from passing this point and even the main gates, what about smugglers and Mages in the city? How would you like to be jumped by a group of gangers with weapons while you’re bare-skinny? How would you feel if a drunk Mage moves to roast you like a kabob while you have nothing to put him down?”

“I guess that would be pretty bad.” I muttered in embarrassment.

The Orc woman leaned back as she said, “Damn right. The city is dangerous no matter how hard we Regulators stamp out crime. So it’s better if you can protect yourself rather than pray some Regulators get to you in time. Now, move your horned ass.”

Without another word, I collected my things and hurried to move on. Boots and gauntlet back where they needed to be, I stepped through the blast doors to spy the city. The primary color of the city from where I stood was dirty gray, with splashes of bright colors. I didn’t see wood on any of the structures I saw. Everything was metal, brick, or synthcrete. The streets were rough and pockmarked with harsh wear. The majority of the buildings I could see were marked with some form of graffiti. Some of the illegal art was impressive. To my left, running the length of a brick wall, was a mural of a skull with roses blooming from its sockets and an Elven eye peering out from the gaping mouth. But most of the so-called art that I spotted were senseless tags of some name or word. Neon signs and holograms were at every storefront, trying to entice passers-by to step in and spend some Deckra. After taking in the striking sights of the local environment, I noticed a less pleasing layer. Trash littered the streets and sidewalks. The area stunk like exhaust, ozone, and over-ripe trash.

When I tracked my eyes up the buildings in front of me, my gaze just kept climbing. I couldn’t find a building that was less than three stories tall, and the sky above was totally obscured by smog. The shining blue I saw in the TTZ was only the barrier, not the sky.

The streets were alive with vehicles of all shapes and sizes. Just from the moment I left the TTZ, I had spotted cars and trucks in a dozen shapes, sizes, and colors. I caught sight of several motorcycles, a monocycle, and even a mechanical horse. I also noticed AVs zipping by overhead in their own flow of traffic. For a place with no signs of plant life or animals, it was shockingly alive.

But what really hit me was just how loud and hectic the place was. Thousands of sounds came from all directions. Wailing babies, shouts of rage and joy, honking of vehicle horns, every ad competing to take your attention with loud voices and strange sounds, the sounds of shattering glass and gunfire in the distance. It was all a sensory overload for me. I took a long moment to center myself and tune out all the noise.

I turned to check the rest of the party to find none of them as in awe as me. Nennel and Ferris looked on edge. Kharmor, Zynna, Demierra, and Ozwald all just looked bored and impatient. Master Navor was working on the therra for a few moments before turning to us. “I just ordered us a ride to our new home. Don’t wander off and stay on your toes.”

Everyone gave some form of confirmation that they understood, but as we all waited, no one spoke. After about fifteen minutes, a large truck pulled up in front of Navor. The truck was an impressively large design, with flaking gray paint and a few dents and scratches. The passenger side window of the vehicle rolled down as the driver spoke to the Master. I couldn’t see said driver, but from the gruff voice, I knew they were male and likely either Human or Orc. “You, Mz. Naya?”

Navor gave a nod with a brief response of “Yeah, that’s me.”

“These your kids?” came the driver’s voice.

“Students, yeah.” Navor replied.

“Alright. Pile in.” said the driver.

Navor gestured for us to enter the truck, and so we did. Behind the front driver and passenger seats were two more rows of seats, three each. Ozwald, Zynna, and Nennel climbed in first, taking the three back-most seats. Kharmor and Ferris climbed in next. When I saw that there was only one seat left in the back, I was going to offer it to Demierra, but Navor spoke before I could say anything.

“Sorry, Demierra, but you’re gonna need to sit in the truck bed. I couldn’t find a transport with large-scale seats that would get here in time.”

The large Dracose girl glared down at me, as if the situation was all my fault, before she climbed into the large truck bed. I watched her for a long moment, trying to figure out how to prove to the girl that I was worth respect. Navor pulled me from my thoughts by clearing her throat to get my attention. I turned to her, and all she did was pointedly look from me to the only remaining back seat. I got the message and climbed in.

As it turned out, the driver was a Dwarf. The male Mountain Dwarf had red-tan skin, an ink-black beard tied in a single long braid, and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses that looked to cost a pretty copper. But those sunglasses were the most impressive thing on the man. His chest was covered in a stained wife-beater that only half covered his copious gut. I couldn’t tell if the stains were from food or vehicle fluids, and I couldn’t even guess based on smell because he was smoking a thick cigar. The cigar smoke permeated the interior of the truck and seemed to have seeped into the upholstery.

I couldn’t help but continuously cough as I closed the door behind me. I buckled in even as my eyes watered. Navor took the front passenger seat beside the driver, but she seemed totally unphased by the pungent smoke. I tried to roll down the window beside me, but I found the controls to be locked.

“Excuse me, sir, but could you please roll down my window?” I tried to sound polite and not pleading, but I doubt that I succeeded in that goal.

The driver looked back at me through the rear-view mirror and said, “Sure, but you’re gonna regret it, kid. As bad as this smoke smells, it’s miles better than the air in the neighborhood we’ll be passing through.”

I gave a vigorous nod as I was taken by another coughing fit that had me struggling to breathe. The window beside me descended, and as the haze of smoke cleared, I noticed Nennel and Ferris looking at me in worry and Ozwald and Zynna giving me annoyed glares. I stuck my face out the window and tried to ignore the glares at my back.

I watched the city go by in wonder. This was a place unlike anything I had ever experienced before, and it was a lot to take in. As I spectated everything that passed by, I saw more people in the first 5 minutes than I had seen at any one time in Black Rock. I looked up at the towering buildings that seemed like monoliths made by Gods or Titans and was entranced by the holo displays larger than most houses. I recognized a lot of the names and products in the billboard ads. There were displays showing Evea-Life’s newest medications. Other displays showed off Vartex’s premium at-home appliances. There were also plenty of displays, both big and small, that gave public service announcements from the Regulators.

The Regulators were Ventic’s law enforcement force. They were owned and operated by the largest security and mercenary organization under Iron Cypher, Ex-Tac. For anyone who isn’t familiar with Ventic’s government, it’s a Corporatocracy. Simply put, the nation is run and owned by mega-corporations. Iron Cypher is the big chief of the companies. They own every other company that operates out of Ventic, at least partly. Any company that is based out of the nation has the majority of its shares bought up by Iron Cypher at what the company considers a reasonable rate. Whether or not the buying price actually is reasonable is another story, because the head of state has made it law that whatever the corporation says is the value of a company is what goes. Other mega corps that aren’t based out of Ventic, such as Evea-Life, only have the majority of shares for their local branch bought. There is a legal agreement between the government and these corporate giants that the companies will adhere to the law while working within the nation and will share a percentage of their income with Iron Cypher. But if Cypher gets too greedy, the other corps are ready and willing to pull all operations, recourses, and services from the nation. This kind of mass company exodus has happened a couple of times, and it’s never pretty.

At that time, I was painfully unaware of just how brutal the Ventic political field was, but I was about to learn quickly that anything goes if there isn’t any proof tying it back to you. After what might have only been ten minutes, I noticed more and more of the pedestrians wearing air filtration masks. I only wondered why for a few more minutes. Then, I was stuck with a rancid stench that felt like a slap to my sinuses with a brick. I didn’t know what the wretched scent was, but later, I learned it was wafting up from the sublevels of the city. Below that neighborhood was a sewage pipe that had been burst for going on two years at the time. Because of the biological waste that was accumulating in an abandoned warehouse field below, a massive nest of dire rats and other less-than-pleasant creatures made homes there. The locals had renamed the location the Stink Streets.

I gagged and kept gagging at the smell. When I pulled my head back in, the eye-burning smoke was a relief, even if it made me cough. In an attempt to keep my lungs clean, I would trade between breathing the smoke in the truck and the air outside. Neither were enjoyable in the slightest, but I needed to breathe without coughing, so foul air it was. At one point, when I stuck my head out to breathe, I heard the crack of a gunshot in time with a loud ping of something hard moving fast as it struck the side of the truck. As I pulled my head back into the vehicle, I heard the loud whoops and catcalls of a group of gangers we had passed.

I hid out of sight for the rest of the half-hour-long trip. I may have coughed hard enough to gag for the remainder of the trip, but that was better than getting my head ventilated by some lunatic delinquent. Yet safe or not, I felt the glare of three sets of eyes the entire trip, as they wished I could just shut up and die, no doubt. Ferris, who sat to my left, spent most of the time in the truck, patting me on the back in an attempt to comfort me. It didn’t help.

When the truck finally came to a stop, I shoved the door open and fell out in my desperation to be out and find breathable air. Luckily the air in that area was far cleaner than what I dealt with in the Stink Streets, even if it did still stink of trash, ozone, and exhaust. While I climbed to my feet, Demierra vaulted out of the truck bed, and everyone else made a far more calm and classy departure than me.

We all stood in front of what looked to be a rundown boarding house that was only one step above a no-tell motel. The walls were worn brick, marked with a graffiti mural of a black rose with a stem of razor wire and a single droplet of blood hanging from a peddle to reflect a horned skull. I found this last detail to be ominous and a bad sign for me. The windows were all dirty and held in behind barred cages. The front door of the single-story structure looked to have once been painted army green, but most of the paint was stripped to reveal a simple wooden door.

“This is home base?” Ferris asked with skepticism.

“Not much to look at.” complained Ozwald.

“That’s the point.” Said, Master Navor.

“Is it just as broken down inside?” asked Demierra.

“The camouflage is complete.” was all the Master said in explanation.

In disgruntled response, Ferris, Demierra, and Ozwald all groaned in unison.

“Quiet your bitching.” Navor scolded. “If you want to live elsewhere, that’s on your own coin.” With that, she climbed the steps to the front doors and swiped her BIC over a spot of the door frame that seemed no different from anywhere else. There was an audible click as the door unlocked, and the Master stepped through the gateway into our new home. I followed, hot on her heels, eager to see what I was going to be working with.

The first thing that caught my eye was the front door and its frame. About two inches deep from the exterior, the door frame was lined with steel an inch thick, and I suspected that the metal lining ran the perimeter of the building. The door, from both inside the house and out, looked like a standard wood door. But like the walls, the door had a steel core that was equipped with a magnetic locking perimeter around the outer edge. From the inside, the front door was visibly equipped with two deadbolts, a chain lock, and a key lock, but I knew that was all for show. While those four locks would be effective against most standard breaching means, it was the magnetic lock and steel core that would stop any attempts to break in short of a plasma welder, which I had.

Beyond the impressive door, everything looked drab and simple. Off-cream-colored walls with texture. Light brown carpet that showed obvious wear but was still serviceable. Immediately to my left was a sizable kitchen with appliances that were a few generations behind current models. The fridge, oven, dishwasher, and stovetop lined the back wall and curved around to the right. The floor of the kitchen was faux tile that was a beige color stained slightly yellow with sun damage. Against the front wall was a small dining table that would fit the entire party comfortably, if barely. Near the back wall was a trapezoid-shaped island surface angled so the narrower end faced the back corner nearest me.

To my right was an open doorway that led into what was obviously a common area. A worn pee-green couch was pushed against the back wall and wrapped around the corner furthest from me to end in an attached loveseat. An old wooden coffee table was set in front of the couch. Against the wall parallel with me was a holo-tv display of reasonable size and quality for a struggling family that saved up to splurge on something nice.

Directly in front of me was a hall that led to a carpeted staircase that led down. Three steps before the stairs was a branching hall. Navor waved for everyone to follow her down the branch hall. Down that hall were doors to three private rooms. Navor pointed to the first door. “Darrdane, you and Miermor will share this room.”

The Half-Elf and Nel eyed each other warily before moving past the Master to inspect the room. Navor then pointed to the next door as she said, “Ozwald, you and Stillwind will be sharing that room.”

This time it was the Human and the Elf who eyed each other warily before moving to check out the space.

“Flametongue, you have the last room in the hall. I won’t make you share it with anyone because that would be cruel to both of you.” The Dracose stepped into her room.

“Where am I supposed to sleep?” I timidly asked, not willing to my eye contact with the Master after the total fool I had made of myself the whole trip here.

In answer, Navor turned on her heel and moved for the stairs, waving for me and S18 to follow. I did as I was bid, all-be-it with no small amount of nervous energy. The stairs ended at a small square platform six steps down before taking a hard left turn. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I found myself standing in a room that looked to take up half of the house’s footprint. To my left was a long wall with a workbench that ran almost the whole length of the wall. At the end of that wall was a door. To my right was another door, halfway down the room. There was a third at the far corner of the space.

“With will be your shared workspace, you two.” Navor said to me and S18 as she gestured to the room with a sweep of her arm. “I need the two of you to play nice while working in this space. Got it?” She commanded. Be S18, and I vigorously nodded before the Master moved on. “Gaibhnigh, your room is that one.” She pointed to the door on the right side of the room. “Maverick, your room is the one in the corner.”

While Gaibhnigh moved to inspect his room, I moved to do the same. My room was around thirteen by thirteen-foot square space with the entry in the front left corner of the space. The room had no windows, but it did have a light/fan combo in the center of the ceiling. In the far back corner was a twin-sized bed opposite an open door that led to a bathroom. A closet was set into the wall to my left. Against the wall to my right was a dresser and a small table and chair. Mounted to the wall I stood parallel with was a reasonably sized craft bench. It wasn’t anywhere near the size of the one I had at the Academy, but I couldn’t complain because just having one was better than nothing.

“Oh, come now!” I heard Ozwald complain as he and the others came down the stairs. “Why must I share a room when the halfbreed and the hellspawn get private spaces?”

The Master looked down her nose at the Human, even though he was above her on the stairs. “Because they are craftsmen. This craft space you are standing in is a group crafting space that everyone can use. You will all be using this space to maintain and repair your equipment. But the craftsmen need private space where they can think and tinker. I know how these creative, technical types think and operate.”

Ozwald folded his arms over his chest as he continued to complain. “This still doesn’t seem fair. Why not get a safe house with enough rooms for all of us?”

Master Navor pinned him with a scolding glare. “This is what we have to work with, boy. Make the best of what you're given. Besides, I think you all are going to want happy and efficient craftsmen in the house. They will be the ones repairing what you can’t, and they might even make something special for you if you ask nice.”

With that last comment, I caught Nel giving me a meaningful look. I remembered that she had asked for some new gear. I gave her a small nod in understanding before turning back to the Master.

“Get settled in. Summon your crap and get comfy. When you’re all set, come meet me in the kitchen.