Chapter 503: How Deep a Hole (1/2)

Jason went down into the waterfall cave beneath his cloud house. The natural stone was hidden behind walls, floor and ceiling made from cloud stuff, leaving only the cave mouth with the water rushing past. Sunshine sparkled through it like a spray of diamonds, dancing into the room. The space was otherwise lit by soft, ambient light coming from the cloud-stuff.

The room was mostly empty, aside from boards formed out of cloud-stuff on the walls. Jason could write or draw on them with only a thought, and they were already full of sophisticated magical diagrams and formulas. While his understanding of astral forces was instinctive and powerful, his knowledge of astral magic theory lagged behind. It had made great leaps, especially over the last year, but it was still not at the level required to finalise his special project.

“I need Clive,” he muttered as he glanced across his work. Then he put it out of his mind and a crystal recording projector rose from the middle of the floor. Jason took out a recording crystal and set it in place before stepping back. He sat, a cloud chair emerging from the floor to meet him.

Jason started the projector with a mental command. The projection showed Dawn in the cloud house in Venice, at a point where Jason was in the first transformation zone. Jason had only seen her one time since, shortly before the transformation zone’s collapse that had been the only time he saw her true form instead of a weakened avatar.

“Jason,” the projected Dawn said. “My dimensional vessel has detected the approach of a similar vessel, belonging to my counterpart within the Builder’s people. This is a man I know and, based on my knowledge of him and you, I have some idea of how that is going to go. I’m not sure how far you will end up pushing him, but like so many beings of great power, that power has made him prideful.”

Dawn paused as Emi came into the room.

“Dawn, do you want to come play El Grande?”

“I’m a little busy.”

“Okay.”

Dawn turned back to the recording crystal she was speaking into.

“This man I suspect you are about to meet is going to make a mistake. I could probably stop him, but the concessions we can get from him if I don’t are worth more than preventing him from acting, even if the cost is high. I’ll explain the terms I will extract from him now, since we likely won’t have long to talk the next time we meet.”

Jason listened again as Dawn explained the terms about the Builder not attacking Jason with overwhelming numbers or high-rankers. That he would not send anyone at all unless Jason interfered in their affairs first.

“I did remember right,” Jason murmured to himself.

“Since I won’t have a lot of time to explain when I see you, I’m going to leave this recording with Farrah. She’ll give it to you before you travel once more to the other world. I have no doubt that you’ll succeed in saving your world and returning.”

The recording ended and Jason got up, returning the crystal to his inventory.

Like most major organisations in Vitesse, the Adventure Society branch was located in one of the city’s iconic garden towers; massive spires draped in greenery. In a meeting room that opened onto a balcony that let in the fresh air, Clive was sitting opposite a high-ranking Magic Society official. Various functionaries were standing behind the official, while Clive was flanked by his team.

“Mr Standish, you are one of the most talented young astral magic specialists we have.”

“You don’t have me,” Clive said. “I left the Magic Society. Definitively.”

“It’s time to come home. You can accomplish more in research than you ever could as an adventurer.”

“I beg to differ,” Humphrey said. “Clive was the mastermind behind both finding the Purity enclave and the attack that disrupted their grand summoning.”

“And how did he find them?” the official shot back. “By tracing them through a network of dimensional gates that he discovered while cloistered in research at the Magic Society.”

“That’s an awfully nice way of saying locked up,” Sophie said.

“Mistakes were made,” the official acknowledged. “We apologise for your previous treatment, Mr Standish.”

“Oh, we know how sorry you are,” Neil said. “You think we haven’t been paying attention?”

“We have been following the career of the woman that exploited Clive,” Humphrey said. “Her next promotion got delayed. By months. She got it eventually.”

“You Magic Society guys really know how to bring down the hammer,” Neil said.

“Mr Standish, this mass-arrival of outworlders represents an unprecedented chance to study astral forces, which is more critical now than ever. We still don’t know if the messengers that were summoned represent an isolated event or part of a widespread program.”

“You wouldn’t even know to ask if Clive wasn’t an adventurer,” Belinda said.

“And that’s the way I’m staying,” Clive added. “Not only did the Magic Society treat me with flagrant indecency but your response in the aftermath was to hush it all up.”

“Whatever unfortunate matters are in the past,” the official said, “we need to look to the future. You are more valuable researching the Builder and Purity’s methods than getting killed fighting some irrelevant monster.”

“I don’t know how to be more explicit,” Clive said. “I’m not returning to the Magic Society. Not ever.”

“You burned that bridge,” Sophie told the official. “Then you took the ashes, put them in a big trough and got a bunch of your Magic Society friends to whiz in it. Then you used the resulting paste to write ‘we gave Clive the hard shaft’ in letters so big that you need to fly to read them.”

Everyone turned to Sophie.

“What she said,” Belinda agreed, throwing an arm around Sophie’s shoulder.

The increasingly disgruntled official was about to speak when he noticed something approaching through the air, directly towards the balcony. It was an elf standing on the back of a giant, white-feathered duck, gliding through the sky. As it reached the balcony, the duck transformed into motes of light that sank into the elf’s hair, turning it from a sandy blond to stark white.

Ken dropped lightly onto the balcony and strode into the room.

“Well?” Humphrey asked.

“It is done.”

Grins crossed the faces of Humphrey and his team.

“What’s done?” the official asked.

“I daresay you shall learn soon enough,” Ken said. “Soon indeed, if the man I hear running down the hall outside is one of yours.”