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Back in the Heirs’ suite, Nathan sat at the table in the common area, the letter in front of him. Everything had gone fairly smoothly - Nathan hadn’t gone to watch the newly exiled Pack Leaders be ejected from the city. It hadn’t been personal. He’d been a job for them, a job that entailed betraying Gemore.

The letter sat on the table in front of him. With a sigh, Nathan bent forward to piece together the torn text.

Nathan Lark, dimensional treasure.

I have been following your progress, and I ask you to reconsider your decision to leave Giantsrest.  There is so much to accomplish, and I have so many plans that you could be a part of if you would only ask.  Your skills and your otherworldly knowledge are wasted in Gemore, a town full of monsters and barbarians that lack the resources and education to draw out and use your potential.  Moreover, you have selfishly held the knowledge of your own world close to your breast, a decision which all those in the Academy are paying for indirectly -- and myself directly.

For I remind you, all the potential you have is due to me. I have gone to considerable effort and expense to bring you to Davrar, that your knowledge might be used for progress and the triumph of civilization! You owe me, and you owe Davrar, to use your potential.

Together we can grip Davrar in our fist and bring it to our breast. With your knowledge of non-magical wonders and my magical acumen, we have only to join forces. We will rule Giantsrest within five years, then the region in ten. In twenty, we can change the face of Davrar with the strength of our fist! Bring the marvels from your world to this one, and people will no longer die from monsters, but live without fear on the face of Davrar!

And if there are things about Giantsrest you find objectionable, we can discuss it, and learn from one another. When we control it, we can make of Giantsrest what we want. Join me in my tower, for I will be eagerly awaiting you.

Signed, Grand Dimension Archmage Taeol dho Droxol, ninth finger and fourth researcher of the Ascendant Academy of Giantsrest

Nathan sighed, tossing the letter on the table before leaning back and rubbing at his eyes. He didn’t even know how to feel.

Just… what the fuck man. I was half-expecting some kind of [Dominate] enchanted into the letter or something. But no, you’re just so egotistical that you think you can convince me to come back to Giantsrest. And that I’ll ‘forget’ that you tried to stick me into a golem core if you don’t mention it.

Nathan glared at the letter.

I guess this is proof that you don’t need to be smart to do good magic. Maybe Taeol’s just really bad with people. High IQ, low EQ. Rock-bottom EQ. With a superiority complex. At least if he’s so desperate to get me back it’s less likely he just summoned some other poor schmuck from Earth. Probably that ‘expense’ he was talking about.

Nathan thought back to when he’d first entered this world. He’d been disoriented from a trip through vacuum, confused by unfamiliar surroundings and then given the mother of all headaches by the spell that let him speak the local language. But, if he leaned on [Enhanced Memory], he could remember everything he had seen.

Taeol’s room-sized dimensional magic contraption had been really complicated, and Nathan wasn’t going to understand how it worked. But he did remember some important looking large multicolored magical orbs had seemed to power the apparatus. And after Nathan had been summoned, most of them had shattered and broken. Maybe Taeol was desperate to convince Nathan to return because he couldn’t try again.

And he did get demoted. Interesting.

Anyway! Nothing that Nathan could do about that now, except not get captured by Taeol. Sudraiel had already seen the letter, so she knew that Taeol was there and would be able to evaluate if it was worth sending a team after him. Nathan sure as hell wasn’t about to go after him, not until he was level 81 or so.

Stella came through the door, looking around curiously. “Nathan, you ok? I heard…” She saw him staring at the letter. “Are things ok?”

Nathan grabbed the letter, sticking it in a pouch. “Yeah, things are fine. Some adventurers tried to kidnap me earlier, but Eldred Vanguard saved me. Not fun to be attacked inside Gemore.”

Stella frowned at him and the letter he’d stowed, but she didn’t ask about it, just sitting down across from him. “That does not seem like a good experience. The Pack Hunters, yes?”

Nathan waved his hand vaguely. “Yup. I haven’t heard of them before. They caught me pretty easily.”

Stella shrugged. “They’re a harvesting team, been around for a while, well-respected. Sometimes they capture local monsters and ship them down to Litcliff, so I’m not surprised they could catch you. I guess they were a harvesting team now, and had respect. I’m a bit surprised that Sudraiel let them live.”

Nathan honestly wasn’t sure to think of Sudraiel exiling the Pack Leaders instead of executing them. Nathan wasn’t pleased that they’d tried to kidnap him - but he was also glad he hadn’t seen a half-dozen people executed in front of him. He was trying to get used to violence here on Davrar, but it would be a while before he was truly cold-blooded enough to want blood spilled like that.

He’d have tried to kill them without hesitation in a fight. But when they surrendered and were cooperating on the floor of the guild - he didn’t have it in him. They’d taken a job, and the job had made them Nathan’s enemies. But that didn’t mean he had a great personal enmity for them. Nathan supposed Sudraiel felt that they weren’t blood-enemies of Gemore, and wanted to show that there were rewards to giving information.

Nathan sighed, then grabbed a slate and started sketching out a basic Riemann sum. Now that he’d gone through limits with Stella, integrals shouldn’t be too bad.

{Low-tier Lecturing 6 achieved!}

The next day passed quickly - classes happened as normal. The highlight was a member of the Delve Scholars named Mathin talking about the history of the dungeons of Gemore. Apparently there’d been a big celebration thirty years ago when the previous “last Dungeon of Old Gemore” was cleared. That was part of why it was significant to find a new dungeon - they’d thought there weren’t any more.

Gemore was built by clearing the dungeons of old Gemore. They knew a lot about how Old Gemore had built its fortresses, guard posts, research labs and various other secured facilities. How the wards were designed, what kinds of constructs guarded them and so on. Mathin was of the opinion that the dungeon the Heirs had stumbled upon had been a stronghold for the Old Gemore ‘watchkeepers’, the secret police. It might even be their headquarters.

Secret police. Fun.

Somebody asked if there could be other, similarly hidden, dungeons scattered around Gemore. Mathin waved his cane around in a ‘who knows’ gesture, and continued in a gravelly voice. “Very well could be. We’ll be lookin’ at the signature of the illusion and tryin’ to find the bypasses to the look-away. It’s built different than the standard Old Gemore pattern, seems the Watchkeepers got some secrets yet. One of the big things that the people who crack it will be lookin’ for will be a map. If it’s anywhere, it’s there.” He gestured again with the cane. “That and the big ol’ self-destruct enchant. The Watchkeepers like to include those, and they tend to be poised on a hair-trigger. I don’t run fast enough for that shit anymore.”

At team practice Stella tried to throw Nathan from a stone platform. They were trying with him because he was the most likely to be fine if she messed up and dropped the stone platform on top of him. Nathan promised to be very mad if that happened, so that his Rage would protect him.

It didn’t go well - Stella was still figuring out how to move non-conjured rock, and trying to do so with Nathan’s disruptive influence was even harder. It was good practice for Stella, but Nathan mostly stood on a stone platform that jumped up, diagonally and sideways at unpredictable intervals.

It was good for practicing balance at least! At first he stood with feet planted, trying to shift his body weight to deal with the unsteady footing. After a few jerks that deposited him on the ground he started shifting with the platform, trying to keep his center of gravity from moving too much.

Nathan realized he had a skill for this - he started incorporating moves from [Dodging Footwork] to help him keep his balance. It was tricky, but it worked. After all, the skill read “This skill will help you move your feet to more easily keep your balance and dodge attacks.” And Nathan was sure as hell using it to keep his balance!

{Low-tier Dodging Footwork 10 achieved! Congratulations, you have maxed out this utility skill! It cannot be improved any further. You must achieve Insight into this talent to develop it to mid-tier.}

After one especially chaotic series of movements where the platform rotated up to a forty-five degree angle and then spun around in a horizontal circle, Nathan felt like he was on the brink of Developing the skill.

After that the platform became steadier as Stella started to figure out how to balance the spellwork on each corner of the platform. It wasn’t throwing him yet, but it was moving predictably up and down.

He looked over to Stella. “Hey, can you make it jerk around some more? Especially those circular motions, I think I might be near a skill Development?”

Stella raised her eyebrows at him. “Just remember, you asked for this.”

What followed earned Nathan several sets of bruises, but he focused on the feeling of lightly moving back and forth on the platform to keep his center of gravity from picking up too much momentum and leaving him off-balance when the platform shifted again.

{High-tier Focused Mind 2 achieved!}

It took nearly another half-hour for Nathan to engrain what he was trying to do into his muscle memory. Stella had the platform swinging back and forth in a broad arc and Nathan was dancing from one end of it to another to keep himself on it. Stella was making the arc broader and deeper, and Nathan pushed with his toes, legs and core to change his momentum enough to stay on the platform. It was more than just his feet. These were whole-body motions.

{Congratulations, you have developed the [Low-tier Dodging Footwork] utility skill into [Mid-tier Dodging Footwork].

Utility skill: [Mid-tier Dodging Footwork]

This skill will help you move yourself to more easily keep your balance and dodge attacks.}

Neat.

He wasn’t surprised to see Kadid waiting for him after the group training. Kia was also there, but gave Nathan a shooing gesture. So he walked towards Kadid.

However, somebody intercepted him, holding out a hand to bar his way. Nathan vaguely recognized the blonde-haired human as somebody from the Vanguard, under Eldred.

Nathan hazarded a guess. “Theo, right? What are you here for?”

Theo gestured toward the main hall. “Eldred wants to talk to ya. Come on.” He turned to leave.

Nathan turned towards Kadid, who was walking up towards them. “Eldred wants to see me. Should I go with him?”

Theo turned around. “Well, we did save your silly butt from getting kidnapped. You ain’t gonna let that go unacknowledged, are you?”

Kadid shrugged and waved Nathan on. “You’d be doin’ Eldred a disservice to leave him waitin’ after he did somethin’ like that for you. Go, see how he plays this debt.”

I owe him a debt? I mean I guess he saved me, but like… it seems crass to call that debt in. I guess it got hinted at after I saved the Heirs from the Last Dungeon.

Nathan followed Theo to the guild hall in awkward silence.

Inside, Eldred was monopolizing a table in the corner, and Theo steered him straight there. Eldred was drinking a beer, and handed another to Nathan as he sat down. Then he waved Theo away, leaving them alone. There were some other Adventurers in the room, but nobody particularly nearby.

Eldred wiped his lips, then spoke. “So. I seem to have saved one of the best Adventurers of the next generation from kidnapping. And might’ve made an enemy of an Archmage in the process. That ‘bout complete?”

Nathan gritted his teeth. Eldred was milking this for all it was worth. He was clearly leaning on social pressure and expectation to make Nathan follow the script. “Sounds about right.”

He wants something. I can always just tell him to fuck off. I think I’ve got enough ‘macho man’ social credit around here after the Last Dungeon for that to not be a giant problem. I don’t think I can give him an opening to challenge me to a duel. I don’t think I can beat him, and if he beats me he’ll have even more leverage. If he does that I’m totally gonna try to disenchant his armor though.

Eldred leaned forward, frowning as he gazed into Nathan’s eyes. “So, I’d ask if you’d join the Vanguard. We’ve got a place for you and I just know we’ll be able to get good distance with you’ve got goin’ on with magic. Able to bypass a look-away not even the Delve Scholars knew about? That’s somethin’ I can use.”

He’s fishing for a response that’ll tell him more or give him more leverage. I played off my resistance as ‘magic interaction’ when he asked about it right before the Grave Tangle, and he doesn’t know squat.

Nathan said nothing, just locking eyes with Eldred. Eldred gazed back, and they were locked in a staring contest. Neither was willing to back down. Nathan used [Focused Mind]. His eyes were drying out, but he wasn’t worried about it.

Well this is idiotic. Staring contests are for middle schoolers and horny teenagers. And I’m neither. Anybody’s guess as to which Eldred is. But it’s the sort of stupid macho contest I can probably win.

A few minutes later Eldred broke the standoff first, taking another drink of beer and slapping the table. “Well, if that’s how it is, that’s how it is. I can respect a man who won’t leave his teammates, even if they’re spoiled pups. They’ve got potential, and nobody can deny that. I’d probably make the same decision in your place.”

Then he unhooked his massive mace and laid it on the table between them. “But there’s a debt between us, Nathan Lark. And if you mean to run off without paying it, I’ll demand a turn in the ring. So. Tell me of the Insights that’d be worth saving your life, and I’ll take my pick.”

Well, shit.

Skill text comparison:

Utility skill: [Mid-tier Dodging Footwork]

This skill will help you move yourself to more easily keep your balance and dodge attacks.

utility skill: Low-tier Dodging Footwork

This skill will help you move your feet to more easily keep your balance and dodge attacks.

Overall Status:

{Status of Nathan Lark:

Permanent Talent 1: Magic Absorption 3

Permanent Talent 2: High-tier Regeneration 4

Talent 3: None

Class: Spellbreaker Juggernaut level 43

Class skills:

Stamina: 530/530

Juggernaut's Wrath

Antimagic Momentum

Raging Thrill

Juggernaut's Inertia

Unarmored Resilience

Utility skills:

High-tier Focused Mind 2

Mid-tier Earnestness 4

Mid-tier Sprinting 2

Mid-tier Spellsense 2

Mid-tier Notice 2

Low-tier Identify 8

Mid-tier Dodging Footwork 1

Mid-tier Enhanced Memory 7

Low-tier Lecturing 6

Low-tier Tumbling 5}

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