“This is bad,” Jory said, pacing back and forth. “That’s what they’ve been doing? Ripping off the rich and powerful?”

Jory, Jason and Donal were in one of Jory’s treatment rooms, with an unconscious Sophie on the treatment table. She was mostly covered in a sheet, except for her head. Her silver hair hung off the side of the table in a tangled mess.

“Who is this woman?” Donal asked.

“Donal,” Jason said. “Janice is probably becoming concerned that no one is taking patients. Can you cover for Jory for a bit?”

“Do I get an explanation about all this later?”

“Yes, but I’ll probably lie,” Jason said. “Thanks for keeping her alive.”

Donal frowned, but made his way out.

“Lord, you were right about him being trouble,” Jason heard him mutter as he closed the door behind him.

“What about Belinda?” Jory asked.

“Remember my friend Clive? He caught her.”

“Where is she now?”

“We set up a discrete location to hold the thief while we figured out the politics. Hang on a bit and I’ll check up on her.”

Jason used his party interface to open voice chat with Clive.

"She's trouble," Clive said, his exasperation coming through loud and clear. "Using an old Magic Society storehouse for our makeshift cell may not have been the best idea. The resourceful little minx almost broke out of the binding circle using random magic supplies. That shouldn't even be possible. It's all random, leftover trash."

“You said she’s resourceful,” Jason said.

“I caught her decoding a barrier-ritual with half of a magic wand and a broken device for assessing the freshness of fish!”

"I wouldn't have thought there was a lot of crossover between a magic barrier and a fish."

“There isn’t! This woman is a complete… hey! Put that down! I saw that.”

“I need you to bring her to Old City,” Jason said. “That clinic on Broadstreet Boulevard we visited the other day, but bring her around the back.”

“What? Old City? How do I explain to the bridge guards why I’m taking a woman I have in custody to Old City? They’ll definitely think I’m going to do something bad.”

“Yeah but you’re a Magic Society official, so they’ll let you through anyway.”

“What?”

“Look, Clive. Her name is Belinda. Tell her that… hold on. What was this one’s name, Jory?”

“Sophie,” Jory said.

“Tell her that Sophie was badly hurt and she’s at Jory’s clinic.”

“What else?”

“Just be honest. I don’t think lying’s your thing.”

“Don’t I have to lie to the bridge guards?”

"Yeah, but they'll just think you're nervous because you're a sexual predator."

“What?”

“See you when you get here,” Jason said, ending the chat.

“What now?” Jory asked, almost jumping on Jason in anxiety.

“Obviously,” Jason said, “I have to turn in Sophie.”

Jory opened his mouth to protest, but stopped and nodded reluctantly.

“If it ever came out that you completed a contract and then uncompleted it,” he said, “that’s your Adventure Society membership gone. Mine too, for that matter, just for knowing about it.”

“We do have some room to move,” Jason said. “For one thing, the contract calls for the capture of a thief, not thieves. We caught them both because we were being thorough, but now we know they’re friends, we can cut Belinda loose.”

Jory let out a sigh of relief, although he still had stress to spare.

“I’m having Clive bring Belinda here,” Jason explained, “because I don’t want her running around causing trouble before I have a solid plan in place.”

“So, what is the plan?”

“We have to hand Sophie in,” Jason said. “That’s something we just have to accept. I’m going to need you to convince her friend not to do anything stupid. You need to keep them both here, without them running, while I fill in the gaps in the political landscape. Once I know how everything fits together, we can work something out.”

“Like what?”

“Have you ever read the service agreement between the city and the Adventure Society?”

“Of course I haven’t.”

“It has some interesting provisions,” Jason said. “Until I understand the political context, though, I’m stumbling in the dark. When Clive gets here with Belinda, just try and keep a lid on things until I get back.”

“Get back? Where are you going?”

“To get some context,” Jason said. “Do you know where Dorgan lives?”

“Dorgan? As in, the crime lord, Dorgan?”

“That’s the one.”

“Are you insane?”

“Probably,” Jason said. “I heard the Big Three all live pretty large, so it can’t be that hard to find.”

“They all live in the canal district,” Jory said. “Safe and neutral territory because of the Island interests that operate out of there. I don’t think wandering into his compound is a good idea.”

“Come on, Jory. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Where’s your sense of self-preservation?”

Jory groaned.

"Look who I'm asking," he said. "The day we met, you picked a fight with a couple of priests and got knocked out cold. Fine. All of the Big Three live in huge compounds that used to belong to families who moved to the Island. Go to the Cavendish side of the canal district and look for the big walls with the big guards at the big gate."

“Thanks,” Jason said. “I’ll be back soon.”

“If you live,” Jory muttered.

No one knew how physically vast the astral space supplying water to the desert was, as it had never been mapped. The goal of the expedition was to find whatever was causing the apertures to become unreliable. They found the closest stable aperture within the thickest cluster of unstable ones and had gone through.

The terrain inside the astral space was tropical rainforest; very beautiful and very wet. There was a smell of life to it, wet leaves and earth. There was no night, the sun just moving around on a circuit in the sky. The expedition made camp by a river and the expedition leaders, led by Danielle Geller, set out a search pattern. Multiple teams, splitting up to follow streams and trails through the wet, tropical forest. What they found was that they were on one of a sprawling chain of islands, close enough to see one another from shore.

Traversing the short distance to the next island was a trivial task, given the assemblage of powers in the expedition. They started systematically searching one island after another, sending out individual teams for the smaller ones. The most difficult aspect of the environment was not the verdant growth or the thick, humid air. It was the endless daylight. As what should have been days passed without the respite of night, the less disciplined members of the expedition became increasingly disgruntled.

Many of the expedition’s members had come along not for work, but because they felt it was their right to not miss out. Danielle would not normally accept such a team, full of spoiled incompetents and people who were only adventurers on paper. Elspeth Arella already had a list of participants when she offered leadership to Danielle, whose instincts told her it was a bad bet. She accepted anyway because when something inevitably went wrong, she could save lives by being there that would be lost if she wasn’t.

The driving schedule laid out by Danielle Geller to advance their goal was being increasingly spoken-out against, largely by the wealthy young iron-rankers who were the most novice among the expedition’s number. Danielle herself had no time for their complaints. She knew that a problem with the astral space potentially posed an existential threat to the region, and was determined to find it and crush it.

Adris Dorgan’s aura senses weren’t as powerful or well-trained as someone like Thalia Mercer’s. Where she had detected Jason’s when he was still in the grounds, Jason penetrated the heart of Dorgan’s home. Dorgan found him in front of one of the many paintings that adorned the library walls. He was dressed in neat casual attire, for all the world as if home invasion was a simple outing. He didn’t turn from the painting as Dorgan made his way across the library.

"Mr Asano, isn't it?" Dorgan said. He recognised the face, having seen it in several recordings. There was the widely disseminated recording of the man fighting the Gellers, and the less-widespread one of him beating down thugs in Cavendish. The men in question had each been using a recording crystal, a copy of one had found its way into Dorgan’s hands. He had even seen a recording of Asano killing those same men, in the largest arcade in Dorgan’s own territory. That recording was far from just floating around, yet had still come into Dorgan’s possession.

“Mr Dorgan,” Jason greeted, turning with a friendly smile and looking him up and down. The elven man was handsome, with slender features, tawny skin and shoulder-length, chestnut hair. There was an air of sharpness about him, although that may have just been his aura.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, but I’m a little surprised to find you in my library,” Dorgan said.

“You know, I was just recently discussing the problem of home security with Thalia Mercer.”

“Did you break into her home as well?”

“More like snuck onto the grounds,” Jason said. “No offence, but your people are not the equal of the Mercer household.”

“I could summon my bronze-rankers now,” Dorgan said. “Or deal with you personally. You realise I’m bronze rank.”

“I can see that,” Jason said. “Not a lot of time to work on aura control with a criminal empire to run.”

Jason gave him an easy smile.

“I recently had a problem,” Jason said, “where I was unable to deal with a certain individual due to his connections.”

“Thadwick Mercer.”

“I’m flattered you’re paying attention.”

“You dropped five dead adventurers in my territory, Mr Asano. Not paying attention would be foolish.”

“That kind of ties in with what I want to say, given that I now find myself on the other side of the privilege coin. If I don’t walk out of here, you won’t like who comes to ask why.”

“Are you sure about that? Perhaps I have connections of which you’re not aware.”

Jason laughed and gestured at the painting he was standing in front of.

“Before you came in, Mr Dorgan, I was just admiring your art collection. There is a desert landscape by Moher in the grand concert hall that I very much admire, and I see you have quite a number of his works. I’m envious.”

“Perhaps I can help you add something to your own collection. He’s a friend of the family.”

“So I’ve heard,” Jason said and Dorgan stopped cold.

“You know,” he said, his voice half a whisper.

“I do,” Jason said. “I came here with a question and found the answer hanging on the walls. Is she your daughter?”

“I kept it a secret so her future wouldn’t be caught up with criminal entanglements,” Dorgan said. “A father’s wish for his child to go further than he.”

“I can respect that,” Jason said. “I have no interest in telling tales. I came here to find out why your people were interfering with my contract.”

“I believe it’s an open contract, Mr Asano.”

“I’m closing it, which makes it mine.”

“You caught the thief?”

“Of course. When your men intervened, I sent her where I knew I could find her.”

“How did you manage that?”

“In an unpleasant manner. But sometimes life requires unpleasant things.”

“Doesn’t it just,” Dorgan said. “It seems you’re a resourceful man, Mr Asano.”

“Thank you. My problem is that I don’t quite grasp the entirety of the political landscape. I obviously understand the connection with your daughter, now, but what is she after in keeping the thief at large? It seems like she wants a point of contention between her and the Duke, but that’s a stupid move and she’s not stupid. She’s taking risks, which is the only reason she was sloppy enough that I found out about you and her.”

“What are the chances of someone visiting her office and my house both?” Dorgan asked. “Not high.”

"The paintings in your daughter's office didn't bring me here," Jason said. "They just made it easy for me once they arrived. Anyone who really looked at the connections would figure it out soon enough."

"I don't know about anyone."

"What is she after, Dorgan?"

“Why does that matter?”

“Because I have my own concerns. I don’t want her squashing me like a bug because I ignorantly blundered underfoot.”

Dorgan nodded.

“Very well, he said. “Her goal is Lucian Lamprey.”

“The director of the Magic Society?”

Jason rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“I’ve heard he’s a crate full of rotten eggs,” Jason said, “which explains why she wants him gone. Having a corrupt Magic Society makes cleaning up the Adventure Society all the harder, but what’s Lamprey’s connection with this thief?”

“He’s fixated on her. He’s the kind of man who sees being told no as a challenge to his power, and he’s become obsessed with possessing this thief. She is ostensibly under the protection of Clarissa Ventress, one of my contemporaries, but Ventress has her own well-known obsession; her reputation. As she made it known the girl was under her protection, she couldn't just hand her over. Instead, she has leveraged the girl into a position where she would fall into Lamprey’s hands.”

“So he’s a perv,” Jason said. “That’s why the thief was hitting such insanely dangerous targets. Ventress was pushing her into it, under threat of withdrawing her protection. If she refuses, Ventress can throw her to the wolves, and if she’s caught, Lamprey can throw his weight around with the inevitably corrupt civic justice system.”

“Yes,” Dorgan said. “That’s my understanding.”

“But Ventress never expected it to take this long to catch her,” Jason reasoned. “Meanwhile, Lamprey is climbing the walls while your daughter waits for him to do something stupid she can hang him out to dry with.”

“Yes,” Dorgan said. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to let the thief go?”

“And hand you a great big lever on me? No thanks. Besides; if I let her go, then my ability to control how this ends goes with her.”

“You think that’s something you can control?”

“Enough for an outcome that satisfies me, yes.”

“You may be overestimating your limits, Mr Asano.”

“I have a friend who says pushing our limits is how we grow beyond them.”

“Then what now?” Dorgan asked.

“Now I complete the contract. I’m sorry it will interfere with your daughter’s plans, but she should really be thanking me. It had far too many potential failure points.”

“You aren’t going to ask why the daughter of a crime lord is trying to excise corruption from the Adventure Society?”

“That’s obvious,” Jason said. “She gets rid of Lamprey and the Magic Society becomes less corrupt because almost anything would be. She moves on to smoothly cleaning up her branch of the Adventure Society. She culminates that time by capping it off with the renegotiation of the city’s service agreement in a couple of years. Cleaning up one of the Adventure Society’s rotten provincial branches gets her promoted up and out of Greenstone, putting her secrets behind her. That promotion lets her climb the ladder instead of just moving on. Is that more or less it?”

"Yes," Dorgan said darkly. "Mr Asano, let me make something clear. If you do anything to derail my daughter's ambitions, I will see you dead, consequences bedamned."

Jason held out his hand for Dorgan to shake.

“I think we understand each other, Mr Dorgan. Sharing your daughter’s secret is worthless to me. Only keeping it has value.”

Dorgan shook Jason’s hand.

“Do let me show you to the door, Mr Asano.”