In his guest suite in the cloud palace, Rufus was at a desk with papers arrayed in front of him. Ground assessments, potential designs, integration requirements. He wearily ran his hands over his face, trying to maintain concentration. While he awaited word on various investigations, Rufus had resumed the task of establishing the academy annex he was working on with the Geller family.

Adris Dorgan had kept his word and was making progress in chasing down the materials on the lists provided by Clive and now Russell. Certain shipments had come into the port at Hornis before being moved to private vessels for destinations thus far unknown. Dorgan was currently digging deeper into the ownership of those private vessels.

Rufus found his attention constantly straying to Builder cultists. The nebulous enemy who, at that very moment was hidden away, advancing their destructive plots. He wondered how many more friends he would lose before they were finally stopped. Getting up, he walked out onto the balcony and let the sea breeze wash refreshingly over him.

He decided to leave the work for the moment and go find Gary, who seemed equally at a loss after finishing his own project with the constructs. They hadn’t seen much of one another since coming back from the expedition and there was a friction there that Farrah had always smoothed out. Jason’s presence had helped them through the worst of it in the wake of her death, but her absence lingered between them.

Rufus and Gary had adjacent suites in the guest wing, connected by a terrace. Rufus wandered over and saw Gary inside with a half-empty bottle of some rotgut he must have bought in the city; Emir would never stock anything so cheap and nasty. Gary had dissolved the entire outer wall of his suite, leaving it open to the fresh air. Gary, slouched in a chair, nodded his acknowledgement of Rufus’ arrival.

“Day drinking?” Rufus asked. “It’s barely mid-morning.”

“Want to join?” Gary asked.

“Yes,” Rufus said, walking over to a cabinet and grabbing a glass.

“We can do it out here?” Sophie asked, looking uncertainly at the village around them.

“Clive can,” Jason said. “He’s more flexible than most, so he can do it just about anywhere you have a flat space.”

“It might seem unusual for the two of you to just up and do it in the middle of a village square,” Humphrey said, “but it’s something the villagers will be eager to see.”

“It won’t take long,” Jason said. “Clive can just slip it into you out here and we can head off.”

“He’s right; it won’t take long,” Clive assured her. “Even in less comfortable conditions, I’m very quick to finish.”

“Alright,” Sophie said. “It’s not like it’s my first time.”

“You heard the lady, Clive,” Jason said. “Whip it out.”

Clive took out the awakening stone they retrieved from the marsh and passed it to Sophie.

Item: [Awakening Stone of the Rain] (unranked, common)

An awakening stone containing the power of rain. (consumable, awakening stone).

Requirements: Unawakened essence ability.Effect: Awakens an essence ability.You have 8 unawakened essence abilities.

Using his abilities, he balanced out the ambient magic and drew a ritual circle. As Humphrey predicted, doing so in the village square drew curious onlookers. The ritual went off without incident, awakening Sophie’s new ability.

Ability: [Between the Raindrops] (Swift)

Special ability.Cost: High mana per second and high stamina per second.Cooldown: None.Current rank: Iron 0 (00%).Effect (iron): Increased reflexes and spatial awareness.

“That’s it?” Humphrey asked. “That seems like an exhaustive cost for increased reflexes.”

“Attack her,” Jason said.

“What?” Humphrey asked.

“Attacker her,” Jason repeated. “You come in from the right and I’ll pincer her from the left.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Do it,” Sophie said. “No weapons; I won't hurt you too badly.”

Jason grinned and leapt forward, Humphrey doing the same with a grimace. They unleashed simultaneously from either side but it was like Sophie had eyes in the back of her head. Not only did she react to their every move, but she did so the moment they made them. Soon, Humphrey was sent stumbling back from a kick to the face. Jason had it worse, folded over on the ground as he clutching his crotch with both hands.

“Did you have to go right for the plums?” he squeaked out.

She walked over and looked down at him.

“You’re the one who wanted to attack me,” she said.

Neil Davone had started spending time at the Mercer family compound as a boy. Thadwick had needed friends his own age and the Davone and Kettering families, with their close ties to the Mercers, had frequently sent their own boys over. The Mercer residence was the most impressive in Greenstone, with its five interconnected towers and immaculate grounds. Even with tyrannical toddler Thadwick as a playmate, it had always been an exciting place to visit, growing up.

As he had gotten older, the attractions of the Mercer household for Neil went through various changes. As he became more curious about the world, the impressive library fed his mind. When he became an essence user, he made full use of the training facilities that Thadwick disdained. The rest of the Mercers were more than happy to let Neil and his teammate Dustin use them as much as they liked. After all, their job was to keep Thadwick alive.

Another change in what made the Mercer compound alluring as Neil grew up was the presence of Thadwick’s older sister, Cassandra. As with many young men in the Mercer family orbit, the smart, capable and gorgeous young woman was the object of his youthful affection. Four years older than him, she was the unattainable image of beauty and sophistication in the eyes of thirteen-year-old Neil. She left the city with her mother after reaching bronze rank, putting an end to his boyhood crush.

Cassandra and her mother had been back in the city for six months, in preparation for the monster surge. Many young men once again clamoured for her attention but Neil was not one of them. It had been one thing putting up with Thadwick as children, but they were adventurers, now. His selfishness and incompetence brought with it genuine danger, culminating in his abandonment of them during the expedition. Aside from Cassandra and her mother, the ones who had left, he had become soured on anything with the Mercer name. Any idea of reigniting youthful passions and pursuing her ended the moment he thought of her family.

By the time he heard that Cassandra and Jason Asano were an item, he had seen Asano for himself and not found him to be anything special. He was just another in a line of self-impressed people who thought they were bold and clever for making Thadwick look like a fool. Neil knew it may just have been his lingering affection, but his opinion of Cassandra was still high enough that he wondered what she saw that elevated Asano above the pack.

Asano’s visit to Neil’s home had left him uncertain as to what to do. Ostensibly, Neil had received better offers, the only real point of attraction to Asano’s being the participation of Humphrey Geller. Neil knew for a fact that behind closed doors, Humphrey was the person the Mercer’s wished Thadwick had become. Their family situations had provided Thadwick and Humphrey with the same opportunities, yet Humphrey was lauded while Thadwick was dismissed.

After Asano’s visit to his home, Neil’s intention had been to dismiss the offer out of hand. There were things about Asano that kept playing on his mind, however, starting with why he had been the one to make the approach. Every way he looked at it, Humphrey Geller would have made the better advocate. Asano’s characteristically idiosyncratic conduct bore that out. The absurdity of questioning Neil’s elven heritage. Asano’s description of his own team that was anything but appealing. Then there was Asano spending most of his time explaining not why Neil would want to join with them but why they wanted him to join.

Although Neil didn’t understand it, there was no question that Asano was good at impressing important people. People themselves deserving of respect. The Gellers, the gold-ranked Emir Bahadir, the Vitesse adventurers. Even his enemies were impressive. He was already moving in vaunted circles, to the point that even when he drew hatred, it was from people so far above him they shouldn’t care. There were rumours of Asano feuding with the directors of both the Magic and Adventure Societies. If true, that was madness for an iron ranker. Then there was whatever had made Cassandra look at him above all the numerous men in Greenstone vying for her attention.

The character of Asano aside, critical when choosing a team was the team’s strength as adventurers. Neil knew almost nothing about the two others but Asano had told him didn’t sound promising. Humphrey, on the other hand, was known to be one of the most proficient iron-rankers in the city.

As for Asano, at least as an adventurer he seemed capable. Thadwick's fixation had given Neil a fairly good idea of Asano's record. He had closed out a startling number of contracts in a handful of months, each punctuated with adventure board notices. In all of them, he didn't have a single listed failure. Asano had risen through the ranks fast and fallen even faster, but there were plenty of demotions going around.

He had seen multiple recordings of Asano fighting. Everyone had seen the one from the Geller’s mirage chamber with Asano’s overwrought theatrics. Neil had seen others where Asano had been fighting for real, his melodrama was replaced with brutal efficiency.

Thadwick had been furious after hearing about Asano spending time with Cassandra and, in typically reactionary fashion, sent a handful of goons to beat Asano down. After what Asano did to the first one, the others not only gave up but gave Asano directions to where he was going. Neil had only heard about it after the fact or he would have had Thadwick’s father put a stop to it. Thadwick stupidly had his goons record the whole debacle, with his father tasking Neil with retrieving them all.

The strongest of Thadwick’s bottom feeders was Jerrick, who Thadwick had playing muscle in his ill-considered land-grab scheme. Neil had been in the room as Thadwick’s father tore strips off him for the plan’s spectacular failure as the recording of Asano gathering evidence played. It ended with Asano fighting Jerrick.

Thadwick’s father had taken the time to point out that Asano wasn’t even fighting at his best. Against an armoured enemy, Asano should have kept hidden and used his leech familiar to crawl into the armour. Instead, he fought out in the open, suffering more damage than necessary. Asano was using a life and death battle with Thadwick’s strongest thug as training.

The final recording Neil had seen of Asano was when twelve men confronted him. Four were the thugs Asano had run off in a previous recording, plus double that number of extras. A dozen admittedly mediocre adventurers, yet Asano made the twelve on one fight seem lopsided, in his favour. Five adventurers killed in a shopping arcade in broad daylight, the only repercussion being that it possibly contributed to his later demotion.

It was well-known that Asano had faced a bronze-rank marsh hydra with Humphrey Geller and some other guy no one had heard of. Everyone said that Humphrey had carried them through, including Asano himself, but Neil had come away from his conversation with Asano less certain of that. He knew Beth Cavendish thought highly of Jason's abilities and her judgement was razor-sharp.

As those thoughts chased themselves around his head, Neil arrived at the Mercer family home for the first time since the expedition. In the aftermath of that disaster, Thadwick had been isolated by the family, then disbanded their team without notice. He had considered confronting Thadwick until he talked with their other team member, Dustin. In the end, they were just happy to be free with what was left of their reputations after being known as Thadwick’s flunkeys.

Neil approached one of the five gates that were the primary entrances to the Mercer family grounds.

“Neil Davone,” the iron-rank guard said from the other side of the gate as he spotted Neil’s approach. The Mercer family guards had long known Neil but the usual respect was nowhere on this guard’s face. It was clear that in his eyes, Neil had lost his status as a valued ally of the Mercers. Now he was just another iron-ranker, like the guard himself.

“I’d like to see Cassandra Mercer,” Neil told him.

“I bet you would,” the guard said insolently.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not going to interrupt her for the likes of you.”

“Are you being serious, right now?”

“Move on, Davone. You don’t get a seat at the big table anymore.”

“Yes, he does,” Thalia Mercer said, teleporting next to the guard. “Hello, Neil.”

“Lady Mercer,” Neil greeted respectfully.

“First, let me correct this man who used to work for us and tell you that you are always welcome here. Your family is important to us and you have always given my son loyalty he sadly never earned. What brings you by?”

“I wanted to ask your daughter about Jason Asano.”

“Why?”

“He invited me to join his team. I’ll probably decline but I found him odd to talk to. I wanted to know more.”

Thalia touched the gate, which slid soundlessly to the side.

“I see. If you don’t mind, Jason is a topic I would rather you not engage my daughter in. She’s unhappy with the family right now and I don’t want to exacerbate that feeling.”

“Of course,” Neil said. “My apologies for taking your time, Lady Mercer. I’ll go.”

“Please don’t,” she said. “Perhaps you can spare me a moment, instead.”

“Of course, Lady Mercer.”

She turned on the guard who had been hovering silently throughout the conversation.

“You, get to the security station and have them send a replacement. If I can assuage your offence to master Davone, there may be a chance of you maintaining your employment.”

The guard nodded and scurried away.

“That’s not necessary, Lady Mercer,” Neil said.

“Nonsense,” she said. “Please come through.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Neil walked through the gate, which she closed behind him.

“Would you care to take morning tea with me?”

“I wouldn’t presume, Lady Mercer.”

“Nonsense, please do.”

“Then thank you, Lady Mercer.”

It did not go unnoticed by Neil that being led to a private social meeting with Thalia Mercer in the eyes of the whole household made a pointed statement about his status. She led him to the blue parlour, one of the various receiving parlours of the Mercer household. Each was named for the primary colour of its decoration, with the blue parlour awash in oceanic shades. It was one of the smaller parlours, for intimate and respected guests. Shortly after their arrival, a maid delivered tea and small savouries before departing. Thalia poured a cup for each of them.

“I know that your family’s tea standards are very high,” she said. “I hope you don’t look down on us too much.”

“Never,” Neil said.

“Such a good young man, you’ve become. So, you are considering joining Jason Asano and Humphrey Geller’s team?”

“Not really,” Neil said. “It’s just that some things about the way he made the approach have left me confused.”

“Perhaps I can help you with answers. When my daughter became interested in Asano I looked into him as deeply as I think anyone has.”

“Oh?”

“He was rather rude, the last time we met, which I am quite happy with.”

“Happy?”

“If he was unaffected by being severed from my daughter, I would have been quite dissatisfied. He is startlingly good for his rank at keeping his emotions out of his aura, but he was rather a mess. The anger of youthful passion meant his feelings were genuine. That’s always a concern when it comes to aristocratic relationships. Is there some young thing you are pursuing, Neil?”

“No, Lady Mercer. My attention is on my future as an adventurer.”

“Yes, you’re pondering Jason’s offer. I know he seems erratic but you’ll find that there is method to his madness. He has a way of leaving people thinking exactly what he wants them to.”

“How so?” Neil asked.

“You said yourself you will probably turn him down. Yet here you are, asking questions. Why?”

“There were oddities in the way he tried to recruit me. It’s like he was hiding reasons to join and giving me ones not to.”

Thalia smiled.

“There you are. Humphrey Geller aside, his team is not enticing at a glance and he knew an ordinary invitation wouldn’t work. Otherwise, he would have sent Humphrey. Instead, he found a way to pique your interest. He saw a path that led to you joining his team, and he put you on it.”

“You’re saying he manipulated me and I should refuse the offer?”

“I’m saying he manipulated you and you should accept the offer. Some, within these walls, will tell you that Jason is unreliable. He’s not. When it’s time to work, he gets the job done. My original intention was to place him and Humphrey with Cassandra, once they reached bronze-rank. That is no longer an option, but If I were in your position, I’d join his team in a heartbeat.”

“That’s not what I would have expected from you,” Neil said.

“Most adventurers in this city never leave it, and nor should they. They’re mediocre, without the potential to thrive in a dangerous world. What they lack in themselves, they fail to recognise in others. Anyone can see Beth Cavendish or Humphrey Geller will go places, but only those of us who’ve seen the wider world recognise the potential in someone like Asano, and someone like you.”

“Me?”

“You have what it takes,” she said. “People couldn’t see that with you chained to my son. I’ve been selfish in binding you to him because that helped keep my son alive. You have my apologies, for that, but not my regret.”

“You have no need to apologise, Lady Mercer.”

“You’re a good boy, Neil, but don’t lie to my face.”

She chuckled at Neil’s nervous expression.

“It’s an interesting team that Jason and Humphrey have put together,” she said. “I’ve just recently met another of their team members, who is an interesting young man from the Magic Society. He’s capable enough that Emir Bahadir is trying to poach him.”

“Asano told me that was for non-combat skills,” Neil said.

“And so it is,” Thalia said, “but why did he tell you that? He wanted you curious so that you would learn for yourself that the man is quite capable. Which he is, by the way. Danielle Geller is keeping a close eye on the team her precious boy is forming and can be trusted to excise any rot. And now you have heard it from me, you will trust it more than if Jason told you the man was good.”

“What about Asano’s indentured servant?” Neil asked.

“I’m not sure,” Thalia said. “Danielle told me she is reserving judgement for the moment. I will say that running rings around the city’s iron rank adventurers for months speaks to a certain capability, regardless of what help she received. Now she has a full set of essences, who knows what she’ll accomplish?”

“You seem quite certain I should join,” Neil said.

“You should be in a team that will help you fly, instead of chaining you to the ground the way I did. My advice is that you drink your tea, leave here and go straight to the Geller townhouse. Tell Danielle Geller you want to join her son’s team.”

“Not Asano or Humphrey?” Neil asked.

“They might think they have the final word on their team members,” Thalia said. “It’s probably best to let them.”