Jason met Neil at the entrance to the cloud palace, along with one of Emir’s staff who added Neil’s aura signature to the access list for the palace.

“There are some restricted areas,” Jason explained as they entered. “You shouldn’t bump into any of those except the guest suites, which are individually locked to guests who can provide you entry or not.”

Neil didn’t say much looking around, wide-eyed as Jason led him to the guest wing. He was nervous, second-guessing his choice of team, but Jason was welcoming and friendly. He also seemed at home in the astounding surrounds of the cloud palace.

“We’re going to start with a little welcoming lunch,” Jason said. “You can meet the team and some of the people around it. After that we're going to spend the afternoon on a preliminary strategy session, looking at everyone's abilities and working on tactical concepts around them. From here on out, that's going to be our everyday; develop tactics, workshop them in the training room, then test them in the field.”

“You’re getting ready for the event Bahadir is planning?” Neil asked.

“You heard about that?” Jason asked.

“Word has gotten around.”

“Certainly, being prepared for that is a good idea,” Jason said. “Our sights are set past that, though. We’re looking at the path to bronze and beyond. We want to establish a playbook of strategies and tactics that we know so well as a team that we’re ready to go at any moment. As our abilities grow we can adapt and refine our repertoire, but the first step is working together, everyone knowing their potential roles. I hope you’re not afraid of hard work and training.”

“To be honest, Asano, you always struck me as more frivolous than hard-working.”

“I’m a work-hard, play hard kind of bloke,” Jason said. “Talking doesn’t mean much, though. You can judge for yourself.”

Jason led Neil onto an elevating platform that lifted them to the upper reaches of the cloud palace, before heading out to a terrace crowded with people, tables of food and a pair or large flame grills. Amongst the crowd were people Neil recognised. Rufus Remore was chatting with Vincent Trenslow and his absurd moustache; Humphrey Geller was flipping meat on one of the grills. Danielle Geller was chatting with Emir Bahadir, both holding grilled meat and vegetable sticks. He even spotted his friend and previous teammate, Dustin biting into a steak sandwich. Dustin’s cousin, Hudson, was next to him and they were surrounded by their respective teams. Dustin was on a Geller team now, looking more relaxed than Neil had seen him in a long time.

“What’s all this?” Neil asked.

“If you’re going to chuck a barbie,” Jason said, “you get some mates around. Let’s grab some tucker and I’ll make some introductions.”

The barbecue lunch went on into the afternoon, leaving Neil disoriented from a heady mix of grilled meats, quality alcohol and the kind of political connections his family only dreamed of. It was a social event wholly unlike those he had experienced in the Mercers’ orbit.

Everything was casual and the people present genuinely seemed to like each other. There was no carefully orchestrated social sniping, no playing one family against another. There was no stratification of rank, with bronze, silver and even gold-rankers happily chatting with iron. Instead of dainty, delicate finger food, people had meat piled into plates, skewered onto sticks or shoved between slabs of bread. There were tables of side dishes heaped into enormous bowls for anyone to grab by the tong-full.

Neil could hear the voice of his mother telling him to be mercenary, ditch Asano and seize the opportunity and forge connections. The voice seemed at a loss as Jason led him around, making introductions with no prompting on his part. People asked him questions, seeming actually interested instead of just digging for some useful titbit they could use.

“How long have you been in Greenstone,” Neil asked Jason between conversations.

“About five months.”

“How did you make these kinds of political allies in five months?”

“I didn’t,” Jason said. “I made friends.”

Jason found Humphrey away from the group, looking unhappy as he started out over the ocean. Jason joined him in leaning on the rail.

“What’s got you down, mate?”

“It’s Gabrielle,” Humphrey said. “Things aren’t going to work out with her.”

“That sucks,” Jason said. “Sorry to hear it. I’m guessing I wasn’t helpful in that regard.”

“It’s more than just that,” Humphrey said. “I would never ask her to choose between me and her religion, but she’s becoming more and more dogmatic. She’s becoming honest to the point of rudeness; demanding secrets she has no right to.”

“Well, I do the rude honesty thing too,” Jason said. “But in my defence, I also lie a lot.”

Humphrey laughed, then sighed.

“She’s started telling me who I shouldn’t spend my time with,” he said. “It’s why she’s not here. She really doesn’t like you and Rufus but that’s just the start of it. The strictures of her god are all well and good, but I’m not a follower of Knowledge. She has no right to hold me to those principles.”

“I’m sorry,” Jason said. “I’m at least a bit responsible for nudging you in her direction.”

“I’m not sorry,” Humphrey said. “I care for Gabrielle and I’ve enjoyed our time together. That time is just coming to an end.”

“Wow,” Jason said. “That’s super-mature of you. I was a couple of years older than you when my first big relationship ended and I blew up my whole life over it, like an idiot.”

“I’m going to tell her tomorrow,” Humphrey said. “She probably already knows.’

“Because of her boss,” Jason realised. “Damn, that must have been really annoying, having the goddess telling her everything.”

“It wasn’t my favourite thing,” Humphrey acknowledged. He turned to look over at the gathering. “How’s Neil fitting in?”

“A bit shell-shocked. You think it was the right thing, bringing out the big social guns? I don’t like weaponising a barbecue.”

“His family have been second-tier nobility for generations and this will get his family’s support. As for Neil himself, that’s up to you and me.”

As things wound down, Jason and Emir sent people off, usually with food in bags with a cheap, short-lived enchantment to keep the food inside them fresh and hot. Afterwards, Jason gathered their team together. Neil had now met the others; the lanky Clive Standish and the startlingly beautiful Sophie Wexler. Neil hadn’t been sure what to expect from Jason’s indentured servant, but the woman with silver hair, dark skin and sharp, wary eyes certainly wasn’t it. She was the one he had been the most uncertain about, but watching her sleek litheness made him a lot more confident.

They went off to Jason’s suite in the guest wing. Amongst all the cloud furniture, a trio of wooden bookcases stood out, jammed-full of leather-bound tomes. Even more books were stacked up on a table next to a reading chair, one of which Clive picked up to examine.

“This is some heavy theory,” he said to Jason. “You’re finally taking my advice?”

“This was Farrah’s collection,” Jason said sadly, gesturing at the bookcases. “She was like you, telling me to not just rely on skill books. With these, it’s almost like she’s still teaching me.”

“Farrah was one of the Vitesse adventurers,” Humphrey quietly mentioned to Neil. “She fell during the expedition.”

They sat down and Jason took out a notebook. Recorded in it were the abilities of everyone in the party, to which they added Neil’s. His essence combination was shield, growth and renewal, producing the prosperity confluence. Along with healing and cleasing powers, Neil could create short-lived shields that intercepted attacks, empower allies and replenish their mana and stamina.

“That’s an awesome power set,” Jason said as he wrote them down. “Not great if you get caught alone, but any team you’re on should celebrate. Which is our team, I guess, so… cheers, mate!”

As his powers were most effective when used on allies, Neil was highly reliant on his summoning power when fighting alone. It was not a summoned familiar but a temporary summons, like Gary’s forge golem or Farrah’s magma elemental. It would only last for a limited time, but he could afford to risk it in ways that he couldn’t with a familiar.

His summon was an entity called a chrysalis golem. It was a crystalline construct monster, it could create a protective shell around itself when it was badly damaged. When it emerged, it was fully repaired and adapted to resist the attacks that had previously harmed it.

“I can’t wait to get a look at that thing,” Jason said. “With Humphrey’s summons that makes two, excluding the summoned familiars Clive and myself have. We should be able to do some interesting things with them.”

Humphrey took the lead in discussions as they started devising potential strategies.

“The most fundamental thing is that we each need to have a sound grasp of each other's abilities,” he said. “Neil, this is especially true for you, whose abilities rely heavily on judgement and timing. You’ll learn as we train, of course, but you should have at least a general idea of what each of us does before we start digging into specific tactics.

“Let’s start with Humphrey, then,” Jason said. “His essences are might, magic, wing and dragon. He moves faster, hits harder and withstands more damage than most adventurers. His attacks are mostly conventional melee powers, but they’re reliable and land like a truck.”

“What’s a truck?” Neil asked. “Is that some kind of monster?”

“It’s a big, heavy, fast thing,” Jason said grouchily. “It’s not my fault your stupid world doesn’t have internal combustion.”

“Lots of people have internal combustion,” Clive said. “Mostly from the fire essence, which is why it’s common.”

Jason groaned at Clive while Humphrey picked up the explanations.

“Clive has the magic, rune, balance and karmic essences. Unlike most humans, his focus is on spells. He can use magical weapons like staves and wands and works with his familiar to output reliable ranged damage. He also has some utility powers, trap magic and the ability to make our enemies suffer retributive damage from attacking us.”

“He also has some big-ticket attacks, if he goes all out,” Jason added. “If we need a single, big hit, he’s our guy. Those hefty spells need some setup, though, so we’ve already started devising strategies around them.”

“Miss Wexler is an evasion-type defender,” Humphrey said. “Swift, wind, balance and mystic. She is the newest of us, with many abilities still to awaken, but she is already the fastest and hardest to harm out of all of us. I have no doubt she will become increasingly formidable.”

“Asano is the sneaky prick of the team,” Sophie said. “His essences are dark, blood, sin and doom.”

“Sin and doom?” Neil asked. “They sounds like they should be on the restricted list.”

“They’re not,” Jason said. “We checked.”

“Jason is an affliction specialist,” Humphrey said. “Once he goes to work, whatever he’s fighting is finished, even if it seems to have gotten away. He’s also a good scout, with stealth and mobility.”

“Obviously, we don't expect you to remember all this,” Humphrey said. “You'll have plenty of time to learn, because that's what we do, now. We get up, we meet up, then we train. Physical and mobility training we do in Old City.”

“When Jory renovated his clinic,” Jason said, “he turned his yard into a dedicated training space. So, thanks for helping stop it from being knocked down.”

“That wasn’t really me,” Neil said.

“Of course it was,” Jason said. “If you didn’t stand up to them and force the confrontation, the Healer might have waited until they tore down the place and then smote them all as sinners.”

“We’ll be alternating our time between developing strategies, refining them in practice areas or testing them in the field,” Humphrey said.

“The practise areas being the training hall, here in the cloud palace, or in Humphrey's mirage chamber.”

“It’s not my mirage chamber,” Humphrey said.

“Other than that, it’ll be contracts and adventure notices,” Jason said. “That is going to be our day, every day, until Emir’s mysterious contest. We’re going into it as strong as we can be.”

“Is that going to be a problem, Neil? “ Humphrey asked. “We're looking for someone willing to go at this hard, so if that isn’t you, tell us now.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Neil said. “I’ve been waiting for a team that takes adventuring seriously.”

He looked at Jason. “I wasn’t sure that was you.”

“You can judge for yourself,” Jason said. “Today, we’re all talk. We throw every idea at the wall and see what sticks. Tomorrow we start figuring out what’s practical and what’s some overwrought notion I got in my head because I forgot simplicity is king.”

They moved onto the discussion of specific strategies, under the direction of Humphrey.

“I think you’re overlooking what should be our core strategy,” Jason told Humphrey, early into the discussion.

“What’s that?” Humphrey asked.

“You,” Jason said. “You do more damage than most and can survive more damage than most. With Clive and Neil, we have two buffers, plus shields and healing. Neil can even top-off your mana. We load all of that up on you and let you go ham. Add in your mobility and you’ll be an absolute terror to whatever we’re fighting.”

Uncertainty crossed Humphrey’s face.

“Are you sure you want to rely that heavily on me?”

Jason shook his head. “Oh, Humphrey. Hands up who wants to rely on Humphrey as the core of the team.”

Sophie and Clive put up their hands with Jason, Neil raising his hand right after.

“It’s adorable that you’re modest enough that I have to tell you this Humphrey,” Jason said, “but everyone likes and trusts you.”

Humphrey looked around the group, embarrassed.

“Now,” Jason said. “If we take that as our core strategy, all our tactics should be smooth adaptations of that default. What do you reckon, Humphrey?”

“Well, there are a few points that we need to look at using that as a strategy. First would be identifying and distracting anyone or anything with the singular attack power to punch through the buffs and shields.”

“So, the other team’s Clive,” Sophie said.

“Exactly,” Humphrey said. “For other Clives, we want you and Jason to at least distract and interfere, or preferably put them down.”

“I’m not sure I love this ‘other Clive’ analogy,” Clive said.

“What about actual Clive and the new guy?” Sophie asked. “They aren’t as mobile as the rest of us, and if we’re using a mobile attacking strategy, they’ll be left exposed.”

“Yes,” Humphrey said. “They’ll make a tempting target, so instead of trying to cover it, we use it.”

“I like it,” Jason said. “We’ve already worked up strategies using Clive as bait, so develop them and make Neil the second juicy worm on the hook. Turn what seems like a weakness into a weapon.”

Clive and Neil shared a glance.

“I’m not sure I like this plan,” Clive said.