Prologue

18th of June, 2161

Geostationary orbit above planet Earth, Sol System

European Federation Starport "Ad Astra"

Lieutenant Commander Alexandra Rousseau, European Federation Star Navy, let out a loud sigh as she looked at the vista in front of her.

She was currently in the outermost layer of the Ad Astra spaceport, the old, but still serviceable, spaceport of the European Federation, one of the first of it's kind to be tethered to the Earth below with a fully functional space elevator. Despite being well over a century old, and still having the old ring architecture, as it was constructed back when artificial gravity was still a lab experiment, it was still one of the main hubs through which the European Federation's numerous trade goods flowed through. Thousands of tons of advanced computers, terraforming systems and a vast array of technologically advanced components were shipped each day to the space habitats and colonies dispersed throughout human space, while raw materials and precious metals flowed back to the planetbound industry below.

It was also the second largest EFSN transit point. The freshly inaugurated "Ortu Stella" Starport had recently overtaken it, and for good reason, as it was the first EuroFed Starport dedicated only to military use, in order to accommodate the expansion of the EFSN due to the escalating tensions with their nominal allies, the United Interstellar States.

Alexandra looked longingly at the planet below through the armored glass wall, before smiling as she saw the vast array of bright, moving stars. Each of those stars was a ship or a station, from freighters to exploration vessels and battleships. Each represented the achievements of humanity ever since the first fusion thruster had been built, and the hyperdrive had been designed.

She froze as a commotion erupted in the hallway to her right. She turned just in time to see what looked like a freighter captain, recognizable by the general air of roughness and authority, proper to free traders in all of human space, pull out a pistol, and promptly shoot the custom officer he was talking to.

Alexandra has barely had the time to register what was happening before her training and neural implants took over. She threw herself down behind the row the seats she had been sitting on, kneeled, and in one swift movement pulled out her ordnance pistol and opened fire.

She might be an engineering officer, specialized in code (although she did have no less than 3 engineering degrees), but she did receive basic fleet combat training, and she had been in enough tough situations over her 50 years of service to have...acquired some programs from the EuroFed Marine Corps.

The freighter captain ducked down as the magnetically accelerated tungsten pellet her gauss pistol fired hit the bulkhead, a few centimeters away from his head. He brought up his own weapon, before widening his eyes and ducking into the nearest docking airlock. Which, given the old, patchy freighter attached to it, was probably where he had come from originally.

"STOP WHERE YOU ARE! STATION SECURITY!"

Alexandra got up, and turned around to see 3 station security guards, their own gauss pistols unholstered as they charged forward. One of them, a serious looking brunette, briefly looked at her, before running past her as she quickly summarized that Alexandra was unharmed.

A great clang sounded throughout the station, and Alexandra turned around as the freighter undocked from the station. One of the guards stopped and started shouting in his wrist communicator, stopping briefly to look at his colleague as she kneeled next to the customs officer, and shook her head. He then proceeded to yell even louder into his communicator.

Alexandra turned her head as the freighter let out bursts of pressurized gas to get away from the station...right up until a set of heavy blast doors opened, and a large laser turret popped out, quickly turning around and aiming at the freighter, likely followed by similar weapons all over the station. The security guard had evidently contacted the station's defense center, and they were less than happy about the death of one of their own. Alexandra briefly wondered what the freighter captain had been thinking, as escaping from one of the most heavily armed starports in the solar system would have been a suicidal proposition, even when the station security had no grounds to shoot you down on sight for murder. The freighter suddenly stopped accelerating...And Alexandra felt her hair stand up all over her body as the familiar sensation of a hyperspace field washed over her.

NO! The station doesn't have a hyperspace shield, if he jumps- She thought.

She just had the time to see a bright light before everything went dark.

*****

Alexandra opened her eyes, closing them nearly immediately as bright light stabbed through her eyeballs. She held up her hand in front of her face.

What? How...How am I alive?

She remembered the feeling of the hyperfield...then the flash. The freighter had activated it's hyperdrive, and taken a chunk of the station with it into hyperspace...she should have been vaporized. Hyperspace is pure energy, a literal dimension made out of radiation. Nothing can survive there without a hypershield, even the most heavily armored constructs just get annihilated in a matter of seconds.

She opened her eyes, more cautiously this time, to take in her surroundings.

She was lying on her back, in the middle of a grass field. She saw a forest not far, and her ears told her there must be a stream somewhere.

Was she..back on Earth? No, that was impossible...She would be able to see the numerous ships in low orbit in the sky, as moving dots of light, even in the middle of the day. And the colonies in Alpha Centauri and Epsilon Eridiani weren't fully terraformed yet, and there was no sign of an atmospheric dome in the sky.

She got up, and suddenly realized that she wasn't wearing her fleet uniform. She was in...a cotton outfit with leather armor on top?

What. The. Fuck? She thought to herself. She made her way to the stream she was hearing on shaky legs, and looked down into the water.

She was shocked. Staring back at her was what she looked like in her early 20s, if she had started picking up medieval recreation as a hobby. She was wearing what looked like cotton pants and a shirt, accompanied with leather boots, a leather belt with...was that a sword? And a full set of light leather armor.

All she could do was stare in shock. She hadn't been that old looking, despite being over 60 years old, thanks to rejuvenation treatments, but she'd still looked like she was in her 40s.

She took a deep breath, and focused. A system menu popped up in front of her, and she sighed in relief. Whatever had happened to her, her fleet implants were still online at least. She attempted to connect to a network, but failed. This meant that she wasn't on a human planet. Or at least, nowhere civilized. Even the lowliest mining colony had a full complement of communication satellites in orbit.

First things first, she thought, find where I am, find civilization, hopefully survive until I accomplish either.

To that end, she unsheathed the sword she had woken up with. It looked...okay? She wasn't an expert in medieval weapons, but she had some watched holovids on them, and the sword looked clean, wasn't chipped, and didn't look like it was made out of cheap pig iron. In fact, it looked like steel. A tentative finger touching and licking the bloody cut later, she'd summarized that it was pretty sharp too, and that she didn't have the experience to judge it with her finger, like they did in the holovids.

Well, not going to find anything by staying here, she thought, and started walking.

*****

Alexandra looked at the town in near awe.

After a few hours of walking, she'd found a road, and followed it. It looked well kept, and roads usually led somewhere. Unless you were on Mars, but that was mostly because the auto-road builder drones had gone nuts in the 2130s due to a solar flare. After an hour or so of more walking, she'd arrived at a town.

And it looked as if it had come straight out of an adventure novel. She could see the houses, the orchards, even some pens. Surprisingly, there didn't seem to be any agriculture going on, with no field to speak of anywhere. Still, it looked beautiful...and very rustic. Most of the buildings looked to be made out of stone, some were even made in wood. One thing that stuck out however, was a large building in the center of town, a three stories tall monster that looked to be made out of something that looked suspsciously like concrete.

"Y'a okay there lass?"

Alexandra looked down from the building....and down....Until she saw the tiny, heavily armored person standing in front of her, his hand holding up the visor of his helmet as he looked at her, concerned.

Barely topping 1 meter, he looked positively tiny compared to her meter and 80. However, he gave an impression of...denseness. But that might be the fact that he looked like he was covered in metal. Heavy plate armor, she remembered, as she smiled and answered in standard english, as he had addressed her in that language.

"Yes, I'm fine. Just a little bit lost I'm afraid. I got lost in the woods, and, well, I was not expecting to get back to civilization so soon. In fact, I'm quite relieved."

The dwarf (or at least he looked like one. She had a sword and was in a medieval town, she might as well assume that there would be dwarves and elves. If it turned out she was wrong, she'd apologize later.) smiled.

"Aye, wouldn't want to get caught alone in the night in those woods. Ain't many dangerous monsters around, but there are some that wouldn't say no to some tasty human flesh. Y'a an adventurer young lady?"

Alexandra continued smiling, she'd found out long ago that you usually found out more by playing along than stopping the person you were talking to and actually asked questions, particularly if they thought you might be insane. And if her story didn't sound insane to a medieval dwarf, she didn't know what would.

"Well, I was hoping to be. Could you point me to the registration office please?"

The dwarf laughed.

"This ain't one of the large cities lass. There ain't a registration office here. Just go to the adventurer guild hall and ask at the desk to register."

The dwarf pointed at the concrete building.

"Oh. Thank you sir dwarf." Said Alexandra.

The dwarf laughed, and waved her off, before walking past her and into the forest. Apparently, he didn't think that being alone in the night in the forest applied to him. Then again, he was wearing enough armor to look more like a combat robot than anything else. Alexandra shook her head and walked off, towards the 'adventurer guild hall'. At least, given the reaction of the dwarf, she knew she was correct, there did seem to be different 'races' here, as he hadn't corrected her in her use of the title.

She walked briskly through the village, refusing to stop and gape at every weird thing. If there was one thing she'd learned from making her way through the maze that was FleetCom in Paris, it's that as long as you looked busy and walked with a purpose (preferably with a stack of papers or a folder filled with data chips under your arm), no one will stop you from going anywhere. Except the marine checkpoint at the central Command Room.

She successfully made her way to the building uninterrupted, and opened the door.

The view...nearly made her gape.

It looked just like an adventurer guild straight out of a book or anime. There was a desk, a bar, tables and chairs scattered everywhere, with rough looking people around them, and a group of people looking pensively at what she assumed was a quest board. A few people looked at her, and she flushed as she realizing she was gawping, before quickly making her way to the desk.

The woman behind the desk looked fairly young, somewhere in her twenties as well, with honey blonde hair and quite beautiful face with brown eyes, and was dressed in a cyan outfit, topped up with what looked like some form of beret with a feather sticking out of it.

"Hello! Welcome to the Nardria adventurer guild hall! What can I do for you today?"

Dear gods, she looked genuinely cheerful. It must have been the first time Alexandra had met a receptionist that didn't look like they were bored to death or dead inside. Even the receptionist AIs used by wealthy corporations or by some militaries sounded slightly off and bored in their cheerful replies.

"Hello. My name is Alexandra Rousseau. I'm here for information about signing up to be an adventurer...and well, information in general about adventurers, really."

The receptionist looked cheerful...right up until she mentioned her family name. Then, her gaze and tone became studiously neutral.

"I see. You are from the Eris Empire, correct?"

Alexandra blinked, and answered before she even thought.

"The what now?"

The receptionist looked taken aback at her answer, and gave her a good hearted laugh, warmth returning to her look and tone.

"Oh! Oh, sorry, with your name, I just assumed...Sorry, you must be from one of the villages around here, my apologies."

Alexandra was just confused, and the receptionist smiled.

"Sorry. Let's start with the basics. My name is Cassissa Elaria, but everyone calls me Cassie. Which is going to include you." She said with a mock glare, elicting a smile from Alexandra. "And, well, since you seem to not have been that far from home, the Eris Empire is...let's just say 'very arrogant', and Rousseau is a common family name there. I thought you might be coming from it, so I overreacted, I'm sorry."

Alexandra shook her head.

"It's alright. So, about my questions, miss Cassie?"

Cassie rolled her eyes.

"Cassie will do. I work for a living, thank you very much. And well, let's see....I suppose you've heard a lot of stories about adventurers, the daring heroes that take on monsters, delve deep into dungeons, fight evil, ect. Let me start with this: most of what you heard, is idealized bullshit."

She looked expectantly at Alexandra, who just looked back at her.

"Yeah, I figured that child stories wouldn't exactly be true already. The real world isn't exactly made out of good people fighting the good fight." She'd never heard about the adventurers Cassie was talking about of course, but if her years spent in the navy had taught her anything, it's that most popular stories about idealized organizations were even less accurate than most legends, which was saying something.

Cassie blinked.

"Fair enough. Anyway, adventurers, while most do have some ideals, are closer to mercenaries. They don't take on monsters because it's the right thing to do, but because they have bounties on them, and the materials they'll get from killing them are usually worth quite a bit of coin. They delve into dungeons for loot and treasure, and they hunt criminals and bandits purely for the bounties. There are, of course, some other reasons, such as getting more powerful - which, by the way, you should take as universal here. EVERYONE wants to become stronger in this building, and that includes me. If you meet an adventurer that says no to more power, you probably need to start asking questions."

Alexandra nodded.

"More...power?" She asked, cautiously.

Cassie sighed, mumbling something about "Nobles and their fucking information blackouts".

"One thing that the good old nobility of our deaaaaar Asarian kingdom is trying to keep a lid on, is that adventurers don't only get money for killing monsters or going into dungeons. They get more powerful. Ever heard of people going into dungeons, and coming back stronger, healthier and sometimes looking younger?"

Alexandra politely nodded, although she had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, making a note about the name of the nation she was in, which was already quite the useful bit of information.

"Well, they aren't rumors or fairy tales. Everyone has mana, but a fact that nobles are trying to suppress is that the reason people's mana slowly go down is that it is slowly...synthesized, or transformed, if you didn't know the word, into essence. Essence is...weird, but a simple explanation is that the more you have, the more powerful you are. You become stronger, faster, smarter, ect. This is usually measured by your level, which is just how much essence you have. Thing is, when you kill something, you absorb a fraction of their essence. That's one of the main reasons why adventurers happily fight monsters."

Alexandra tilted her head.

"Wait, wouldn't that work on humans as well?"

Cassie froze, before leaning forward and whispering.

"Look, don't tell anyone I told you this. It's not supposed to be in the introduction things, but yes. When you kill someone, you do absorb part of their essence. The closer their race is to yours, like killing dwarves and elves rather than lizardmen, the more of their essence you get."

"Okay...So, what about signing up?"

Cassie smiled.

"That, is pretty simple. What I need is three things. Name, level, and a payment of 500 mana in various fees. Or, as most people do, you can pay 50 mana now, and 500 later, as interest."

Alexandra thought for a minute. The interest rate wasn't bad, but she had no idea what mana was and if she even had any. She didn't know her level either.

"Hum...I don't know what my level is."

"That, is simple, give me a second."

Cassie leaned on the side and started rummaging in her desk drawer, before straightening back up, bringing what looked like to be a green crystal tablet, with a small spherical bump on it.

"Alright. Put your hand on the bump, and it'll tell me what level you are."

Alexandra obeyed, and a lot of information appeared on the table, as if it was a screen. Surprisingly, the information was also written in english, although most of it looked like gibberish. What did "Matrix Rune Length" mean anyway?

However, it seemed to impress Cassie, as she looked at the level number at the very top and let out a whistle.

"Wow, level 26. You must be one strong girl, Alex. I can call you Alex, right? You're not even going to be Clay rank, you're going straight into the Iron ranks with that. Hell, if you had better gear I'd even put you in Steel straight away."

Alexandra just nodded as she asked if she could call her Alex, before asking her question.

"Excuse me? Clay rank?"

Cassie blinked.

"Oh, right, excuse me. Adventurers are divided into ranks, that are a rough approximation of your fighting power. So basically, we look at your equipment, level, and for the upper ranks the quests you did in the past. Unlike what you see in the books, our rank aren't F, E, and up the alphabet, or Copper, Silver, ect. Our ranks are, in order: Clay, the lowest, then Iron, Steel, Copper, Silver, Gold, Electrum, Silvarium, Mythril, Malachite, Orichalcum, Adamantium, Eternium and last but not the least, Divinium. There used to be ratings within each rank, but those were abandoned for a multitude of reasons. Mainly because most adventurers were bitching to us about their rating being one lower than their friend, despite having done the same things. It was an administrative nightmare to keep track of and no one was happy about it, so it was dropped."

"I see...So...I'd be jumping some layers then?"

"Basically? Clays are little more than a random nobody with a sword, no offense. Irons are those with some levels or experience behind them. Steel are what you can start calling actual, professional adventurers. You'd qualify on level alone, but you don't have any real gear. No offense girl, the leather armor and the sword are quite good for Iron, but most steel have at least some iron armor, or some magic items. Potions are also a must."

"Okay...What next?"

"Well, I have you name, now the mana cost."

Cassie held out her hand, palm down, and Alexandra automatically grabbed and shook it. Cassie facepalmed, laughing.

"I meant use the payment crystal you dummy!"

Alexandra then realized that Cassie had a blue crystal on her wrist, set up on a gauntlet nearly entirely covered in runes. Alexandra hesitatingly reached out, as she didn't know if she had enough mana to pay even the small fee.

Cassie looked at something that appeared on her gauntlet as Alexandra's hand made contact with the crystal.

"Well, it looks like you have...1 120 mana in reserve. Want to pay the whole fee?"

Alexandra nodded.

"Sure."

She barely knew this world, and had no idea of how trustworthy this 'adventurer guild' was. The last thing she wanted was to shackle herself to an organization through debt, so she might as well pay it up fully now. She didn't really know how to gain more mana, but she doubted it'd be that hard. She had a sharp intake of breath as she felt her energy be drained from her, like if someone had suddenly injected her with tranquilizers, before the effect faded to a muted sense of tiredness in the center of her chest, and felt...something, in the back of her mind.

Cassie winced.

"Sorry, should have warned you. Mana transfers in the hundreds and above usually do this to relatively low level people." She looked at her gauntlet. "Alright, all set, let me get your registration card and your badge."

She then proceeded to pull out a small card, quickly filling it with what looked like a semi-modern pen. She then pulled out another, very ornamented pen, nearly completely covered in runes, and signed the card. The card flashed, she then handed the card and the pen to Alexandra.

Alexandra hesitantly took them, before looking, unsure, at Cassie. It was obvious what she wanted her to do, but she had no idea of what that pen just did, and it looked magical.

Cassie smiled.

"Come on, don't be afraid. It's just a mana signature, to confirm the card is rightfully yours. I'm not asking for your soul and anything."

Alexandra suddenly realized that this must be the equivalent of giving your DNA and implant code to a bank to open an account. The 'mana signature' must be their way to authentify people. She promptly signed, and the card, once again, flashed. Cassie smiled, and recovered the pen, looking the card over one last time, before handing it over to Alexandra with a smile.

"There you go! As for your badge..."

She leaned to the side again, rummaged a bit, and pull out a medallion on a chain, evidently made to be worn as a necklace, and pressed it to another crystal slate, this one a deep blue, that was already on her desk when Alexandria arrived. She picked up a pen with a strange tip, and wrote some things on it. The medallion turned into an iron-like color, and Alexandra, in stylized letters, appeared on it. Then, she grabbed the medallion and it shone like the card did, before handing it over to Alexandria.

"Alright, just push your mana into it, and it'll be linked to you. You do know how to push your mana into it, right?" Quickly asked Cassie as she saw Alexandra's confused expression.

She sighed.

"All right. You need to close your eyes, and feel inside of you. You should feel a fire in your torso, right at the center of your upper chest...Then grab that fire, and imagine you are slowly pushing it through your hands..."

Alexandra followed the instructions. She found the fire, it felt...Imposing, powerful, and also...like there was something greater behind it. A tenuous link to something else. She thought about investigating it later, and slowly pushed it through her hands. A light pierced her pupils, and she opened her eyes to a smiling Cassie.

"There you go! All done! Welcome, Iron ranked adventurer Alexandra Rousseau!"

She gave her a mock salute, and Alexandra instinctively answered with a parade ground snap, which instantly froze Cassie. She then shook her head, muttering something like 'Her life before the guild isn't any of my business', before smiling at Alexandra, who was quickly becoming flustered at her slip up.

"Alright. Now, I'd recommend finding a party to join, it's easier to take on quests with allies. Alternatively, you could just do some solo missions, although I wouldn't recommend it. Anything else?"

Alexandra thought about...then sighed. She was out of her depth, and Cassie looked like she might be able to help her. She leaned forward and whispered to her.

"Look, I...I need some help. But not officially."

Cassie's face went neutral again.

"The guild will not tangle with the law-"

"No, no that kind of help!"

Cassie looked at her for a second, reading her face, then relaxed.

"Alright, then what?"

"I'm...I don't know how to tell you this, but I'm...not of this world."

Cassie looked at her for a few second, her face inscrutable.

"Look, Alex. You seem like a nice girl and you've been pretty nice today, but I'm not a gullible idiot. Do you seriously expect me to believe that you're an extradimensional? Since you've been nice today, I'll let it pass, and forget you ever said that, if you get out of my view right now."

Alexandra didn't know what an extradimensional exactly meant, but she was pretty sure she was included in it.

"But-"

"Oh for fuck's sake! Get the fuck ou-"

"Wow, what's going on here?"

While Cassie hadn't raised her tone, her furious face had been caught by a curious adventuring party. A woman wearing purple robes and holding a staff, topped by a purple sphere, who Alexandra assumed was some kind of mage, came forward with her teammates. She was quite well endowed, her robe clinging tightly to her curves for some reason, and had long, raven black hair surrounding a fairly white face, missing the tan of most adventurers in the room, with her...purple eyes? Looking in turn at Cassie and Alexandra. The medallion she was wearing had the color of a strange, off-color gold. Having seen some fantasy materials when playing video games, Alexandra assumed it was Electrum.

Cassie sighed and looked at the woman.

"Hey Berth. Sorry to worry you, but this woman." She pointed at Alexandra. "Is starting to slightly piss me off. She's insisting that she's an extradimensional."

The mage looked at Alexandra.

"Look, girl. Cassie doesn't really take well to those kind of jokes, you should apologize. She's had a long day, and she isn't up for this kind of prank exchange, alright?"

"But, I am from another world!"

Alexandra couldn't help it. If there was one thing that pissed her off, it was being called a liar. She knew the logical course of action would have been to apologize, go do some quests, and then mend her relationship with Cassie (it never pays to anger bureaucrats, especially the ones that virtually sign your paychecks and decide if you go up in rank or not), but she just couldn't stop herself.

Cassie's gaze became harder, and Berth looked at Alexandra with an almost pitying gaze.

"Alright girl, I will test you out to see if you're an extradimensional. If you aren't, you must promise to leave miss Cassie alone. Do we have a deal?" She quickly said, forestalling a probably scathing reply from Cassie.

Cassie sighed and wave her hand angrily as Berth looked at her, muttering 'Whatever'. Alexandra offhandedly thought that she'd probably mutter under her breath a lot less if she knew Alexandra's implants allowed her to hear even the faintest of conversation perfectly, if she was close enough.

Alexandra nodded, and Berth came forward, and landed a hand on her shoulder. Alexandra felt a warmth suffusing her as Berth softly said something that made no sense, even to her translation systems. It felt like when she had moved her mana around, but reversed, flowing from outside her to her...core? For the lack of a better word. Then suddenly, the warmth was gone. And Berth was staring at her, her eyes and mouth opened wide in shock.

Cassie looked at her, worried.

"Berth? Berth, are you all right?"

"Holy Divines! She's for real! She's an actual extradimensional!"

Cassie whipped her head around and stared at Alexandra, mouth agape. Alexandra was still confused as to what 'extradimensional' exactly meant to these people, but this suddenly took a background place compared to sudden concern as a mutter of voices sounded throughout the common room, with adventurers getting up, looking at her and walking towards the desk. Berth's astonished outburst had gathered quite a bit of attention.

Cassie looked at Berth again, and then turned towards a younger girl dressed exactly like her, evidently one of her colleagues, who had made her way there to investigate the commotion.

"Go! Go get guildmaster Erik! Now!"

The girl nodded, and ran off. Alexandra opened her mouth, but Cassie held up her hand, forestalling her.

"Later. I'll apologize for my rudeness, but right now this is too important. Wait until the guildmaster gets here. This is way above my pay grade."

A few seconds later, with a growing group of adventurer assembling a few meters away in an arc (more out of respect for Berth's team than for her or Cassie, Alexandra realized), a graying man that looked to be in his late 50s burst out of a side door, quickly followed by the other guild girl.

"Yes? What's so urgent?"

Cassie got up and quickly explained the situation to him, gesturing at Alexandra and Berth.

"Guild Master Erik, sir! This woman here came to register in the guild, and claimed to be an extradimensional! I did not believe her, but miss Berth here tested her, and, well, according to her...she is!"

Erik looked surprised, and slightly disbelieving. He looked at Berth, who nodded, and made his way to Alexandra.

"Don't move girl." He simply said, before muttering under his breath 'this better not be a joke...'.

He then grabbed her shoulder, and Alexandra felt the same warmth as when Berth had tested her...except that it seemed greater, more powerful, somehow. Erik then let go of her shoulder, looking like he'd been hit by lightning.

"Dear Gods.."

He then promptly turned towards Cassie.

"You, her, in my office, right now. Berth, I'll thank you properly for your help later." He upped his tone. "And the rest of you, back to whatever you were doing! I will personally kick the ass of whoever tries to pester Dominique about this! Am I clear?"

A lot of subdued nods from the assembled adventurers answered him, and the guild girl, who Alexandra guessed was Dominique, smiled in thanks at the guild master. Cassie bowed at the guild master's order as Berth simply nodded, grabbed Alexandra's hand, and dragged her behind her as she made her way to the door from which the guild master had erupted.

*****

"So, miss Rousseau. Do you know why you are so special?" Asked Erik.

They were currently sitting in what appeared to be his office. It was fairly large, with a sizeable carved desk made from a wood Alexandra didn't recognize, with a crimson carpet covering the floor, and a vast amount of what looked like trophies scattered on the walls. Some looked like trinkets, others were weapons and objects that seemed to practically thrum with barely contained power. The biggest, however, was the giant Adamantium (if she didn't miss her guess) double axe that was straight behind the guildmaster's seat.

Alexandra shook her head.

"No, not really. I know that coming from another world would be quite the thing, but your reaction, and the test you used on me, imply that there's something else to it. After all, I doubt you read through my mind to confirm the fact."

Alexandra mostly knew that that was the case because her fleet implants had some rather...violent protocols for if someone attempted to access her memories, although it was more expected to be via someone jacking into her neural interface than actual magic mind reading.

Erik smiled, pleased.

"Good, good! You know how to use your brain, that's excellent." He laughed at her outraged expression. "Calm down, I'm not patronizing you, but you would be surprised how many extradimensionals acted stupidly in the past...and usually got themselves killed, equally stupidly."

He looked at her for a second, stopping to let it sink in, before picking back up again.

"In any case, the fact that you're an extradimensional is interesting, but not really because you're from another world. Many extradimensionals have arrived in our world over the millenia, but despite all of the miracles your kind talk about from your technologies and civilizations, the ones who talk about it seem to have very little practical knowledge on how to actually recreate it. Although, to be fair, some have been instrumental in the progress of our own technology, and are considered heroes in several nations for their accomplishments. No, the reason most consider extradimensional truly exceptional, is because of your mana."

Alexandra blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"Well, you see, it is quite simple. You do know that normally, most people lose mana over time, mostly due to essence synthesis?"

Alexandra nodded, and noted down the 'mostly due to essence synthesis' in her reminders on her implants, as it implies that there were other causes.

"Well, not extradimensionals. In fact, extradimensionals continuously gain mana. Allow me to explain. Most places where life is possible have ambient mana, enough for people to absorb and live off of. However, to truly accumulate mana, they need more than this. This is where mana acquisition comes in. There is a multitude of ways to acquire mana, but it boils down to this: you can cultivate, which is a process that speeds up the process of absorbing ambient mana, although it usually requires great concentration, and you also need a cultivation technique, which are either restricted, or really expensive to buy and learn. You can also, which is the choice of most people, absorb mana from potions, mana stones and even coins. Since mana is used as a currency, most normal people consider it a waste of good money. The last widely available solution is dungeons. When people head into a dungeon, the ambient mana concentration jumps up astronomically, which allows the people inside to actively regenerate mana at insane rates, and allows them to cultivate at truly ridiculous speeds. However, dungeons are fraught with danger, so they are not recommended if you just want some mana."

"You, on the other hand, don't need any of this! In fact, you are able to passively generate mana, wherever you are and whatever you are doing, at rates that ridicule even that of adventurers dungeon delving. This is what makes you truly special, as you will continuously grow more and more powerful, and have virtually unlimited mana. It makes you the perfect adventurer, so to speak. Not even mentioning that you technically never run out of money as well."

He chuckled, shaking his head.

"All of this means that you are quite exceptional. Now that means several things: first, I need to report you to the central guild headquarters. Second, you don't need to go looking for a party, everyone probably knows that you're an extradimensional by now, and they will want to try and recruit you, to latch on to your rising star. Third, and this is the problematic part, you will gather attention. The kind you'd rather avoid. There are powerful entities and entire countries that will pay fortunes to have you captured and force you to swear loyalty to them. In fact, this very kingdom might put immense pressure onto you to do just that, although they do try to be subtle about it, as angering the adventurer guild is not done lightly, and angering an extradimensional that might rise to be a legend even less so."

Alexandra tilted her head.

"In my experience, forcing someone into service is hardly a good idea, and will usually end with a knife planted in your back."

Erik laughed.

"In your world, I suppose it would be very true. In here? Less so. There are contracts and oaths that will force you to obey them once signed, no matter how much you loath them or what you have to do. Additionally, most organizations that do this aren't stupid. They will do everything to capture you and ensure to you swear a binding oath, but once that is done they will do everything so that you truly support them, showering you with riches, powerful artifacts, men, women, whatever it takes so you support them wholeheartedly. I can already see from your face that you know what the problem with that is."

Alexandra nodded, horrified.

"Power corrupts."

"Exactly. The extradimensionals that become like this either go insane from their bonds, or become monsters, thinking themselves untouchable and above mere mortals. They become, for the lack of a better word, spoiled, and outright dangers to everyone around them, expecting all to obey them at a moment's notice. They're even worse than the less savory members of the nobility, and that's saying something."

"I see..."

"So, I cannot legally keep you here. Oh, I could do it in practice, as I am far more powerful than you currently are, but I do not want to. Mostly because it would go against my principles, but also because it would send a signal to everyone that the adventurer guild is trying to do what I just described to you, and it would end very badly."

Alexandra nodded. It would be like if a large interstellar corporation kidnapped a genius that had just made a phenomenal scientific breakthrough back home. Some countries (especially the Martian Republic) had a tendency to "nationalize" these kind of talents, but if a corporation were to do the same, half of the superpowers in human space would be up at them and tearing them apart in a matter of days.

"The best that I can do, is to give you some advice, and have Cassie here keep an eye on you. She might not look like it, but she's a level 109 Silvarium ranked warmage, so she'll be more than able to keep you safe. She'll help you find a good party that's about your level. She'll also serve as your bodyguard, more or less, as long as you are within the city. She, unfortunately, cannot formally join you into adventures, but your teammates should be enough to help you out in the wild, where those who wish you harm will have a harder time finding you."

"Right..."

If she was being honest, Alexandria would have preferred having an entire platoon of marines to hide behind, maybe with a starship overhead decked out in void to surface weaponry to cover her, given the amount of people that apparently wanted to capture her. However, she didn't have those on hands, so a group of adventurers used to fighting monsters and hunting down bandits sounded about what she needed. She had no idea what a warmage was, but it sounded badass and Cassie didn't look like the type to take shit from anyone, so that was a plus as well.

"Well then, dismissed!"

Alexandra walked out the room, followed by Cassie, sighing deeply as the door closed.

"Well...This is going to be interesting."

Cassie smiled, coldly.

"Oh, you have no idea. Dibs, by the way."

Alexandra raised an eyebrow, but Cassie simply smiled enigmatically, before motionning her towards the door. Alexandra shrugged, and opened it, walking into the common room once more.

And froze.

Everyone was looking at her. Although the adventurers had evidently decided to take their guildmaster's warnings seriously, and Dominique was left relatively alone, they were all 'nonchalantly' hanging out as close to the door as they dared, in the apparently universal fashion of people trying too hard to not appear as if they were waiting for something, and ending up doing the opposite. Alexandra had the distinct impression of being a red, dripping chunk of meat tossed in the middle of an arena of starving leopards.

Then Cassie stepped out from behind her.

"Alright, so our dear new recruit here needs a party. Anyone interested?"

Alexandra's last thoughts were a stream of expletives that would have made her old drill sergeant proud before the horde closed in.

*****

Alexandra staggered out of the guild hall, exhausted. Thanks to Cassie, she'd been able to join a nice party. Or at least, they seemed nice, and they were of a high enough rank (copper) as to be able to protect her, without being so far out of her league that she'd be a spectator in combat. For some reason, Berth had said dibs, quickly followed by several high ranked party leaders, until Cassie had given them all a wide smile, which had elected a storm of muttered curses across the room. It wasn't until Dominique had helpfully informed her that they were calling dibs on having first chance in taking her in their party once she (apparently inevitably) outpaced her current party, that Alexandra understood why.

As Alexandra neared the inn she had been told to rent a room in, she stopped. Cassie wasn't behind her anymore, and all of her combat instincts, honed through the solar system's (and beyond) most disreputable freeports screamed 'DANGER!'. She put her hand on her sword's pomel, and began to draw it.

"Wow, wow, easy there! I'm not here to attack you! Sorry I spooked you miss!"

A fellow came out of the shadows, his hands in the air and a friendly smile on his face. Alexandra recognized him from the guild hall, he was a Steel ranked adventurer that didn't seem to have a party, and had hung back as everyone had swarmed her. Alexandra relaxed a little bit...Until she made eye contact with him.

She unsheathed her sword and automatically parried his dagger, her marine combat programs saving her from a probably crippling injury, and swung back, drawing a bloody gash along his arm and electing a muffled curse from him. A rictus appeared on his face, before his expression switched to surprise, and he looked down.

He seemed baffled by the large spike of ice protuding from his chest, before collapsing, dead or very close to being, revealing Cassie, her right hand held up, palm open, while her left one gripped what looked like a very over ornamented medallion, who was currently glowing heavily, although it was quickly fading.

Before she was able to say anything, Alexandra felt a rush, unlike anything she'd felt before. It was like if combat stims, sex and good old adrenaline had all been mixed together and dialed up to 11. She took a staggered breath, before releasing it as the rush dissipated. She felt...stronger, her mind was clearer, and she could feel her sense of balance improving.

So that was what Cassie had been talking about. The adventurer, who she assumed was a rogue, probably just finally succumbed to his wounds, and his essence, at least in part, had transferred to her. Of course, Cassie hadn't mentioned it'd feel this good. It did explain why even the guild was trying to keep a lid on it though, as if everyone knew that murder felt like the greatest drug ever invented, every junkie on the planet would turn into serial killers.

"Are you okay?"

Alexandra snapped her head back up, looking directly at the concerned face of Cassie.

"I'm fine. Thanks for the assistance."

"No problem. How did you know?"

Alexandra understood immediately that she was referring as to how she'd deduced he was here to attack her.

"His eyes. I've met slavers before, they had the same look in their eyes..."

"I see..."

Cassie looked her over once more, before letting the matter drop. She gestured to the rapidly cooling corpse.

"Well, he did attack you, so his belongings are yours by right of combat."

Alexandra looked up at her, surprised, and Cassie let out a bark of laughter.

"What did you expect? Every adventurer loots their enemies, and with so much to gain from someone with expensive equipment, it's no wonder the government had to put the regulation into place, if only to avoid being ridiculed by everyone violating the law."

Alexandra looked at her for a second, to see if she was making fun of her, before deciding that she wasn't. She kneeled next to the body, and began looting him. She had, unfortunately, all too much experience in doing just that. You didn't get to do a peacekeeping mission on Vesta station (one of the larger asteroids in the Mars-Jupiter asteroid belt) without becoming acquainted with shooting down lowlives and efficiently looking for any proof of which of the myriad of gangs they were apart of, and what illegal stuff they had on them that you needed to confiscate.

Cassie kneeled beside the body as well, after taking a look around to make sure they were alone, and gave her a hand. Together they quickly found 3 daggers, for a total of 4 with the one the rogue had held, a few coins, a crystal that looked valuable, several pouches worth of potions and vials, as well as a softly glowing amulet. They also found a small notebook and a pen. Alexandra opened it and sneered in disgust.

It looked like this wasn't an opportunist, one time slaver. He had made a living out of it. There was entire pages of description of people to capture or types of slaves that were wanted, with payments, contact names, and a delivery date and checkmark for every succeeded mission. Alexandra noted with disgust that some of the completed missions included children. Apparently even the slightest bit of honor or morals was completely foreign to that bastard.

Alexandra handed the book over to Cassie, before looking through the potions. Thankfully, they were very neatly labeled. There were 4 level 5 lesser healing potions, about a dozen level 16 lesser elixirs of dexterity, 3 level 20 lesser reflex boost potions, and half a dozen vial of ominously labeled level 40 average paralytic poison. She wondered why the level of every potion was included on top of a degree of efficacy, like 'lesser', filling it for later.

Alexandra heard the notebook snap close, and one look at Cassie's face was enough to know that there was going to be hell to pay for the monsters that had allowed the rogue to operate with apparently free reign, and those who had sponsored his deeds.

After a short discussion, they both decided to drag the body to the guild, and ask Erik for permission to sleep in the guild hall rooms, an honor usually reserved to gold ranked parties and above.

Following a short discussion with Erik, as the few adventurers still up eyed the body and pretended not to be avidly listening to the conversation, they were authorized to stay here for the night, and a series of quests was put out to arrest (or, if impossible, kill) the rogue's clients and accomplices.

Alexandra simply followed Dominique to her room, and with barely taking a few seconds to take off her boots, collapsed onto the bed.

*****

Alexandra frowned, then, with the ease of long habit, threw off the cover, not even stopping at the fact that she wasn't under them (and thus was throwing nothing), and slammed her hand on her non-existent alarm clock, before belatedly realizing that someone was knocking on her stateroom door.

"What?"

"It's me, Dominique. Miss Rayka wanted me to warn you that the rest of your party is waiting for you."

Alexandra's frown deepened. She didn't know any ensign named Dominique on the Dawn Star, nor did she remember having organized a boarding or station party yesterday...

Then her memories caught up to her. She wasn't on the Dawn Star anymore. She wasn't the traumatized officer gazing over the ruins of Europa anymore. She wasn't even in Human Space anymore. She shook her head, burying the memories of the scorched moon in the tightly locked vaults of her mind. It was far more reassuring to remember herself as Alexandra Rousseau, chief of engineering, scheduled to join the EFSNS Duty Eternal, with an eventful but unexceptional career.

"Right. Tell her I'll be right there!" She yelled.

"Okay!" Answered back Dominique, before hurried steps disappeared into the distance.

Alexandra smiled, shaking her head. This girl was far too excited for her own good. She really reminded her of those eager ensigns....

Nope, don't go there she told herself as she took a quick shower (she was very surprised yesterday when they had informed her that, indeed, they did have running water, and the concept of showers had taken quite the hold in their civilization), and dressed. Rayka was the heavily tanned copper haired woman that was the head of her new party. Better not have her wait too long.

Alexandra absentmindedly tied her long hair into a ponytail, before buckling her sword belt, just as she'd have put on her pistol belt, opened the door, and stepped out.

She quickly navigated the hallway to the stairs, and made her way down into the common room. Where she was greeted by a wave of cheering and whistles.

"For Alexandra, hip hip hip! HOURAH!"

Alexandra stopped there, confused, her foot hovered over the next step as she just froze. She flushed, and started moving again as everyone in the room started laughing. She quickly made her way to the round table where her new party was sitting down.

She grabbed a chair, and sat down in front of the 5th pint of ale, obviously meant for her, as all the others had theirs in front of them or in their hand.

"What the hell was that about?"

Raika, covered in heavy leather armor, smiled.

"It's a tradition. Sometimes, adventurers discover something that creates a whole lot of jobs and money for other adventurers. Sometimes it's a dungeon, othertimes it's a monster infestation, and in your case, a network of criminals. It's then customary to greet them like this, at least once, as thanks."

Alexandra blinked. That...made sense.

A closely shaven man, both for his facial an cranial hair, nodded across the table.

"Yeah. You just made a whole lot of new friends Alex. Not everyday that someone comes with that kind of quest money, and simply asks the guildmaster to let everyone in on it."

The rest of the team nodded, looking at her admiratingly.

Alexandra was just confused, until she belatedly realized that it must be Erik's doing. Instead of giving her exclusivity on the new quests like most adventurers would have asked, he'd made this up, and announced to everyone that she was freely letting everyone in on it. He was creating her a good reputation, and stacking the deck in her favor. Alexandra grabbed the pint in front of her, and raised it into the air, raising her voice to address the whole room.

"You honor me too much guys! We'd all have done the same. These people don't deserve to walk free!"

"HOURRAH!"

She lowered her pint, and drunk it all, followed by nearly the entire guildhall. She lowered it, and looked at the rest of her party, that, if anything, looked even more impressed now.

Alexandra smiled. She'd judged the personnality of these adventurers correctly it seemed. They were like Federation marines, they were here for a paycheck, sure, but deep down, at their root, they were good people, and had enlisted to help people and make the world a better place. Calling to that had cemented her reputation in their minds as someone that would do the right thing. That might lose her some standing around those who would be expecting lucrative offers out of her, but it would virtually ensure that the more idealist parties would follow her without question if she asked for their help. Which was a definite plus, after all, with her unlimited mana generation, she wouldn't have a problem to buy off the greedy ones, while she could hardly do the same for the others.

"Well...That was inspiring. Are you sure you didn't miss your calling? You should have been a military officer!" Laughed the bald guy, before stopping abruptly as Alexandra leveled at him a look that would have frozen a supernova solid. He gulped, before she relaxed.

"Sorry, it's...a long story. Anyway, apologies, but yesterday was quite the rush, and I don't believe we've been introduced?"

Raika nodded, and started presenting her teamates.

"Right. Time for the introductions. The loudmouth moving mirror there is Thomas, he's our ranged combatant. Crossbows, thrown knives, you name it, he can use it. He's also quite good with his senses."

Alexandra nodded. This world's equivalent of a ranger then, albeit without the traditional bow.

"The cowled silent guy here is Fernand. Don't mind his silence, he's just timid. He's kind of an odd one, as a close combat combatant and spell caster, but he's one of the best alchemists I've ever seen, and he knows the wild well enough to help live off the land quite comfortably."

Alexandra smiled at him. He was, indeed, cowled, but a long black beard escaped from the darkness, and a pair of blue eyes met hers briefly, before the figure nodded. A...given his sword and shield, an arcane fighter? Forget this, she probably won't be able to neatly put them into D&D classes. They were hardly likely to confine themselves to neat little categories like in Roleplaying games after all.

"And finally, the girl with far too much liking for pure white in a job that doesn't involved many clean environment is Alyssa. She's our healer and mage. Don't be fooled by her innocent appearance, she can cast fireball faster than cure wounds. Be wary of telling her to destroy an entire area, because you do not want to let her set the forest on fire."

There was some wariness in Raika's tone, and the cute, bubbly blonde young woman in pure white robes next to Alexandra smiled innocently, before turning it into a devious and slightly psychotic grin. Oh, great, a pyromaniac. And a healer. Alexandra dearly hoped she hadn't heard of cauterizing wounds. There had been a weird...power to some of Raika's tone, Alexandra guessed those were spells. Then Alexandra realized that they were looking expectantly at her, waiting for her to introduce herself.

"Right, I am Alexandra. I do not have any specialization that I could describe to you, but I do have close combat experience and reflexes to match. Apart from that, as you've surely heard, I'm an extradimensional, with all that implies."

They nodded and smiled, even Fernand, his teeth reflecting the light, creating a strange contrast. Alexandra was strangely reminded of a face floating in the middle of the air, kind of like when you did that weird mirror experiment with one eye with a friend. She shook off the image -she didn't need to be reminded of Emil right now- and looked at Daika.

"So...Time to get to work?"

Daika nodded.

"Yep. We were already doing this quest before you joined." She pulled up a paper covered in writing, and with the representation of what looked like a beaver, if it's teeth had suddenly become pointed. "Hunting Treefangs. Several groups of them have made their nests nearby, and we have been hired to take them out before they devour the largest and most precious trees. We are down to three nests we need to clear, and then we'll get paid. Don't worry, we'll split the rewards evenly."

Alexandra held up and shook her hands and head.

"There's no need to! I just came in!"

Daika simply shook her head, followed by a smile.

"It's alright. We've all agreed on this. Plus, investing in a new party member is the right thing to do. In the end, we'll benefit more by helping you get better gear and stuff early on."

The rest of the team nodded, showing their support. Alexandra supposed it made sense, after all she was going to pay them back by helping them take on even bigger jobs. Thus, she nodded, signaling their agreements, and they got up, and left the guild hall. Her first quest as an adventurer was on!

*****

"So, what is your specialization? I mean, I know I might not understand it, but I'm curious." Said Alyssa.

Alexandra looked at the diminutive healer as she walked, who barely arrived at her shoulder. The pyromaniac medic simply returned her gaze with one filled with innocent curiosity. Alexandra sighed.

"I was an engineering officer. Specialized in code, which is essential for our technology."

Alexandra stopped as she saw Alyssa stop, gaping at her. She looked around, and saw that the others had done so as well, and were staring at her.

"What?" She said, holding up her hand.

Alyssa simply stepped forward, and yanked Alexandra down to her level via her collar. She was deceptively strong, then again, she was supposedly somewhere around level 40 to even qualify as a copper adventurer.

"Are you joking? You aren't, aren't you? You don't know? Holy Divines you don't actually know!" Alyssa threw her hands up in frustration and turned around, looking at the sky.

Alexandra looked at the others, even more confused, and Raika cleared her throat.

"There have been multiple 'coders' and 'programmer' extradimensionals over the millenia...And everyone of them ended up as some of the greatest archmages of all time."

Alexandra just looked at her, even more confused, before Alyssa grabbed her arm.

"You and me are going to have a great discussion as soon as we make camp." She said in a tone that brokered no argument.

Alexandra meekly nodded.

*****

The figure, shrouded in black robes, froze, disbelieving.

Here, in the middle of routine paperwork and boring progress reports, buried in the tons of verbiage, was this. He reread it. Then reread it again, before slamming the report down to his desk. He quickly calculated the likelihood of anyone knowing of this, and then calculated how likely they were to hear of it if he took the time to properly confirm this. He didn't like what the second calculations told him. He frowned...And took a decision. If he was wrong, he'd probably lose most of his standing with his superior, and all of his influence. If he was right...He'd be propelled up in the ranks like never before.

He grabbed the flimsy sheet of paper, and left his office.

*****

Alexandra listened avidly to Alyssa. Apparently, the runes used for magic, which had to be chanted, written, or 'mindcasted' were eerily similar to code, or at least, that's what the previous extradimensionals had said. After a bit more of lecturing, Alyssa handed her a book filled with strange runes, and began to teach her the basics of magic runes, how to pronounce them, and how to form each rune within her mind, and fill her in on their meaning.

*****

The woman, wearing a white and red robe, with glowing red eyes, looked up from her own paperwork at her desk, as the robed man erupted into the room, quickly walked on the carpet, and kneeled before her.

"You do realize that if whatever you're here to tell me isn't worth it, you've just signed your own demotion papers back down to acolyte, right?"

The man, gulped, before saying, in a firm and even tone of voice.

"My lady. We have found a newly discovered extradimensional for the great project."

The woman's hands slammed onto her desk as she got up.

*****

Everyone ducked as the tree in front of Alexandra errupted into shards. Alexandra slowly got up, blinking, her cheek bleeding slightly from a cut made by a piece of bark moving at nearly 3 times the speed of sound.

"See! You've only barely learned the spell, and you've already mastered it!" Laughed Alyssa, as she landed a warm hand on Alexandra's cheek, and murmured a few words, and the cut closed instantly.

Alexandra blinked, looking at her. She was...confused an amazed in equal part. It turned out that magic in this world was handled by runes. Runes that more or less worked like code instructions. No one (or at least, no one but the highest archmages, which refused to tell anyone) seemed really sure what each rune meant exactly, but by combining them, and powering them with mana, they could manifest magic.

The spell she had just cast was called Kinetic Strike. It involved a series of what she guessed were momentum or gravity runes, distance, and targeting ones. It allowed her to suddendly 'hit' a target from afar, just like if he'd been hit by a gravitational energy rifle. Needless to say, having part of an object suddenly accelerated directly into the rest of the object was quite...explosive. At least for rigid objects. Maybe flesh could absorb it better, although at the cost of one hell of a bruise.

According to Alyssa, having mastered a spell meant being able to manifest, or cast, it entirely within your mind, without having to chant or write it down and empower it. Not only was it faster, but it was apparently much cheaper in mana.

However, Alexandra could understand how hard it would be for most people to be able to do that. Holding a full spell in you mind, as you had to remember all of runes and...materialize them, for the lack of a better word, in your mind, without the slightest error, was quite hard. It allowed you to instantly and perfectly cast the spell, but still, it was quite challenging. Then you had to...grab, for the lack of a better word, the mana from your core, and coax it into the runes, while still holding them up. Then, the spell would be cast. According to Alyssa, failing to hold up the runes would have quite dramatic, and very much painful consequences.

She looked at the others.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"It's alright. All new mages are like this." Said Raika, smiling. "You should have seen Alyssa when she learned fire magic. We had to install her in the middle of a fire pit."

Alyssa gave her leader a 'hmpf!', before turning back towards her new apprentice.

"Oh, this is going to be awesome. I get to teach an extradimensional the basics of magic!"

Thomas smiled, and went back to carving a piece of wood with his dagger, while Fernand continued to observe them from a bit of distance, smiling. Alexandra noted that he was still wearing his cowl for some reason, despite being in the middle of the night, the flickering light of the campfire sometimes illuminating his face. He looked...Normal. Which shouldn't surprising, Raika has said he was timid, and hiding something important from Alexandra would have been stupid, as she'd have probably found out eventually.

"I have a question though." Said Alexandra, stopping Alyssa, who looked like she was about to go into yet another rant about her magic university teacher and their incompetence, who she seemed to particularly hate, especially the fire magic teacher, for some reason.

"Go ahead" She said, calming down and looking at her curiously, trying to look like a composed master of her art instead of an overexcited juvenile.

"Why are written runes and spoken incantations so inefficient?"

"Ah, excellent question!" Alyssa lost her composure, and started making grand hand gestures to illustrate her points. "See, runes and incantations waste mana by two ways. For runes, it's by having the mana disperse to the material it's written in/carved on. That's why objects made out of rarer materials, like mythril, have much better efficiency than say, clay, as they do not disperse the mana that's imbued into the runes. It's what makes it so precious! For incantations, that's because it's being maintained without holding it in your mind, hold on, let me show you."

She started chanting, and a series of glowing runes started appearing in front of her, each rune appearing as she spoke them. Alexandria's mind clicked.

"It's like if they were carved into the air..."

Alyssa finished her spell, a small sphere of light appearing, floating in front of her, and illuminating the area, smiling at Alexandra. Oddly, it didn't hurt to look at, for something that emitted so much light.

"Exactly. It's even less efficient than carving runes into the dirt. However, it's faster to incant something than write it down, not even mentioning that your enemy might damage your spell. So it comes down to two schools of thoughts: the mages and the sorcerers."

Alexandra frowned. She could guess where both were going, the parallel did exist in some fantasy games on Earth.

"Mages cast and sorcerers prepare, is that it? The mages learn a ton of spells, ready to cast anything at a moment's notice, while the sorcerers stockpile runes items, scrolls, casting implements, ect."

Alyssa nodded.

"Yes. Sorcerers trade flexibility, and quite a bit of their time and money, for casting speed and efficiency. Meanwhile mages spend their time learning new spells, becoming able to deal with any situations, but burn out due to lack of mana faster."

Alexandra nodded thoughtfully.

"I see. Well, that was interesting, but it seems pretty late now. Shouldn't we get to sleep?"

Alyssa looked around at her teammates, blushing as they smiled knowingly at her. They were apparently quite used to her ranting long into the night.

"R-Right. I'll take first watch."

*****

"Alright. Here is your mission. We want to capture this woman, and we will pay 1 million mana for her capture, if she is unharmed! Rough her up a bit if you need to, but if any of you seriously harm her, the deal is off. She will be accompanied by an adventuring party, most likely, feel free to do with them as you please. Any questions?"

The leader of the group looked at the black robed man, and shook his head.

"None. It will be done. We should be back within the week." He then walked out of the room, followed by his associates.

The black robed man winced as they finally exited. He disliked hiring outside forces, but the Order lacked manpower, particularly in this region. He hoped they succeeded, but extradimensionals could be surprisingly dangerous, even at low levels, and his intelligence on her party and her own abilities were extremely incomplete, thanks to that damn paranoid guildmaster. He'd better draw some contingency plans, just in case...

*****

"See? That wasn't so hard." Said Alyssa, patting Alexandra on the shoulder as they walked.

Alexandra turned towards her...mistress? No, teacher. Mistress had altogether different connotations, especially in a fantasy world with magic oaths and monarchs. Last thing she needed was to let that word slip and people start looking for the evil magician that had sway over her.

"Well, I guess I'm still alive and in one piece...more or less..." She said, electing a laugh from the rest of the party.

The Treefangs were, indeed, big red beavers with sharp teeth. They were reasonably fast, but not very agile, and more or less came at you in a straight line. They were, however, surprisingly resilient, as one had demonstrated, by taking a kinetic strike that had turned most of it's face into a pulp, and still had found the strength to make a jump and rip apart her hand with it's broken fangs, before dying of brain hemorrhage. Raika had been my her side in an instant, cutting down everything that approached her with her dual shortswords while Alyssa healed her (and fireball-ed a group of them afterwards for good measure). The experience of having your hand piece itself back together had been both fascinating and traumatizing, but less so for her, as she'd already seen a medic hook up a wounded marine that had both of his legs torn off by a mine on Vista to a nano medpack, and had watched in fascinated horror as his legs literally grew back as billions of nanomachines sacrificed themselves to duplicate his cells and rebuild him. Fortunately, the magic seemed to numb the pain, which while not as good as the full anesthesia the nano medpack provided, at least didn't hamper her ability to fight in the slightest.

After the fight, and some discussion with her teammates, she'd found out that essence affected the durability of the persons. Apparently, had she been level 1, the beaver would have ripped her hand off without an issue, but her essence had made her tougher, the same as it made the beavers tougher. Thomas demonstrated by throwing a rock at her and she barely even felt it bounce off of her unprotected skin. She'd suddenly had a whole new level of appreciation for her own sword, whose edge was able to make her bleed effortlessly. Still, she took the lesson to heart, and had double tapped everything she came across at the next nest. No reason to take any further risks. She'd also realized that she could double cast the spell by simply repeating it twice in the same cast, and she started working on a new, mass kinetic strike spell, which was just a lot of kinetic strikes (31 to be precise, after that she started having trouble holding the spell into her head) one after another. She, of course, named it Mudamudamuda.

After she told that to the rest of the party, they had looked at her as if they'd been struck by lightning, and Alyssa had pounced on her and hugged her, non stop telling her how awesome she was. Apparently, creating and mastering mass spells of such low level spells wasn't that hard...for a level 60 or so. Still, Raika had convinced her to refrain on casting it until she'd had time back at the guild to look it over properly and test it in small increments, gradually adding more kinetic strikes until she felt sure she could cast it without incident, which was a good idea. Alexandra hadn't experienced a mana backlash yet, and given the expression that Alyssa had when she asked what it felt like and her lack of answer, she really didn't want to.

She stopped, nearly running into Thomas. She started opening her mouth, and closed it as he half crouched and raised his hand, the signal for 'stop, silence'. Every froze and crouched down, listening...And Alexandra's implants started sending warning as her marine software alerted her to movement nearby, now that they were uncluttered with the sound of conversation and her own feet hitting the ground. Her head whipped around towards where her HUD (which automatically came on once the marine software detected potential hostile) indicated, and yelled.

"AMBUSH!"

She'd barely had the time to hit the ground before an arrow whistled right where her head used to be. She was about to yell the direction of the enemy, right up until they both gave their position and their motives away.

"What the fuck?! I told you, we want the brunette intact!"

Given the fact that the two other woman in the group were blonde and redhaired, and even then Thomas had virtually no hair and Fernand's beard was jet black, it didn't take a fleet command AI to join the dots. Those were the marauders Erik had warned her about.

In any case, they were to regret their outburst momentarily, as Alyssa began chanting. Another arrow arrived, the twang of the bow still oddly absent, but Raika stepped in front of the mage, and the arrow bounced harmlessly off of her leather armor, a faint glimmer betraying what Alexandra suspected was an enchantment. Then, at the last second, she ducked as Alyssa finished her spell, throwing the fireball into the trees. The sphere disappeared into the foliage, quite litterally burning a hole through it, before detonating, igniting a good chunk of the target area.

A stream of curses followed, and a group of persons (some screaming and partially on fire), some in leather armor, and a few with iron plates added, emerged from the forest, charging them, with the foliage staying oddly silent as they burst through it. Her implants quickly informed her that there was a dozen of them in view, and a few more attempting to flank them.

"Look out! They're flanking us by the right!" She yelled out.

The most heavily armored one, who she took to be their leader, released another stream of expletive, and charged Raika, identifying her as the greater threat, as she guarded their mage, while the others picked their targets. Three of them were making their way towards her, before one fell, a dagger planted between his eyes, and another started screaming and clawing at her face as a vial of acid impacted her square on the cheek and broke, releasing it's deadly content.

Alexandra took a second to nod to both Thomas and Fernand for their help, which nearly cost her the fight, as the attacker closed in faster than she believed possible. Alexandra mentally cursed as she drew her blade and her software parried the blow aimed at her head for her, as she still kept forgetting that people didn't act like normal humans in this world of magic.

The person she was fighting, a close quarters specialist, so a fighter, looked surprised that she was able to stop him, and launched a rapid series of attacks, all aimed at disarming her, which she quickly parried. She then realized that with the software from her implants practically doing the fighting for her, she was free to cast spells. She quickly cast Kinetic Strike, and her enemy grunted and buckled slightly. Her software immediately pressed the advantage, making her kick his shin and knock him out with a hit from her sword's pomel to the temple. Alexandra belatedly switched the software to lethal mode, and dodged the punch just in time, reacting even before her implants did. She looked around, and saw the leader, with a deep, blood dripping cut on his face, snarling at her. She panicked for a split second, before she spotted Raika, held in respect by three adversaries, but holding her own. Evidently, they had either underestimated her party, or hadn't planned for their ambush to be so explosively distrupted, as their plans seemed to have switched from 'take them down' to 'snatch the target and run'.

The leader withdrew his arm as Alexandra slashed at it, drawing a gash and a shower of spark from the iron plate covering his forearm, Alexandra's appreciation for her weapon rising by another notch as she fell back into a defensive position.

Lucky she did though, as the leader used his longsword, held in both of his hands, to unleash a devastating series of attack, that she had a hard time parrying, her arms shaking from the effort of taking on such powerful blows. He was evidently in a whole other leagues from his underlings, and of higher level than Alexandra.

She cast Kinetic Strike again, and he barely even flinched, his expression becoming worried instead as she cast it again in complete silence.

"Fuck, a Paladin. Of fucking course it is." She heard him mutter, before he charged her, attacking her non stop, but less heavy attacks, trying to keep her occupied. Well, tough for him, as she cast Kinetic Strike again, forcing him to take a step back to recover from the impact, his eyes widening. He then stepped forward, and his form seemed to thrum with energy as he launched a lightning quick series of strike, nearly knocking her blade out of her hands. Without her software, she would have surely been already crushed, but her arms weren't strong enough to take another blow.

Out of options, she cast Mudamudamuda. What happened next was...interesting. It took some concentration to target a spell, and mass spells were apparently notoriously innacurate. This one was no exception. The enemy leader looked like he was getting punched in three different places at once, over and again, every hit blending into the next one, with a series of dull thuds and clangs when it hit the armor. Everyone stopped fighting for an instant to stare at the leader being beaten back under the flurry of blows, before it finally stopped.

He looked...exactly as one would expect of someone being hit by 31 punches in quick succession. His face was red, and his armor heavily damaged he let out a raspy sigh, almost a gurgle, and collapsed.

The enemy then started panicking, some tried to run, while giving Alexandra a very, very wide berth, while others , evidently the veterans, attempted to regroup rather than swarming them. One of the runners made it out, the two others falling down due to a crossbow bolt to the leg and a kinetic blow carefully aimed at a sensitive part of his anatomy respectively. The rest, the 5 or so survivor out of the group of 16, her implants quickly calculated, disengaged and formed up, backing away slowly, one of their comrades falling to Raika's sword before making it.

Their reflex, in a conventional combat, would have been the right one. Regroup, and retreat in good order. Against pissed off adventurers with a pyromaniac mage, it was like hanging at neon sign saying "FIREBALL HERE".

Which is, of course, exactly what happened.

After quickly taking down the burning enemies, the party just stood there, panting for a few seconds, looking at each other, right before feeling a sudden rush of power.

Alexandra blinked, the rush feeling like the one she had experienced when the rogue that had tried to kidnap her at died, but much lesser, and realized that one of the downed attackers had probably just died. Human beings, she'd discovered in her career, could be surprisingly resilient, and even someone with their heads cut off could take 30 seconds for their brain to finally shut down permanently, a fact that had allowed a medic during the Alpha Centauri campaign to save one of her friends as her head was separated from her body by a high powered laser.

Instantly perked up (albeit disgusted at the fact), Alexandra looked around to her allies.

"So...what now?"

"Now," Said Raika, as she took a step forward and plunged her sword into the skull of a still moving burning enemy as a mercy kill. "We take a few prisoners, and finish off the rest."

Alexandra nodded, slightly ill. It was a different world out there, and there didn't seem to be a 'due process'. If you attacked someone, chances were your defeat would end in your death, unless you had information the person you attacked wanted to hear of course.

After finishing off the remaining enemies, and taking 3 prisoners (and going into a bush to throw up, with Thomas watching over her and offering her water), they started looting the bodies.

Alexandra heard a 'Tsk' for her right, and looked up from the heavily burned woman she was currently looting, to see her leader holding a card, similar to the one that Alexandra was given when she enlisted as an adventurer. Raika had apparently taken it from the veteran she was looting.

"What is it?" Alexandra asked.

"Mercenaries. These people are mercenaries registered in the kingdom. Well, the veterans seemed to be. The others seemed to be their unofficial side business." She spat on the ground.

When Alexandra raised an eyebrow, Raika explained.

"The most disreputable mercenary companies keep a unit of newbies like that, the undisciplined and hungry for quick loot without a shred of morals, and when a particularly juicy, but legally ambiguous contract shows up, they send these guys backed up by some of the veterans. Fucking pieces of shit."

Alexandra's highbrow rose higher as her leader spat again, and before she could stop herself...

"Why do you hate mercenaries so much?"

The entire party looked at her in alarm. Alysse looked like she was about to speak up to stop Raika from answering, before she raised her hand.

"No, Alysse, Alexandra is right. I ordered her to kill several downed enemies, and she obeyed without question. The least I can do is tell her why." She looked at Alexandra straight in the eyes. "It's simple. When I passed up to Steel rank, back before I had formed this party, me and the rest of my team were hired as part of large operation by the guild to take down a group of mercenaries just like that one, that had raided a nearby village. When we arrived, I was assigned to the outskirts of the camp, taking down and arresting several of them without too many issues. Then our leader came from the center of the camp, and ordered all the prisoners executed. I refused and asked why. He simply grabbed my arm, and escorted me to the center of the camp. There, I saw what these monsters had done. They'd taken villagers to their taste for their pleasure, and a few of the richest ones for ransom. They flayed alive those whose ransoms weren't payed, and had forced those they used as their playthings to watch, before putting them in cages right next to the rotting bodies of their neighbors, still hung up on the poles they had died screaming on. I came back to the outskirts and executed the prisoners myself after that."

Alexandra gulped. She'd seen some fucked up things in her days, but even this was shocking to her. She took a deep breath.

"I understand."

Raika sighed, and looked around.

"And, honestly, we wouldn't have been able to heal or even keep prisoner that many of them. Alysse is nearly out of mana."

Alexandra blinked, and suddenly remembered that, unlike her, her teacher couldn't actually regenerate her mana on her own, without either sitting down and 'cultivating', like she'd seen her do a few times, usually right after taking down a Treefang nest, or gulping down a potion. Additionally, she could have also absorbed a mana crystal, which was what the odd gem she had taken from the rogue turned out to be, but those apparently were mostly used to power machines in the more advanced and civilized cities.

"Right."

She gave a last look at the corpses. She'd been surprised that they had roughly parity in the mercenary group, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Here, magic and essence didn't discriminate, so there was little reasons for people to look down on woman for the lack of physical might, kind of like on Earth, where the marine corps doesn't really care what sex you are, as the strength of the soldier will have no impact to the much better one of their power armor. Plus, cybernetics didn't judge either.

*****

The man in black robes sighed, and rubbed his eyes as the lone surviving mercenary was escorted out. It looked like they had failed. But, fortunately, the only one that managed to escape had the brains to report back instead of going into hiding. Having a good reputation helped a lot with that. In books and tales, most shadowy organizations like the Order were depicted as slaughtering their minions, whether for their failure or to keep them silent, but such organizations had immense trouble finding anyone willing to work with them (mercenary captains are greedy, but they don't take a job if they think their clients will silence them at the end. Can't spend your money if you're dead after all). The Order, on the other hand, had discovered the virtues of hazard pay and debriefing bounties. Which meant that rather than hiding in a hole somewhere, the young woman had legged it back to her employers, and made as complete a report as she could (while her hand was on a truth stone the whole time. The black robed man wasn't crazy either). She was currently being escorted to the treasury, where she'd get a nice lump of hazard pay and a nice bonus for the intelligence she had brought back.

Well, at least he knew what kind of hitting power he needed now. A party of copper ranked adventurers, and an extradimensional that could cast a mass spell like Flurry of Blows and fight at the same time, so around level 60, but with crap gear and probably poor knowledge of magic and poor adaptation to what magic and potions implied.

He pulled out his communication crystal. Time to make another call.

*****

Erik looked at the three prisoners, and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

At least that answered if someone was after Alexandra. Of course, the big question was who, and thus what kind of resources they could bring to bear.

He looked up at the adventuring party waiting in the back of the room.

"Well, it looks like Alexandra has indeed garnered some attention. You are lucky you were able to take them out without any casualties, but I can guarantee you they won't underestimate you a second time."

The adventurers seemed to deflate slightly, except for their leader, and...The extradimensional. Erik almost frowned, but stopped himself just in time. This Alexandra seemed...off. Something about her made all of his danger instincts go off. There was something lurking deep inside of her...something impossibly dangerous. Waiting in the shadows until it's time came. He shook his head.

"In any case, I cannot allow you to go out once again without additional backup. Cassie will accompany you from now on. I'm sorry to have to do this Raika, but you'll have to listen to her, so it'll be better for everyone involved if you passed on the mantle of leadership to her."

The tanned redhead nodded, as she'd already gathered as such. She was an ex-soldier after all, having a superior office to answer to was nothing new to her. The three others looked vaguely uncomfortable, and Alexandra was once again stoic. Probably another ex-soldier as well Erik thought. Or at least someone used to answering to someone else.

"Well then, dismissed. I'll handle the paperwork, and I'm afraid that I will be forced to notify the kingdom's authorities."

Raika and the others winced, while Alexandra simply looked at them, slightly confused, before they filed out of his office.

Erik sat down on his seat, and sighed, looking at the three prisoners.

"So. You probably know who I am. I have no certainties about your employer, but I can make an educated guess. So, how's Joachim?"

The veteran was not quite able to hide his wince, and Erik smiled, before leaning forward.

*****

"This is overkill mister Joachim."

The black robed man, Gerald Joachim Eternel, winced at the use of his name. He hadn't gone by his first one for a few centuries, but it still stung him that so many people knew of his second name despite being part of a supposedly secret organization. Then again, mercenaries wanted to know who they were working for, and as the commander of the Asarian Kingdom Order division's action arm, he had to occasionally reveal who he was, or, like in this occasion, get his hands dirty. Such was the price of quick advancement through the ranks. The extra pay didn't hurt either come to that.

"Maybe. But our previous associates have underestimated that extradimensional and paid the price. I'd rather not have another delay, or lose more people for little results."

The figure covered in obsidian metal (a surprisingly tough metal named after the volcanic rock it was found in) armor looked at him for a few seconds, then nodded, satisfied, when it realized he was sincere.

He might be willing to do whatever it took to achieve the Order's objectives, but that didn't mean that he liked having people die, enemies or allies, to achieve them. It was also hard to replace trusted associates.

"Well, you're the one paying, so your choice." Joachim almost felt the frown coming from deep within the armor. "Still, those 'associates' of yours were Iron to Steel ranked. My soldiers and I are a tad bit better than that."

Joachim nodded. The Void Blades might not be the greatest mercenary company on the continent, but they were definitely one of the most elite. He looked at the three dozen soldiers, with about a dozen Steel ranked recruits, 16 or so Copper ranked regulars, and the others, their bread and butter Electrum ranked soldiers. And then there was...her. Or what used to be a her anyway.

He idly wondered which rank she should be considered at now. She used to be an Orichalcum ranked adventurer, before she became...this. Probably somewhere around Mythril now. She turned around, looking at him directly, and he could feel her amusement at his studying.

"Indeed. In any case, there is little time to waste."

"Yes." She unsheathed and raised her sword. "Void Blades! Prepare to march! To war!"

"TO WAR!"

*****

Alexandra fiddled with the iron and steel armor pieces on top of her light leather armor. Thanks to looting the mercenaries, she had gained not only quite a bit of mana from reselling what she couldn't use, but she'd also gained a nearly full set of light metal plates to protect herself with. She only lacked a right leg one, but the one that was her size had had her leg cut in half, and the armor with it. Several of better pieces, some taken from the leader of the ill fated mercenaries, were currently being reforged by a specialist to her size.

"Relax, it'll be fine. You'll see, you'll learn to move in it without a single problem!" Said Thomas, holding up his pint.

"Right." Alexandra let go of her armor pieces, and looked around at the table. "I'm...sorry for dragging you into this situation guys..."

A round of laughs answered her, to her perplexity.

"Don't be!" Said Raika as she smiled, her cheeks rosy from the sheer amount of ale (or at least Alexandra hoped that was ale) she'd drunk. "If anything, we should thank you! Do you have any idea how much money and power we gained from this?"

Alexandra shook her head.

"With the loot split 5 ways, we made what, about 5 times what the quest paid us? And believe me, it was one of the really well paid ones."

Alexandra's eyes went wide.

"Yeah. Why do you think there are so many volunteers to fight bandits, hunt down bounties and such? Because they have equipment. The more experience and power they have, usually the better the equipment. Here? They were what, Iron ranked for the newbies, and Steel ranked for the veterans? Even with the damage we wrought on them, each of them had over a thousand mana's worth of resell on them, not even counting what we kept for ourselves. If we count that, closer to 2 500, easily. So 3 000 in cash for each of us, and 7 500 in actual value. Add a good thousand each for the equipment their leader had. The quest paid us 3 000 mana, so about 600 each. That's 600 mana to 8 500, albeit in value of equipment recovered. So yeah, profitable."

Her newest teammate gulped. She...probably shouldn't mention right now that her mana seemed to regenerate at the rate of her level multiplied by 10 each day. And she wasn't cultivating at all. So in all, from the three days they had taken to complete their mission, she'd gained around 800 mana, taking into account the levels she'd gained, especially after the fight with the mercenary.

She looked at her now Steel colored medallion, her level dutifully displayed on it when she touched it.

'Level 31' It said.

"And then there's the essence." Continued Raika as she motionned at Alexandra's medallion. "I gained a full level, same for Fernand and Thomas, and Alysse gained 3. For 3 days of work? That's huge!"

The others nodded. Alysse looked especially pleased, then again, she'd explained at length that she only incanted parts of the spells she couldn't mindcast (which shorted the incantations and made them cheaper mana-wise by quite a significant margin), and that every level she gave her a significant boost to her memory, taking her one step further to master fireball.

According to their medallions, when they'd checked their levels, Raika was now level 61, Fernand level 59, 58 (close to 59) for Thomas, and Alysse was level 42. She'd been surprised at Alysse's low level compared to others, which held the same rank, but she'd been told that the Copper rank was pretty broad. Apparently Electrum started around level 60 if you had quite decent enchanted gear, but most people that didn't have powerful patrons only passed around level 70. And, well Copper started at around level 35, but usually depended heavily on your equipment, and according to Raika, Alysse's gear was top notch for her rank. Which begged more questions than it answered of course, but Alexandra felt it prudent not to enquire.

"Oh. One thing. Raika, you do have enchanted armor, right?"

Her leader looked at her before nodding.

"Yep. Cost me quite a bit, but I found it better for mobility. Plus it doesn't give the vulnerability to lightning that iron or steel armor does."

Alexandra frowned. Sure, iron and steel were conductive, but electricity could go through the human body just fine. Then she realized that she probably meant actually getting hit. Given their understanding of energy, they probably didn't realize quite how electricity flowed through materials, and thought they'd resisted the spell instead of it simply missing. She'd have thought that they could be hit by their swords, but apparently they used a form of rubber grip bands wrapped around the handle, kind of like tennis rackets. It insulated them from any attack this way. Then again, they had magic, maybe electrons behaved a different way here or something.

"I see. I have another question. When the merc leader told me I was a 'Paladin', he suddenly started attacking faster with much stronger hits. How did he do that?"

Raika's eyes widened slightly, as did Alysse's, and whistled softly.

"Wow. Okay, I see. It's an enhancement spell. Some insist on calling them techniques, since they aren't mages, but it's the same thing." She nodded at Alysse. "She should know all of the details better than I do."

Alysse got up and practically surged over the table, her face centimeters from Alexandra's, who had to stop her implants from slamming her friend's head into the table.

"He cast an enhancement spell on himself? How? Did he drink a potion? No, you wouldn't be so stupid as to let him take it. Did he have a talisman? A runed object? Or did he incant something?" She almost yelled excitedly directly in Alexandra's face.

Raika laughed, and grabbed her companion's belt, dragging her back down onto her seat. Alysse yelped, then pouted as a everyone laughed at her expense. Alexandra hid a giggle behind her hand, before answering the overexcited mage's question.

"Well, I didn't see him grab anything else than his sword, and there wasn't any runes on it. He didn't incant either."

Alysse looked at her.

"I see...He mindcasted it...that explains a lot actually. He was their leader, but he wasn't that much better than the rest of their veterans. He probably focused on mastering that enhancement spell, and that's what gave him his edge. Having a mastered enhancement spell is one hell of an ace in the sleeve for a fighter like him."

Everyone nodded around the table.

"What is an enhancement spell exactly?" Asked Alexandra.

Alysse blinked, before laughing.

"Right, sorry, forgot to tell you. You see how in going up in level you became stronger, faster, thought faster and had an easier time recalling information?"

Alexandra politely nodded, although her implants took care of the basic calculations and memories quite nicely. Still, she had found it significantly easier to interact with them after the fight with the bandits, kind of like if she was catching up to the system, without it having to slow down to her level. Same, now she moved more easily, and she didn't even feel the weight of her armor anymore. She'd even kicked a rock absentmindedly on their way back, and it had flown straight through the canopy like it'd been hit by a marine in an exoskeleton.

"Well, an enhancement spell is like that, but for a limited time, and usually for an obscene amount of mana. Technically it's an enchantment you apply to yourself. There are potions that do the same thing, but they're usually less potent. Same for elixirs. Philters, on the other hand..."

Alexandra blinked.

"Elixirs? Philters?"

For the first time that she could remember, Fernand spoke up. His voice sounded...soft, innocent, and quite timid.

"Potions, Elixirs and Philters are different types of concoctions used by people for a variety of effects. Potions are made from ingredients obtained through nature, such as plants, animals, ect. There are alchemical processes to refine them and let out their properties of course, but it is usually fairly straightforward, and you only need the ingredients, equipment, and a large book of instructions to make them. Elixirs are like potions, but with their effects magnified via enchantments. At very particular stages of the potion, you have to use particular enchantments on certain ingredients or the potion as a whole to magnify the effects. Elixirs are usually far more expensive, as they take a skilled enchanter to make, but they are usually significantly more powerful than a potion of equivalent level. Philters are...dangerous. They are liquid mana on which an enchantment has been applied. Once you put the liquid on something, the enchantment will trigger, and apply it's effects to whatever the Philter has been emptied on, consuming the liquid mana to power itself. The problem is the same as for a spell, which is to say mana backlash, as if the enchantment has been damaged or has degraded, the Philter will have an usually quite explosive reaction, which will be a problem that what it is applied to, usually with the person drinking it ending up severely wounded or worse. There are also stories of people drinking Philters where the enchantment failed to trigger, and suffering of a mana overload."

Alexandra slowly nodded, but looked confused at the last sentence. Alysse quickly explained.

"A mana overload is when you take in more mana than your core can hold at any given time. It essentially does the same as a mana backlash, which means that your core gets damaged, but slower and usually less magnified. According to a lot of people, overloading your core lets you create essence faster, but I, for one, am not going to take the risk to destroy what lets me cast magic for the chance of getting stronger a bit faster."

Everyone nodded around the table.

"Wait, but I constantly regenerate mana, won't I...?"

Alysse smiled.

"Nope! I heard that extradimensionals have a far better 'safety margin' than most of us do, so it might feel uncomfortable if you're too full, but your mana shouldn't regenerate quickly enough to actually pose a problem. Plus, you can always create some coins or fill a mana crystal if it gets too high!"

"I...don't know how to make coins. Nor how to fill a mana crystal for that matter."

A short silence answered her, until Alysse started to laugh.

"O-Of course! Right, sorry, I completely forgot, you have none of the basis of what we would consider essentials. Alright. I'll teach you how to make coins and how to recharge crystals and enchantments once we're done. Hell, I'll help you play around with some runed objects as well!"

Alexandra's eyebrow rose. Evidently, her friend was very excited about teaching her.

"That'd be nice. Another question though. Why did he call me a Paladin?"

Thomas looked at her.

"Paladins are close combat fighters that can cast magic. They're considered pretty rare, since not many people can focus on casting spells while holding their own in close combat. It's also a fantastic ace in the hole, not many people expect the person they're crossing sword with to electrocute them or call down a hail of ice shards." He smirked. "Apparently, it didn't seem to phase you much to do something that most Paladins take decades to train up to achieve."

Alexandra shook her head, smiling, and mentally filing away the fact that they didn't suggest that other extradimensionals were capable of doing the same. That meant that not many of them were military personnel, especially from one of human space's numerous marine corps, where implants loaded with combat software was virtually mandatory if you wanted to set foot on a spaceship.

"I'll try to disappoint you next time."

Thomas burst out laughing, followed by the rest of the table.

*****

Alexandra stretched as she walked, before looking at Alysse, grinning as she saw her almost traumatized expression.

They'd spent the last few days relaxing and recuperating from their last quest, and Alysse had taken it upon herself to teach her a large variety of utility spells common in this world. She had...not taken well the fact that Alexandra mastered them in a matter of days, while she still had to incant almost half of them.

The brunette then oriented her gaze at the front of the party, where Thomas and Raika were engaged in an animated discussion, with Fernand offering terse responses from time to time. Fernand had opened up more in the last few days, and although he remained a man of few words, except when you talked alchemy and chemistry (a subject he had pressed her like a citrus on as soon as he managed to corner her. She'd never thought she'd recall that much from those high school and university chemistry courses, but she'd been proven wrong. And what she'd taken for fairly useless was apparently the holy grail for him, as he was redacting a manuscript based on what she had told him, and had spent a good chunk of his time testing it all out). Still, it was much better than the aloof, almost mute cowled figure he was before. He'd even thrown off his hood, revealing a surprisingly tidy, short hairstyle, rather than the messy mad scientist hair she'd half come to expect.

They were currently making their way to the nearby village of Alros, where a series of monsters had been reported to be devouring the crops. Apparently, the culprits were Steelantlers. Imagine a stag, augment it's size by 50%, turn it's hide into light tank armor and you roughly got the picture. Or at least that's what she'd gathered from the description. It boiled down to: big, tough, angry. Don't let it get close or end up as a brochette on it's antlers, which, while not made out of literal steel, could still pierce anything short of steel armor like paper. Which made Alexandra uncomfortable to say the least, as while she had gotten the merc leader's armor, she wasn't even nearly close to fully protected. It was, after all, built more for mobility than anything else.

Oh, and they'd found out how the mercenaries moved so silently through the forest. Turns out a low power enchantment on their armor muffled any sound emitted by them touching another material. Thomas had demonstrated by dragging his knife along it, then repeating it on a non-enchanted piece of gear. Thankfully for him, Alysse had thrown a book in his face and made him stop before Alexandra could take the armor piece and make him eat it.

She smiled, and Alysse scowled at her, which made her smile even wider, and her teacher pout. Cassie, who was trailing slightly behind them, rolled her eyes at the sight. She was there more as a bodyguard than anything, but she'd assured them she'd intervene in their quests if things went sideways, if only to prevent them from staying in the same place for too long.

This was going to be a good day.

*****

"Ma'am. Targets are on the move. 3 clicks out, following the road to location Sirus. They're headed straight for the killzone. Any additional orders?"

Assaria, commander of the Void Blades, shook her helmet.

"No, that will be all. Return to your post."

"Yes ma'am."

The scout saluted, and returned into the forest, his active camouflage suddenly turning on, making him disappear into the foliage.

Assaria turned towards her client, who was frowning at her soldier's choice of words.

"Military jargon, mister Joachim. I have no intention to fail this contract by killing your target. In fact, I have little reason to kill any of them."

Joachim winced. The Void Blades were known to have a group of 'auxiliaries'. Prisoners they'd bound via oaths to them under threat of being sold into slavery (threats that were very much real, as they had proven on several occasions). They then served as their logistics corps, more or less, handling cargo, supplies, helping the soldiers around ect. Still, he had to admit that Assaria's Void Blades were much, much better than virtually all of the other mercenary companies that ran an auxiliary unit like that. They were well fed, had access to medical treatments, were protected from her soldiers' baser instincts, and even had some (paltry, but still some) pay. Overall, it was much better than what awaited most mercenary prisoners.

Assaria sighed. Or at least, she reproduced what a sigh would have done to a human.

"I'll personally make sure they'll be treated honorably. Is that good enough for you?"

"Yes, very much so, thank you." Sincerely said Joachim.

Once again she stared at him, then turned around. Honesty was a wonderful tool, particularly in a world where some people could literally know with a single look if you were lying with near certainty (or at least know that you were shielded against that kind of thing). Of course, that didn't mean that you had to tell the whole truth, but still.

Plus, for all of the...less savory things the Order did, they were still honorable. There was no point vanquishing the enemy if you became them in the process, after all.

Unfortunately...this is going to be one of those unsavory things, thought Joachim as he looked around him. A handful of soldiers were milling around, the rest waiting in ambush at the 'killzone', while 4 Order soldiers awaited by Joachim's transport.

If anything was going to hammer in how important this was to the Order, it was that a relic of the Old World and a 'fireteam' of it's most elite soldiers had been entrusted to him to get his target to where she needed to be as fast as possible. He smiled slightly at the sight of it, a squat, compact form, all wreathed in metal. Still, he wasn't sure what 'Orbital Dropship' meant exactly...

*****

This time, they didn't even see it coming. One second, they were happily chatting, the next Thomas was down with a crossbow bolt protuding from his thigh. Alexandra's implants instantly went into high alert, and she'd barely even registered the screams that she'd already drawn her sword, and faced the line of screaming warriors emerging from the tree.

Quickly, she grabbed one of the lesser dexterity potions she'd taken from the rogue, and drunk it, throwing the empty bottle at the face of the nearest enemy, before charging her back.

Whatever her adversary had been expecting, this obviously wasn't it. She raised her shield to intercept the bottle in reflex, leaving her wide open for Alexandra's cut along her legs.

The soldier screamed, and fell down. Alexandra prepared to press her advantage, but was pushed back as three of them pounced on her. Apparently these ones were much smarter than the previous ones, and after a few seconds barely holding them off through a flurry of parries, only possible due to the effects of the potion she'd just drank, she realized that they were much stronger as well.

Alexandra managed to fend off their attacks, and a promptly cast Mudamudamudav2, unleashing a flurry of 45 Kinetic Strikes on the nearest enemy. She'd upgraded her spell, thanks to her higher level, and greater available time. Normally, 45 attacks in a few seconds would sound incredible, except that Kinetic Strike was quite literally one of the most basic attack spells in existence, which rather explained why mass spells of it didn't really exist. True, it was exceptionally useful...against opponents below level 40. Afterwards you might as well be tickling them, at least you might induce some confusion in them as they tried to figure out what the hell you were trying to do.

Still, it had an effect, the soldier continuously put off balance by the stream of blows, allowing Alexandra to easily get into his guard and slash his arm. Unfortunately the blow only drew a shower of spark from his steel plate gauntlets, making her swear abundantly as she jumped back, parrying in-extremis the attacks from the other two.

She was still thinking of a way to pierce through their defence when the one behind her hit her on the back of her head.

She blinked, her vision blurry as she was unceremoniously put back on her feet, held up by the arms. She hadn't been quite knocked out (technically the only way to truly do that would have been to fry her implants, who kept parts of her brain online no matter what. Unfortunately, motor control wasn't one of them).

She squinted, as she still heard the sound of combat all around her, telling her that she'd been out for a few seconds, at most. Two of the soldiers, including the one with the scarred gauntlet, were holding her up, while one she didn't recognize, probably the one to knock her out, was looking her over. He had the distinct air of an NCO, plus a strange badge he wore, with his armor lined with green. He nodded, apparently satisfied.

That's when she heard the scream.

Alexandra's head whipped around, and her heart stopped.

She saw the soldier that had been pressing her a few seconds ago step back as Alysse fell to her knees, a shower of blood erupting from the stump of where there used to be her right arm, the cut limb falling to the floor in slow motion.

Something inside Alexandra snapped.

From deep inside her implants, programs were activated, and chemical injectors began rebooting. Systems that no lowly engineering officer should have ever been equipped with powered up, long unused, and a personality, one that Alexandra had long repressed, took over.

Her muscles bulged, and her blood felt like fire as her implants pumped her full of combat stimulants. Targeting overlays appeared, and her implants went into overclocking as it ran through scenario after scenario.

The NCO that had inspected her opened his mouth...and froze as he saw her eyes. He didn't even have a chance to move, as she headbutted him, and threw off the soldier holding her right arm.

Moving at literally superhuman speed, she grabbed the soldier to her right's head, and snapped it up with a resounding crack, her target's spine breaking like a twig under the impact. In a single smooth movement, she grabbed her victim's sword, and turned around, jamming it into the slowly, so slowly moving scared gauntlet soldier to her left, burying it in his throat in one smooth thrust, cutting through his spinal cord like it was paper, before taking his own sword, and cleanly decapitating his superior.

The soldier standing over Alysse turned around, as if in slow motion, her eyes widening...until they glazed into oblivion, as twenty centimeters of thrown steel sword penetrated her skull, killing her instantly. She felt the familiar rush of essence as life left the body of her enemies.

The sound of combat died down as the combat stims' effect dwindled. They were powerful, but ephemeral. She quickly grabbed the sword of the fallen NCO and liberated the sword from the soldier's throat, resulting in her dual wielding, and looked up.

A group of singed soldiers that had pulled back, as well as a burned body, indicated that they hadn't gotten to Alysse without a fight. The corpses scattered around a collapsed Cassie, all pierced by ice shards or torn to pieces by dancing ice blades were a testament to her stand as well. She was still faintly breathing, but she'd taken one hell of a beating. Thomas was on the ground, knocked out of the fight within the first few seconds, although given the dagger planted in a grimacing NCO's shoulder, he had at least managed to get one attack off. As for Fernand...He was still up, back to back with Raika, although it was obvious they were both in no state to continue the fight. The sheer damage to the soldiers surrounding them told of the ferocity of their resistance, but still, they were clearly outmatched.

The rest of the surviving soldiers had pulled back in a knot around an officer, clearly the leader of the ambush. She looked...distinctly unhappy. Furious, even, mixed with a heavy amount of shock. Out of the 30 soldiers she'd started with, Alexandra had wounded one and killed 4, Alysse had killed another and wounded 4, Raika and Fernand had seriously damaged 6 of them, and Cassie had outright killed or critically wounded a whole 12, her implants quickly calculated. That was 17 dead (or soon to be) and 11 wounded, the only unharmed ones were the officer herself and what seemed to be her bodyguard, a relatively diminutive soldier of indeterminate gender in heavy plate armor and wielding a shortspear that seemed to vibrate in their grasp.

The officer started incanting.

Not today thought the thing that had once been Alexandra.

She visualized the spell she wanted. A Kinetic Strike...with all the distance runes tripled, and the actual gravity/momentum runes multiplied by ten. Then she pumped it full of mana.

The officer exploded.

Or rather, she was obliterated by hitting the ground at what some would have called Mach 5, as the spell, incredibly expensive, running at well over a thousand mana (which was the reason why no mage worth their salt simply piled on the same runes to augment the power of the spell, as it augmented it's cost exponentially), purely and simply took her and accelerated her to the atmospheric speed of a transorbital EuroFed fighter jet in less than a millisecond. Even falling from an airplane, several thousand meters in the air, wouldn't be comparable, as the terminal velocity of a falling human, if they're doing everything to fall as fast as possible, is around 140 m/s per second, less than half of the speed of sound. In essence, what happened is comparable to if she was launched by a United Interstellar States' heavy tank grav cannon straight into a wall.

It wasn't pretty.

The soldiers froze in shock, as the violently liquefied remains of their former CO splattered over them. Most of them stopped to try and pull off the goo, while the most experienced ones blanched and fixed their gaze on her.

Cassie had been their first, great surprise. Nearly all of their most elite soldiers had died taking her on. They literally didn't have the troops left to take another one like her.

The bodyguard, with their spear, started charging forward, while her target took a step back, and fell into a fighting stance...

"STOP!"

The bodyguard froze, digging their heel into the ground, as the order rang out, spoken by a voice filled with absolute authority.

Everyone looked to the source, a tall woman, although she was entirely encased in dark purple, almost black, armor, that was looking straight at Alexandra. She was flanked by a man hidden in a black robe, and a...soldier.

Not one anything like the others.

One that wouldn't have looked out of place in an Earth military unit.

Alexandra looked as the armored woman brought up her arm, and calmly forced the soldier to lower the SMG he was pointing at Alexandra. He was wearing what looked to be light power armor, probably vacuum sealed.

What is this planet? Alexandra thought, before the figure in purple armor, probably the enemy commander, stepped forward, and unsheathed the massive...crystal? Greatsword on her back, and pointed it at the Earth-born that had just butchered what was probably her second in command.

"You! Fight me! If you win, I will let you and your friends leave. If you lose...well, you probably have already figured it out."

Alexandra looked a the woman...and then nodded, taking up her position...and slipped on the blood of the NCO she'd decapitated. This undoubtedly saved her, albeit maybe not for long, as the enemy commander's blade slashed right where her head used to be, having crossed the dozen meters between them in the blink of an eye. Alexandra's implants responded instantaneously, slashing her sword across her opponent's leg...and not even leaving a scratch on the strange dark purple metal.

She jumped to her feet, and felt, more than saw, the next strikes, as her implants reacted at superhuman speed and intercepted the blade a split second before it hit her. Her opponent was moving so fast she quite literally could only see afterimages, and Alexandra only managed to intercept the strikes before she held a sword in each hand. Still, after only three parries, her arms could barely even hold onto her swords anymore. So she threw caution to the wind, and launched herself in a suicidal lunge at her opponent

That seemed to surprise her, as she froze just long enough for Alexandra to cast her improvised Super-Kinetic Strike spell, albeit with the power toned down due to the lack of mana, on her.

A massive crack sounded throughout the battlefield as the ground cracked and a sphere of air was accelerated far past the speed of sound...and the enemy commander remained standing.

Alexandra looked at her, frozen in shock.

"Well fought." Chuckled the commander, before moving her sword in a blurr, and Alexandra's vision went dark.

*****

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" Shouted Joachim as he rushed by the extradimensional's side.

"Relax. My sword is wreathed in a stun enchantment and a forcefield. The hit to the head that she took earlier would have been worse." Calmly said Assaria.

Joachim took a deep breath, calming down as he realized that the precious being from another world was breathing and seemingly unharmed.

"Alright. My apologies, miss Assaria. Still, I would appreciate if you warn me of such things in advance, if only in regard to my blood pressure."

Assaria nodded, quietly amused, before looking at the bodies strewn across the battlefield...luckily, she had 'enlisted' no less than three healers capable of resurrecting dead people, not even counting her own ability to do so. Still, this hurt, half a platoon wiped out would take a while to bring back to life...those that could, anyway. There was little to resurrect on the one burned to a crisp. She'd make sure the mage that did that wouldn't be getting her arm back for that. She'd put it in a stasis jar and make sure she saw it everyday. She hated firemages and hated loosing soldiers even more. Still, she'd keep her promise. She never went back on her word, and beyond her own punishment, if any of her soldiers even dared laid their hands on the small mage, they'd be corpses in an instant, with no one to bring them back this time. Melinda, her second-in-command, was still saveable. It'd take some patience (and a pretty big barrel), but she could bring her back.

She'd probably have to call in some backup from some of her other units to pick up the slack. Their own assignments were due soon anyway.

She absentmindedly observed the Order's elite troopers, as they put the extradimensional on a stretcher. They...intrigued her. She was fairly sure she could take them on, then again...the technology from the Old World was not to be taken lightly, and even these four soldiers might be enough to put her down for good. And if they weren't, their flying vehicle would vaporize her for sure. She'd seen what the barrel mounted under it's 'cockpit' could do, and if a dragon couldn't survive even a single hit, she sure as hell wouldn't either.

Still, she wondered what had gotten the Order's local High Commander's panties in such a twist. She'd been in command of their operations on the whole continent for over a decade and she'd never acted this rashly. Heck, she'd never sent a single of those 'Dropships', only the smaller, slower and far less heavily armed 'Shuttles' to do errands like this before, no matter how important.

Oh well, it was probably better if she didn't know. The Order's elite soldiers might not be up to her level, but she'd seen their commandos...she didn't have a death wish.

Assaria's eyebrow rose as her soldiers finally took down the pair fighting back to back, knocking them out. That fighting was sloppy, they should have never let themselves be drawn against two persons fighting back to back like that. Backing off and peppering them with crossbow bolts would have been better. Then again, she did order them to rush them...

Her thoughts ground to a halt as she recognized the ice mage covered in her soldiers' blood.

"JOACHIM!"

Joachim turned around...and froze as he saw who Assaria was holding.

No no no No NO NO NO! He told himself as he saw her.

It wasn't possible. She couldn't be there! She wasn't even supposed to be on this continent!

Then it hit him. That was the point, wasn't it? To get her away from the court, to allow her to actually blossom without having to navigate the intricacies of the vipers' nest that was the Imperial Court. And Erik was an old friend of the Emperor-Consort.

And so, Cassissa Elaria, of her real name, Cassissa Lumière, 7th daughter of the late emperor Dusk Lumière of the Eris Empire, and Empress Oris Lumière's little sister, laid before him.

His mind went into overdrive. He turned toward the Order's soldiers.

"Prepare the Dropship for immediate take off." He turned towards Assaria. "I'll handle it, get out of here. If it goes badly, I'll be the only link they'll have."

Assaria nodded, and didn't even argue, getting her company moving quickly, regrouping the dead and piling them onto carts (and putting Melinda's remains into a barrel), putting the prisoners into cages and loading them, before disappearing into the distance with record time.

Meanwhile, Joachim pulled out his communication crystal, made a series of call, and waited.

*****

Joachim gulped as the ship landed in front of him, obliterating a whole chunk of the forest in the process. Unfortunately for him, the Order was hardly the only organization to have artifacts from the Old World.

The frigate, a space capable warship, once the shining beacon of an Empire that had spanned whole star systems, landed in front of him, it's gravity generators keeping it hovering slightly above the ground, as computers designed during an age long past kept it perfectly, nearly impossibly still.

Then what was once called an airlock hissed open, and a figure stepped out.

Joachim almost shuddered as he saw the Imperial Guardian. There were only a dozen or so, and each and everyone of them was Adamantium rank. Their sole goal was to ensure the safety of the Imperial family, no matter the cost. Despite their power, it could prove rather challenging, for an Empire that spanned half the planet.

Which was rather how this came to be.

"How?" Asked the Guardian.

"Wrong place at the wrong time. She was assigned to protect a target we wanted through the adventurer's guild." Answered the no longer black robed man, now wearing the full regalia of his office in the Order. His white lined robed nearly shone in the sun's light, the white hand reaching for a star, the symbol of the Order emblazoned upon it.

"I see..."

Joachim hid his trembling hands behind his back. He wasn't lying, but he was sure that if his superiors hadn't pulled some strings, he'd be dead by now, annihilated by the weaponry of the 300 meter long craft in front of him.

When it came to their duties, Imperial Guardians, and the Imperial Guard in general had a 'shoot first, ask questions never' attitude.

The Imperial Guardian took a step forward, and then suddenly he was next to Joachim, kneeling by Cassie' body. He waved...something that looked like a wand above her body, and it flashed green. Apparently satisfied, the Guardian gently lifted her in his arm...and suddenly he was back in front of the ship's entrance, and stepped inside.

Then he stopped.

"This whole debacle never happened. Her highness never left the palace."

And then he was gone, the door closing and the frigate taking off, quickly pointing its nose towards the sky, and departing at an impossible speed, disappearing in an eyeblink without even the slightest sound. The only trace that it was there was the flattened forest. Which, according to Joachim's contacts, would be incinerated within a few minutes. Which meant that he had to move.

He quickly made his way to the shuttle that had been dispatched in catastrophe, and boarded it.

He sat on the seat with a sigh, leaning back into it as it adapted to his body. Then one of the soldiers, only clad in regular gear, leaned over to talk to him as the familiar rumble of the thrusters filled the background.

"Sir. The High Commander wants to see you. Now. We're diverting to her position. ETA 35 minutes."

Fuck, was all he could think.

*****

"You have done well, commander Eternel. I have made sure that your diligence and efficiency was reflected in my report."

Joachim bowed slightly.

"You honor me too much."

"Please don't."

Joachim looked up, surprised, and gazed into the tired eyes of his superior. He was shocked, he'd...never seen her like this.

"You have been around for far less than I have. After a while...you get tired of this. I care not for the reverence of my subordinates, commander. I'm no noble, and care little for their customs and pettiness. I want results, and I want our great project to be achieved, nothing more, nothing less." She said softly as she filled two cups with the pitcher of wine, standing in front of her desk.

She turned around, and offered a cup to him. He took it absentmindedly.

"I...see. Well, this will indeed help the great project along."

She nodded enthusiastically, her normal mood quickly returning as her shoulders straightened.

"Indeed! This will accelerate the project by an entire century! Maybe even more..." She said with a wide smile.

"Still, we must be careful." Said Joachim, cautiously.

She nodded.

"Very. The creation of a dungeon in and of itself is already a monumental event, and the secrets of creating one by mortal hands was thought lost for centuries. One with the resources we're mobilizing...The return of the God of Fire is the only event in recent history that can compete in magnitude."

Joachim shuddered involuntarily at the mention of the God of Fire. His legacy was...mixed. He had put an end to the Great Night, and saved the world, but the destruction he had wrought in doing so was indescribable. He had then left the Custodians of the Flame behind him to ensure that the Great Night never came to be again, that the 'Fires of the Old World would never be ignited once again', in the words of the scriptures he had left behind when he departed the world once again.

What they were about to do...would undoubtedly change the world.

Lesly Rubicon, continental High Commander of the Order to Restore Humanity, looked at the monitor showing the extradimensional being prepared for the procedure. They'd have to move again of course, creating a dungeon here would be sensed by thousands, and be virtually suicide, but once they were there...

She sighed as she looked at the young woman's image. She hated doing this. Oh, she didn't have a problem killing people, 800 years or so of making her way across the world, sometimes via fire and sword, had quite innured her to that. However, extradimensionals had always proven to be some of the Order's greatest and most active supporters. She had a feeling this one wouldn't have been different. At least she'd further the Order's objective, albeit at the cost of her own life. Lesly would personally make sure her sacrifice was remembered.