The translocation chamber was shaped like an egg. The bottom was gently curved and swept up along walls towards a sharp peak at the apex of the room. There were no seals or panel lines anywhere in the chamber, which gave me the impression that this room was shaped, not built.

I couldn’t identify the material that the room was made out of either. It was white and smooth, reminding me of porcelain. When I stepped into the chamber sounds from outside became muted and the vision back into the EDGE Force facility became fuzzy.

Kaiser stayed by my side, but Miranda’s outline outside the chamber was fuzzy and indistinct.

XIphos stood in the centre of the room, with Naginata and Khopesh immediately behind her. I stood next to Naginata, and Stiletto stood on the other side of Khopesh. We were four warriors standing behind our captain.

“EDGE Team, can you hear me?” Miranda’s voice came through loud and clear.

“Roger that,” Xiphos said.

“I hear you,” I said, speaking at the same time as Xiphos.

She shot me a look of frustration. “As EDGE Captain of this mission, I will communicate directly with EDGE Command on behalf of the team. I know you’re not a soldier, but you get the idea behind chain of command, right?”

I nodded.

“Excellent,” Xiphos said. “We’re ready, Commander.”

“Your mission is simple,” Miranda said. “Find out what happened in the village and report back. If you can find the villagers safe and sound, even better. There are much larger towns and cities nearby, so if this threat has a chance to spread, we need to stop it before it does.”

“Understood,” Xiphos said.

“Commence translocation now,” Miranda said.

The egg-shaped room around us started to hum. The air prickled at my skin with hot and cold in equal measure, like the worst case of pins and needles I’d ever had. As I glanced down, I saw the edges of my body start to fray, stretching and blurring into motes of white light.

Then there was the sensation of falling down an endless chasm. It was over in a second, but that second stretched on for an age.

The next thing I knew, my feet crunched through the covering of hoarfrost on the ground in a foreign country. The cold hit me at the same time as the smell of an ancient pine forest, with the hint of warm smoke coming from somewhere nearby. The sun sat below the horizon in the distance, just about to break.

It reminded me of a time I went to a winter writing retreat up in the Gold Coast Hinterlands. The other writers and I would always have our morning coffee around the communal fire pit in the centre of all the little cabins.

The cold in Romania was another beast entirely. In Queensland, we maybe got a dozen truly cold days a year, and those were only cold by Queenslander standards. Those from the more southern states of Australia would have been out in a t-shirt and shorts in a Queensland winter.

My breath blew out in a steady stream of steam. Memories of blowing out steam on cold mornings with my kids flashed in my head. Seth, my youngest, always pretended to be a smoke dragon.

The village sat below us, quiet in the early morning. The sun hadn’t reached it yet.

“The local time is 4:51am,” Xiphos said. “I will be the eyes and ears of the group as we continue toward the village. While we move, I want you all to familiarise yourselves with your skill trees and identify any areas that will maximise our group synergy.”

I opened my skill tree and immediately got to work trying to figure out how I was going to work this out.

Things were different this time around. Our level cap was still 50 like last time, but skill lines, skill experience and individual skill trees were things of the past.

Now my skills came under five different focuses. Three of them were primary: Defense, Offense and Support. Each of these categories had 6 different skills to choose from, with varying skill point costs. Then there were the Modifier and Utility categories, which had fewer options, and most of these only cost 1 skill point.

Each skill tier was locked behind an experience level, similar to how each skill tree was locked behind a skill line level during my solo mission. It looks similarly in theory, but it meant that I wasn’t limited by the level of an individual skill.

I could sink all my skill points in the first few tiers into Defense, then hoard my skill points until I reached a higher level and invest in all the higher tier skills. Being weak for a while in the early days might be worth breaking the system later.

There wouldn’t be any relying on going back into my creative nexus to power level this time around.

But every system can be broken if you figure out how. What if I could reallocate my skill points down the track and completely change the distribution of them once I’d reached a higher level?

“A question,” I said.

“Proceed,” Xiphos replied.

“In video games you sometimes have the ability to respec your skill points. Does the EDGE augment allow for that?”

“Damn, great question,” Stiletto said.

“Anima acquisition and distribution through the body causes enough trauma to be dangerous even when those changes are incremental,” Xiphos said. “Once the anima has been invested into a particular skill there’s no taking it back to reinvest until the mission is over and EDGE Force can remove it safely.”

“So levelling up is meant to be incremental to stop damaging the person’s body?” I asked, which didn’t make sense to me.

I’d saved a multitude of points to distribute all at once during my first mission and I’d never suffered any negative impacts. At least none that I knew about.

“Exactly,” Xiphos confirmed. “It is recommended that points are spent when you get them, otherwise the anima is just sitting there in your core waiting to be used. Human bodies weren’t meant to hold that much raw anima at once. Have you not received basic training, Hatchet?”

“Nope. I’ve just been making it all up as I go along.”

Naginata gave me a sidelong look. “You are a mystery.”

Tell that to my ex-wife, I thought to myself. Emily always thought she knew me better than I knew myself. Even though we were married, she never really knew me at all. She made her assumptions, but the truth was that I always kept people at arm’s length.

Which is why I didn’t let it slip that I had an ex-wife. I barely knew these people.

Yes, I was relying on them the same way they were relying on me to keep them alive during this mission. That didn’t mean they were my friends.

“Plus,” Khopesh added, “Each tier of these skills requires you to invest the required amount before the next tier is unlocked. Second tier requires 5 skill points to be invested. Third tier, 10 points. It increases like that until the Sixth tier, where you must have 25 points invested to put any points into the final tier.”

“Good to know,” I said and inwardly cursed as I realised yet another stumbling block was put between me and breaking the system.

I opened my interface and refocused on my skills to identify the best way forward.

First Tier skills

Call Him Spike

Defense skill

Your familiar gains a set of armour which reflects damage back to attackers.

+5% familiar armour per rank

+7% of damage reflected per rank

5 ranks

BFFs

Offense skill

Increase you familiar’s speed and damage.

+7% damage per rank

+10% speed per rank

5 ranks

Howl of Courage

Support skill

Your familiar howls, inspiring all members of your team.

Cooldown: 3 minutes

+5% damage per rank

-30s cooldown per rank

3 ranks

Those were all pretty good, and I was fairly certain that Xiphos would want me to focus on Howl of Courage first. Out of the other two, both were pretty great. If Man’s Best Friend meant throwing Kaiser into the fray to fight for me, Call Him Spike would make him take less damage and reflect some back to the attacker.

Another oddity was that Howl of Courage only had 3 ranks, whereas the other two skills had 5. So even if I maxed out Howl of Courage, I’d still need to put 2 points into one of the other skills before I could unlock any second tier skills.

Second tier skills

Armour Booster

Defense skill

Increases your armour rating.

+10% armour per rank

5 ranks

Close Combat

Offense skill

Your weapons cause more damage when attacking in close quarters.

+5% per rank

5 ranks

Focused Fire

Support skill

Enemies you attack take more damage from other members of your team.

+3% per rank

5 ranks

Share The Love

Utility skill

Whenever you damage an enemy, your familiar receives 25% of that damage as health.

1 rank

Once again, the Support skill would trump every other choice I might be able to make here. Investing 5 points in Focused Fire would give every other member of my team a 15% boost in damage against enemies I attacked.

Share The Love was a must-have skill. It would help keep Kaiser alive and healthy, though I wondered if Xiphos would see that as a necessity.

I moved on to the next tier.

Third tier

Warp

Modifier skill

Your familiar now opens a portal to your target when Man’s Best Friend is activated. Note: target must be outside of melee range and in line of sight.

1 rank

Alpha Dog

Defense skill

Enemies are 10% more likely to attack your familiar than you.

+10% more likely to attack your familiar per rank

3 ranks

If You Want Blood…

Offense skill

Attacks with edged weapons cause enemies to bleed for half your weapon damage over 15 seconds.

+10% total damage per rank

-1s bleed duration per rank

5 ranks

Pack Dynamics

Support skill

While moving with your familiar you both gain health regeneration and increased movement speed.

+2% health regeneration rate per rank

+5% movement speed per rank

5 ranks

Learned Scribe

Utility skill

You can now read and understand texts of any known human language.

1 rank

Hot damn. Two of these skills were mine no matter what. Warp was amazing. I didn’t need to use any essences of Altrighus to have Kaiser open portals. Somehow EDGE Command figured out how to mimic that functionality using their raw unaligned anima, which was awesome.

Learned Scribe was another must-have. If we were in Romania, then most things we’d find wouldn’t be written in English. It might let me figure out exactly what went on here.

I relayed the information about this Utility skill to Xiphos.

“As soon as you reach level 11, I want you taking Learned Scribe, Hatchet. As far as I know, nobody else in this squad can speak or read Romanian.”

“Not I,” Khopesh said.

“Nope,” Stiletto said.

Naginata just shook her head.

“Aye aye Captain,” I said, then moved on.

There was no way I’d be picking Alpha Dog. Making Kaiser take the brunt of attacks instead of me? That’s like Mario trying to jump over a gap in Super Mario World and ditching Yoshi at the last moment to save his own moustachioed hide.

I had no choice to put Kaiser in harm’s way, but to have him be the focus of most enemy attacks? No. Not an option.

Fourth Tier

Stabilised Portal

Modifier skill

All portals opened using your class skill will stabilise for 30 seconds.

1 rank

Ankle Biter

Offense skill

Attacks from your familiar slow enemies.

+10% movement speed reduction per rank

3 ranks

Seeing Red

Offense skill

Bleeding enemies take extra damage from you and your familiar.

+5% extra damage per rank

5 ranks

Guard Dog

Your familiar’s enemy detection radius is increased.

+15% enemy detection radius

3 ranks

Wanderer’s Wisdom

Utility skill

Your teammates gain more experience, but you gain less experience.

+2% team experience gain per rank

-2% experience gain for you per rank

5 ranks

I had a feeling that I’d be forced to take Wanderer’s Wisdom as soon as I got it, even though Stabilised Portal would give me a lot more options on the battlefield. The right choice would be focused on the team, and as soon as I unlocked every tier on the tree, I’d be able to circle back around for skills I missed.

Fifth Tier

Now You’re Thinking With Portals

Modifier skill

You no longer have to focus on an enemy to activate your class skill. Your familiar will not attack friendly or neutral targets when using your Class Skill to open a portal out of combat.

1 rank

Second Wind

Defense skill

When your familiar is at critical health it gains damage reduction and health regeneration.

+33% damage reduction per rank

+33% total health regeneration over 5 seconds

3 ranks

Hack and Slash

Offense skill

Gain an extra copy of your Tactical Hatchet and the ability to dual wield.

1 rank

Ammo Efficiency

Support skill

Your shots have a chance to cost no ammo.

+10% per rank

3 ranks

Destiny’s Call

Utility skill

You can now detect anima constructs in the world.

1 rank

Lots of interesting things here. An extra copy of my Tactical Hatchet was incredibly handy last time around. Being able to control portals in and out of combat would let me overcome a lot of different obstacles and might even save our butts if we got into a tight spot. They’d still be limited by my line of sight, but still quite useful.

Destiny’s Call was interesting. Anima constructs like Gravedigger and Kaiser could be highlighted or marked in some way. Possibly like Prey Vision had identified places that I could hide on Mori Island. The existence of this skill made it clear that the manipulation of anima constructs was commonplace on EDGE Force missions.

This skill wouldn’t exist otherwise.

I moved on to the final tier of skills.

Sixth Tier

Worthy

Modifier skill

You can now throw your Tactical Hatchet with precision and summon it back to you.

1 rank

Harbinger of Doom

Defense skill

Your familiar becomes a black dog of legend, increasing its size, damage, and armour, while striking fear into the enemies you face, decreasing the damage they deal.

+10% damage per rank

+10% armour per rank

-10% damage received from enemies for you and your familiar

5 ranks

Samsara

Offense skill

When you kill an enemy you gain increased fire rate, reload speed and damage, but you also take extra damage.

+5% fire rate per rank

+5% reload speed per rank

+5% damage dealt per rank

+5% damage taken per rank

5 ranks

The Wild Hunt

Support skill

When your team is together everyone gains a damage and armour boost.

+3% damage per rank

+3% armour per rank

5 ranks

Phoenix

Utility skill

When your familiar loses all health they explode with force, knocking back enemies, and instantly regains full health. This effect can only happen once every hour.

1 rank

I breathed a sigh of relief at this last tier. Phoenix would be my first purchase here. Anything to make sure Kaiser would survive. If I threw him into the deep end and he paid the ultimate price I don’t think I’d even be able to forgive myself.

Worthy was another skill I’d unlock as soon as possible. My axe throwing training would come in handy, and the same skill was incredibly powerful last mission.

Every other skill was worth consideration, but I didn’t like Samsara. Taking extra damage was not something I wanted to entertain.

Samsara was an element of Buddhist philosophy. It said that life itself, from cradle to the grave, was a cycle of suffering, which was fitting for the effects of the skill.

After digesting everything while following Xiphos and the others through the forest the sun had finally broken over the horizon.

“Okay, I think I’ve got a handle on my skills,” I said, a little surprised that I was the first.

“What conclusions have you drawn?”

“Firstly, I’m going to be able to deploy Kaiser to anywhere within line of sight once I hit Level 26. A portal will open between me and my target area for 30 seconds, which we can also use to pass through if needed.”

Kaiser gave me a big grin at this.

“Excellent,” Xiphos said. “Portals, huh? Never used those before, but it certainly sounds useful.”

“Surely one of you would have played the game Portal, right?” I asked.

The silence was deafening.

“Seriously? Do any of you play video games at all back in the real world?”

“I read books,” Khopesh said. “Video games rot your brain.”

“While I commend you for being a reader, you couldn’t be further off the mark. Video games are the culmination of every art form distilled into a new one, filtered through the perception of the player. But that’s a rant for a later date.” I sighed. “How the hell did any of you survive when you literally have to treat these missions like a video game?”

“I’m very good at adapting to adverse situations,” Stiletto said, but didn’t elaborate any further.

“I play Kairosoft games on my phone,” Naginata said. A blush rose on her cheeks at the admission.

“Those cutesy little simulation games? Like Game Dev Story, Dungeon Village, those ones?”

Naginata grinned. “Hot Springs Story 2 is my favourite.”

“Okay, at least one of you has the basics. Good. Come on Xiphos, you’re a secret Call of Duty player, aren’t you?” I asked.

The look Xiphos shot me could have one-shot a raid boss.

“I’ve seen it in the flesh, Hatchet. Before EDGE Force reached out to me, there was no such thing as regenerating health or monsters. Just humans killing humans over ideas and pieces of land. Why on Earth would I waste my time treating that like a game in my spare time?”

The rebuke made me feel small. “I’m sorry. That comment was glib. I didn’t mean to downplay what you’re lived through, Xiphos.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I’ve served with funny men before. Funny guys are well liked by their squads, sure, but when the chips are down, they’re usually the first ones to fall. I don’t mean to lose anyone on this mission, so eyes forward, and ears open. Got it?”

“Got it,” I said. The heat rose on my cheeks at my thorough admonishment.

“Hey, what’s that?” Stiletto asked. He drew his rifle and aimed down the sights at something off to our right.

Xiphos, Naginata and Khopesh raised their weapons in the same direction as though it was a reflex. I was a lot slower. Kaiser growled low in his throat.

All consideration about optimal skill distribution planning went out the window as I saw something moving between the trees in the early morning light.

It was roughly human sized, but I couldn’t quite make out the shape of it. I saw fur, and a hunched back, and something that looked like antlers rising from the front of it. I couldn’t tell if it walked on two legs or four, but the slow, deliberate movement set me on edge.

“Permission to take the shot?” Stiletto asked.

“Hold your fire,” Xiphos said. “We don’t know if it’s hostile. There’s plenty of room between that thing and us. Hatchet, send your hound in to check things out.”

Kaiser looked up at me and whined.

“He’s not just some hound,” I said. “Kaiser is a member of this squad, just like any of us. I won’t send him in alone.” I swallowed nervously as I looked down into the dog’s big brown eyes. “I’ll go with him. Right buddy?”

Kaiser barked once, his tail wagging.

A resolute Yes.