I’d arrived in Anchorbury with style, but my departure was more a flurry of logistical preparations. Not only did I have more luggage, but I was travelling with friends. This time I was travelling by boat, and my destination was expecting me. Cloridan had sent word to his friends and they would be meeting us at the Talnier docks. This had all taken time to organise, which was fine since it gave my other companions a chance to join up.

“Felicia, Kyle, it’s good to see you!” I’d naively expected that they would meet us in Talnier, but Cloridan had said something about ‘strength in numbers’ and insisted they come down to Anchorbury and travel with us.

It had only been a few weeks, but it felt like months since I’d seen them. Some of that might have been due to certain changes.

“I see that there has been some developments between you two!” I teased, and was rewarded with Felicia’s immediate blush.

“What? No, there’s nothing…” she tried to deny, but Kyle was made of sterner stuff. He put his arm around her and met my gaze, pleased and embarrassed at the same time.

“Good for you,” I said. “Good thing I’ve still got this spare room, we won’t be leaving for a few days.” I was referring to my old rental house. The workshop area was cluttered with our luggage - mostly mine - but the bedroom was still clear.

I introduced them to the gang. Levels and [Professions] were exchanged. Both Felicity and Kyle had gotten to Level 4 - Felicity had gotten her [Healer] class, and Kyle had become a [Protector]. I guess it was pretty obvious why he’d chosen that.

Cloridan and Kyle took a little while to size each other up. I waited for them each to sniff the other one’s butt, but they never did.

“Adventurer family?” Cloridan eventually said, after they’d exchange a few meaningless pleasantries.

“Aye,”

“There’s been a few Warners around the place. Good people,” Cloridan said, and that seemed to be enough.

Preparations made the time pass quickly. Gustave insisted on getting me lessons enough to unlock [Craft (Smithing)]

“I can’t have you go out in the world as a senior member of the Anchorbury Iron Worker’s Guild, without the skill.” he said, somewhat pompously. “People will wonder what sort of crafters we’re turning out.”

“Even if I buy the skill, this isn’t going to convince someone I’m a master smith,” I pointed out.

He waved his hand dismissively. “I’m sure you’ll think of something,” he said. “This will just give you the basics.”

I unlocked the [Teach] skill for both Elodie and Janie. Neither had the skill points yet, but both of them were young enough to be due a point on their birthday.

“What do I even need [Teach] for?” Janie had asked.

“You’ve got an apprentice now,” I said, “You need to be able to instruct them.”

“Psssch,” she snorted. “You already gave him all the skills he won’t get from the profession, so what’s the point of me having it? You just want me to come teach you [Fire Magic] when I’ve got the skill.”

“That’d be nice,” I said, “But really, it’s up to you what you do with it. You won’t be running around dungeons forever.”

“Says you.”

Cloridan got us crossbows. Well, I bought them, but Cloridan was the one who insisted we all get the [Weapon Mastery: Triggered Weapons] and found us the weapons and ammunition.

I was quite surprised, even though I’d seen guards in Anchorbury carrying them. Oakway’s weapon market hadn’t had any, and I’d started thinking they hadn’t been developed yet.

“Yeah, they’re not used much in dungeons,” Cloridan explained. “Range is too close.”

“Isn’t there a dungeon in Talnier?” I asked.

“Sure, two of them - but they’re not close to the walls. For a lot of people, getting to the dungeon is half the battle, and that’s why we’ll need these. That, and getting to the town in the first place.”

“Is it really that dangerous getting there?” I asked. “We sent mail there after all.”

“Griffins don’t often come down off the mountains,” he admitted, “But if they do, you’ll be glad you’ve got a distance weapon.”

“[Blind] works pretty well against fliers,” I pointed out.

“Yeah? Whats the range?” he asked knowingly.

“About 25 metres,” I admitted.

“You want to cast that on a Griffin stooping on you?”

I thought about something the size of a horse, swooping down on me like a giant hawk, getting blinded at the last second. “No.”

“Get the skill.”

I was saving those skills for more magic, but he had a point. And it would be good to have access to a high damage weapon. In our world, crossbows were heavy, clumsy weapons, but even I could easily hold the weapon in once hand and cock it with the other. Once I got the skill, anyway.

Kyle also had skill points free, but Felicity had spent all hers on the skills for [Healer]. So there were three of us with ranged capability, once we’d practiced for a bit.

A lot of people came to say goodbye, a lot more than I expected. Maybe it was because I was a local celebrity, their exotic generator of stories and gossip. My neighbours, people I’d bought stuff from in the market… a few householders that I’d had to smooth over after some of Cutter’s exploits… A lot of them offered commiserations over the unfairness of my being kicked out - which I could offer right back, because living under Aubert Duvost might not be any kind of picnic.

Eventually, all the preparations were done, the goodbyes were all said, and all of us and our luggage were loaded on a boat headed upriver.

I’d expected our trip upriver to be a leisurely cruise, but I’d been deceived. While the ground downstream of Anchorbury was relatively flat, upstream lead into hills, and that meant rapids and waterfalls.

Portage is a fancy word that means walking, which we had to do a number of times on the trip. There was one notable village along the way where they’d constructed a lock, but the rest of the time we had to take the path.

I’m pretty sure in our world, the boats would have been unloaded, and then dragged on rollers up the hill, followed by the cargo. Then they’d be loaded up again and head upriver to the next waterfall. Here though, they just picked up the boats. Superhuman strength comes in handy sometimes. Maybe some superhuman crafting as well - I’m pretty sure wooden boats in my world don’t get carried by handles on the edge while fully loaded.

It had been explained to me that the Good/Great quality, when applied to ordinary goods, indicated a greatly increased resistance to damage, something that applied with walls, doors, and boats.

So the portage sections were quick interruptions to what was mostly a leisurely journey taking most of a day. I could contribute by keeping an eye on the sky, while spending most of my attention on Mana Sense. As we got closer to the border, I could see the increase in Mana. More of it was wild, the smoky gears and cogs becoming wrapped in streams of mana that followed no pattern I could discern. Up ahead of us, I could see the wild mana rise up, like a storm cloud on the horizon.

We passed a number of standing stones on the way up. I’d noticed a few around Oakway, but they were much more numerous here.

[Identification]: - Mana Guidestone (Type III) - Quality: Great

They did seem to be doing something to the mana. It wasn’t clear to me what, since they tended to be surrounded by a haze of unshaped mana, but there always seemed to be a stream of mana flowing away from them, to the east.

I didn’t want to show my ignorance by asking questions, but then I remembered that Felicity was here. The boat was big enough that a private conversation was easily arranged.

“Um, they… guide the mana…” she said. Unhelpfully.

“I got that,” I said, “How? Why? Where’s it going?”

“Well, it’s a kind of magic, I guess? [Theurgy], I think. If you don’t have a dungeon around to suck up all the mana, you need to send it somewhere. All the streams are going to the capital, I should think.”

“So the capital, just… sucks up the mana from the entire country?”

“Not all of it, just enough to keep the monsters down. There’s a Guild of Theurgists, I’m not sure about the name. They haven’t needed to come to Oakway for a generation. They manage the mana - I’m not sure if all of it goes to the King, but they distribute it like he wants.”

“And what does he do with it?” I wondered.

“Important ruling stuff?” Felicity said.

“Huh.”

We passed few miles in companionable silence before Felicity spoke up with a question of her own.

“So are you going to tell me about it?”

“About what?”

“About why you had to leave.”

“I already told you in the letter,” I protested.

“The details, yes, but something was missing,” Felicity paused, considering. “Something like: why you let yourself get kicked out.”

I gave her a look, “What was I supposed to do? He’s the Count, now. He could have had me imprisoned.”

“Like that would have held you for five seconds. I don’t know,” she said. “Something… unexpected. Like stealing the dungeon core - I know that wouldn’t have helped in this case - but something like that.”

“I can’t always come up with a Black Swan,” I said sourly.

“You actually have a name for it?” she asked incredulously. “What kind of name is Black Swan?”

“Ahhh… what colour are swans in this world?”

“White.”

“Oh good, it’s the same then. In my world, people thought they were white for a very long time. Then they travelled to a far-away country - that happens to be the country where I lived - and found some black swans.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Until that day, no one had ever thought a swan could be black. After that, it was just obvious that they could be. A Black Swan is an event that no one could predict, but afterwards seems obvious.”

“Huh, and these events happen so often that you need a name for them?”

I laughed. “It’s more that people spend a lot of time trying to predict them. If you can manage it, you can make a lot of money.”

“You just said that they can’t be predicted,” she objected.

I shrugged. “Doesn’t stop people trying.”

“So, no Black Swan this time?”

“No,” I said bitterly. “It’s not like last time. I can’t pull off something crazy and disappear. I’m using my real identity, and there were people there I care about. Elodie, the kids, and even the Guild.”

“Most of them you’re leaving behind, though,” she argued.

“Better that, than making them a target for Aubert. It hurts, but sometime you have to take the loss.”

“Ah,” she said, and we were quiet for a while.

“You know what really stings?” I asked. “I actually felt sorry for him.”

“Well, he lost his father, yes? It’s only natural.”

“I guess.” Suddenly a thought struck me. “You know, now I’ve officially left, there’s nothing stopping me from dropping by here again. It’s only a two-hour run if I’m not carrying luggage.”

“The guards at the gate wouldn’t be able to stop you. Did you have some plan in mind?”

“Not yet,” I said. “But this isn’t over.”

“Now that sounds like you’re planning something dangerously irresponsible.” Felicity’s voice was stern, but there was a twinkle in her eye.

“You’ll help, though?”

“Of course,” she said. “We’re partners after all.”