You might be a Knight Commander of the United Kingdom and one of the most famous Professionals of the day, but if you don’t have proper documentation, the guardsmen will not let you pass just like that.

The Gate area was extremely busy. Even four days after the reopening of the Great Gilded Gate, there were lines of porters continuously grabbing bags of materials dropped out in front of the Gate by transiting Professionals, loading carriages. Jonas Sims spotted a full team of Professionals – he assumed, seeing five geared people – waiting for a lull and then jogging through the Gate.

“So, what is it, Mark?” a soldier growled, an officer by the looks.

“Lieutenant, these people say they work for the Labyrinth High Office. And I don’t think she looks like her Majesty,” the guardsman said, pointing out the team’s Smasher.

Laura Harvey rolled her eyes, mainly for Jonas’ benefit. As the leader of the Adapted Team, he was the one saddled with talking to the guard. The only one who wasn’t amused by the joke was Jonathan Gilbert, the team’s second Layman. He wasn’t amused by much these days – for a good reason, having discovered that his family and would-be wife had perished nearly four months ago during the same attack he’d survived.

The lieutenant took stock of the team. Jonas in his slightly off-white Aerial Robes, his childhood friend Ira Heard in full ringmail and black zweihander, Guss Fullmore in the unassuming robes associated with his Hospitaler profession, Jonathan, Laura and Alton Raby, the team’s Piercer. They were obviously Professionals, but their employment was very much in doubt, it seemed.

“If they’re that six-team, they might be. But I’ll be damned if I can recognize them. I was too far away in the parade. Wait here sir and lady, I’ll find the Brigadier. He’ll know.”

It ended up lasting almost half an hour. The team had found one of the ubiquitous stacks of crates and variously leaned on and sat on them, waiting under careful watch by two guardsmen.

Jonas found it amusing – if irritating – that two soldiers were guarding them. Even at a mere level 61, any of them could dispatch those two with ease on his or her own. But, he guessed, the ensuing ruckus would bring forth the entire company stationed there, not to mention higher tier Professionals.

Team

Professions

Health

Mind

Jonas Sims

Aetherist (61)

416/416

515/515

Jonathan Gilbert

Layman (61)

779/779

474/474

Ira Heard

Layman (61)

1185/1185

544/544

Guss Fullmore

Hospitaler (61)

485/485

521/521

Laura Harvey

Smasher (61)

683/683

542/542

Alton Raby

Piercer (61)

598/598

413/413

“Brigadier.”

“Good day, Sir Sims. So, you don’t have passes?”

“It seems not. We may have not… waited long enough for the Duke to get around to sign everything. After three days of receptions and being paraded around, we wanted to get back to Gatepost as fast as possible.”

Brigadier Tobe Duffey, the officer responsible for the Great Gilded Gate security, emitted a barking laugh in a way that didn’t fit a proper military man.

“Working for Wellington. That’s good. But next time, bring the employment sheets. That’s normal procedure. Even for Knights and Lady Commanders of the Bath.”

He turned to the guardsmen.

“I vouch for them. They are who they say to be.”

He saluted briefly the six before heading out.

“Can we?”

“Certainly sir,” the contrite guard said. “Try not to bump the incoming freight.”

The clearing around the Gate on Grailburg’s side was almost as chaotic as the London side. There were piles of bags, crates of materials all over the place, and dozens of Professionals busy unloading carts. A few noticed the incoming team and raised their fists, their other hand grabbing it, in recognition of the six.

They immediately moved aside, contemplating for a few minutes the ballet of crates and sacks.

“Over three months of accumulated backlog. That sure takes time to clear,” Ira commented.

“So, what’s the plan?” Jonathan asked.

“Grab our belongings at Luther’s Company compound, dump everything at the bank, and hit the Archives for information. Then move out,” Jonas replied.

“The Archives are next door,” Jonathan noted.

“Okay, so, not in that order.”

The same Professional that had been there to greet them a week ago when they arrived in Gatepost was still at its desk, again scribbling notes from half a dozen books strewn around. He raised his head and recognized them immediately.

“Oh, the Adapted Team. Welcome back. If you’re looking for Charles, I’m afraid he’s back to London.”

“We know, we’ve seen him there, Mr… Haywood? No, I’m here looking to get some information on zones.”

“Well, of course. We have everything. What do you need?”

“Everything about the sector with Othary, Markandon, most of the Great Line, if possible. Professions, maps, lairs, that kind of stuff.”

The scholar pulled out a catalogue and started checking.

They left the Archives, having purchased for fifteen shillings the exact same booklet – un-annotated – that Cowen had been using. It didn’t cover Zilbarn and stopped at Mirolon, but Jonas guessed that they’d be able to come back and ask further once that information became useful. What was important was that it had information about their old zones and the zones next to those.

“What was that for?” Laura asked.

“You heard her Majesty and those Professionals back in London. Most tier two zones are very busy. The Labyrinth High Office doesn’t have any licence or anything like that, seeing as her Majesty is tier four and she usually simply asks.”

“But we have a Fast Travel option to a tier two where nobody ever goes.”

“Exactly. Of course, as Cowen said, it’s under-levelled and doesn’t have many lairs, but we will be the only ones around, so it’s much better than anything else. We can commute between Gatepost and Othary using Recall/Fast Travel pretty easily. We even found almost all of the known lairs – the booklet just mentions another cave at level 50.”

He flipped the pages until he found the entries and map.

“We probably passed near it at least twice. It’s just a single cave, but a quote-funny guardian-unquote.”

“Funny?”

“A dancing bear.”

“What?” Ira exclaimed.

“A dancing bear. Okay, one that tries to crush you in its paws, but still.”

The whiskered man introduced himself as “Abraham Zacharias, Company founder and director”. A level 430, in his early-mid tier five levels.

“No, the Fullmores are back in the field. Once the rest of the teams started coming back from London, they all headed out. They’ve been stalled in progression for nearly three months, so they needed to go back to their usual lairs.”

“Oh, thought I’d say hello”, Guss said, slightly disappointed at hearing that his cousin, Luther Fullmore and his wife Ada had left.

“I’ll leave a message telling them you’ve been around. So, you’ve been already recruited?”

“We got an offer we couldn’t refuse. The Labyrinth High Office.”

“Oh. Well, I shouldn’t be surprised. But they won’t have much support for you. You’ve probably doubled their numbers. If you ever get frustrated by getting on your own, remember there are real companies that offer material support, logistics, everything you need…”

Zacharias smiled, before adding, “By the way, wait a second.”

He rummaged through a set of drawers, checking a note, before pulling out some coins.

“Your sales,” he added, dropping 27 shillings into Jonas’ hand.

“Sales?”

“You left dungeon stuff. Gear you didn’t want to keep. Got it to our usual wholesalers and included in the bulk sales. We kept a small commission, but it’s still your source. A dozen items in the sub-100 don’t sell for much, it’s low-quality stuff, but it still sells.”

“Oh, thanks I guess.”

“You’re welcome.”

Jonas added, “Now, we left a few things around, we should be freeing our room before heading out ourselves.”

After stuffing their bags, they settled in one of the taverns near the Artefact Company’s Headquarters, then Jonas pulled out the booklet he’d purchased.

“He was nice to pay us for the gear. I mean, I had forgotten about it. He might have kept it,” Alton said.

“He was still trying to recruit us, I think,” Laura replied.

“Here’s what I propose for the next part. We still got 7 levels while travelling to Grailburg, so we’re not going to have too many problems with the frogs or wolves anymore.”

Jonas pursued, “No idea if the crow triplets will be there, which leaves the cave. Which isn’t far from the path between the Plaza and the frog lake.”

“The dancing bear.”

“Which I absolutely have to see,” Ira said.

“So we hit those lairs, and the basic guardians at the boar-infested ruins, then maybe check the countryside while we wait for the lake to regenerate. Maybe there’s an 8th lair everyone missed.”

“You think that’s likely?” Laura asked.

“As that Haywood guy said, there’s been only like two teams ever to go there, and just to explore things before they pulled out the Recall Stone. That’s not including us or Cowen’s. Who knows. But at least we get some of the money back on that book if we turn it back with lots of interesting notes. And the next edition includes our discoveries.”

“How long should we stay there? Since we can Recall here and Travel back at any time?” Guss asked.

“That depends on how fast we gain levels. With the last Adjustment, we got an additional 5% speed, and we all basically got a shortcut to the next tier.”

Both Guss and Laura grimaced. Nobody liked to remember the hellish pain that came with each successive Adjustment. Then before Jonas could continue, Guss asked a curious question.

“By the way, did anyone remark anything special when we got back?”

“Like what?” Jonas asked.

“When I went back home, I was trying to get some good clothes to come to the palace.”

“Lucky guy,” Ira said. “They’d trashed all my stuff thinking I was dead.”

“Same,” Laura added. Jonathan didn’t comment, but the pinch of his mouth made Jonas quickly skip the topic, “And?”

“They didn’t fit quite well. I could barely put on the shoes, my toes were curling at the end.”

“So… because we gained lots of Constitution, maybe?”

“Cowen’s in the thousand range. Does she strikes you as particularly tall?” Guss replied.

“Sturdy, yes. Tall… You think this is related to Adjustment?”

“I asked a Professional at one of the receptions at St. James, asking if he ever had a problem fitting in his old civilian clothes. His response was that he’d been more beefy back before being a Professional. Now, he can indulge all he wants and he never worries about needing new clothes fitted because he gets too fat.”

“So normal Professionals don’t get taller or anything?”

“Nope. So you guys didn’t notice anything?”

“No chances to,” Jonas said.

Ira dug into his side bag, pulling a pair of small black gloves. The rest of the team watched as he tried them.

“Definitively very, very tight. I wore those every day at the Morvell house for the service. I’d surely remember if they were that badly fitted.”

“So… each Adjustment makes us, what? Taller? Bigger?”

“Will it turn us into giants?” Laura asked.

Jonas kept looking at the gloves.

“You know Ira, you’re just 5 levels away to the next Milestone… and 45 in Constitution. It will take longer for us, but you’re close.”

“Bollocks. We just came through.”

“As I was saying, we had a speedup and a bonus Potential. So, pretty much soon, you’ll hit 42 Layman, and qualify for those two Professions Babbage told us.”

“He was suggesting Jonathan and I pick two separate ones.”

“Yes, and Jonathan’s going to need a fourth Milestone before he can pick his.”

The second Layman made a grimace. While a two-defender team was a useful combination for lair encounters, he was behind in progression due to his build change. And switching back to a utility build would require him to slide further behind the rest of the team. That… or pick a side Profession and test if it opened a further bout of Adjustment. But Babbage had warned them that this kind of thing started to happen commonly as you advanced in a regular team. The different build paths often meant that each person often needed a different amount of Milestones to advance. Plus, they might not all be able to get their next Profession at the same time from the same Plazas, so relative levels fluctuated all the time. After a few years, a few Milestones more or less didn’t make that huge of a difference.

“Don’t worry. We already knew I’d be mostly defending against additional attacks, not going toe to toe with Ancients.”

“So, Ira… Careful Barrier is available in Markandon, next door.”

“I remember that discussion with Cowen. It was also at the Zilbarn plaza. So… a series of lairs, then head into Markandon to put me through the grinder?”

“Not just for a pair of gloves. We will have to do it at one point. All of us.”

“Many times,” Guss said, sounding unconvinced.

“Ready?”

Next Gate will be to Othary. One Travel charge used.

“Ready.”

They all shouldered their brand new large bags, purchased at a reasonable price at a speciality outfit. Princess Augusta had handed them a small purse and told them that good and sizeable bags were a Professional’s best friend. And that those in Gatepost were infinitely better than anything from London since most of those were from the Labyrinth.

“Then let’s go.”

They all squeezed around the traffic still pouring in and out of the Great Gate and went in.

Rather than exiting in London, Jonas found himself looking at the white-tipped mountains on that still-familiar plateau, next to the invisible border wall of the zone. And the slightly decrepit-looking sign planted in a small crack on the ground.

Group of six from London lost in Labyrinth

Jonas found himself smiling at the sight.

“Time to remove those, I think. We didn’t have the time before we left.”

“We had one in Ovildian as well, I think.”

Jonas turned and looked at the Gate.

Transit: Othary - Ovildian

Integrity: 100%

Active

Stability: 100%

“Okay. One question answered. Seems we can see every Gate descriptor now, not just the Great Gate.”

Careful Barrier

(tier 3)

Required: 45 CON, 20 FOC

Provides:

+12 health/+5 endurance/+7 mind/+3 aether per level

+1 Milestone/13 levels

Careful Barrier Milestone: +7 CON, +4 PRE, +3 AGI, +2 INT, +1 STA, 0.5 mind per FOC

Skill set: Equipment / Defence