“Your Majesty I have here an official letter from the Guild Master of the Adventurer’s Guild,” the elaborately clad official held the inoffensive looking document as if it was covered in germs.

The crowned elf on the over intricate gilded and bejeweled throne nodded for his official to continue while a dozen or so courtiers looked on disinterestedly.

The official opened the letter and with nose in air and a look of distaste on his face began to read.

First all the flowery greetings and salutations nth the high sovereign of the elves then a very polite and roundabout enquiry as to column of high elves currently traversing the world. The most salient point being, seventy eight High elves with a class of soldiers sub-class ranger all over level fifty with another dozen high level healers, class soldier sub-class healer.

The secondary questions the guildmaster wanted answers for were what were these classes? Since when had the High Elves had an alliance with Bluestone and this other unnamed dungeon and what did that alliance entail for the rest of the world.

The throne room settled into a silence that endured for several minutes.

The king broke the silence, “reply to the guild master but say nothing other than they will be informed of what I want them to know soon, possibly sometime next year.” Another long silence ensued before the king commanded, “General despatch a patrol to intercept our cousins, better make sure at least on is a High Elf, lets not insult our cousins needlessly.”

The general bowed low and backed his way out of the throne room before striding down the corridor heading for his lieutenant’s office.

* * *

Major Alexander Manukov was riding at the head of his column, last night’s question and answer session with Nadia had been frustrating, she knew a lot regarding politics and attitudes in these worlds but, understandably enough, didn’t know any hard facts about the worlds they were traversing. Even so the information Loki had presented was very useful despite the girl’s warning that as a trickster extraordinaire it wouldn’t be safe to believe everything she had been told.

The crackle of gunfire up ahead suggested lieutenant Vasili Novosiltsev’s patrol had run into trouble. The brief radio communication of “just a few bandits” suggested that it was nothing much he allowed the column to proceed.

Sabotin was having trouble keeping up with the damn elves he was supposed to be guiding and he was frankly creeped out by the young priestess. Then came that racket from where their advance scouts and the elves just kept moving and they rode past what had been Hacker’s bandits, their archers shredded in the read and the fighters clumped in a bloody mass off to one side of the road.

Nadia looked at Alexander as they passed the scene of the would be ambush, “RPG at the archers and just a few bursts for the suicidal idiots with swords?”

Alexander glanced around, “mostly, Dimitri might have used his sniper rifle on the archers.”

* * *

Monday as ever started with a mountain of paper.

Antonio’s avatar chucked as he perused the CV on his desk, it would seem his great niece wanted to work in hospitality management and had just graduated. He must seem like a godsend to the girl, if he recalled her father was a bit of a dinosaur and she must have despaired of finding a job that her father would consider suitable for a woman much less his daughter.

Antonio grinned, sorted, he scrawled a brief note – employ her – stapled it to the CV and placed it in his out tray.

The rest of the day wasn’t as pleasant, it would seem that those idiots at the ministry of transport were intending to go ahead with the necromancer option. Didn’t they realize it would soil everyone who decided to go ahead whether they participated in the ritual or not.

Then he had to face several irate parents including Silverfin and his wives. Offering to throw a party for the kids in celebration for obtaining their first class and ranking did nothing to calm the waters.

“I can use them when they’re older, what if I guarantee them a job?” nope that didn’t help either.

After the parental delegation had left he arranged to send each of the five mini adventurers an invite to a party on the following Saturday with a note attached, “ask up to ten friends”.

Maybe he could create a kraken just for the fun of it, but no, where would something that big find enough to eat.

* * *

Mandy Carvalho and Marcus Smith had finally gained access to one of the mages working for the government and showed her the video of the Russian girl. Ashes had been spot on, the mage was shocked. She had visibly started and started asking questions.

After trading some questions back and forward, they had their confirmation, gates needed a ritual to be cast and that usually required more than one mage.

The mage for her part had been somewhat reassured that the girl was the High Priestess of Loki, a fact the two agents had only recently learned. Oh and that Loki was one of the nastier trickster gods on Earth/Midgard.

Then Mandy had an inspiration and took the mage to inspect the newly installed gate to Europe.

There Drassana of the White had a fit. Apparently it was not a gate, it was a dungeon portal and it was standing in a small circle of the controlling dungeon’s domain. This led to a fairly technical explanation regarding the differences and similarities between portals and gates.