“Huh?”

“Esriro asked some of her contacts to keep an eye out for any members of The Storm Bringers, and someone finally got a hit,” Abi said as the screen turned on. “She just forwarded these to me.”

An image appeared on the screen, one of N’ardil Vilos herself, along with a jotunn man that was quite a bit bigger than she was. It was clear that either one of them would dwarf my seotross form, and the only way I knew that was because of the much smaller kobaloi woman that was also photographed. When I had first seen N’ardil I assumed that all jotunn were bald, but it was absolutely bizarre seeing something similar to a giant with a full head of hair.

“You undoubtedly recognize N’ardil Vilos, but you probably don’t recognize the man beside her. That is Kar’grom Vrikk, governor of Kograrth, however he is more well known as the leader of a triad going by a name that roughly translates to Onyx Knuckles.”

“As far as gang names goes, that one is pretty lame,” I replied. “How does someone that is the leader of a gang even become a governor of an entire planet?”

“Jotunn society is different from what you’re used to, but jotunn triads are governments unto themselves. Sometimes they war against each other and that can get very bloody, but they protect those within their territory. They used to fight over land on their homeworld, but nowadays each triad controls many planets and systems. Unlike most other space faring species you’ll find, the jotunn don’t have a centralized government. They’re more like countries on Earth in that regard, but every ten years they hold an election to decide who the next warleader will be.”

“How does that work? I can’t imagine anyone voting for another triad, so wouldn’t the biggest triad always win?”

“It’s actually the leaders of each triad that votes, but the triad that the previous warleader belongs to is unable to put forth a candidate. Sometimes they are the ones to decide which triad’s candidate will become the warleader, but sometimes other triads make deals to either cause a stalemate or elect someone else. In the rare occurrence of a tie, all tied candidates will fight to determine who it will be.”

“I see. So N’ardil is on Kograrth meeting this Kar’grom Vrikk?”

“Yes, but that’s not all,” she replied as the image was replaced with another. It looked to have been taken earlier and was a much wider shot, showing that she was being escorted by not one, but two of the teams that help make up The Storm Bringers. “The team in the grey and red suits are called The Whirling Blaze, but they also go by Inferno. Named such because they’re specialists in both wind and fire magic. The team in the blood-red suits are The Crimson Tide, and are extremely deadly with all sorts of martial weapons. Going by internal rankings that I found in the Hellraisers’ computers, the two teams now are second and fourth, respectively.”

“This means that she’s untouchable for the time being, unfortunately, but at least we know where she is and we’ll be able to track her when she leaves. Her ship’s drive signature was transmitted alongside the pictures, so if she flies within range of one of my transmitters I’ll be able to let The Indomitables know exactly where she is.”

"Cool, let Esriro know I said thanks. Have they had any luck tracking down any of the other teams?"

"None as of yet, but they're keeping an eye out and scanning for the mana signatures I passed along. They appear to be laying low for the moment."

I nodded. There wasn't anything else to go over, so the screen turned off and retracted back into the ceiling. Once the practice orbs were back in the air, I went back to reading.

My sisters and I arrived at the vault nearly two hours earlier than we had the day before, and we didn't waste a moment getting started. We wanted to get as much done as we could before our grandparents arrived in the early evening. If we could get everything taken care of, that would only be a bonus.

Before we got to anything, we set about removing four full skill gem sets from the boxes, followed by the skill gems for Mason, Ben and the twins. Abi had some of the coin purse-like pouches to put them in, which made everything that much easier. Once that was taken care of, we set about doing a much more thorough inventory of what was in the crates and chests.

The girls went a lot more in depth than I thought they would. They even went so far as to take each weapon out of the crate it was found in, photograph it, input the exact stats that were on it, and even mark exactly where it was inside the crate. But they didn't only do that for the weapons, they did it for nearly everything. The only thing they weren't able to get to were the skill gems, simply because we didn't have the time and that would be a time-consuming process.

There was a bonus to the fact that the girls were so thorough, beyond the fact that it would be incredibly easy to find stuff in the future. Because they wanted everything removed from each box or crate so it could be photographed, we ended up finding small hidden compartments. Not big enough to hold a highly valuable weapon or piece of armor, but certainly big enough to hold jewelry boxes, and that is just what we found.

There were two of them, in fact, and we weren't disappointed in what we found within. While there wasn’t nearly anything as good as Tessa’s [Liasi’s Eternal Salvation], there were certainly some gems. For example, there was an epic ring that increased all attributes, but the best thing about it was that it had a dimensional storage linked to it; one capable of holding up to one thousand kilograms worth of items. My friends and I were spoiled in that regard, especially thanks to my Beacon and the suits we wore, but people would pay a lot for it if we decided to sell it.

In the same jewelry box that we found that ring in were a pair of somewhat plain necklaces, but appearances proved to be deceiving in their case. They were linked to one another just like the rings that Tich had given us were. They were crafted as well, and despite only being epic in rarity, had a very powerful effect: As long as each wearer channeled their mana into their necklace, something called a soul-link would form between them. While active, all damage taken by one person would be halved and sent across the link to the other person.

The effect had the potential to greatly increase the survivability of the two wearers as long as they weren’t both being attacked simultaneously. At the same time, it didn’t mean that one of them couldn’t be killed just as easily if struck in the right spot, such as the brain or the heart. As well as being killed almost instantly, a massive amount of damage would be transferred across the link to the other wearer.

It was when we got to the second of the two jewelry boxes that things got a little more interesting. There were no legendaries or mythical items to be seen which still surprised us, but there were still a multitude of very nice rings. One of the first ones I picked up would be reserved for Sonja, I decided, and that was because it was very similar to Ben’s [Mageband]. The difference was that it only worked with air skills, which was Sonja’s focus.

On top of being able to store a spell so it could be cast later on, it also increased the damage or effect of that spell by 50%. Aside from her [Summon Earth Elemental], the rest of the air spells she had were currently instant cast, but I was interested if the former would be affected by the ring.

Another ring was very well suited towards either Mason or myself, and that was simply called [Stoneskin Band]. Like the name suggested, it was a ring that would temporarily turn our skin into stone, increasing its durability. It wasn’t as good as the [Metal Skin] perk that the Kobold High Chieftain we killed had, but it was still a solid defensive effect.

Either the best or the worst of them, however, was called Pol’cala Bol’arv. It had no stats and the name itself gave no clue as to what it did. The description didn’t help much at all in clearing it up, either. Essentially, it stated that the first attack every 15 seconds by the wearer would have ‘enhanced cutting power,’ with a 1% chance. Just about the only thing that was cleared up by the description was that it needed to be used in conjunction with a bladed weapon like an axe or a sword.

Even Abi didn’t know what it did after searching the Net, but she did posit an idea the four of us were familiar with; the fantasy term vorpal. Usually it was a ‘vorpal sword’ or ‘vorpal’ blade, but all vorpal items were said to be able to cut through pretty much anything like a very hot knife through butter. If that was indeed what the ring did, then it meant that even the least-threatening strike could have some very mortal consequences.

Imagine fighting against a monster that goes to parry one of your attacks with their own weapon, only for your sword to cut right through it and continue onward. Or you’re fighting another person in close quarters combat; you’re evenly matched and neither of you are giving up an inch. The ring could activate almost immediately, but the probability of it activating would steadily increase, the longer the fight went on.

If it was, indeed, a vorpal effect that could cut through armor with ease, I wondered what it could do against Mana Shield and other similar effects. Would it negate the shield? In the case of Mana Shield, would it drain all of one’s mana? I was certainly tempted to test all of that out, but that would bind it to me when there might be better choices out there. Besides, there was a possibility that the Spectres or Hellraisers might be able to tell us about the effect, so there was no need to rush into it.

There were no more hidden compartments anywhere in the vault, and we made sure to move everything around just to make sure. The vault was easily big enough with thick enough walls to have some smaller safes built into it, but we didn’t find any. Even taking that time to do a thorough search, we still managed to complete everything the girls wanted to get done for the day.

Abi had let us know that our grandparents would be arriving in-system shortly, so I grabbed the suit that they had made for me and then the four of us left the vault. While our bodies had now well surpassed the unleveled norm, the work we were doing was still enough to get us sweating. Not wanting to stink when we greeted our grandparents for the first time, we headed to our respective rooms to clean up a little.

We soon met up again at the bottom of the ramp leading up to Abi, just in time for the roar of a ship's engines to permeate the berth. The new ship was a lot smaller than Abi was, and was much more angular in comparison. The most interesting thing about the ship didn't show itself until the landing struts were deployed, and it was the front strut that drew my eye. As well as being significantly bigger than the back two struts since it had to hold more weight, it also served as the ramp to enter or exit the ship.

It was only a few seconds after the ship touched down before we saw movement, though it was hard to see because of the ship's bulk blocking then lighting. It didn't take long for them to emerge from underneath the ship, however, and soon we were able to make out details.

The first person to emerge wasn't our grandparents, but was instead an ork that towered over them, easily doubling our grandfather's height. Dressed head to toe in auburn armor that matched the paint scheme of the ship behind him, it was clear that he was the frontliner for the group. Not only because of his size and the two handles that could be seen on either hip, but because of the two belt-fed railguns that were attached to each arm. After looking around for a moment we could hear him grunt, and then all of his weapons disappeared.

His companions following behind our grandparents were dressed in much the same way, though their auburn armor appeared to be a bit lighter. Both of them were beastkin females, with one looking like a crossbreed between a wolf and a bear, while the other sported a beak and was capable of turning its head around over 180 degrees. The former was quite a bit more heavyset than the latter, but I was surprised to see that she carried a staff. The avian beastkin, on the other hand, was somewhat predictably carrying a very long-barreled railgun with a scope mounted on top.

After the ork stepped aside, we were finally able to get our first real look at our grandparents, and it would take some getting used to. Not because they were ugly or deformed or anything like that, but because of how young they both looked. Our grandfather had a full head of hair, and it was black hair at that. There wasn't even the smallest hint of grey, nor the sign of any wrinkles, either. They just looked like many of the other Scyftans we had seen.

My sisters were the first to move before our grandparents had even stopped, and I followed them a nary a second later. Our grandfather wasn’t a big man, but even he was able to scoop up my sisters in one great big hug, while I made a beeline for our grandmother. As I embraced the smaller woman, I was able to feel that she was family. She had been doing a good job of keeping her mind shielded, but I instinctively knew that we were related because of what was able to leak through.

It wasn’t any one thing, and was instead many different emotions; regret, joy and sorrow to name a few. I could feel her body start to shake as she succumbed to those emotions, finally allowing herself to grieve for the daughter and son-in-law that she had lost so long ago. I just stood there and held her, until soon my sisters and our grandfather joined in as well. We remained that way for a few minutes before introductions began, and then the six of us headed up to the galley for dinner.

“Khyr, Irsia, it’s good to see you,” my mom said as she stepped forward to greet the two of them.

There were more introductions when we arrived in the galley, but there were fewer than I would have expected. They already knew Kor and Ora Gidres, as well as Tich and some of the Spectres that were in the room, so the only people that really needed to be introduced were Tessa and my friends, along with the few dragons that were present.

“We can’t thank you enough for looking after our grandchildren for so long,” Khyr said, looking at my mom and dad.

“Oh, it wasn’t all us,” my mom replied. “I’m not sure if you remember them or not; Zuni Alnanan and Atetin Iatrunech? They were the caretakers for Leenah, Leksi and Lucia up until recently.”

“They’re not here?” Irsia asked, prompting my mom to shake her head.

“While we were on Earth, there was an assassination attempt on Jonuth and on what we assumed were his sisters, but the latter proved to be on Zuni. She and her partner have been leveling up in dungeons almost non-stop since we arrived.”

“I knew that name sounded familiar,” Khyr said. “We got word that contracts had been placed, even if it wasn’t until it was a week afterwards. No one was hurt, I take it?”

“Leenah took an energy bolt to the shoulder, but her protection detail got her into a med chamber right away and now you can’t even tell she was injured,” I answered. “The only people who got hurt were the members of the five man team that went after Zuni.”

“It’s stupid to go after someone with [Precognition],” Irsia said. “Even dumber when they’re as well trained as Spectres are. You’re continuing training on Earth, I hope?”

“Tas Dymith eventually made his way to Earth, and he picked up right where he left off in training the next generation of Spectres,” my dad said. “Unfortunately, the dungeons on Earth aren’t very high level so we aren’t as capable as we once were. We’re working on fixing that, but we’ve got some help in the meantime.”

“I assume you’re talking about The Indomitables? We saw a few people wearing their crest as we walked through the halls.”

“They contacted us through Kor shortly after the attempt on Jonuth and Zuni. Turns out that the leader of The Indomitables is an ex-navy fleet commander whose wife was killed during the coup."

"I've heard of The Indomitables, but can you really trust them?" Khyr asked.

"Abi thinks so. She helped them purge all or most of the spies on board, and I doubt the Dvergr Royal Family would allow their daughter and their heir to join yet alone serve within The Indomitables.”

“Princess Tala is in The Indomitables?!” Irsia asked.

“Captain of a ship called The Harbinger. She’s currently in the former Mezotis system helping our friends here get settled,” I replied, gesturing to Selalea and some of her retinue.

“Humans?”

“They can take the form of humans, but they are definitely not human,” I answered with a chuckle. “Do you mind showing my grandparents what your people truly are, Selalea?”

“Oh, I think I’m a little too small for this room, Jonathan,” she replied as she looked over to one of her bodyguards. “Senath, would you give our friends a demonstration?”

“Yes, my lady,” the woman replied. A second later, her form began to change until she was standing there as a three meter tall Red dragonkin, rather than a human that wasn’t even two meters tall.

“She is what is called a Red dragonkin,” I began explaining to my grandparents. “Selalea here is a Red dragon, and is much, much bigger than her dragonkin cousins. They don’t have access to skills and can’t level up as we can, but they never stop growing and they get more powerful as they age. Earth was getting a little too crowded for their tastes, and Mezotis 3 and 4 were perfect for them. Thank you, Senath.”

“Sir,” she nodded before switching back to her human form.

“Dragons exist? I always thought they were a myth,” Khyr said.

“So did I, to be honest,” I said. “They’re very prominent in human literature and cinema though… if only they knew.”

“You mean humans don’t know they exist? How is that possible?”

“The same way I can do this,” I said, activating my draconic camouflage and becoming invisible for a few seconds. “They live deep underground and underwater as well. When combined with their natural ability to camouflage themselves, it makes it easy for them to hide.”

“I would imagine so…” he replied.

Temporarily halting any ongoing discussions was the arrival of our dinner, but things picked up right where they left off, even as we ate.

“So that’s your team?” Irsia asked as she looked down the long picnic-like table where Mason, Ben, Anja and Sonja were sitting.

“Yup, friends ever since we were five or six years old,” I replied.

“What are their specializations, how do they fight?”

“Mason is a frontliner, similar to your ork bodyguard, I suppose. Utilizes earth skills to help control a battlefield, and can be deadly up close. Ben is sort of the mage of the group. Auras are his primary focus, but he has a lot of fire spells so he can do damage as well. Anja is your stereotypical assassin, wielding small daggers or swords, or long-bladed but light two-handed swords, while also using ice magic. She also has [Precognition], which makes her particularly deadly. As for Sonja, she’s our ranged fighter and uses a bow right now, but I think she’ll switch to more modern weaponry sooner or later. It will be interesting to see how firearms work in conjunction with air magic.”

“What about your team?” Khyr asked my sisters.

“It’s us, Syndras Gidres and Oya Warvyn right now, but we’ll probably end up finding a more permanent fifth when we get back to Earth,” Leenah replied, while also likely preempting his next question. “We’ve only delved together once, so we’re still not sure what path we want to follow just yet. We do have a nearly-complete set of skill gems though, so we could choose pretty much anything.”

“All three of you almost have a full set?” Irsia asked, somewhat surprised.

“We recently found out about our family vault, and in it were a few sets that were complete when the vault was last sealed. More skill gems have been discovered since then though, so those are the only ones we’re missing.”

“Our daughter said that they were removing the vault from underneath the palace, but I never knew that they had so many skill gems stored within it.”

“That’s not all that was in there,” I said as I removed the Beacon from my storage so I could remove the set of armor they had made for me. “I haven’t had a chance to wear it yet, but Abi said that you made it.

“Indeed we did,” Khyr said, reaching over the table to grab a part of it. I could feel him channeling some mana into it, and then he released it and leaned back, seemingly satisfied. “It’s in good shape, but unfortunately we can’t upgrade it while we’re here. You’ll have to wait until the next time we see each other.”

“Abi said that the armor could be upgraded, but how does that work, exactly?” I asked as I put it and the Beacon away.

“Well, it took thousands of years and a few generations worth of trial and error before we finally figured it out. There are certain materials that react when exposed to mana, with the majority of those materials only coming from dungeons. We found that if we kept them imbued with mana throughout the entire construction phase of a suit of armor, that the finished product would be substantially better than if we had not channeled our mana into it at all.”

“It was by accident that my own grandfather created a piece of armor that had 0% in the description, but he could never figure out why it was like that. When my uncle wore that piece of armor into a dungeon, he realized that that number had changed from 0% to 14%, though it took him a few months. Still, more time went on with that number getting higher and higher, and when it hit 100%, nothing happened. Not until my grandfather touched it and channeled his mana into it. That’s when he realized that it could be upgraded further.”

“Just like that?” I asked.

“Just like that,” he nodded. “It’s an intuitive thing, but one still needs to know how to get the most of an upgrade, and the wearer is a big part of that. Did you notice that the suit we made for you is rather plain and isn’t very thick? That’s because it’s only the base layer, designed in such a way that we could go in any direction later on. If your fighting style relied on stealth then we could add Skadier leather to help you almost blend into the shadows. Or if you were a mage, then we could use Orka’otel steel to help you recover your mana faster. Those are just two examples of what we can do, but we’re still discovering how to apply different materials all the time.”

“I see. Right now, my friends and I are using the same armor that the Spectres are using and we get the bonuses of armor even if that armor is in the suit’s dimensional storage. Will the armor you made me work the same way?”

"They're the same as every other piece of armor in that regard, and you'll even find pieces of armor from dungeons that can be upgraded. They're just very rare, and they upgrade differently, often requiring raw materials or mana crystals that are consumed in the upgrade,” Irsia said.

The two of them really knew their stuff, and even went through a few different scenarios on how they could upgrade our armor, depending on our unique fighting styles. When we were done with dinner they also retrieved the three sets they had made for my sisters. All three of them were identical to each other, and looked very similar to mine as well. The only real difference was that mine was more masculine in appearance, while theirs was distinctly feminine.

They had been on Abi before, but we ended up walking around as we talked, eventually making it up to the pool/observation deck, which was just about the only thing new to them. Lately it seemed like the kids were always in the pool, and tonight was no different, though there were even more people taking advantage of both it and the adjacent hot tubs. We didn’t partake ourselves, and instead sat down on one of the many benches that were in the large ovoid room so we could get to know each other better.

We learned that our grandfather had been an adventurer in his youth, but he quit when his best friend died while they were delving with their team. A few months afterwards, he and our grandmother met, and that was when he decided to give it up for good. Instead, he went into the family business and spent the next decade and a half learning everything he possibly could. Applying that knowledge, he helped grow the business faster than ever before, even while maintaining the high quality work the Etiaz family was known for.

To hear our grandmother describe it, he was a man on a mission, cranking out two to three suits in the same time it took other family members to make one. Eventually he had to cut back, however, which was when our grandmother gave birth to one Zandra Kidravia, née Etiaz. It was also at that time that our grandmother found out that she wouldn’t be able to have any more children, at least naturally, which partially explained why they only had one child.

Apparently, labour had to be induced early because doctors detected the early signs of a disease, one that attacked the uterus of scyftan women. Had it occurred within the past thousand years it wouldn’t have been an issue, but at that time there was no cure for the disease. Any woman who contracted the disease had to get a hysterectomy.

While humans could store a woman’s eggs for a later time, scyftans could store them in stasis. Later on, those eggs could be fertilized and then grown in artificial wombs, so even women who had lost their uterus could have their own baby, without the need for a surrogate. Our grandmother opted to have her eggs removed during the same surgery so they could be stored, so it was very possible that they could have more children in the future.

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and that was no different with our grandparents. They were only able to stop by for a quick visit and to drop off suits for my sisters, but they needed to get back. Even the few days they had been away had caused some delays, and it would require hard work from both of them to catch up.

Still, we were happy to see them and I knew we would see them again soon.