The gathered elites looked at Marcus like he was a madman who had somehow invaded the Adventure Society campus. Gormanston Bynes masked his contempt for their muttered outrage, carefully moderated not to draw the leonid’s ire.

Gormanston’s niece, Juniper, was next to him. At twenty-two, she had reached silver-rank during the monster surge. Gormanston was not the only one in the room who frequently brought around young members of their families to gain experience, political and otherwise. He still had hopes for Juniper, if he could purge the influence of his idiot brother. The days to come would determine if she could be salvaged.

For her part, Juniper stayed quiet, listening and learning. It was the habit Gormanston liked most about her. Expression concerned, her gaze vacillated between her uncle and the leonid. Marcus was still grinning, waiting for the hubbub to die down or grow loud enough to have another excuse to intervene, not that he needed one. Finally, her anxiety won out.

“Uncle Gorman,” Juniper whispered. “Are you going to—”

“Gormanston Bynes,” Marcus bellowed happily, attention drawn by Juniper’s quiet words.

He marched in their direction as if assuming the people in his way would rush to get out of it. He was immediately proven right and arrived in the rapidly emptied space in front of Gormanston. Juniper slid back and behind him slightly, Marcus’s eyes following. Gormanston stepped to block his eyeline and Marcus shifted his gaze to Gormanston’s face.

Gormanston was big for an elf, but Marcus was big for a leonid. Gormanston had the unusual experience of tilting his head back to meet someone’s eyes, unintimidated by the looming figure.

“Gormanston Bynes,” Marcus boomed. “I was warned that you might give me trouble.”

“Look at my niece like she’d be fun to slap around again and you’ll see what trouble looks like,” Gormanston told him. Marcus burst out in laughter.

“Your niece doesn’t have to worry, Gormanston. She’s even on my list of people not losing their society membership. Most of the list is occupied by the younger people in this room. They still have a chance to avoid the pitfalls of their elders, and the society recognises that. Of course, some are too far gone already.”

“And who decides that?” Another gold-ranker asked. “By what metric have we been judged?”

The man’s name was Finneus Gallow, a monster core user from Gormanston’s own aristocratic faction. Not a true adventurer, but not an idiot, either. He was a capable force in city politics. Marcus turned on him.

“A good question, Lord Gallow,” Marcus said. “And one whose answer is found in another question. I would call it a simple question, but in a room full of adventurers that could not tell me what the Adventure Society was, my optimism is dampened. What, Lord Gallow, do Adventurers do? Actually, don’t answer that.”

Marcus wheeled back to look at Juniper.

“Lord Bynes. Surely your young niece is up to the task of answering such a simple question. I even promise to refrain from any penalty should I be unhappy with the answer.”

Juniper looked up at Gormanston, who nodded, despite not shifting his glare from Marcus. Juniper came out from behind her uncle, looking uncertain as she mustered the courage to answer.

“Adventurers… fulfil contracts?”

“YES!” Marcus boomed, pointing a finger at the girl. “That is exactly what adventurers do. And tell me, girl—”

Gormanston shoved Marcus back.

“Her name isn’t ‘girl,’ and you’d best remember that,” Gormanston growled.

The room went dead still as everyone in it waited for the leonid’s response.

“So it’s not,” Marcus said. “Young Mistress Bynes, you have my apology. But to finish my question, when was the last time you took a completed contract to the jobs hall?”

Juniper seeing her uncle stand up to Marcus had finally made her more confident about the power dynamic and she answered boldly.

“This morning,” she told the leonid. “My team just got back from a sweep for any escaped world-taker worms in the southern districts.”

Marcus gave a grin that made it very clear that Juniper’s head would fit in his mouth.

“Very good, Young Mistress Bynes. It seems you have a winner here, Lord Bynes, although quietly killing her father off might be a good idea.”

The freshly emboldened Juniper stepped around her uncle to retort but was stopped by Gormanston’s gentle hand on her shoulder. Marcus grinned again and turned back to Finneus Gallow.

“And there we have it, Lord Gallow: Our metric for deciding who goes on the list. Those of you who have been living up to the promise of Miss Juniper Bynes will find their Adventure Society membership unthreatened. But if the only contracts you've taken were to prevent your membership being cancelled during a monster surge, then I'm afraid you shall find yourselves stricken off.”

“That is unfair,” Gallow said. “Long-standing policy has been that those who stand during the monster surge will maintain their membership once the dangerous times are over.”

“YES!” Marcus growled, but this wasn’t the gleeful roars he had let out before. This sound was savage and angry, sending silver-rankers scrambling away as he marched over to Gallow. Gallow moved to back off but Marcus grabbed him by the throat. Gallow didn’t panic or fight, instead glaring back at the leonid, even as he dangled from his hand.

“Tell me, Lord Gallow, how are things now that the dangerous times are over? Had a fun few weeks, have you?”

“I am well aware that there are new threats,” Gallow told him. As he didn’t have a trachea, Gallow’s voice was unimpeded by Marcus’ grip. “My family home was levelled during the messenger invasion, just like everyone else’s.”

“Oh,” Marcus said, putting Gallow down apologetically. “I didn’t realise, I’m sorry. How is your family finding it in the tent camps where they’re housing the displaced?”

Gallow’s lips pressed thinly together for a moment before he answered.

“My family is staying at the Ducal Palace.”

“Oh,” Marcus said. “Then I imagine you’re all working hard to earn that privilege.”

“Privilege is a birthright, not a prize for service.”

“And the Adventure Society is not a birthright, Lord Gallow, however much some people seem to think it is!”

Marcus’ angry roars shook the chandeliers. “Position in the Adventure Society is earned. Through service. The dangerous times, Lord Gallow, are extremely far from over. The monster surge was unlike any that has come before, and the after-effects are being felt to this day. Which include, let me remind you, not one, but two extradimensional invasions. The Builder may be gone, but he left a lot of danger behind, and I hope I don’t need to explain the threat of the messengers. It is now Adventure Society policy that, in these extreme times, monster surge policy will be extended indefinitely. You work, and you work hard, or your membership is gone.”

“That policy change was never announced,” Gallow said. “You can’t punish us under a policy before there was an announcement for us to react to.”

The leonid once more made one of his sudden changes between roaring madman and calm predator, his voice growing placid. He turned and wandered away from Gallow as he spoke.

“Allow me to explain. Firstly, I will remind you all that the Adventure Society is an organisation built around volunteerism. Unless you are a functionary, official or executive directly employed by the society, then any member is free to accept or refuse any request the society makes of them. Of course, those who refuse too many or key requests may find that their star rating lowered and their benefits from the society withheld, up to and including their membership itself.”

Marcus turned and looked back at Gallow again. The room was otherwise deathly silent, the people in it frozen as they listened to the leonid’s monologue.

“Revoking membership,” Marcus continued, “is the limit of what the Adventure Society will do. Any member unhappy with their treatment at the hands of the society may give up their membership, obviating any and all penalties. From that point forward, the society can and will do nothing to them, unless they start raising a zombie army or something equivalently unsavoury.”

Marcus levelled his gaze at Gallow.

“My point, Lord Gallow, is that both the society and its members can walk away from one another at any point. If the Adventure Society decides it wants no more of you, then no more they shall have. But, I will acknowledge the issues of tradition and decency. It is, indeed, tradition to allow those who only act during the monster surge to maintain their memberships. Not a tradition I personally care for, but a tradition nonetheless. As such, I was instructed to make an announcement regarding this shift in policy.”

“No announcement was made, by you or anyone else,” Gallow said.

“What is it you think I’m doing?” Marcus asked, his tone suspiciously reasonable. “I was told to announce this change by finding the most worthless collection of self-aggrandizing, freeloading scum I could find bolstering their noxious reputations using our organisation and demonstrate in no uncertain terms that their kind are no longer welcome. You will soon hear, no doubt, that this meeting is being replicated all across the planet. In short, if you’re not ready to stand up and fight the messengers or whatever other threat rears its ugly head, the Adventure Society has no place for you on its roster. As of this moment, any attempt to manipulate or leverage the Adventure Society, its members and its resources will be considered an attack upon it and responded to accordingly.”

“And what about decency?” Gormanston asked.

Marcus turned slowly to look at him.

“You said tradition and decency,” Gormanston said. “You’ve explained the tradition part. What about decency?”

Marcus slowly took on one of his predatory grins, then started slowly walking in Gormanston’s direction.

“Decency, Lord Bynes, is that they wouldn’t allow me to lock every worthless, fake member of the Adventure Society in a building and burn it down. Decency is that the contemporaries of your delightful niece Juniper will be watched and judged instead of purged with the fetid pond water from which they were spawned. Decency is that all the people not on my list will get a chance to go home and warn their worthless friends to surrender their Adventure Society memberships before I come and take them.”

He arrived back in front of Gormanston.

“That, Lord Bynes, is the most decency I have to muster. Do you have a problem with that?”

Gormanston smiled, graciously inclining his head.

“I serve at the pleasure of the Adventure Society,” he said.

The wary uncertainty on the leonid’s face was the first time since kicking in the doors that Marcus didn’t look completely in control.

“Now,” Gormanston said. “I believe you had a list to read out.”

***

Jason and his team were in a waiting room quite different to how they had found it. There was now a selection of furniture conjured by Belinda, plus one cloud chair. A buffet table had been set up along one wall where the team were each filling a plate. Gary was working a grill, the smoke being absorbed into a dimensional range hood floating over it.

“Why are you here?” Neil asked Gary. “I thought you gave up adventuring.”

“I did give up adventuring. I didn’t give up barbecues.”

Clive and Rufus left the buffet table with full plates. Clive’s plate wobbled precariously in one hand as he gestured enthusiastically with the other, explaining a concept to Rufus. They sat down near Belinda who was already merrily chopping away.

“The aura keys we use are, of course, nowhere near as sophisticated as the standard ones the messengers employ,” Clive said.

“That’s not even thinking about a specialised tool like the keystone for the orb,” Belinda mumbled around a mouthful of food.

“Just so,” Clive agreed. “But the basic principle is the same: take a specialised aura imprint and use it as a resonance key to open a lock.”

“Bad security,” Belinda said, then bit into a tyrannical pheasant leg.

“Indeed,” Clive said. “There are numerous ways to replicate an aura key. Belinda, here is an expert at doing so with simple devices. An aura manipulation expert like Jason or Amos Pensinata can simply use their own auras to do so.”

Belinda said something unintelligible with her mouth full and Clive shook his head.

“What she was probably trying to say was that the problem with spoofing an aura key is that it takes time to get the aura signature correct, and any good security system will detect attempts to do so and have secondary security in place, usually alarms.”

Belinda nodded as she swallowed her food.

“You can get around it,” she said. “Just a matter of time. But what you really want to do is get hold of the key you need. With the right tool, you record the aura signature from it in a few moments and put the key back, leaving no one the wiser. Then you can go off and replicate the key at your leisure. I built little spider constructs to sneak into places and copy aura keys for me. They're hard to detect, and enter or hide in places that I can't.”

“The flaws of this security method are well known,” Clive said. “The Magic Society knows all about it, but bureaucratic inertia means they're resistant to changes that would require sweeping infrastructure shifts across all the branches. So, instead of fixing the problem, they use makeshift solutions that introduce almost as many vulnerabilities as they patch. Take your average Magic Society official, for example. They carry with them a whole plethora of aura keys to various vaults, storage rooms and research stations, depending on their level of authority.”

“That idiot we met the other day,” Belinda said. “He’d have all kinds of access to all kinds of great stuff.”

“But the Magic Society won’t just let a buffoon like that wander around with those keys,” Clive said. “They have countermeasures on everything from clothes to vehicles to dimensional bags to intercept tricks like Belinda’s spider constructs. It stops people from exploiting members who might not have reached their high office through competence.”

“It’s a pain,” Belinda said. “If you wanted to get in and replicate those keys, you’d need to get all the Magic Society people in the group to throw out all of their clothes, tools, bags, the lot, and then maybe cover it all in some very specifically tailored custom magic.”

“What kind of magic?” Rufus asked.

“Well,” Belinda said, “something that’s beyond me. I had this idea for tiny rune stones, so small and light that they’d essentially be a powder, but that would take some highly precise ritual carving using processes I don’t know. You’d need an innovative magic genius obsessed with esoteric forms of magic for that. If you did manage to make it, though, you could do some interesting things. For example, you could put it in some kind of delivery system that would spread and adhere to everything, but in a way that doesn’t get people wondering what the powder is. You’d need the delivery system itself to be a distraction.”

“Like a sticky stink potion,” Rufus suggested.

“Who’s to say,” Clive told him. “Hypothetically, I suppose it’s feasible.”

The door to the room opened and a massive, white-furred leonid strode in.

“What is going on in here?” he asked.