Menace hissed and mewled as he attempted to pull out of the harness. Unfortunately for the kitten, the kortian—who’d sold Ranvir—the item was smarter than it. Ranvir clutched Menace with one hand over his chest. Just to be certain, Frija also had the leash wrapped around her wrist.

“I’d hug you, but I’m scared,” Elpir said, shooting the cat a wary look as it hissed and spat.

“It’s fine,” Ranvir replied. He almost offered his lost arm for a handshake, but remembered in time. Instead, he simply bowed. “Thank you for all your help. You’ve been a blessing, Elpir.”

She smiled back at him.

“Why are we acting like this is some final parting?” Amalia asked. She fearlessly plopped a hand directly on Menace’s snout and went in for a hug with the other arm. She pulled back and hissed at a scratch on her hand.

Ranvir frowned and examined his own arm. Though Menace was regularly scratching at him as well, it didn’t seem to catch on his skin. He’s probably just more familiar with me and won’t cut me, Ranvir thought.

“Goodbye!” Frija screamed. “Cat hug!” she leapt onto Elpir’s leg from behind, squeezing it with all her might before letting go and running off. At least, until she reached the end of the leash. Her arm yanked behind her, the leather pulling against Ranvir’s incidental grip and tearing her off her feet.

“Oh,” Vasso murmured and rushed over to her, quickly helping Frija to her feet.

“Thanks!” Frjia said with a grin and a hug, before dashing over to Ranvir. “Can we go now?”

“Say goodbye to Amalia as well,” Ranvir replied in his best dad voice.

Frija hurried off, having already forgotten about the leash on her arm. Thankfully, Amalia stood close enough that it didn’t become an issue. Meanwhile, Vasso was quietly saying goodbye to Elpir before getting in line behind Frija.

Finally, they were all ready to go. Ranvir opened a travel-space. He’d put in a little extra effort to craft what amounted to a bench built into the shape of the space. With this new pocket, Ranvir was now dragging around four extra dimensional spaces. Each of them required some level of focus and mana to hold.

He was fine on mana. Maintaining four spaces didn’t strain as much as creating a single one. With Persistence, he didn’t need to worry about encapsulating each in his Disciplines. That left only the mental effort of keeping them all straight. While not excessively difficult, it was the first time in a long time he’d even halfway struggled to drag a space around.

It felt oddly nostalgic to him.

“Onwards to Belnavir,” Ranvir said, taking his seat in the middle of the bench. Frija and Vasso taking a seat on either side of him. He closed the entrance, set them off. Once his tether-sense touched the Liminal, it immediately echoed with familiar vibrations of beacons. Two signatures stretching across the infinite void. One came from his basement on Korfyi, the other in a park on Belnavir.

Travel didn’t take long in the Liminal. Soon, their space was moving forward through the claimed space of a strange world shard. Right into a dark room…

Ranvir almost blurted out a question as he peered into the area. Only his realization that the kids would take after his response kept him quiet. Cautiously, he stepped out of the travel-space.

“Carefully, there are a few boxes there,” Ranvir said, pointing to the dimly lit corner of the aperture entrance revealing the side of a wooden storage box. Frija followed him first, then Vasso, more hesitantly.

“Is it safe?” the boy asked.

Ranvir listened. Mana shifted within his body and the sound of their breathing grew louder. With it came a quiet whistling. It swayed over the notes with an alacrity and skill no human lips could’ve ever produced, interspersed with a low hum. No other sounds immediately manifested to his senses, so Ranvir determined they were safe at the moment.

“It’s safe, but stay close to me,” he handed off Menace, who’d gone quiet and stilled, to Frija. Immediately, the kitten started purring and kneading her cheek, causing Frija to giggle and pulling a strained chuckle from Vasso.

With his arm free, Ranvir dismissed the travel-space, then with a brief flicker of Sandstorm Rage, popped the lid off a box and retrieved his beacon. The metal board had clearly been dug out of the park grounds at some point and brought here.

“Stay behind me,” Ranvir said, working the door handle with his free fingers. The knobs he so commonly saw back in Korfyi wouldn’t have been nearly so easy to work, which fascinated him. These had clearly been intended for use by people who might not always have traditional fingers.

He stepped into a wooden hallway marked with a few drawings of dubious quality. Several corridors grew from this one like shoots on a fresh plant, and either side was capped with windows revealing a garden.

A man with frail features to the point of being feminine stood next to the window with a broom in one hand. He was idly sweeping at a corner as he glanced out the window at something in the garden, while whistling to himself. Ranvir could see little more than his shoulder-length hair and proportionally broad shoulders.

“She’s so good,” Frija said, clutching Ranvir’s wet pant leg in one hand and Menace’s leash in the other.

“Isn’t that a man?” Vasso asked, looking nervously about, hesitantly reaching for Ranvir before forcing his hand down. Ranvir wanted to offer him a hand. Vasso had unfortunately gone on the wrong side for such a move.

The cleaner’s head shot in their direction with a jerky, unnatural movement at Vasso’s slightly louder voice. Frija gasped at the rapidity, Vasso taking a step back. Ranvir, in turn, took a step forward. He held his arm out to the side, palm facing down. He didn’t know if the servant was within the translation stone’s range yet, so Ranvir slowly edged closer.

The man queried him in their foreign language, confirming his theory. “Stay calm and move slowly,” Ranvir spoke slowly, then began chanting. “Do you understand me?” to the bird-man.

The man who had been watching Ranvir nervously as well as the children behind him startled, dropping the broom.

“What happened?” he asked in a stunned tone. “I- you-“

“I have a trick,” Ranvir replied, cutting the cleaner off. “But I need to be relatively close to someone before it starts translating.”

“Oh,” the man’s head cocked to the side in a birdlike manor. His hands cradled together before his navel, fingers like avian talons. “Um… where did you guys come from? You’re not supposed to be back here.”

Ranvir smiled. “No, of course not,” he held up the beacon. “I was traveling to my beacon, only to find it dug up and put into storage.”

“Traveling?” the man asked, before shaking his head. “I probably shouldn’t be talking with you.”

Ranvir sighed. “Honestly, probably not. Do you have like a boss, or something? Maybe someone who’s in charge of the household, a majordomo?”

“I’ll… check,” the man said, slowly edging down the hallway. Ranvir realized that he’d inadvertently blocked off the man’s only passage in or out, and so he rapidly backed up until he rejoined the children.

The servant scurried off.

“Did you hear him, dad?” Frija asked. “He was singing, wasn’t he?”

Ranvir cocked his head, considering. There was a sing-song quality to his speech, but he wouldn’t quite qualify it as singing.

“He had a bird face,” Vasso said, sounding and looking stunned. “A beak.”

Ranvir nodded and checked that both of them were holding up well.

It didn’t take long before footsteps approached. These were much heavier and came with the clank of armor. Ranvir’s tether-sense scoured the newcomers. Each of them felt on the cusp of second-stage.

Stronger than any first-stage tethered, but not quite the equal of a second-stage. What surprised Ranvir was their consistency. Each was such a close match for the others, Ranvir wasn’t sure he could’ve repeated the feat with Amanaris and a personal trainer.

They came around the corner, five bulky men. Their closed face helmets lending them a threatening air where their spirits failed. Each carried a mace on their hip, shield on their arm, and a spear over their shoulder. Plate armor covered their forms in uniform patterns. Ranvir would’ve almost called them quintuplets, if the idea wasn’t completely laughable.

“Hello,” Ranvir greeted, as they approached within the translation stone’s reach. Vasso and Frija drew behind his legs and Ranvir did not turn his hand down from these people.

“How did you get in here?” one guard said.

“Through my beacon,” Ranvir said, pointing to the plate Vasso now carried.

The guards were quiet for a time, then stepped away. Clearly, they had the skill to sense the translation stone’s influence and retreated out of it to speak. They all had deep, rough voices, interspersed with low growling or groaning.

“I can’t quite place what they sound like,” Ranvir said.

“Monsters,” Vasso whispered.

“I think they sound like pigs.”

Vasso gasped and turned to her in astonishment. Frija just shrugged.

“Closer to pig than monster,” Ranvir said.

“I think a boar, then,” Vasso said, frowning slightly.

Frija pursed her lips in confusion.

“What?” Ranvir asked. Before she could answer, one guardsman stepped into the translation sphere.

“Follow us,”

“To where?”

“One of the magistrate will see you.”

Magistrates? Ranvir thought as he gestured for Frija and Vasso to follow. Someone of position within the country? Did we end up in the palace?

“I thought boars were pigs,” Frija muttered to herself, rubbing her free hand over her tummy.