Book 3, Chapter 10

10. Portals

Author's Note: Last chapter until next Friday, when the releases begin on Royal Road.  See the news post if you haven't already

There’s a phrase I learned on Earth.  Hurry up and wait.  That’s what I was doing now.

There were plenty of things to do.  Mostly I just needed to be seen.  Although the workers who were rushing about weren’t going to be involved in the actual fighting, they were vital to my plans, and I needed them to accomplish the goals that I and their other leaders had put them about.

Only about fifteen of them remained at the villa.  Two were the nursemaids who were taking turns taking care of my mother and brother.  The rest would come with me to the capital, but were currently busy with the task of fortifying the villa under the direction of Malkios and Randal.

One goblin almost hit me in the head as he used a cutting ability to saw through the ceiling above me as he created a murderhole in the entrance.  He looked surprised to see me staring up at him.  I gave him a thumbs up, and he vanished.

When the battles began, this villa would be the most well defended structure in all of Thorn March.  And that was completely excluding the mages who would be on hand to portal my family out of harms way should the villa come under attack.  I was not taking chances with the lives of my mother, nor the reborn baby Rain.

Even if they could be reborn again in a new body, my heart would not take the strain of going through what Nial had done to me a second time.

“Eclipse, are you listening?” I asked.

“I am now,” the Trickster goddess whispered in my ear.  “What is it that you desire?  Would you like me to assure victory?  I’m not quitecertain that is within my power, but--”

“I would count it as a personal favor if you would extend your protection to my mother and brother,” I said simply.  “If the other gods act against them--”

“They will not.  The ones you have named are already under the protection of Thedum.  Only darkspawn and Travelers may harm them.  But I will keep an eye on them, and maybe if any Traveler looks like they’re about to succeed in harming them, well, I’ll see it as a chance to earn a favor from you!”  The childlike voice concluded her statements by giggling with malicious glee.  I tuned her out until she stopped paying attention to me.

Satisfied that I had done all I could to prepare the villa for any possible Traveler attack, I gathered up my bodyguards, the ones who would be staying behind with my family, and gave them as rousing of a speech as I could manage.  I think it came across as somewhat boring, however, and two of them disappeared to manage their Earth bodies during it with just a slight apology.

“Thedum keep my family safe,” I said along the way.  An old prayer from childhood.  I did not expect a response.

“They will be protected,” Thedum answered.  “There will be no repeat of Nial Kingslayer this time.  They have me and Eclipse watching over them, and between Light and Trickery, there is no place for anyone to hide who means them harm.”

“Thank you.”

I didn’t point out that, technically, Thedum wasn’t the god of light.  If he wanted to bring his wife into the mix, it might be better to do so by implication than naming her.  Lights can blind you when you look too closely into them.  Better to hold them at a distance to light the path than to burn yourself.

I set out for Briarton with high spirits, accompanied by a few of the non-combat Travelers.  At level 38, I wasn’t the highest level person there, but I was likely the strongest, even accounting for the damage reduction caused by level disparity.  The others were, after all, dressed for their professions rather than combat, displaying outfits which actually made them look like servants, handymen, and carpenters.  And they had all given up on reaching high levels, an attitude I had once thought alien to the Traveler mindset.

Reflecting on that made me think of Leonard, and I wondered how the recursion would affect him and his goals.  I had given him management my three vineyards, which had come with the lands of Thornmarch themselves, but I had not spoken with him since then.  He had some sort of plan he wished to engage in, and I hoped that the recursion would not impact those plans severely.

Once I reached Briarton, it was quite obvious where the portal beacon would be located.  The system itself was installing the beacon into the world, and much like when I had explored the forming dungeon I had created inside the Goblin’s Trash Pit, or whatever the name of the dungeon ended up being, it appeared now as an outline of itself.

After speaking with the locals, I borrowed a few chairs and the equipment to set up a temporary pavilion for myself and my followers as we waited for the system to count down to zero.  I even took a nap at one point, just to be rested for the rush that would follow.  It would be more than two days of game time before Travelers would begin finding their own way into The Recent Past, so every moment I was forced to spend resting would count against me.

At the same point, I couldn’t simply not sleep.  I had tried that when I was younger.  My mind needed rest, even when my health and mana were full.  If I didn’t get it, then things began to … get weird.

Eighty of my followers gathered with me for the opening of the portal complex.  The remaining twenty planned to remain in Thorn March to complete various objectives, defend my family, or lay down rabbit holes and goose chases for the unaffiliated Travelers to follow their way through in the event that they flooded Thorn March.

Each of them had their own instructions and goals.  Myself included.  With a sudden flash of light and the sound of the system manifesting itself ringing through the air like a gong, the portal complex became real.  Three mages suddenly teleported inside, examined the waiting group, and huffed to themselves.

“Right then.  I suppose there’s already a line, is there?” the leader of the Native mage crew asked.  “Who’s first?”

“I need to go to Zhesa City,” I answered.  “I am Earl Hail Jeoran and these are my followers.  Nineteen of them will journey with me, if possible.”

“With a complex this size we can’t move more than five at a time,” the second mage explained.  “Figure the rest out for yourselves.”

I hadn’t known that there would be a restriction like this, but it didn’t surprise me either.  I stepped onto the platform, paid for the passage for everyone present to have one trip, and allowed the nineteen who were supposed to follow me to the capital city to argue amongst themselves over which of their tasks were most important.  The delay would be slight, anyway, as when questioned, the mages admitted that they could run the platform every five minutes.

Deferring the decision to my followers was the correct action, as they came to almost the exact conclusion I would have, without me needing to explain or justify myself.  Those remaining behind, including Daemon, were already forming a counsel to establish a schedule for everyone else.

Once everyone was on the platform, the three mages stood in their post, chanted their cantrips, and the glyphs beneath us flashed various colors.  With a flash of magic, we were launched away, and I experienced the same disorientation I always associated with Fast Travel.

We arrived moments later in the much larger facility in Zhesa city, through which I had once traveled to Eoltree.  A moment after I had settled myself and gotten my bearings, another prompt popped up before me.

You have performed an action of note which will resonate into The Near Future!

By traveling through a portal complex established in The Recent Past, Travelers will soon be able to use this portal complex in Zhesa city to make a one way journey from The Near Future into The Recent past.

Time remaining until passage opens: 101hrs59m

I sighed, because here was another unexpected development.  I didn’t know for certain whether every traveler who passed through a stabilized portal complex would trigger a chain reaction, or whether the transfer required that I make a personal journey to create the link.  I expected that someone would tell me in short order, as three companions broke off to one of the outgoing platforms.  They were only here to travel elsewhere, after all.

“Good luck on your journeys,” I called to them.  “Remember, you are representing House Jeoran!  Do so with pride!”

My friends cheered back to me, and Zimmer and I each left the facility in separate directions.  Zimmer went to find his contacts with The Beggar’s Court, while I went to prepare for the political ramifications of my planned actions.  For that, I would need to find allies among the nobility, and I had an idea where to start.

Keithan Selmy was, by all accounts, a fine man.  He was older than me, twenty three years old, but only level forty.  A captain in the King’s Army.  I had never known him before my grandfather’s shade had instructed me to write not one, but two letters regarding him.  One to his father, and one to the man who had raised him.

Marquise Peori was the only man with the political capital to back me in a campaign against Uncle Storm, and Keithan was his illegitimate son.  His mother, wife of a Baron Selmy, was one of the Marquise’s many lovers, but her husband had never had the spine to denounce their adultery for various reasons.  He likely told himself they were political, but there was enough gossip on the matter that I suspected the truth was cowardice.

The Marquise was powerful enough to go toe to toe with Duke Storm Teoran.  That made him a dangerous man to offend.  And potentially a powerful ally.

Thus, I hoped to make inroads with his son.  We had much in common, after all.  We were both bastards, although we had been told we were both legitimate when we were young.  We had both been groomed for a career in the military at one point in our lives, although my life had taken a severely different route when I had been adopted by the Traveler guild <Nethersong Mavericks>.  I knew that he did not possess a seed of consciousness, because Thomas had promised that he would not hide it when others like me were introduced into this world, but I felt a kinship with the man despite having never met him.

His fate might have been mine, had I not run away and gotten trolled by Severus, once upon a time.  I just wished that I had more time to befriend the man before the clock struck zero and Travelers began arriving from the near future.

I was rushing through the city, riding upon Shadow, and thinking these thoughts, when suddenly a burst of pink and blue light opened a portal, and through it came five people.  Stan, Thena, Larissa, Corinth, and Wesle.  Larissa pointed at me and exclaimed in triumph “You see!  I told you this would work!” just before the portal closed behind them.

I pulled Shadow to a stop so suddenly that he reared, and I gained a point in [Animal Handling].  I stared at the arrivals, stupefied at how this was possible.

“My friends, how did you--”

“Archmage Blanch taught me a spell to navigate time,” Larissa explained.  “I’ve got a couple of really cool new spells since we saw you last, Hail.  And me and Larissa can work together for even more awesome effects, like this one.  Not only were we able to open a portal to The Recent Past, but together we were able to target it to you specifically.  Genius, right?”

Genius?  Yes.  Unexpected?  Yes.  “Can you do it again?”

“Sorry.  The spells in question have a one week real time cooldown,” Thena said.  “This entire event will be over well before they’re available again.  And the portal only allows five people through.  Since you already had Laurant and Phil, we thought we’d bring some more friends of yours who could hold their own.”

“Plus me,” Wesle said suddenly.  “I’m not sticking around in your party, Hail.  I have … other things to do.  It’s better if I don’t tell you what they are.”

Suspicious, I [Analyzed] him, and was disappointed to see that my fears were justified.  He had changed his class from [Rogue] to [Assassin], and was now level 65.  I doubted I could win against him in a fight, and I had some idea of what it was that he intended to do.  I could think of only one course of action.

For the first time ever, I cast [Magic Circle: Personal Crest] on a person, rather than a document.  It gained three levels, and Wesle’s chest suddenly glowed blue as my magic made its mark upon him.  The light faded, but the crest remained.

“WTF was that?” he demanded.

“If you’re going to kill people for me, you’re either going to do it in total secrecy, or with my full support,” I explained.  “If you are seen in whatever missions you have planned for yourself, the witnesses will know that you are acting on my behalf.”

“Oh,” He said, growing serious.  He was examining a quest prompt which had appeared before him when I cast the spell.  “It seems that the system likes your idea, Hail.  It gave me quests.  Challenge quests, they won’t be easy.  I’ll probably die on at least one of them, but I’m going to try anyway.  Thanks.  This will be fun.”

He ran off into the distance before I could explain how that was very much notwhat I had intended.