“That’s unfortunate,” Cleary said, “but we’ve come across principled people before. We don’t land every fish.”
“I’m not sure we can afford to let this one off the hook. I think he intends to democratise some of the advantages that we’ve been hoarding. He potentially poses a threat to our position.”
“We can live with that,” Cleary said. “We anticipated leaking some of this in the next few years anyway. Things are coming to a head, and we’ve heard China was looking to make some overtures to the world at large as part of their goals to become the sole hegemon once magic goes public. If we can’t beat them to that punch, we can at least take some wind out of their sails by letting the treasures they were going to bestow come from a source that doesn’t pose us any threat.”
“You’re saying we should walk away? We don’t want to consider taking the outworlder off the board?”
“Are you advocating that?”
“No,” Houseman said. “The guy unnerves me. I was told about his aura beforehand, but nothing prepares you for experiencing it for yourself. If he stands and fights, we can put him down, no question. If he runs, though, our security team isn’t confident of containment. My instincts tell me that he is not an enemy I want out there, waiting for his moment in the dark.”
“You’re the man on the ground, so your opinion holds a lot of weight. It also aligns with our own concerns. The International Committee knows what the outworlders represent. The IC may just be there to rubber stamp the things we want but they’ve had a taste of the good stuff now. They’ll buck if we snatch it right out of their mouths. If the outworlders come to us on their own, that’s one thing, but us taking them out is another.”
“We could blame it on the Chinese.”
“Too risky. That’s my sense anyway. Our response will have to be decided above the branch level, so we’ll take your report to the National Council. Anticipate them wanting a video briefing from you. I imagine the response will be to let it go, though. We have no idea what kind of tricks he brought back from the other world. In the meantime, hold tight, stay quiet and don’t cause trouble.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s not like we won’t get any nuggets of gold that he drops on the International Committee anyway,” Cleary said. “In fact, we get first pick off the pile. Most likely, we’ll shift our approach to dominating the International Committee’s interactions with the outworlders.”
“I know that decision is above my head,” Houseman said, “but I think that would be the sound approach.”
Jason and Farrah were sat at a table in the houseboat, going over lists.
“You’ll need to trade some of these essences with the Network,” Farrah said. “You have far too many growth and plant essences. You can certainly use some of them, but you should swap them out for a selection of common essences before we take a proper look at what we give to your family.”
“The renewal essence I have I want to give to Taika,” Jason said. “I was thinking an immortal confluence.”
“That’s generous,” Farrah said. “Renewal essences can sell for as much as peak-rarity ones.”
“Taika has already agreed to be the head of security for my family,” Jason said. “I want him to have topflight powers, plus I feel responsible for dragging him into this.”
“That puts him on the list of people we train instead of feed up with cores,” Farrah said. “We need to determine which members of your family go on that list.”
“The only ones I’m willing to consider are Erika, Ian and, eventually, Emi. The rest get cores, end of story. My guess is that Erika and Ian won’t go for it, though. Just convincing them to let us train Emi will be a thing.”
“They’re too old anyway, to be honest,” Farrah said. “If this world had skill books, it might be a different story, assuming they even got the power to use them. If you want family members who are trained properly, you need them to be Emi’s age or younger and start training them now.”
“That would mean expanding the pool of family members who know the truth,” Jason said. “We just promised the Network to be careful about that.”
“We also promised to train up a group of young people from the Network’s families,” Farrah said. “You and I will do better to retain a level of independence, but your family joining the Network as a whole would be nothing but beneficial.”
“You think the Network would go for that?”
“They’d do it just to sink their roots into you,” Farrah said.
“Good point,” Jason said. “They have the experience and resources for a mass induction, too. All I could do would be to set up a movie theatre and show them all my holiday vlog.”
“I’m going to train Hiro in array magic,” Farrah said. “That should be more manageable than adventurer training, especially with the right essences.”
There was a whiteboard next to them with two columns labelled ‘trade’ and ‘keep’. As they went through Jason’s essences, picking combinations for his family, they had been sorting the essences into the two columns.
Jason glanced at the keep column, where the first three listed essences had been reserved by Farrah for Hiro. Two were amongst his highest-rarity essences—the vast and rune essences. The third was the common, but still valuable, magic essence. That would produce the prosperity confluence, which was shared by Neil from his team back in the other world. The resulting powers would be very different, though, being a combination hand-picked by Farrah to synergise with array magic.
“I’d love to have a set like that myself,” Farrah said, “but it’s not suited for adventuring. It’s a classic crafting combination. Almost everyone who has it is a core user. Not to say that it can’t be used in a fight, although it seriously lacks efficiency when operating on less than a battlefield-scale conflict.”
“It’s common, then?”
“The vast essence is of the highest rarity, so common isn’t the right word. It’s probably the most widely used combination involving that essence, though. Anyone who has it is never lacking for work in any high-magic regions. You’ll see why as Hiro and I work on your family compound project together.”
The park at Castle Bluff had an oddly elaborate obstacle course, courtesy of a town councillor obsessed with fitness. Since he was so adamant about acquiring funding for healthy school lunch program and child fitness initiatives, he had no concerns about retaining his seat year after year. Now in his seventies, he could still be found using the obstacle course himself every week. Jason and Farrah knew him enough to say hello after using the park for mobility training every day for weeks.
They picked up Emi from school and, wary of being seen using portals, drove to Castle Bluff Park. On this day, there was a pair of people mover vans following them around.
“Is this the best use of our time?” a man said as people clambered out of the van. “I don’t see why we couldn’t do all this in Sydney.”