Nigel pointed out the four people radiating silver-rank auras. One of the men was an Indigenous Australian issuing instructions to the other three.
“Once we go through the aperture, he’s the man on the ground with the final say on all operational decisions,” Nigel said. “Master under God, as it were. Sections are expected to operate independently, though, since all the magic in dimensional spaces tends to fuzz-out comms. It’s not like they don’t work at all, but they have a habit of being unreliable, especially when a lot of powers are being thrown around.”
“Actually,” Jason said, “I might be able to help there.”
“Help how?” Nigel asked.
“I have a power that can serve as a communication system. I got a bump in the numbers it can affect when I hit bronze, but I never had the people to make the most of it.”
“What’s the range?”
“About a half-dozen klicks, under normal conditions,” Jason said. “With this much magic, at least a dozen, maybe fourteen.”
“Klicks,” Orange said. “Look at you with the military lingo.”
“Yeah, because I’ve seen any war movie from the last thirty years,” Jason said. “I guess you do seem like someone who doesn’t get closer to movies than running a dog fighting ring in an old Blockbuster store.”
“That’s enough,” Nigel scolded as the team cracked up laughing. “Give me a rundown of this ability.”
Jason explained his party interface’s voice chat function to Nigel, who then took him to do the same for the DTO.
“It can do a sixty-person raid group, with each member able to access two discrete channels,” Jason explained. “Each of up to six ten-person parties gets their own, plus another one that’s group-wide. That won’t let us include the military, but it should just cover your Network contingent.”
Jason invited Koen and Nigel to a group. The two men were startled as they encountered his interface, but Jason quickly demonstrated the functionality.
“This is in line with powers I’ve seen from some international branches,” Koen said. “We’ve never had access to it before, which makes you my new favourite person, Asano. Comms is the second biggest operating concern we have.”
“What’s the biggest?” Jason asked.
“Where to take a dump in active combat,” Koen said. “That being a non-factor for essence users does more to ease our operations than any power in our roster.”
Koen called back the other section leaders so that the tactical sections would be expecting it when Jason sent out raid group invites. Gladys was very different from Jason’s previous experiences. The air of flirtatiousness was replaced with one of cool professionalism. Jason warned Koen that going through the aperture would most likely break the link, but Koen wanted to do it anyway. Getting the people used to the power before they went through would save trouble when it was reapplied on the other side.
Jason returned to Nigel’s section while Nigel remained with Koen, discussing revised operating procedures given access to reliable communication.
“So, you have video game powers?” Digit asked Jason. He was Nigel’s second in command of their section. Nigel’s official rank was section leader, while Digit was section second. That was equivalent to a corporal and lance-corporal, respectively.
“Something like that,” Jason said, glancing over at Koen and Nigel. “Why does Nigel get his own section when he’s only a category two?”
“They were in the army together,” Digit said. “When Koen was bumped from Chief Training Officer up to Director of Tactical Operations, he recruited Nigel to replace him. Most of us actually grew up in Network families and got our essences without any kind of combat experience. We have people from the families who’ve been trained, of course, but we like to pull in more contemporary soldiers like Koen and Thorny to keep us current.”
The aperture to the proto-astral space wasn’t visible to the naked eye, although magical senses made it extremely easy to see. It was a more tenuous bridge across dimensional boundaries than a normal aperture and appeared to Jason’s senses as if it might collapse at any moment.
It couldn’t be traversed in its natural state. A team of Network ritualists worked to stabilise and open the aperture. It was a similar process to opening the archway into the astral space the Order of the Reaper had occupied, with the aperture at the centre of a large magical diagram. Mana lamps were unnecessary, as the aperture itself provided all the magic needed.
Jason watched with interest as the ritual was carried out, after which the aperture took the form of a normal, open astral space aperture. Jason went through with the rest of Nigel’s section.
You have entered a zone of extreme magical saturation. Magical manifestations will occur at an increased rate.
They arrived in a lush jungle, the air heavy with magic and humidity both. Through the canopy, he glimpsed a large tower made from crude brickwork. The bricks were little more than crudely shaped rock held together with roughly slathered-on mortar.
“We see a lot of repeat scenarios,” Nigel explained to Jason. “Usually, the geography is similar, thus we’re still in a valley. Jungle could be better, but could be worse. Good news: Probably no weird magic to impact our items and abilities. Bad news: This jungle will be crawling with venomous monsters. All kinds of serpents, primates with poisonous wrist barbs, giant bugs, big cats. Those are the least likely to have poison, but don’t rule it out.”
As Nigel went through his explanation, he led his people and Jason away from the aperture to allow more people to pour through. Nigel’s section took up a perimeter position alongside the other Network tactical sections as the military teams moved in—first the combat soldiers and then the logistics people, alongside the Network’s own auxiliaries.
“That tower in the distance,” Nigel pointed out, “means we’re dealing with giants, based on the scale and construction methods. A lot of the category-two roamers we see will probably be troll and ogre variants. Jungle giants are smaller than most variants, around three metres tall. They’re faster than the typical giant; not what you’d call agile, but they’ll surprise you if you aren’t careful. Expect some exotic abilities like poison breath and camouflage. Trust your aura and magic senses over your eyes.”
“Good to know,” Jason said. “You know, poison and giants are right in my sweet spot.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Nigel said. “Your job is to observe, not to fight.”
“Will do,” Jason conceded. “There’ll be other chances.”
“The category-three anchor entity will most likely also be some kind of giant,” Nigel said.
“ADEs, plural,” Green corrected him.