“Then you understand,” Brookie agreed. “That is why we need to get back. When the first money came in from my Brand, I started looking into Skills that can travel to other worlds. There’s a problem with those types of Skills, I learned.”

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“Nobody that uses them ever comes back.”

“Never?” I asked. “No offense, but how do we know those Skills work at all if nobody comes back from them?”

“We don’t,” Brookie admitted, “but that line of inquiry is immaterial. The Brokers have never been able to collect a Brand for such a Skill. Most rissians who develop one simply disappear shortly after reaching adolescence. That is why my plan is different: I will create a stable portal between worlds.”

“You mean like the ones the Porter’s use, right?” I asked. “So you can walk right between them?”

“Not quite the same, but similar,” Brookie said. “In my research on Outworld travel, I found mention of a device that was created as part of an experiment that was done in a city called Torrid Basin. The file had plans for how to construct an artifact that would create a stable portal between worlds, with follow-up entries cataloguing their progress. There was mention of a modification that would allow specific worlds to be opened, but no description of how to create that device.”

“Then what?” I asked.

“Then nothing,” Brookie said. “That was it. There was only the one file. I looked around but couldn’t find any more information about the experiment. I threw a mind-boggling amount of money at the problem, hiring archivists and investigators to track down more information. That was my mistake. I’d stumbled across an old dusty tome buried deep in some library that someone probably forgot was even there. Once I gave it too much attention, word spread to the wrong ears that I was asking about a project someone had tried to bury.”

“The Skinners found out?” I guessed.

Brookie rubbed a hand against his chin, frowning. “They did,” he confirmed. “It was not a coincidence that I wasn’t able to discover any more information about this experiment. It had been intentionally destroyed. If they’d known the book I found existed, they would have destroyed it too. Several of the investigators I hired went missing, so I contacted the others and pulled them off the job. I don’t know what happened to the ones that went missing, but they must’ve talked, because a few days later, men in masks broke into my manor and stole the file I had discovered. The file with the evidence about the experiment.”

“Did you say masks?” I asked. “I heard something about masks the other day. There was some paladin asking about them in Haemir. He wanted to know if I saw a mask in with Ferrith’s possessions. The priest apologized on his behalf. Said he was obsessed with some kind of conspiracy. It didn’t sound like anyone else believed him. You know… I wonder if he was talking about the same—”

“Ah ha!” Brookie thundered. “It is not just me. I would very much like to speak with this paladin and see what he knows. But later. As I was saying, men with masks stole the file. But I had made a copy, you see? Not out of any sense of paranoia, mind you, it was just hard to read such an old file. I left the original down in my basement where the moisture was controlled, so when they raided my house, they only found the copy. After that, I did make more copies out of paranoia.”

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“So these Skinners were trying to prevent you from learning more?” I asked.

“Indeed,” Brookie said. “Once I realized the danger associated with this old research project I was looking into, I was much more careful. I believe that first attack was the only time actual Skinners came for me. Later, when they sent agents after my assistants, they were all Shadow agents hired anonymously.”

“Sorry, what’s the Shadow?”

“Just a criminal organization. They’ll take a job with anyone that pays.”

“So why don’t you just pay them?” I asked. “Just pay them more money to not take contracts against you.”

“I already do that,” Brookie explained. “At least with the local branch here in Oxenraith. They will give me a chance to match any bounty against me, but they can’t do anything about Shadow agents that are brought in from other areas. The Shadow… they’re not centrally organized. I don’t have enough money to pay off every agent in the world. But anyway, paying them off didn’t keep me safe. They just sent it after me instead. The only reason I’ve been able to survive it is through the mastery of my Skill.”

“Homeward Bound?” I asked. “I don’t get how teleporting home could save you. What if it attacked you at home? Or followed you back there?”

“That doesn’t work on me anymore,” Brookie said. “Maybe in the early years, but I wasn’t on anyone’s kill list back then. After training with the university’s Skill Scholars, I can convince myself that any place I’ve been before is my home. Instant teleportation to nearly anywhere on this planet. There are only a few other Skills capable of doing the same, and they’re all tightly controlled by the Porter’s Guild. They teach courses here at Oxenraith on mastering Homeward to the affluently wealthy to let them accomplish the same task with their Brands. I believe the technique takes most students four years to master. I did it in two.”

“That’s a cool story,” I said, “but I kind of wanted to hear the part about how your assistants ended up getting killed. I mean, you’re asking me to be one of them, right?”

“Of course,” Brookie said. “After I survived the first wave of attacks, I was more careful about who I hired to help with my investigation. I was as discreet as a ten foot tall ogre can be, working through multiple layers of intermediaries. Those I hired demanded to either see the original copy of the tome or meet me in person. Each claimed they could determine certain information only if their conditions were met. I sent those that wanted the original tome magically created identical copies and never heard from them again. When I showed up to the meet-ups, they were all traps designed to kill or capture me. They failed, of course, but I still didn’t get the help I needed to crack this mystery. Everyone I hired either ended up dead, went missing, or actively worked to betray me. That was when I realized rissians couldn’t be trusted.”

“That was when you brought in the other ogres?” I said. “The intelligent ones?”

“Correct,” Brookie confirmed. “As Outworlders themselves, they had no incentive to betray me. And I could also be assured they weren’t secretly a Skinner sent to infiltrate my investigation. It worked for a while until my team started getting killed one-by-one. Every time one of them died, I learned from their mistakes. We got better. More careful. I gave them the best Brands and equipment money could buy.”

“But they still died,” I finished. “How is it going to go any different for me? No offense to you, but I’m much happier not getting dragged into some secret power struggle. Right now I’m a nobody. I like it that way. I leave everyone else alone, and they leave me alone.”

“How will you find your way home, if not through me?” Brookie challenged. “Nobody else will care to take you. I fund a research team at the Construct College here in Oxenraith that has successfully recreated the Outworld Gate described in the book I found.”

“Oh. I get it. It’s blackmail? Help you or I don’t get to go home?”

Brookie shook his head emphatically. “No. That is not my intention. When I get this gate working, it is my wish that it can remain here to help any future Outworlders find their way home. If I unlocked its secret tomorrow, I would take you to your Earth, but I cannot. I need the accessory device they crafted in the Torrid Basin experiment. I can use the gate we have constructed to open Outworld portals, but doing so is extremely dangerous, and we have no control over it. Each time we power it on, it opens to a new, random world.”