Everything became a blur as the man in shiny armor and I fought back and forth. I immediately recognized I wouldn’t be able to do any damage to him with strikes due to his armor, and while his metal clad fists could likely break through my Force Armor in due time he shifted his strategy to match mine after a few moments. I had a slight advantage in size, though what my opponent lacked in height he made up for in width. It was also clear he had trained his strength and skill.

Though I didn’t sense him using any class abilities, it quickly became clear that I was his inferior in terms of physical prowess. I had grown too used to Earth, where powers applicable to martial combat were slightly more rare compared to the class system here.

Soon enough I was on my back with the heavy weight of the armored fellow on my chest. “Now we shall see what you are hiding!” the figure declared. He removed my mask and his eyes narrowed. “... Well you’re not on any of the wanted posters. Though I thought there was something about an orc…?” He tilted his head as he raised his fist, seeming to ponder punching me in the face.

A familiar voice broke through the atmosphere. “What’s going on here, Sir Kalman, Turlough?”

We both looked over to see Rordan stepping out of his shop. I looked back at the knight, seeing the clear image of a lion. He looked down at me, then stood up. “Well obviously it was just a sparring session,” he said, reaching down towards me with his hand. “I recognized the figure of the savior of Mossley and wanted to test his abilities.”

I took his hand, letting the stout fellow yank me to my feet. “And of course I wanted to test myself against a ranking knight in the Order of the Lion,” I said. He might have taken a combat stance first, but I was maybe technically the one who made the first move. And then he’d won quite handily. At least he was breathing heavily.

I realized Midnight had been watching the whole time, and I could still feel a small amount of concern overwhelmed by amusement.

“Pfeh,” the man Rordan had called Sir Kalman tore off his helmet, revealing a beard that must have been screaming to get out. “These helmets are so stuffy.”

It was technically possible for a human to grow a beard like his, but it would be a matter of great struggle. Given his barely five foot height and stoutness, however, I had to conclude that he was a dwarf. The local version, of course, not Earth’s version that encompassed a variety of extremely small humans..

“So…” Sir Kalman began slowly. “The townsfolk here tell me you have some idea about the events that happened here. Involving competing groups of similarly oddly dressed fellows.”

“Well, it’s not quite that simple…” I began. “But it’s not that complicated either, I guess. Recently there has been a connection to another world where people have strange powers. I disappeared from Master Uvithar’s tower through one of those, and learned that many of those portals were caused by a supervillain in that world.” I paused to think, “There are a lot of nice people there too, though.”

The dwarf stroked his beard. “A supervillain, you say? A villain who rules over other villains?” That wasn’t quite right… but it also wasn’t that wrong. “Like some sort of dark lord.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But mixed in among the populace of a large city instead of off on his own. Anyway the people who caused trouble here were… probably unrelated to him.” I frowned, “Though we don’t actually know. Just that it’s recently more common and potentially easier to make portals between our dimensions.”

“We have several of their members in custody,” Sir Kalman said. “These Grunners. Due mainly to you and your allies, I hear. Unfortunately even with Translation magic we haven’t been able to learn much as they seem to be minions.”

“This place wasn’t exactly equipped to restrain people with weird powers,” I said. “So we thought it best to keep them somewhere that we could. I’m here to try to establish more formal communication between us.”

“Yeah? How did you get here anyway?” Kalman asked.

“Through the Gate spell.”

“Really?” he raised an eyebrow. “That’s a powerful one. I’m surprised someone of your age can cast that.”

“Well, I can’t quite. Not on my own,” I admitted. “I require my familiar Midnight to assist me,” I gestured.

“Hello,” Midnight said from his position to the side. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Kalman recoiled for a second. “Ah!” Then he cleared his throat. “I did see you earlier. Hello, Midnight. It is a pleasure to meet you as well.” He turned back to me. “I didn’t expect a familiar to be so eloquent.”

“Well, he’s not really a cat,” I said. “He’s something more magical to begin with.” Magical was a good enough word.

“Interesting,” Kalman said. “But that doesn’t matter much to me. I’m more interested in you. I heard that just over a year prior you were… underleveled. But now you are capable of using top tier spells.”

“Well, due to Curse of the Barbarian I wasn’t able to really level here in Mossley. The other world has more opportunities to engage in battle, so I grew quickly. And probably overstretched myself learning Gate, to be honest.”

Kalman sighed. The two of us exchanged a serious loook. “It’s difficult, isn’t it? ‘Oh no, Kalman, you mustn’t talk about the monsters in the hills. Definitely don’t go fight them. Just mediate and pray all day and you’ll somehow get better at using your sword’. They say this country is peaceful, and then a whole town is taken over without us being able to do anything,” he grimaced.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“I’m pretty sure people lied about everything,” I said. “Because just imported from this world I fought wyverns and an ooze and some dragons…”

“Dragons?” Kalman frowned.

“Wyrmlings,” I shook my head. “But I didn’t even mention the orcish horde Doctor Doomsday has been importing!” I coughed, “Villainous orcs, of course.”

“... Doctor?” Kalman tilted his head again.

“They use that word for people with a lot of education. Like a learned scholar or…”

“An archmage?”

“Well, not quite. But it’s not that wrong either. Except with how their weird powers that doesn’t always matter.” I frowned. “Come to think of it I don’t know if Doctor Doomsday is an actual doctor or just got called that after he got powers.”

“It sounds strange.”

“It is!” I agreed. “You never know what to expect with people. Some just fly around, shooting lasers, while others turn into acid and still others go really fast!”

“While I would love to hear more about these oddities,” Sir Kalman said, “I need to get the details about what happened here in Mossley.”

“Oh, right.” I explained about the Grey Gunners, and why I even happened to come back to Mossley through a weird other plane in this dimension. “And Master Uvithar’s tower is destroyed! What happened with that?”

“Another concern,” Kalman nodded. “He was not in frequent magical communication with others, or we would have noticed sooner. The strange damage to the tower was from these… ‘guns’ and explosives?”

“I think he moved out before they showed up and they just blew up the tower for fun,” I said. “Based on the lack of books in the rubble.”

“Still, this Grey group has committed many crimes. And now that we know about them, it is simple to connect them to the disappearances in the area.”

“Disappearances?” I asked.

“Abductions, more like,” Kalman shook his head.

“That’s bad,” I said. I looked to Rordan.

He shook his head sadly. “Some from Mossley are gone too. Aside from those we know were killed, I mean.”

“Why would they…?” I didn’t even have to finish the question. The same reason people would commit any crimes, because it benefited them in some way. The Grey Gunners were already committing illegal acts, so why not kidnapping and potentially slavery? Though it did make the matter require more serious escalation on Earth. “We have to try to get them back.”

“Well, I would assume they were taken through that portal,” Kalman said. “And with the portal closed…”

We should have stormed their base. Except, of course, we simply didn’t have that many people- nor did we know the full situation at the time. Calculator had done his best to reveal the location with the device he’d tossed through, but the local heroes and mercenaries couldn’t do anything to save people they didn’t even know were in trouble. And with the takeover of Mossley lasting as long as it had, some of those people could be anywhere.

There had to be magic that would help. Scrying… wouldn’t tell me anything if I didn’t know who I was looking for with some detail. Though if we could gather possessions of those missing, it might be possible. Otherwise, Locate Creature wouldn’t really work even if I had it because it wasn’t any good at locating general things. Except…

“Who was abducted?” I asked. “Any features in common?”

Kalman shrugged. “All sorts of people. Mostly young, but that’s expected.”

“Humans?” I asked.

“Some, I think,” he frowned. “But maybe less than average?”

That was something that might work, then. Though the range wasn’t anything spectacular, I could pick out many of the missing people by looking for elves, dwarves, halflings, and anything of the sort in general. There might be a few false flags from other extradimensional individuals, but it was something.

I sighed. I was resigning myself to a lot of work that wouldn’t involve combat again, wasn’t I? Though if I was lucky I would be able to beat up a few people at the end of every trail.

But first we would have to deal with all sorts of other details. “You said you have people with Translation here?” I asked. Kalman nodded. “Mind if I bring over a little green man to engage in diplomacy?”

“A goblin?” he tilted his head.

“Not at all. Actually, I guess the correct option would be the angel.” She was the one in charge of extradimensional stuff, after all. Though perhaps someone of lower rank would be more appropriate.

What else? Calculator would want to have a list of everyone missing. Every detail we could get. Because even if the Power Brigade didn’t get directly involved, someone would pay to have them back.

“Hey, I’m not actually like a hero or something,” I pointed out. “I work for a mercenary group. Can we arrange to be paid in gold?”

“As they are common folk, I can’t imagine you would get many golds each.”

“Yeah but people on Earth really value gold,” I said. “Though I guess it’s not my job to negotiate payment.” We might be able to get Yew-Kay to pay us instead for stopping criminals? Or some of both? There was some ethical limit, of course, and I wanted to save everyone regardless. But more people would get involved more easily at a higher price.

By the end of the day, I had a list of details and Kalman promised to get as many personal effects related to people as possible, for the sake of Scrying. Then it was time for me to return home- but not before securing a location that should be safe to Gate in and out of for the sake of not having to walk from outside town. It was just an alleyway, but it wouldn’t disturb people too much.

When I returned to Earth, I realized I wasn’t done with work because Midnight and I had to spend hours explaining things to Extra and the Brigade, though at least we got them together instead of doing it one by one.

After that we were going to test if I could scry on anyone with just their names and descriptions. Because while it was already time for us to go to bed, people in Yew-Kay were just waking up. And this wasn’t really the sort of thing we could delay on.

At that point, it was already very late to go anywhere, but Jerome wasn’t constrained by school hours and Tylissa now worked whatever hours were necessary. So we were still able to meet up.