Jonathan Margulis looked at the compound appreciatively. He’d heard all about it, but, of course, never had seen a picture. It looked straight out of a history session, like almost everything he’d seen. Stone construction, like a 17th-century fort, claimed two years ago by early elements in Northworld in the name of the Tenth Odah Guild.
One had to admire the chutzpah behind the name. Technically correct, the best kind of correct.
“That’s where you wanted to come?” the trader who’d accompanied Jonathan over two hundred kilometers – everyone used kilometers instead of miles, he had to remind himself all the time – looked at him.
“Looks right. Got enough descriptions.”
“I often pass by. Your friends aren’t good customers,” the man said.
“Self-reliance trumps all,” Jonathan replied.
“You know, it was a thing in the first years. These days, you don’t need to do everything on your own.”
Jonathan shrugged. The man stretched his hand, and he shook it.
“Good luck then. You’ll see when you climb in levels. That’s where the world becomes your oyster. I assume your friends will help you get really started.”
“Got almost level 20 on my own.”
“That’s baby trying to grab the table leg to get up and failing.”
The trader started back on the road that ran parallel to the “guild compound”, heading further north toward the mountains Jonathan could see in the distance. He turned and waved before starting to walk faster while Jonathan waved back.
First time I get outpaced by a civilian my age, Jonathan noted. The trader had to walk at a “sedate pace” to let Jonathan keep up.
He turned and took the last few yards to the fortified compound.
Knocking at the heavily ornamented door felt weird. He had to pound with his fist to make a real sound.
It was almost cliché. A small window opened in the thick wooden door, with a pair of eyes behind.
“Dude, if you’re interested, we don’t recruit on Northworld, only on… colonel?”
“Looks like Alpha Sector got the luck of the draw,” Jonathan replied.
The small viewer window slammed closed; then grating sounds erupted as the door itself was drawn open. Jonathan waited, then slipped into the compound.
The inside of the fort felt exactly as old and primitive as the outsides. Rickety wood stairs gave access to a set of balconies running along the entire interior walls. The central courtyard had been cleared, with a triple set of targets on a wall and a series of dummies that looked straight out of a medieval set, complete with flails and small bucklers.
The gate guard saluted, and Colonel Margulis returned quickly the salute.
“Welcome to Forward Base Alpha, colonel.”
“Not quite what I expected, despite the reports. But looks good. Nice training set.”
“From what I hear, the courtyard was used for gardens when the first elements moved in when the previous ‘guild’ moved east. Spices and medicinal herbs for alchemy.”
“Really?”
“It might even have been better to keep them. I mean, colonel, the training sets do look nice, and you get some practice. But in terms of Interface experience, that’s a net zero. You can’t get XP in any combat Skill with just practice.”
“No XP, no stat increases.”
The soldier nodded.
“I think Captain Yiannis is currently in charge?”
“Two weeks to Recess. I’ll bring you.”
Captain Yiannis’s office was in one of the two towers at diametral positions on the fort’s edges. The soldier knocked.
“Yes?”
“Visitor.”
“Visitor?”
The man opened the door, and Jonathan stepped in. The man behind the desk did not look like a captain commanding a Special Ops forward base; he looked rather like a refugee from a post-apocalypse movie with leathers and straps all over – pretty much like the gate guard. Captain Yiannis immediately rose and saluted.
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“Colonel.”
“At ease.”
“Did not really expect you.”
“One chance in three. But apparently, I landed in Alpha Sector to the south.”
“How far?”
“Two hundred kilometers. I had a pair of traders that were coming that way and helped me. Not the worst trip I ever did, although I didn’t do ground ops since I got promoted three years ago.”
“Welcome to Forward Base Alpha, then. You want to…”
“No, I’m not taking command. I’ll probably ‘Recess’ tonight. The option popped up yesterday. And quite frankly, for a first in Northworld, that’s good enough for me.”
“Tonight, you say? Too bad, we’re conducting training tomorrow. There’s a ‘dungeon’ that we use to get good XP for first and second-timers. You could tag along and maybe grab some…”
“I don’t think I need to gain lots of levels to keep command,” Jonathan laughed.
Captain Yiannis snorted back.
“True.”
“Besides, I don’t think I got what it takes…”
Jonathan Hector Margulis
Health: 892/892 (recovers 174/day)
Stamina: 717/717 (recovers 2.8/sec)
Resilience: 29
Strength: 28
Dexterity: 27
Reflexes: 26
Reasoning: 24
Fortitude: 22
Perception: 19
Presence: 16
Intuition: 14
Second Wind 19 (23%)
Night Sense 10 (77%)
Shape Metal 10 (0%)
Associative Memory 9 (18%)
Art of the Sword 9 (11%)
Distract 9 (1%)
Steady Grip 8 (97%)
Deflect Strike 7 (89%)
Skinning 6 (55%)
Level: 18 – 71%
Unused points: 1
“No tier 1?”
“Not a single one.”
“You got some basics at least and some nice tier 2. You did not run the lottery?”
“I didn’t see the point. I pushed all my gains into stats. That’s what the manual says, after all.”
“You probably should have pumped up Presence. For a commanding officer…”
“Does it even work?”
“No one knows for sure. But, I mean, if the physical stats do translate somehow…”
“I’ll consider this if I come back, which I probably… won’t.”
“I wondered why Colonel Olaffsson never did…”
“He’s probably smarter than me. That’s why he got promoted to the Pentagon. When they told me I was going to take command of a ‘special unit’, I didn’t quite expect this. I suspected this only later. There is something to experiencing for yourself what your command will have.”
“But no training.”
“I wouldn’t disrupt your training.”
“No problem, sir. Want to visit the base?”
“It’s a bit weird.”
“We settled back after taking over the fort, but we did not want to disrupt the original architecture too much. In case people came around and wondered. That’s why even the low ranks get individual rooms.”
“You can’t but wonder,” Jonathan said.
Captain Yiannis shrugged.
“It’s been six years now. And everyone still wonders how this came to be.”
“Not going to be solved by the likes of us, captain.”
“Truth.”
“And I supposed I’ll be going.”
“The designated Recess place is in the courtyard, next to the combat dummies.”
“Shall we?”
The sixty-second timer expired, and Jonathan’s perspective warped abruptly from the outdoor courtyard of Forward Base Alpha to the “Northworld” hangar at Fort Carson.
The indoor facility had been set by his predecessor in command of the so-called “enhanced unit” of the Special Forces. Each Silvergate got a designated Spawn/Recess area, materialized on the ground by a ten-by-ten foot square. Colonel Jonathan Margulis let the Silvergates that had been his gateway to Northworld drop to the ground – the impervious silver sphere was not likely to be damaged by a fall, as even the most powerful presses failed to even alter the curvature of the artifact.
He carefully picked the silver sphere, careful not to squeeze too much and trigger its expansion again. He turned to the box set next to it on a small pole, flipping it open, and carefully inserted the Silvergate in it before closing the box and turning the key to lock it, taking it out.
He started across the hangar, noting a work team making a new row of markets. The chariot behind them had a few pole-and-box ready to set.
He reached the duty sergeant, who saluted before taking custody of the key that locked the Silvergate he’d used. All gates in the possession of the 10th at Carson were managed that way since there was zero indication that a given Silvergate had a link to its user. All of them were perfectly undistinguishable, prompting some military geeks to nickname them Boson Gates. But that simplified very much the operation of the Gater Operators of the Special Forces. Take whatever Gate you need when switching over to Northworld.
The next step was the lockers, whose key he’d kept with himself, and let him swap back into uniform. He dumped his mainly Earth civilian clothing into a sports bag, closed back the locker, and headed out of the Special Training Facility Area, the innocuous-sounding name that was on the base map for the operations.
“Welcome back to Earth, colonel,” Major General Abernathy said as Jonathan saluted.
“It’s been instructive. And a hell to organize. Getting a minimum of nine days – that’s the mandated cool-down period for the Silvergates when going into Northworld – to do this has taken me over nine months.”
“Just in time, like a baby,” the commanding officer of Fort Carson laughed.
“I am definitively not sending my wife down there.”
“So, how do your ops go there?”
“Looking good, looking good. Considering the oddity.”
“You know, I’ve debated taking the time like you to go there. Even if you never ‘level up’ again, just the fact that you can go there, in a safe location, if you get wounded or too sick, and regenerate…”
“Which makes me wonder why we aren’t rotating more aggressively troops there.”
The major general sighed.
“Secrecy.”
“Does anyone seriously think none of the other countries have guessed we do have a presence in Northworld? I could believe that for NATO, but the Russians? The Chinese?”
“Yes, but until then, you have to do with only vetted operatives. Besides, your ability to send them there is limited.”
“We’re no longer entirely reliant on outside supplies. I had this report before I went, about how we’re now getting almost ten new Silvergates a month. We have enough of an active presence there to find some, even if the Operational Groups don’t act as ‘adventurers’. Most of the time.”
“You’re expanding?”
“We’re adding Recess/Respawn points all the time. That’s another factor that justified how I could grab one and get myself a Setup.”
“Congratulations again, colonel. Welcome to the exalted rank of the Gaters. Don’t let the FBI catch you.”