I gazed at Freja with a slack jaw as she waved her arms in a circle and a glowing purple gateway appeared in front of us.
Looking like a mirror, it showed the calm, decorated interior of her office back in the Adventure Society building.
She was a portal user.
I wasn’t even aware that they existed.
“Ooh, fancy,” Bell crooned, “Yennefer of Vengerberg would be proud.”
Now was not the time to be making pop culture references, but I was too shocked by the director’s awesome display of power to chastise my companion.
She had just batted away a man who had beaten Sally in a duel, literally! I knew that Sally was below the level cap and therefore wasn’t a big fish here in Cali Port like she was in Havar, but still.
“Shut up and go through,” Freja commanded and without hesitation I obeyed her.
Stepping into the portal felt like jumping into an ice bath, my blood felt chilled and my bones creaked as I was sucked into the venerable whirlpool of icy cold and motion sickness.
It wasn’t too dissimilar to the time I’d used a portal to enter The Morningstar Hotel and Spa, but it was much rougher.
Falling through space, I was ejected onto the other side with flailing arms and legs. I shot across the room, sliding on my belly, and crashed headlong into the far wall.
Ouch.
“Wow,” Panda said groggily as he calmy stepped through the portal without a crash landing. “Personal portals sure are rough on the old equilibrium.”
“First time using one?” I asked, struggling to form the words as my head span like it did after a night of too many beers.
“Yup, and hopefully it’ll be my last.” He replied, “that was awful.”
Despite his claims, he didn’t seem to have been affected nearly as badly as I was. Though when Bell came flying through the portal next, I felt like I’d gotten off lightly.
The teal haired fireball mage seemed to fall through the portal as if she had been launched by a trebuchet. Her scarlet red robes moving at such a speed made her look a bit like the fireball magic she was so fond of.
Somehow she hit the ceiling when she reached our side of it and then landed on her back with a nasty thud as the wind was knocked from her.
Sally followed behind, stepping through as if it was nothing new to her.
Show off.
Still clutching her wound, she staggered to the nearest chair and collapsed into it with a groan.
“How can we help you?” I asked, putting my dizziness aside and stumbling over to her.
“I’m sure the director will patch me up in a moment, Gonads,” she wheezed, grimacing at every other word as if it was painful to speak.
A loud crack came from behind me and I turned just in time to see the purple rimmed portal snap shut as Freja strode through gracefully, her long, open trench coat fluttering magnificently behind her, Asmodeus struggled under her arms as she trapped him there.
“Unhand me this instant,” he protested, “I am a demon lord, not a handbag.”
Freja slapped the dragon on the tip of his nose, shutting him up, and without sparing the rest of us a glance, she strutted up to Sally and placed her palm directly onto the catonid’s wound. Muttering something under her breath, a bright, golden light sparkled around her hand like a glove made of sunshine, and Sally’s face visibly relaxed.
“I’ve dispelled the magic but you’ll still need to heal the wound normally,” Freja said clinically, “there’s a chance it may scar, I’m sorry.”
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Sally nodded thoughtfully as the svartalf removed her hand. Closing her dark blue eyes a bright red potion appeared in her hand and she guzzled it like booze. The catonid’s wound healed before our eyes, leaving a deep crimson line in its wake.
“That’ll have to do for now,” she grunted, “I’ll finish the healing process later. Thank you director,” she said, turning towards the purple skinned powerhouse and nodding once.
Without replying, Freja moved behind her desk, placing the subdued dragon on it. His stomach was bloated to twice its normal size and his tiny wings seemed to have grown a bit. He laid out like a starfish on the desk, sulking and refusing to take his eyes off the director.
She reached into a draw and produced a finely crafted decanter which sparkled in the setting sun’s orange glow as it shone through the floor to ceiling window. Freja poured herself a full glass and swallowed it in a single gulp before sitting down and leaning back in her chair.
“Well that was a political disaster,” she eventually said with a long sigh as the fierce demeaner she had shown to the rapier wielder vanished entirely. “Care to explain what happened?”
All eyes turned towards Sally who visibly seemed to suppress the urge to squirm beneath our inquisitive gazes.
“It was an old dispute,” she said, closing her eyes hard for a moment before reopening them with a determined and resigned look. “We trained at the same academy when we were young. He always made a point of flexing his superiority to the entire class… I didn’t like that. When I ran into him earlier today he challenged me to a friendly duel for old time’s sake… It didn’t stay friendly for long.”
“You trained at an academy?” Bell asked, still laying in place on the floor where she’d fallen through the portal, her hands placed as a cushion behind her head.
“All those who wish to serve royalty do,” she replied and I guessed that she had no intention of explaining any further.
Thinking back on our time in Havar, Sally had seemed to have a history with Raphael as well. He was the king’s guard who had escorted us to our award ceremony shortly before the assassination.
Did they train together too? I wondered.
Keeping my inquiring thoughts to myself, I looked towards the director who was staring into the bottom of a second emptied glass.
“What about him?” She asked, glancing at Asmodeus who snorted loudly in response.
Taking the initiative, I explained what had happened when we arrived. My tale barely instigated a response from Freja, even the part about Asmodeus going dragon vampire on that dude’s neck.
“That tracks,” she eventually said, “I won’t shed a tear for the commander, that man is a pompous prick, though it seems that I made a mistake in ignoring your demon lord to focus on political affairs. I’m interested to know the details of this new power he has unlocked.
“That being said, now that we know you can control him, I am placing responsibility on you to do so. If he attacks someone like that again, it’ll be your neck on the chopping block. Do you understand?”
I nodded solemnly. Controlling the dragon was easier said than done but he had obeyed me in the end. Hopefully I’d be able to keep that leash on him, at least until we could leave Cali Port. I also wanted to know more about his power and I was pretty certain the information would be ready and waiting in my HUD, but that could wait for later. I liked Freja, but I didn’t know her well enough to expose too many of my secrets to her and Asmodeus was an unknown factor.
“Good,” she continued, “you said your destination was Castalor? The director there is more versed in these matters than I, seek him out and see if he has any further insight into your unlikely familiar. In the meantime, what of the quest I assigned you?”
“We’ve managed to get both sides to agree to a meeting tomorrow,” I said, placing my hands behind my back as if I was reporting to my commanding officer, which in a way, I guess I was. “Hopefully they’ll be diplomatic about it. Both sides have asked me and my party to attend though I don’t trust either of them to play nice if I’m being honest.”
Freja looked up from her glass finally, her sternly beautiful eyes seemingly gazing straight into my very soul.
“Good job,” she said as a smile twitched in the corner of her lips, “you’ve managed in a single day what no one else had managed in weeks. I’m impressed.”
“It was probably because of that torch that system gave him,” Bell sniggered on the floor and I shot her a deadpan glare.
Freja ignored her outburst and continued. “I shall accompany your party to this meeting as well, it’ll look good for the society as a whole if we can get them to come to some kind of amicable arrangement. The quest boards have been pretty light lately since no one can leave the city right now and we need that to change.”
“Then will we get our magic transport?” Bell asked sweetly, throwing her hands forward to propel herself into a sitting position on the floor.
“Mobile base,” Freja corrected, “and yes, assuming it puts a stop to the protests. That was the wording in the quest, after all.” She smiled slightly before taking another drink from her ornate glass. “Now, you’d better get some rest before tomorrow, politics is exhausting and we might be there for a while. The last time I had to attend a negotiation it lasted for three days and nights and that one wasn’t nearly as standoffish as this one has been.”
The svartalf director sighed loudly and slumped back into her chair, spinning it away from us as she gazed contemplatively out of the window. I took that as a clear sign to leave.
Scooping my sulking dragon up off the desk, I led my team and Sally back into the elevator.
“Where are we going to sleep tonight then?” Panda asked, looking up at me with his large eyes.
“There’s an inn just down the street,” Sally replied hoarsely, “I know the owner, we’ll meet back here at first light and make our way to the negotiation together.”