Having dinner with Cariad had been surprisingly relaxing. I went to bed that night without any issues and slept the whole night through.

Rising on time, I got a morning run in before work. I’d been meaning to start doing it again to help build up my wind for longer fights when helping the girls, as well as the hikes that I expected would be coming when Kassandra was ready to start scouting out the ruins that we had found.

My good mood remained in full effect until I got to work. I hadn’t even made it to my dock before one of the most hated sounds ever pierced my good morning. The whir of an electric motor and the shush of small wheels on concrete.

“Cosgrave.” The nasal whine stabbed into my eardrums like a knife. It was distant though, so I pretended I couldn’t hear him and kept walking.

“Cosgrave!” This time it was louder and a little closer, but I kept walking and hoping he’d find someone else to harass.

“What could he possibly want this early in the day?” I grumbled under my breath. “It’s far too early for someone else to have messed something up and he needs me to bail them out.”

“Damn it, Cosgrave! I’m talking to you!” This time the distressed bellow of my boss, Aaron Dutcher, echoed throughout the entire loading dock and silence descended as the other workers turned to stare at the fat man on his motorized scooter. He ignored them, but I could tell he was aware of the mixed stares and glares from how his face was already red and going into purple.

Dutcher was unimpressive in a general sense. At a glance, he looked more like a basket-ball with arms and legs, or one of those old California Raisin figurines you used to get in kids meals at different burger restaurants. His balding head shone with sweat already in the fluorescent lights of the loading dock despite the fact the man wasn’t even walking on his own two feet. Instead he was clinging resolutely to a shiny, two-wheeled Segway scooter like one might expect a mall cop to be riding on. He was dressed in a pair of khakis with an overstretched waistband and a mustard-yellow button down that already had stains on the front.

“What do you need, Dutcher?” I had to fight back the sigh. I’d nearly made it to my loading dock and I could see the stack of printed orders sitting on the beaten up desk by the door. It was going to be a long day from that evidence alone, regardless of whatever crap Dutcher had for me.

“That is Mr. Dutcher to you, Cosgrave.” Growled the pot bellied man as he pulled his overburdened scooter to a stop, swaying slightly to maintain balance on the upright device. I dearly wanted to kick one of the tires to see if it would knock Dutcher on his face, but restrained the urge. This wasn’t made any easier by his following comments. “Clean out your ears and listen to me next time, jackass. You have an emergency project first before you start loading your dock.”

I took a long, slow breath in through my nose and let it out again, fighting to maintain my cool.

“What project is that, Dutcher? And why is it my problem?” I said with forced calm.

“Collapsed load on dock seven. It collapsed during delivery and the driver brought it back to be reloaded.” Dutcher didn’t even bother hiding his savage glee at the statement. “And it’s your problem because I say it is, Cosgrave. Get over there and get it sorted out and re-loaded. The driver will be back in a few hours to get it for a late delivery.”

“And who else is helping me deal with it?” Again, I kept the forced calm in my voice only barely.

A shifted load wasn’t an issue, since it was just the contents of the trailer moving around while it was driving from location to location. It happened when a load wasn’t packed properly or secured correctly. In an extreme situation, it could lead to a rollover on a trailer though. A collapsed load though was something entirely different. It meant that the load had shifted so badly that it was likely now strewn all over the back of the trailer and would take several people to sort it out. I knew the answer to my question already but I dearly hoped I was wrong.

“It’s up to you to deal with. I can’t pull anyone else off their loads to sort it out.” Dutcher’s voice was full of malice and I ground my teeth to resist the urge to reach over and slap the idiot.

“You realize that it normally takes at least two, if not three loaders to get those sorted out, right? Who’s load was it initially?”

“One, I don’t care. And two, no idea. But it’s now your problem, which means that it’s not my problem anymore. Get it done, Cosgrave!” Barked the fat man before turning his Segway around with a twist of his wrists and wheeling off down the warehouse floor.

Sighing, I dumped my lunch box onto my normal counter and went over to have a look at the mess on dock seven. Given that seven was normally the dock that Matheson used and I didn’t see the stoned idiot anywhere, I knew exactly who’s trailer this was.

Heaving the rolling door open for the trailer that was backed into the slot, I had to dodge out of the way as totes, boxes, and smashed flats of canned drinks slid out onto the loading dock as soon as it cleared the midpoint. They tumbled out in a sprawl that sounded like a tinny avalanche while several cans began to leak sticky fluids all over the floor. Glancing into the trailer, I growled under my breath as I surveyed the mess inside. Easily half, if not more, of the load was displaced and either fallen, about to fall, or already smashed in the trailer. I saw none of the restraining bars, straps, or other methods of securing a load that we were supposed to use either.

“Damn it…”

<><><>

“You really need to get a new job.”

“I KNOW!” Cerebaton didn’t deserve the snarl, but he accepted it nonetheless as our practice weapons clashed together. He was still wielding the fake wooden longsword that he’d been training with since I started. After I’d explained the change in gear and my desire to try other things, he’d swapped me over to a short club with a weighted head to simulate my mace and gotten me a weighted glove of the same energetically neutral material that he and Cariad wore when visiting, meaning that it wouldn’t be dissolved at their touch and it wouldn’t dissolve me in return.

I swiped with my armored gauntlet and managed to parry the incoming blow from the sword, though my hand ached from the impact as I still caught part of the edge rather than the flat like I was supposed to. In return, I swung the mace down low at Cerebaton’s thigh but the ever-nimble man just pulled the limb back out of the way of the strike. I was still getting used to the difference in weight with the mace and the missed swing threw me off balance.

It only took a tap from Cerebaton before he sent me sprawling on the chipped wood of the gazebo that we used for our practice sessions. The resultant crash of my large frame on the ancient wood sent a shudder through the structure that made Cariad wince from where she was sitting on the railing nearby. She hopped down and hurried over to check on me.

“Liam, are you okay?”

“Fine, Cari.” I grumbled, hissing in pain as I got up and picked a large splinter out of my forearm. A tiny dot of blood welled up from the spot but I ignored it, instead focusing on the trick I’d picked up with the crag hunter to shift the skin into something thicker. That caused a bit of swelling in the area that worked to put pressure on the little wound, even without the heavier wrapping of armor on top of it. The blood slowed and stopped a moment later.

“You are getting better at that.” Cerebaton grunted and I turned to glare at my instructor.

Cerebaton was Cariad’s boss and also a daemon like her. Unlike Cariad though, Cerebaton had spent time as a ‘field agent’ as they called it. As such, he’d developed more than a few useful skills and one of which was a lesser mastery of the same skill I had, Shape-Shifting. His skill was at a higher level than mine, but he had no plans to continue training it beyond where it sat now. This level however allowed him to disguise his normal shape and come to train with me. Cariad still visited on the regular, but was careful to keep out of sight of any passers-by until it was dark enough that no one would notice her unique skin tone.

Normally, Cerebaton would have drawn even more attention than Cariad. In his natural form, the man was over eight feet tall and had a rack of elk antlers to add nearly another two feet of height to that. Like Cariad he had a unique skin color and looked somewhat like a cross between the Horned God from a pagan storybook and the Jolly Green Giant, if said giant had a penchant for formal-wear and liked to impersonate barn doors or brick houses.

Honestly, he looks more like the old Hulk than good ole Jolly Green… I thought to myself, remembering the last time my mentor and friend had shown me his real form.

At the moment, Cerebaton looked more like Dolph Lundgren when he appeared as Drago for Rocky IV. Tall and heavily muscled with a chiseled jaw and spiked blonde hair. The only real difference was that rather than the blue eyes that Drago had sported in the movie, Cerebaton’s eyes were a vivid yellow in color.

“Practice makes perfect after all.” I grumbled then had to duck when Cerebaton swiped at me with his practice sword.

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“No, practice makes permanent! You need to perfect your practice, Liam. And while I know you don’t want to hear it again, finding you something else besides that job is going to help you become better at your overall task. At the moment you spend far too much time laboring at that plebeian workplace when you could be training. Your supervisor is only making it worse with the additional demands he makes of you.” Cerebaton snarled the first part before his voice trailed off into a more reasonable tone. I’d been filling them in on Dutcher’s idiotic actions earlier and both had been offended on my behalf, which was gratifying in its own sense.

“Would love to, but the economy is in shambles and I don’t exactly have a ton of money in the bank to get by until I can find something else. Also, since the System hasn’t graced me with the opportunity to get the Dimensional Pocket ability that Cari mentioned to me before, I don’t have the ability to bring vast wealth back with me. Or even minor wealth that might help make ends meet till then. And I’ve been advised that, while it is an option to trade SP for local funds, it’s a bad idea.”

“A very bad one.” Cerebaton grunted. “The only time I recommend it is when a Traveler is getting ready to retire or believes it necessary to complete a contract. If you can exchange a hundred SP in order to earn a thousand, that is an easy enough exchange to make. However the odds of having something like that come up are slim to none.”

“Then I’m stuck till I can find something better.”

“Ms. Davies also mentioned she’d given you an update about possibly getting work as a contractor through the DSR.”

“I told him that we were looking into it, but were unsure of where he’d go.” Cariad cut in, still hovering close to me as we hadn’t resumed fighting again yet.

There hadn’t been a lot of talking since I’d shown up for my Thursday night training with Cerebaton. I’d just arrived and we’d started clashing. Cerebaton had been teasing out details of the last few days while we fought and this was ground we had covered already in previous days too.

“Well, we will have to see. I can’t just create a position for you. I have to be seen as fair, so I cannot call in any favors on this, Liam. You know that right?” Cerebaton’s question was low and to the point. I swallowed another sigh and met his brilliant yellow eyes.

“I know, Cerebaton. You are already doing me a huge favor in training me while billing the department. I don’t expect you guys to solve all my problems. I’ve made it this far just getting through the work week. The girls and I are doing well in their missions and we have plans for plenty more work so I’m going to be getting quite a bit of SP in the near future. I would dearly love to be able to spend more time focusing on training, but there are only so many hours in the day after all.”

“Always an issue, for sure.” Cerebaton nodded in agreement. “I know that you are aware as well, but I want to repeat it. Do not take the route of trading your SP in for cash unless you are desperate. There are other options and the most common is bringing trade between worlds; you just need to secure the Dimensional Pocket power. And if you trade in SP rather than invest it in yourself, you will only slow down the process of unlocking that power.”

I had been in the midst of twirling my weapon in my right hand, working to keep my sore wrists loose while we practiced despite the protestation of my shoulders and back. The implications of what Cerebaton said startled me enough that the weighted stick slipped out of my grip and clattered across the top of the gazebo.

“What?” I asked, staring at him in surprise.

“You heard me, Liam.” Cerebaton said simply, not looking away from me. “You have a strong mind and logical thinking. Consider what was said and what you know about how powers unlock.” Neither daemon moved, both watching me silently, unblinking. The sudden change in the normally cheerful Cariad had me stunned.

To give myself time to mull over what was said, I strode to the edge of the gazebo where my practice weapon lay and picked it up. On the walk back I started verbally walking through the situation.

“Powers unlock either by mastering a tier, earning enough SP, or investing enough SP.” I said carefully, getting a nod from the two daemons. “Meaning that it is all interactions inside the System, right?”

Cariad nodded and opened her mouth to speak before she winced, her hand coming to her forehead like she’d been struck with a sudden headache. Cerebaton glanced at her, worry showing in his features that only faded when Cariad shook her head and seemed to come back to herself and the pain faded. I made the connection though and spoke it out slowly.

“And you cannot tell me specifics about certain things, likely due to enforcement from the System itself. Probably something to do with unspoken rules that need to be learned by each Traveler individually. Likely something that Travelers teach each other, but you aren’t allowed to talk about? No, don’t nod or agree, I’m just thinking out loud.” I said the last part quickly as both of the daemons shared a look and then relaxed when they heard my statement.

“So if you boil it down to the basics…It is the amount of SP in a given ‘account’ that determines access to powers. Either invested, earned, or practiced. Practiced being the act of mastering a skill and allowing that invested SP to become ‘familiar’ with the person. So trading in SP would be basically ‘cashing out’ or returning that amount and wouldn’t count towards the total ‘balance’, as it was explained in the past that the SP is power invested into me by the System, even unspent. So any that I ‘cash out’ would not be calculated towards unlocking a power then?”

“I cannot agree nor deny your analogy or thoughts.” Cerebaton said diplomatically, but I could see the amusement twinkling in his yellow eyes. “Given that System Points are considered one of the most precious resources amongst the many dimensions that host Travelers, exchanging them for anything should be done with extreme caution and due consideration for the ‘exchange rate’.” He put special emphasis on that final portion and I nodded.

“Understood. I wish I could just quit my regular job, but I’m just not seeing another option right now. At least I have guaranteed weekends off at the moment and it’s enough to keep the lights on.”

“Cheer up, Liam. You’ll figure something out, I know you will. Just think of it as one more thing you can do to make sure ‘your girls’ are safe.” Teased Cariad, a bright smile twisting her full lips. I shared the smile with her before taking another breath and turning my attention once more to Cerebaton.

“Okay, let’s get back to this practice. I can worry about finding a new job later. For now though, I need to not be distracted by other things. Distraction in a fight can lead to getting hurt or worse.”

“Smart man.” Grinned my trainer.

Despite the fact he seems to take an inane amount of amusement from trouncing me, he is a good guy. I thought with a smirk while Cariad backed away again to give us space and we went back to our sparring.

<><><>

“Ow…Why did I think that running was a good idea? Running sucks…” I muttered quietly while rolling my shoulders to loosen them up while I bounced across the sidewalk.

It’d been another long day at work but the week was finally over and Friday night loomed large over me. The girls hadn’t called me back yet to plan our next outing, but we had just finished a longer trip after all and they normally summoned me mid-week for that kind of thing.

Several of the guys at work had tried to rope me into a bar night, but I’d begged off with being too tired from dealing with Dutcher’s continual abuses. Thankfully, Friday was just a regular day of work as he hadn’t found some other crap job to dump on top of me. I was looking forward to just relaxing once I got my exercise out of the way and calling it an early night.

After sparring with Cerebaton on Thursday night, I’d skipped a morning run to save energy for work this morning. I’d resolved instead to run after work and that was why I was jogging along the pavement towards the same little park that I trained with Cerebaton in.

Not having any real exercise clothes, I’d just stopped at home to swap my work jeans for a set of old sweats and my boots for a pair of sneakers before heading out.

It’s because you are an idiot. I reminded myself while I jogged in place at a stoplight, doing my best to ignore the looks being directed my way from the motorists at the light. As soon as it turned green, I jogged across the crosswalk. Thankfully, traffic turning into the lane was paying attention and I didn’t get run over. That time at least. I’d been nearly hit once already tonight at the light closest to my apartment.

An idiot who is doing far too much to try and prepare for everything. Gonna stretch myself too thin… I continued the mental berating while I huffed and puffed my way onto the cracked blacktop of the walking trail that circled the dirty park. It wasn’t much, but this was what I had and I refused to drop the money so I could get a gym membership and spend time on a treadmill. Not when that money would be better spent on a boxing trainer or something. Can’t do it with Cerebaton after all.

I’d discussed the martial-arts portion of it with Cerebaton during both our nights of training this week. The issue was always that if I messed up and made contact with his bare skin during a fight, I would end up injured regardless of how light the contact was. The Shape-Shifting he did to change his form didn’t change the fact that his origins meant his physical touch was corrosive without specially treated cloth for a barrier. Protective padding would help some but there was still too much of a chance of my getting injured for him to be comfortable with the risk beyond the basics. And that was the reason for the glove I had been using. Doing anything more intense like grabs, throws, or holds would be entirely out of the question for obvious reasons.

“Maybe I should join a dojo?” I muttered to myself, ignoring the suspicious look from the pair of bone-thin women power walking the opposite direction on the track in outfits that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the eighties.

No. The last thing I need is another claim on my time after work. I thought to myself as I rounded the corner near one of the clumps of scruffy trees that were sprinkled around the park. They made a decent spot for local kids to hang out and smoke weed in a spot out of sight of passerby, but it was also an extremely obvious location too, since anyone looking at it could tell it was a decent hiding spot.

I continued around the park for another half of a lap before I was broken out of my attempts to distract myself from the jostling of my sore muscles by the dull flash of light around the edges of my vision and a message scrolling into place in my vision.

Kassandra Silverscale has sent a non-urgent request for your presence regarding your guardian contract with her.

Transit? View summoning?

“Kass? I wonder what she needs? It’s not urgent so she’s okay, I hope…” I muttered quietly, glancing around to look for a spot where I could safely cross over. There was a low series of juniper bushes nearby that still had all their needles and I grimaced. It wasn’t much of a shelter but with a quick glance around the park I confirmed the only other obvious occupants was a small collection of teens over on the soccer fields and the same two women power walking along the same path I was using. The bushes would do and they were close.

Moving quickly, I stepped off the path and flopped down onto the grass so that the bushes hid me from the sight of the others by getting as close as I could under the prickly plants. Once I was as secure as I could get, I mentally tapped the Transit option and the world whirled away from me in a spiral of color, light, and other sensations.

I couldn’t help the excitement that was rising in my gut. I missed both my girls and I was looking forward to seeing at least Kassandra again.