The lights finished swirling as Alton finished his Recall to Gatepost. The team all felt a bit down, but unless one looked at their descriptors, you would probably not have guessed about their state.

“So, do we find Babbage? Someone else?” Ira asked.

“This one is big. I’m tempted to ask her Highness directly. After all, we do work for the same boss,” Jonas replied.

“We can discuss that at The Frozen Boar, you are right,” Guss said.

They started toward their usual haunt. As regulars, they had a slightly better rate now by paying in advance, but they would have to watch carefully their finances if they kept coming back often without too many items for the brokers. Would staying in London be better?

Then, Jonas spotted a familiar trio of figures. A woman with a blue-lightning sword strapped on her back, a robe that seemed to float empty in the street, and a green-clad man with swords at the sides, coming out of the bank street and talking quietly among themselves. And he immediately knew who would be in charge of getting new information about new zones.

“Sims. Sir Sims, even, these days,” Imposing Knight Amanda Cowen said, grasping Jonas’ wrist.

“Tier three already, unsurprisingly… ouch. Overextended yourself?” she added, noting the death status.

“You could say that. But that’s part of what I wanted to talk about, and you’re just the right kind of person to talk to.”

“Me? What for?”

“I think it falls under your umbrella, or rather the British Scouts’.”

“Usually, new zone information is simply collated by the Archives. We advance the base information only in the hard tiers that require advanced teams. That’s why we only recruit in tier five and above, and probably only upper tier-five starting next year,” she replied in apology.

“It’s not some details. It’s an entirely new type of zone,” Jonas replied.

“A new type of zone? What the blazes can you mean by that?”

“A new zone or Gate. Or maybe both. It’s long, and we’re fresh from the death, three of us. Let’s get to our inn and I can explain better. Unless you have a better place to discuss this?” he said.

“Headquarters is on the other side of the town. If that inn of yours is close, why not.”

“A new gate shape? Geometric figures?” Cowen said as she nursed slowly the most bitter ale the Boar offered.

“Yes. Up until now, the only difference I ever saw between Gates was the size. And the fact that you always qualify for a Great Gate no matter what. But that one was hidden in a lair, and was different.”

“Go on.”

Jonas explained at length about the odd zone, its descriptor addition, the six geometrically-placed Gates and all of the rest. He pulled his notebook, listing the adjacent zones.

“Garnjern, Krilziar, Parsming, Szinkal and Castikal. In addition to Othary. The two gates leading to different tiers instead of tier two had the same geometric designs and the ‘kal’ name.”

“People have been speculating for decades about the zone names. We use those that appear in the descriptors instead of giving them our own names, but nobody has any good idea about where they come from. The Royal Society scholars swear it is random or something because it doesn’t make sense as names in any language known to man. But that’s the first time I’ve heard about that kind of consistent name. And no, I haven’t heard about any of those zones ever, but I don’t know all zones of the Labyrinth by name.”

Cowen sighed.

“You six are a source of endless surprises. But this one may top all.”

“Can’t really top restarting gates, boss,” Emory Foale interrupted.

“Okay. The second most surprising,” she admitted.

“I need to find Wellesley. Come with me,” she added, referring to the Scouts’ sponsor.

She stood and started toward the inn’s exit. Foale shrugged, and picked his tankard, emptying it before standing and following his team leader.

“What are you waiting for, Sims?” she called from the door.

Jonas stood as well, shrugging in apology to the team, before following the Scouts outside.

They started walking, and, to Jonas’ surprise went toward the Gate clearing.

“I thought you said your headquarter were opposite?”

“Wellesley won’t be there. Not a Professional, remember?” she replied simply.

“Ooops. So we’re headed to London then.”

“I hope he’ll be at his offices. If not, we’ll have to wait, but that’s definitively something that must be shared with the boss.”

They reached the clearing where, to his surprise, the robed shape of Habborlain stopped there, bowed to the three of them, and then got enveloped by the swirling lights of Recall. Cowen did not seem phased by the event.

“Uh?” Jonas said.

“Habborlain does all kind of things unannounced all the time. That’s usual for him,” Foale explained. Then, he followed his boss through the Gate surface.

As he struggled to follow the brisk pace set by Cowen on the street along the park, he asked Foale about Habborlain.

“Don’t worry. It took me, what, three years to figure out if our healer was a he or a she. The team descriptor wasn’t that helpful.”

“He’s really that weird?”

“Yea, really. I don’t think any of us in the team ever got the full story. I know Augusta and Habborlain – that’s Blair for you, but we can’t make ourselves to just call him that – go back from the original days. They were there when the Gate opened and nobody had a clue about why some people vanished into it.”

“Wow.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“She was some kind of assistant or something to a big-name scholar from the Royal Society. Then, of course, she landed in the Labyrinth and became a Defender. Most of us, we got assigned to her team in 1810 or around by the Company, but I hear she’s always been with Habborlain.”

“What’s with the weird voice and no bodyparts?”

“The invisible hand is an Artefact we got years ago. Habborlain… apparently hates being seen. He’s never taken off his gear – at least in public – for as long as I’ve known him. Before the invisible hand, he never took off the old gloves either. As for the voice… no idea either. Augusta said it was part of him, and that’s why it doesn’t change. There’s plenty of people who heal their wounds once they become Professionals. I know a veteran from the Indies who had lost two fingers there; they were back after a few weeks.”

Jonas looked at Cowen’s back, still walking forward decisively.

Sometimes, the weirdness wasn’t the Labyrinth itself. Sometimes, it was walking the Labyrinth.

Well, in a way, the six of them were also weirdness walking. Just less obvious. But Jonas would not press the issue. After all, what people were was their own business.

Then a smile came to him. At least, he could be certain of something that the American, John Henry Blackeye, didn’t know for all of his tier seven.

“You know, that’s the kind of story I would instantly dismiss in normal circumstances,” said Richard Wellesley. “But you six are walking abnormal circumstances, so there’s that.”

“Well, unless we can show the Gate itself, it will be hard to get proof. Unless… I’ve never heard about it, can someone read a person’s location descriptor somehow? The zone name would show up.”

“Nope,” Cowen said curtly.

“Okay. Was worth checking, I guess.”

“So… two Gates to probable other trunk zones… four to tier two normal?”

“Yes. Szinkal and Castikal seemed to be the other trunk ones, and then you had Garnjern, Krilziar, and Parsming, in addition to Othary,” Jonas repeated.

The British Scouts’ sponsor suddenly stood up and said, “Wait here, I need something.”

Jonas exchanged looks with both Cowen and Foale, but neither seemed to know what that was about.

The Labyrinth Minister came back a few minutes later, with a stack of pages. He quickly rifled through them, before stopping.

“Garnjern,” he finally said.

“It’s a known zone? It wasn’t in the Archives master index,” Jonas replied.

“No, and that’s normal. It’s part of one of our intelligence reports on Colonial Labyrinth activities.”

“You mean, it’s a tier two zone in the… American’s sector?” Jonas exclaimed.

“We don’t have much information about those. Just a list that’s exhaustive as of five years ago, along with tiers and some connection information.”

He riffled through more pages.

“As far as I can tell, Garnjern is indeed a tier two zone name. One that’s about four zones away from their starting Gate. No other details.”

The man leaned back in his chair, sighing.

“You could have learned that maybe while you were on that mission. But it’s hard to see why. So that’s one piece of corroborating evidence, and one more argument to take this seriously, I guess.”

“So… it’s? a shortcut?” Jonas asked.

“It sounds like it could be used as one. Of course, no shortcut is going to compete with a Fast Travel, but Fast Travel only works out if you have the appropriate Gate on your list,” Wellesley said.

He added immediately, “The next question is – how did you get there.”

“I’ve talked about it with Cowen here,” Jonas said. “And we have three ideas.”

“I’m all ears.”

“The first, and most obvious, is that Adjustment Milestone muck with Gates, which we know already. And apparently, that might be based on the number of Milestones you have. The first time, only Ira had the fifth Milestone, none of us had it yet. The second one which I missed out, they all had five except for Jonathan, our second Layman. And the last, when the rear door opened, we all had five then.”

“If you need everyone with five Milestones of that Adjustment, and nobody under, then only your team will have access to that trunk zone, then.”

“The thing is, Babbage told me not too long ago that, even the most obvious explanation was the most likely, others shouldn’t be dismissed outright.”

“Your second-best idea, then, Sir Sims?”

“You need to do something special in the lair. Like, maybe loot a number of items from the treasure box. That box had three items in it every time, which is more than the usual one. So, it would be the equivalent of doing the lair nine times rather than three.”

“Lots of people have done the same lairs dozens or more times, notably in the high tiers. Of course, it would need to have a hidden Gate as well,” Cowen countered.

Foale then laughed.

“And of course, if I remember right, you were not there for the second fight. So your own count is six, not nine.”

“Okay. Maybe it’s not a good idea.”

“Next one?” Wellesley prompted.

“Lair completion.”

“Uh?”

“It also makes sense – I guess more than doing the lair repeatedly, or maybe getting just the right combination of loot in the box – that access to the Gate would be linked to lair completion. After all, you need to complete lairs to use a Gate, so completing lairs to access one makes sense.”

“But what criteria would be necess… oh.”

“Yes. Based on the zone guide… we did every lair in the zone. We had just done the highest lair for the first time before we headed down.”

Cowen swore loudly.

“If you need to complete every lair of a zone, then it’s a logistics nightmare. Almost nobody does every lair. There’s always a team or two around, so you split up the lairs between you. After all, you only ‘need’ enough for the next zone.”

“Yea. It worked out for us because Ovildian and Othary are apparently underpowered. Othary has seven lairs only, the normal zones have fifteen or more.”

“And they’re over-competed anyway,” Cowen added.

Richard Wellesley straightened up, having let the Professional hash out their ideas.

“Still, it’s a nice idea. So, we need to find those locked doors, have a team complete every lair, and see if the door opens for them after.”

“That sounds correct,” Jonas said.

“Well, we can start with the one zone we are sure works out.”

“It’s a bit far away from the British sector, though,” Jonas replied.

“Yes. But I know a team that has access to there besides yours. Two, even,” Wellesley said.

Cowen groaned.

“Oh no.”

“Yes. You’re on again, Cowen.”

“Balls, nobody in my team has a proper Gate. We’ve all reset our tier three Gates across the Great Line as we went back, to report on our progress. We need to run back there from… well, from Grailburg. Basically.”

“It’s still faster than running there AND doing three lairs on every zone in-between. You can beeline from Gate to Gate.”

“Doesn’t Lady Grey’s team have access? They should still have their Gate set to the Othary-Markandon one way or the other?” she pleaded.

“Come on, Imposing Knight Cowen. It’s as if you are fearing a tier two zone,” Wellesley chided.

“No, but Millard is already saying my team is slacking and…”

“But guess what? If you get access to a fast shortcut to four widely separated zones for every tier? What does it mean for your team progress?” Wellesley insisted.

Cowen frowned, then a different look appeared on her face.

“Maybe even totally new, totally unused by anyone, zones. That’s the best order your boss can give you, right?”

He sobered and added, “Of course, I’m going to ask if Lady Grey and her team have still access and are available. But she’s not under my authority, she reports to her father, actually.”

He turned then to Jonas.

“Officially, I can’t give you orders. But I can still ask my brother. So, consider yourself an honorary British Scout. And your mission, Sir Sims, will be to gather as much intelligence from this trunk zone until Cowen’s team arrives there. Don’t risk yourself, though.”

“Not going to. We went in cocky, we got ourselves killed on the first guardian we found. All the levels are in the hundred. It’s not a problem for Cowen’s team of course, but we’re no match for them now, so we will take it easy. Scout everything, get as many levels… maybe gear, we can… if we find out more, I’ll report immediately,” Jonas confirmed.

“Then get to it. As soon as your death effect vanishes, I mean,” Richard Wellesley said, dismissing the Professionals.

They found themselves outside the minister’s office. Cowen sighed.

“There goes my plans for the next months.”

“Come on boss. Except for getting XP, there’s nothing exciting for us until we raid again, and Aubert finally gets his completion for the next zone. This one is fun. So what, Millard gets high tier six first?” Foale said.

“Sims? Can I count on your to guide us quickly across the lairs? You know the zone well. Maps from the zone guide are nice, but local expertise trumps paper maps every day.”

“No problem. Except…”

“Except what?”

“There’s the Crow Triplet lair. It’s outdoor, and the Crows aren’t there often. We chanced on them a day before you found us, but we’ve seen them only twice in all the time we’ve spent in Othary.”

“Oh no. One of those. Just my luck. We’re going to do everything, then camp next to that lair for weeks until it regenerates. Mark my words, Emory.”

“Can’t be helped. We’ll see when we get there.”

“We won’t touch those, just in case we find them out,” Jonas said.

“Now… guess is about three weeks of travel. I have to get the rest of the team, then we’ll start out as soon as I’ve found them. Myrl is probably trying her hand at the brawl court – not that there’s anyone at her tier there, and Waldo is probably trying to get a new drink somewhere. I’ll have a note at his favourite bar. And Habborlain, he just Recalled to the high tiers at the wrong time, so I guess I’ll have to Recall as well and drag him back down…”

Her voice trailed off.

“What about Habborlain?” Jonas asked.

“Bollocks. I think I know where he’s gone.”