I got up from my bed and took a few moments to look around my Pocket Dimension. My power was threaded throughout the place over hundreds of meters, so I was aware of everything that was happening at some level, but I hadn't stopped to just look in quite some time.

There were lights all over allowing me to see the large expanse of stone that went off in two directions, one being the inventory storage spaces and portal rooms, and the other the stockpile of stone from excavating the floors of the fortress.

In another direction was the stone wall that blocked the portal to the top floor of the fortress, as well as my Mind Link and digital platform hardware, and the hardware for the digital platforms of the other Demi-AI. There were more than twenty of the simple-looking boxes stacked in neat rows, with two of them being taller than the rest, my own and the one that is running the common simulation. More memory and processing power is just added on top as it's needed. My digital platform hardware was over twice the height of the common simulation, and as I watched a new layer was being added to the top of it.

There must be a better solution than individual clumps of computers, as there were enough of them by this point that there was a loss of efficiency for each new person added.

Next to them was a large cube of metal, the battery that ran everything electrical in this space. It was markedly larger than the last time I'd taken notice of it, a quick check showed that it was expanded automatically so that it always held enough power to run everything connected to it for a week.

In the final direction was the storage grid for the Fortress Storage. It extended out into the distance and there was constant movement as things disappeared and were replaced. There were small lights at every grid intersection, and there were thousands of bays for the storage of everything that was added to the fortress.

Finished with my inspection of the Pocket Dimension I headed to the portal that led to the top floor of the fortress, moving the stone that was blocking it around me as I walked through it and onto the stair landing.

As I walked down the stairs I thought back to the fight I'd had with Bale. It would have been much simpler to incapacitate him if my power worked on him. He would have a Bag of Holding, so I had access to him with my power with a little bit of effort.

I implemented a process to run in the background to loop through every person who had a Bag of Holding and adapt them to my power, and to do the same for any new person who bought one. While I was at it I made it create a scan of the person after it was finished adapting them. That would reduce the time needed to upgrade anyone to Demi-AI to seconds, as well as give me a large database of models.

I had walked down the stairs past the Druid's floor while I was working on that, and had started to walk down past the third floor that held John's building when Shawn got my attention from the front door, walking over.

"Lord C.C.," Shawn said. "Are you still working on your other project?"

"No, I was coming to see you," I said, walking back up the stairs. "I was just distracted, my feet were taking me down to the ward room, I think."

I followed Shawn back to John's building, through the front door and into the main room. There was a wooden partition that mostly closed off the stairs at the back of the room, and Shawn led me behind it and up them.

The stairs led to a short attic space that we both had to kneel down to enter, it being only one meter high. Other than the height the room was quite spacious, matching the five meter by five meter dimensions of the floor below. It was also obviously where John had set up to sleep.

There was an enchanted light in the ceiling lighting the room and Shawn pointed me to a desk that was against one of the walls. The first thing I noticed was the pile of ash that was in one corner, as though a stack of paper had been set alight. In the center of the desk was the note.

Lord C.C., this other Champion has asked me to go with him, and in return he will not cause more harm to your fortress or the people who reside here. I am unable to stop him myself any other way, and my oath to you compels me to accept his offer. I would appreciate your help once again, and in return I offer my own help against the God of Winter - John

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

He wanted me to rescue him again. I did feel some obligation to him if he was acting to help my people. I waved Shawn over to join me at the desk.

"Is it normal for there to be ashes left on the desk?" I asked.

"It isn't," Shawn said. "Ordinarily waste paper is placed in the bin beside the table, and isn't burnt at all."

"And what do you think the ashes mean?" I asked.

"I don't know," Shawn said. "Perhaps they were accidentally set on fire, or it's how the other Champion and the Head Priest were communicating. Or they are there for some other, unrelated, reason."

I had used notes to get around the Gods listening in before, and they had been burned so that they wouldn't be left behind for anyone else. The Instructor was allied with the God of Winter, though, and the God of Summer was deaf to the world behind his anti-god wards. It wasn't a good answer.

"Do you know where John is?" I asked. "Or how to find him?"

"I don't know where he is, no," Shawn said. "If I had my connection to my God I would be able to find him, but I don't, and so I can't. Is there no way for you to find him?"

I did a quick scan through the people who had Bags of Holding, but he wasn't one of them.

"Hmm," I said. "There is..."

I pulled out my pocket portal, shaping it into a doorway and moving the exit to a blank portal room.

"There is... What?" Shawn asked.

"I still have a portal in the jail under the fortress in the Mountain City," I said. "That's where John was imprisoned last time, and it is simple enough to check. I'm moving its exit over to the portal room now, it will take a few seconds."

I crawled through the portal into the portal room and stood up, stretching my back. The portal would open in the guard room, which by its purpose should have guards in it. I equipped my armour with a thought as the double line of steel thread came through the wall.

The other side of the portal was hidden in the stone wall of the guard room. I pushed my power through the thin gap between the threads and used it to move the mortar out of the wall, followed by the thread portal, which I then reshaped into a doorway and stepped through.

There were six guards sitting at the table in the room, playing cards. It wasn't a game that I knew, but it had five of them on one side of the table with their backs to me, and only one on the other who could see me.

He had moved to stand up before I had stepped through the portal, and after I had he froze, his face going white.

"What are you doing Jim?" One of the other guards asked. "You still have two rounds as dealer."

Jim shakily raised his left hand, pointing at me, his other going to the hilt of the sword he was wearing at his hip.

"What are you playing at?" The same guard asked before turning to look over his shoulder. "Oi!"

At his shout he jumped up, turning and drawing his sword at the same time, the other four guards following a few beats later.

"Hello," I said. "My apologies for bothering you. I was looking for an acquaintance of mine, and last time he ended up here. I'll just have a quick look in each of the rooms and take him if he's there."

"Hey, you can't do that!" The same guard said.

"There isn't anything you can do to stop me," I said.

I turned to the door of the room that John had been in the last time I'd been here. They'd improved the door latches since then, though still not enough to prevent me from cutting right through them.

I turned to look back at the guards as the talkative one finished his overhand slash down into me, aiming to cut down through my neck and into my chest. My armour easily stopped the blow, but it drained more energy from the mana crystal powering the defences than I was expecting. Not enough to be worrying, but it must have been a magically empowered attack. It was a good sword, too, it didn't break.

"Could you open the doors, please?" I asked, completely ignoring his attack and the attacks that the other guards were preparing from my sides.

"We are guarding the cells," the guard said. "Why would we open them for you?"

"Because otherwise I will do something like this," I said.

I was standing quite close to the door, so I pulled two throwing blades out of my inventory and used them to cut through the latch, and then both the hinges of the door, stepping to the side as it slowly began to fall into the guard room. There were three more impacts on my armour, draining the mana crystal to about half.

The door fell with a dull boom, revealing an empty room. I moved to the second door, the one to the large room that had held Chantelle's people when I was last here, dodging several strikes from the guards as I went.

"Stop!" The guard said as I was lifting my throwing blades to take down the door. "I'll open them."

I nodded and stepped back, the guards stopping their attacks on me. The main guard opened the door to the room, which was empty, and then the door to the final room, which was also empty. I guess John being held here again would have been far too easy.

"Thank you for your cooperation," I said. "I will leave you to your game."

The guards all watched me intently as I stepped back through the portal, which I folded down into a doubled line of steel thread behind me and pushed back into the stone wall again.