The team sort of woke up around the garden, they didn’t wake up so much as sober up. Being adventurers their poison resistance naturally worked off the booze from their casual drinking. They were sleepily playing a version of horseshoes in the garden with a set made of earth so solid it felt like stone that Kyra had made.

Lechuza swept down and landed gently in front of Lucy.

[Ms Lucy, there are high society carriages coming down the access road.]

“This early?!” Lucy exclaimed, looking at the rising sun. “RASHID!! Time to go.”

Everyone came running into the garden and Rashid flapped his hands in annoyance.

“Eurgh, I’m coming with you, I can’t deal with the snobbery right now.”

He waved a hand at a nearby trellis that had some rose-like flowers climbing it. The top suddenly burst with a waterfall sheeting down, the flowers hidden by the torrent.

“Everyone through, don’t worry you wont get wet.”

The team shuffled through as quick as they could while they were so sleepy. Teddy was the last one through and just before he dashed in he saw Gerald was up and about as he always was at first light.

“Gerald! You never saw us and you’ve no idea where we are!”

The loyal housekeeper looked around the garden at the remains of their impromptu party and the earth shaping Kyra had done until she got the horseshoes game just right, broken earth chunks and earth spikes all over the place.

“Aye sir, I’m beginning to wish that was the case.” He stuck two fingers up at Teddy with a smile. They had taught him what the swear gesture meant from Earth and Teddy smiled and returned it before ducking through the waterfall.

Teddy stepped through, as outworlders they had the benefit of not feeling dimension effects, the only reason they knew what it felt like was because Teddy had used his Dimensional Instability power on them in the mirage chamber which made the target feel awful. So when he appeared on the other side he didn’t expect to feel anything, much like his own teleport. However when he did arrive he felt incredibly wet. Looking behind him in surprise he saw the waterfall sheeting off the side of a large rock and the water soaking into the sand. Ahead of him the rest of his team were standing with their arms out also investigating why they were so wet. Rashid stood completely dry looking completely unashamed, he waved after Teddy came through and the waterfall cut off, the last of it falling to the rocky floor in a sheet.

“I’ve found that people are more reticent to go through if they know they’re going to need a change of clothes on the other side.”

A string of runes streamed from Lucy’s eyes and wrapped around her arm before they swirled to the floor and spread out like a whirlpool. As they settled she beckoned everyone onto the large pattern and she took a deep breath and fed mana into the ritual. Dry desert air started being sucked from the edge to the centre of the circle then spiralling up, heating as it did, the team were dry within a minute of being on the pattern.

“I knew I married you for a reason. You’re a useful woman to have around!”

“Hopefully you love me for more than my magic powers you big dummy.” She knocked James playfully on the shoulder.

They looked around the landscape they were in. It felt like they had landed on Tatooine, the dry desert was sand and rock as far as the eye could see except for one settlement a short walk away. Teleportation powers worked by memorising a distinctive location and you couldn’t teleport to a random spurious location.

“My water essence teleportation is based on anchoring my teleport to somewhere, I came across some difficulty last time I was here by using a wall in town but the local children got very excited by the amount of water and started running into it, unfortunately the other side was quite deep underwater and I had some very angry parents whilst we tried to count children back out of the portal and pump some water out of them. Hence finding this outcropping out here and being slightly remote from the town.”

The others looked at the heat haze between them and town, as their bodies had changed when they became iron rank they could cope with extremes in temperature much better, between the desert climate and their burgeoning hangovers they weren’t looking forward to the walk into town.

“…and I’m not terribly welcome there, or it’s just awkward so…” he turned around and looked at the completely empty desert behind him. “The Craftsman is actually out this way.”

The sand was blistering as they walked, whipping at their faces, they’d all taken a stamina potion to top them up after the nights activities and set off. Teddy slipped the pale gold sand quintessence in the back of his boots. The boots changed colour depending what environment he was in, currently they were a mix of dark brown leather with lighter brown panels. As he put the quintessence in the back of the top of the boots he lifted each foot in turn, as he put them back down they rested on the sand without sinking in. They were one of his best investments from Gilbert Bertinelli who brought a trade stall to the academy annex every few weeks to sell modestly priced gear to the new adventurers through a mix of coins and adding to their bill to the annex. The annex themselves monitored how much he was selling to ensure he wasn’t taking advantage of the young want-to-be adventurers as he was one of the only retailers allowed on campus. Teddy had to get the chief instructors approval to commission the boots as they were a premium product that attracted a premium cost. Gilbert had not been happy that he had to sub-contract to his brother Filbert for the leather work.

James took his boots off, two spaniel sized scorpions nearby shook the sand off themselves where they had been lying hiding in the sand and scuttled over to him, Teddy took several quick steps back from them swearing, they hooked a boot each with their stingers and scuttled off round a nearby rock and out of sight. James then lifted his feet one at a time and transformed them into wide camel’s feet. Kyra had been working on her Terraform power, the more she did the more powerful and refined it became. As she stepped the sand seemed to contract just before her foot hit the ground and made a firm circle, as she stepped off it relaxed and melted back to normal sand. Lucy opened a rune circle and pulled out what looked like a short pair of skis and tied them onto her boots. With her Magical Artisan power she had the ability to use magical tools, she had picked up the sand skis for a relatively cheap price as they were secondhand and part of the magic had worn off or broken. Instead of skiing through the level sand like downhill skiing she could only comfortably walk.

Rashid looked over the group and their eclectic methods of traversing over the sand and shook his head.

“I’m sure we can’t take all the credit for your effectiveness but before the Greenstone academy annex I’ve seen seasoned teams less prepared for desert travel than you lot.”

They set off, the silver rank instructor trudging through the sand, the difference in silver rank stamina and fortitude meant that he could trudge almost indefinitely through the loose sand and the blazing sun didn’t bother him. After walking for around an hour the iron rank team starting feeling the effects of the sun, all their stamina bars were gradually reducing and they stopped to suck down a stamina potion each. As she was walking Lucy was nose down in a book looking over notes and making notes in a second book. As they stopped she started double checking her figures.

“You guys happy if I try making this a little more habitable?”

When everyone had shrugged she took that as a yes to experiment. She started making runes stream from her eyes but instead of heading to the floor they floated up about their heads. The green runes took a cloudy, fluffy quality and real rain started gently falling from them. She started walking in the direction they had been going and the circle followed her, the iron rankers clustered under it and enjoyed the cooling drizzle. It made quite a sight having an alien looking cloud in the middle of the desert. A dark trail of wet sand marked their progress.

They’d been walking for around thirty minutes with the cloud before things started going wrong. Lucy was having to take mana potions and then feeding mana into the circle. After a while the clouds had a dark ripple go through them and a loud crack. A huge green lighting bolt shot down towards the group. It raced towards James’ right arm where the vambrace was, the largest piece of metal in the group. It floored the big man and he lay twitching and slightly smoking. Kyra was there straight away, hit him with a life bolt reflexively then checking him over. Lucy waved her hands above her and scattering the cloud runes as soon as she stopped pumping mana into them.

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“He’s fine, just stunned, that was a magic reinforced lightning bolt, a normal bolt would hurt and maybe kill a normal person. This could probably be categorised as a bronze rank attack with how much mana you pumped into it Lu. He’s going to be fine just needs a rest.”

She hit him with a Life Charge, potent healing spell with a long cool-down. They all watched his flashing red mannequin on the interface become less severe and edge from solid red to solid orange. A symbol appeared next to it showing the ongoing healing buff that was a part of the bronze rank effect of her healing spell.

“I don’t understand what I got wrong there.” Lucy was pouring over her notes after checking James was ok, guilt written all over her face. “There shouldn’t have been a static discharge like that, I double checked the maths!”

She started writing a column of numbers next to the first, eyes going wide as she absently scribbled out the first column with shock on her face. Teddy put a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s not your fault Lu, it was an accident. We’re still new to all this.”

James sat up with a groan. He took off the vambrace and checked over his arm, it was hanging limp like he’d been asleep on it all night.

“Well damn, that stings.”

He turned over the vambrace and saw a spiderweb lighting pattern marked on the small section that protected the back of his upper arm above the elbow joint where he had been hit.

“And left a mark.” He muttered.

Lu had thrown herself to her knees at the sand in front of him. Now he was sat up she was looking at him in concern.

“No marks on you though.” Kyra said. “That’s the important thing. You got hit pretty hard but you’ll recover shortly.”

“Shortly but not instantly right? We’ve got visitors, lots of visitors.” Rashid said. His silver rank senses picking up the incoming monsters.

The desert monsters were sporadic and in the middle of nowhere like this they normally migrated to nearby settlements for food and prey. The large discharge of magic had attracted all the monsters in a nearby area.

[Kyra, everyone, go for stacks, James you’re at the top no arguing.]

The team were equals, the relationships they had with each other outside of combat relied on it. But they understood their roles, only one person could make the plays. One person to be the coordinator. One person to monitor the team. They all knew their roles and didn’t begrudge Teddy making the calls. The arguing that Teddy expected was about James being sat out. Funnily enough he didn’t argue as he accepted a hand to get up from Lucy and the static shock that he received from their hands touching put him on his ass again. Kyra rose her hands up and three octagonal columns rose from the ground interlocking with each other, James’ rose the highest, then Lucy then Kyra, Teddy alone from the team still stood on the floor next to Rashid.

“Rashid, how much do you want from us?” Teddy asked the instructor.

With a silver ranker present he was the authority for the engagement as far as Teddy who was the shot caller for the team was concerned. Silver rank in the Greenstone area was what back on earth they would have called Demi-god power. In this new world however they knew better about the gods.

“I am a control and utility specialist.” He said unashamedly. “Although at silver my powers afford me more damage than when I was coming up they are not suited to solo work. I will block and funnel, weakening anything that comes through for you to hit. I will take any bronze rank monsters meaning you will have the bulk of the iron.”

[Kyra kick out some walls, break up the space. Lucy switch to sniping, swap column with James. James rest up, wing sweep in reserve, Koda out front to hold a wall. Keep him in range for immediate extraction. I’m going to be where I need to be, Kyra you’re last line for the tower, hold boulders in reserve but litter the spikes every time they come off cool-down.]

By now they felt the monsters approaching from all angles with their iron rank senses. Rashid was swirling different energies around, placing huge bubble shields in a few locations with as much of the shield underground as over. Kyra used these bubbles to tactically place her walls which narrowed the gaps and start a chicane to slow down the advancing monsters. The walls were surprisingly different to her normal power, they had multiple spikes on it that were firing in a flat trajectory over the desert away from the team. Kyra checked the interface at the list of boons and found what had caused it.

You are being affected by an ally’s aura [Servitor’s Provision]

Effect (iron): Whilst in the aura of [Servitor’s Provision] your essence powers will receive a random boon per use.

Effect (bronze): Any essence power used by an ally within your aura will cause an increase of mana and stamina to regenerate faster for the auras user.

Effect (silver): At intervals determined by the strength of the power effected; place a random enemy power on cool-down and grant the equivalent mana, stamina or health to an ally in a random order.

“Well that’ll do nicely!”

Kyra took out her mirror and a circle of diamond dust appeared in the sand next to her. Her diamond golem rose out and sat at the base of the tower, on the opposite side to Koda, it had a few extra arms than usual by virtue of Rashid’s aura power. Koda had appeared partly covered in summoned armour which made him look even more formidable. Lechuza was already airborne, rarely not deployed even when not in combat. Lantern Familiars were deployed to help even the odds some more. Teddy’s shadow lantern familiar while not normally a direct damage dealing attack was setting targets on fire where they hit. Kyras diamond lantern was leaving icy patches where it struck.

Being silver rank a lot of Rashid’s control powers hurt or outright killed the comparatively weak iron rank monsters, chains of lighting strung between the bubbles that zapped, force tether rods were in other gaps, binding monsters to them and causing damage if they tried to move away. The team were on cleanup, they had set up for a huge battle but saw less than ten monsters make it through, Rashid only having to deal with two bronze rank monsters. The desert allowed for a higher concentration of monsters as Lucy had explained there was less for the natural magic to be absorbed by so the net result was more manifestations. The last monster was taken care of by James, a small rodent like monster had snuck between the two familiars guarding the tower of stone columns and James simply rolled off, landing on the rodent with his favourite foot transformation in a large yellow eagle talon.

All the containment effects ended. Rashid came back in and Kyra shrunk the stone columns to the sand again. Teddy zipped around touching each of the monsters before meeting everyone in the middle.

“Rashid are you ok if we…”

“Yes you have my permission to loot any and all monsters.”

A quirk of looting powers that most shared was that you could only loot monsters that you you were responsible for dispatching. Anyone else’s kills you had to have permission. Seasoned adventurers were used to giving permission to those that had looting powers, they were always popular on teams as it provided almost a second income alongside adventuring. After the rainbow smoke dissipated Teddy approached Rashid with two bags.

“Nothing exciting, some iron and bronze rank coins and sand quintessence.”

Rashid pushed the bags back at him.

“No need, I’m just tagging along, I made enough in my adventuring days that I don’t know what I would do with one bag of iron and bronze coins. Keep them, I remember how expensive things are when you’re just starting out.”

“Thankyou.” Teddy said, ‘pocketing’ the bag back in his dimensional space. “We do seem to spend it as fast as we can make it. You never really talk about your adventuring days that much, you’re too busy correcting whatever we’re doing. What was it like being a control and utility specialist?”

They were on the move again, Teddy and Rashid walking at the front, Lucy next being poked from behind by James as she kept getting distracted by her notebooks, he was chatting amicably with Kyra. The team had spent a lot of time in the academy with Rashid as the chief instructor but they had a lot to learn and he a lot to teach so they hadn’t got to know him very well personally and Teddy was taking this opportunity to get to ask him about his past.

“I grew up in a high magic area to two non essence user parents, they are still there now, I managed to make enough coin to essence them up and I’ll have them for long years to come. I never had the opportunities that you and your peers have been offered in the academy annex project.” He paused, thinking back to some memory. “My first essence was found in our bathroom when I was a teenager. The local neighbourhood saw the manifestation and I had a half dozen rough youths came by to try and ‘convince’ my father to give it over. We were lucky a bronze ranker was nearby on his way home from work and was a magic society ritualist. He did the ritual for us for free right there and then, that solved any arguments or stress that we were going to be robbed in the night. That was my water essence, by slowly working and saving I managed to get a popular but inexpensive paper essence and began working for a wealthy family as a personal batsman.”

“Batsman, huh, funny.” Teddy mumbled, looking interested.

“Why’s that?”

“I wonder how closely our language translation works on that.”

“Well it was a wealthy family I worked for that sometimes went adventuring, I dealt with the running of the house and the camp when out and about. Something of a highly paid servant. The Feast essence came when we were out on adventure when I was helping in the camp kitchen. My confluence was Service, not very glamorous or sought after but I was brought up to take whatever opportunities are in front of me. I’m not part of a church so why would I not accept it? So overall no flashy powers or high damage, after I made iron rank and unlocked all my powers I struck out to try my hand at adventuring. As I said it was a high magic area so an Iron ranker had little opportunity for growth, what I soon found though was that teams often hired auxiliaries to join their teams as support specialists and I found a lot of my time doing that.”

As they walked they came up to a small clump of rocks. In the middle of nowhere. They could see some small craters beyond and some scorched and blackened rocks, an area of the desert nearby was deeply sunk in. Rashid looked around in surprise and swept up to a door that was half buried at a forty five degree angle. Without knocking he opened it up and it swung on the angle revealing a staircase leading down into the desert.