After spending months away from the city, most of which they had spent eating various shades of mushroom in Charlie’s desert dwelling had lead to the Mitchells covering the table in front of them with sandwiches. The staff were overjoyed to see the family, giving them a round of applause as they walked back into the bar, the four of them had stood in the doorway slightly embarrassed but heartfelt gratitude a being welcomed back. The staff had their favourite table ready in no time, a small alcove in the corner with a round table they could all get round with none of them having their back to the main room. Shortly after they were sat talking to one of the waitresses another came over with their drinks without having to order, shortly after that one of the boys waitering brought over the first round of sandwiches and they kept coming after that.

The chef came out to sit and talk to them about the new sandwich options they had tried for him and they were horrifying him with tales of endless mushrooms. Vincent Trenslow walked in and panned his gaze around then locked onto the Mitchells he made a bee-line for them, the chef saw the intense look on his face and made himself scarce. Vincent leaned over the table placing both hands on it and spoke so softly that only the Mitchells could hear.

“Three men brought a very… highly sensitive prisoner this afternoon which is complicated at the best of times, then we find out that it is you four that are involved which makes it even more complicated! What am I going to do with you?”

Seeing that Vincent was winding up to a full tirade James leant out and got the barman’s attention. He motioned for one drink for Vincent then went back to listening.

“And when I got the details out of those two church of Hero thugs and they finally pointed me towards the marina AND I finally found your ridiculous new boat…”

“It’s not just a boat.” Teddy chipped in and Vincent glowered at him.

“There was a ginormous bronze rank monster sleeping on the gang plank, really James, you shouldn’t leave him lying around.”

“Ah so you saw our B.E.A.R.S.S. then.” James said, spelling the word.

“The what?!” Vincent asked incredulously.

“The Basically Everything All Right Security System, Bearss for short.”

Vincent looked like his head was going to pop off before a very smiley waitress dropped off a tall pint of beer for him before moving quickly away. Kyra took out a hand mirror from somewhere and checked her reflection, she swept a loose strand of hair behind her ear and when her hand was behind the ear a small button appeared in it. She pressed in and subtly put it on the table under the lip of a plate.

“Vincent, privacy screen is up, take a seat, give us a cheers with your pint, look like you’re happy to see us and then you can tell us why you’re really so annoyed.” She said.

He deflated slightly and sat down, he bowed his head slightly and raised his glass, with a roaring cheer, mostly from the two boys, they smashed their glasses into his and no one put theirs down until they had all finished. The two waiting staff that brought over a fresh round of drinks straight after and were a little surprised when they crossed into the privacy screen but didn’t make a big deal of it.

“So come on Vinnie, what’ve we done thats so bad now?” Lucy asked.

“Well for starters you called me Vinnie, that better not catch on. In true outworlder fashion you have found yourselves caught up in events that are far larger than you can comprehend. You were set away from here because you were stirring trouble and just found even more! I can’t brief you on the detail yet, if at all.”

“The prisoner we brought in was that special? We just thought he was a crazy dude, we thought what he was doing was maybe naughty and he attacked us so we brought him in. I don’t think any of us were going to think any more of it once we turned him over.” Teddy said.

Vincent rubbed his face with his hand, smoothing his moustache.

“Well someone has made the choice that you are going to think more on it.”

“Hero.” Lucy guessed, Vincent looked surprised but no one else did.

“How did you know?”

“Oh she normally puts things together before the rest of us get halfway there.” Kyra added knocking Lucy’s elbow.

“Well, yes, Hero’s representatives have insisted that he is still your prisoner being held at the adventure society and you must be involved, including all questioning and anything else to do with the case.”

“And you have to go along with that?” James asked.

“Mr Mitchell, It’s a god, they don’t really ask as much as tell. Seeing as more than a few of the adventure society membership worship Hero we find ourselves in an unfortunate position where it is hard to say no.”

“Great, so what does that mean for us?” Teddy asked.

“Well, we cannot question him or go any further than in-processing him into holding. It’s put the brakes on a larger operation so I need one of you to come in.”

“Ah, so now I see the frustration of not finding us at the boat.”

“No, I got roared at by a giant bear at the boat and went to your house outside the city. Your housekeeper said that if you were definitely in the city but not home yet then you weren’t drunk enough, hence finding you here.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Yup.”

“Sounds right.”

“Fair.”

“I miss Gerald.” Kyra said.

Vincent reached forward and grabbed a sandwich off one of the large trays in front of him and slouched back in his seat, finally relaxing.

“So what’s new? I haven’t seen you four since we sent you off to the desert with Rashid.”

“Well the boat, obviously, but it’s not just a boat, so not so obvious.” Teddy went on to explain the venture in the desert, how they found Charlie, and the vehicle they made.

“Oh and I got a new engraving!” James said and trusting Vincent he took off his vambrace and gave it to him to inspect.

Vincent’s eyes went wide at the apparent weight of the item, a rank higher than James he shouldn’t expect to notice it being heavy but the rules around soul-bound items weren’t always clear cut. He started with the engravings he knew, tracing the lines of the bear claws on the back of the hand plate and the many metalled stylised wing on one of the large plates, he moved to the back of the upper arm piece and looked over the lightning bird.

“This is all a fine collection of artwork! You should be very proud of what you’ve collected already, it’s a shame about the damage.”

James paused lifting a large glass to his mouth and some beer sloshed out.

“What damage?!”

“Here on the bottom plate, sorry if you didn’t already know.” Vincent said, handing back the armour to James.

James took it back hurriedly, turned it over and saw the tell-tale marks. A few of the drip marks from where the Rock Matriarch had tried to splatter them with venom had burnt into the metal.

“No, no no no no no NO!” James said as he was opening the description on the interface then exclaimed when he saw the new line.

Item: [Vambrace of Menagerie] (iron rank [growth], legendary)

Armour that when developed will increase the effect of transformation powers.

This item is bound to you and cannot be used by anyone else.

Effect: When engraved by a magical armourer (or mystical tattooist’s with the necessary skills) will grant the wearer benefits to transformation powers. Benefits will be limited to size and skill of engraving. Once an engraving is in place it cannot be removed. Engravers must be at least equal rank to the item, higher rank engravers will produce a stronger effect.

Effect (Bear Claw): When making physical attacks with this item it will create a slashing effect that will cause the [Bleeding] condition to occur. Against targets that do not bleed extra damage of the resonating force type will be added.

Effect (Eagle wing): When making attacks that involve a wing it will sheathe the wing in metalled blades. The attack will be much stronger than without this item. Attacks will have resonating force, disruptive force and trace transcendent damage. Any transformation to wings will include these effects. Ranged effects will be augmented by this accessory. [This effect cannot be improve until silver-gold ascension but will still need upgrade materials per ritual of ascension]

Effect (Lightning): For a high mana cost imbue attacks with an electric effect. Small chance of paralysis and ongoing muscle spasms.

Effect (Venom): [SEALED]

[Bleeding] (affliction, wounding, blood): Deals ongoing damage by causing or increasing blood loss. As a wounding effect, this condition absorbs or negates an amount of incoming healing, after which this affliction immediately ends.

Growth Conditions (bronze):

Bound user must be at least bronze rank.

4 kilograms of low grade (bronze rank) star-fall silver

100 bronze-rank iron quintessence gems

100 bronze-rank magic quintessence gems

100 bronze-rank animal based quintessence gems (per engraving)

[100 bear quintessence]

[100 wing quintessence]

[100 lightning quintessence]

[100 venom quintessence]

1000 bronze rank spirit coins

Silver rank Artificer

Ritual of bronze ascension.

“What’s wrong?” Vincent said, looking concerned.

Lucy was patting James consolingly on the shoulder as he gently banged his head against the armour.

“He hasn’t got to choose what goes on there engraving-wise since the first one which was the bear and he stumbled across that opportunity anyway, looks like he’ll be getting that panel engraved next.”

“Ooh, and what quintessence does he need to upgrade?”

“Venom.”

Vincent winced. “That’s an expensive one. But on the other hand, new power. Power is normally a good thing.”

“Oh yeh.” Teddy said, just remembering. “Speaking of power, all my essences are up to bronze rank but I’m mysteriously not a bronze ranker.” He said in an off-hand way without concern.

Vincent’s went tense, all the relaxation he’d just achieved vanishing.

“What do you mean all your essences are but you’re not.”

“Well you know we can see it written down, everything is 100% but there’s a bunch of question marks where it should say I’ve ranked up.”

“Have you told anyone else.” All four shook their heads. “Good. DO. NOT. TELL. ANYONE.” He said very clearly. “Leave this with me, keep your aura as tamped down as you can, try not to go out until we have a handle on this.”

“Damn Vinnie you’re starting to worry me.”

Vincent tried to relax again.

“Outworlders will be the death of me. Look, I just want to make sure you don’t get carted off for experimentation, I like you all and don’t want someone getting ideas they can take you. We’ll find someone to trust and go from there.”

“Ok, we can lay low.”

Vincent arched an eyebrow.

“Can you?”

“Sure we can, we’ll just quietly sail our little row-boat back out and round the city and hole up in the villa. If you can send us a few small local contracts to keep busy then we’ll stay out the way.”

“We’ll need someone to be coming in to sort the prisoner.”

[Any volunteers, I’m the one who should be hiding].

“I’ll come into the city to deal with the prisoner.” Lucy said. “We can have a pretty normal life, I’ll come in to work with the adventure society, Kyra will be coming in to work with the Broadstreet Clinic and James will be trying to find a hidden master to engrave his armour. It wont be unusual to not see Teddy in town, he’s been seen to obsessively hunt monsters before.”

“Lotsa things needing killing out there and somehow thats not as twisty in the head as it sounds.” Teddy nodded along.

“Sure, I can get you some contracts, they’ll be directed ones but I’ll hand deliver them or get someone I trust so they’ll be kept on the low-down.”

“Gee Vincent, between sending us out to the desert and now not even wanting me to be seen I’m starting to think you don’t want us around.”

“Like I said, personally I love you guys and girls, professionally… are you sure you didn’t like Vitesse more?”