The Mitchells sat in awkward silence, there was a little bit of tea-politics going on. The serving staff of the academy were trying to figure out who to serve first in the nicest meeting room on campus. Gabrielle Remore as the head of the academy even in Vitesse was the obvious choice but he had insisted his guests be served first, as they were the object of the meeting the Mitchells had been served first until the staff had a moment of indecision and started serving the Director and Deputy Director, so Kyra and James sat with gently steaming tea not drinking while waiting for Teddy and Lucy to be served after the officials.
“I think we can manage from here thank you.” Gabrielle said, gently soothing his words with his gold rank aura to dismiss the staff.
They left in a hurry, awkwardly bowing to the gold ranker and the director before backing out and closing the doors. As the doors closed the privacy magic snapped in place, Lucy could see the swirling bands of magic around the room and got up to inspect them to the raised eyebrows of most of the non-family in the room.
While the annex staff looked abashed at first the fiasco with the tea and now a previous students behaviour staring at seemingly blank walls, Gabrielle was non-plussed. He got up and helped himself to tea, pouring for Teddy and Lucy’s cup where it was on the table.
“Ms Picot, Mr Trenslow, you have called us all here to discuss, the floor is yours.”
“Thankyou Mr Remore, it is an honour for you to have joined us, I had not anticipated your presence when I asked for academy senior staff to be present.”
“I was in the neighbourhood; with an exciting investment opportunity we can talk about after this.”
Genevieve look curious and nodded, Gabrielle handed a pamphlet to Vincent who glanced at it and gave a polite grimace to the gold ranker before putting the pamphlet on the coffee table and giving Genevieve a knowing look.
“A complex situation has arisen that overlaps many moving parts, I wont trouble you with the politics of a small provincial city Mr Remore but for us there is a delicate balancing act and your annex is embroiled in the mix.” She turned to Teddy. “Mr Mitchell, your situation has been briefed to me and you have my sympathies, please be assured we are dealing with it with the utmost discretion, we have a specialist coming to meet us here shortly to be read into the situation.” She took a deep breath that everyone knew she didn’t physiologically need as a silver ranker but mentally did. “The politics with the families of Greenstone are still ongoing, it will not escape their notice that myself and Mr Trenslow are here today so I hope you understand how valuable this time is. We would rather you not be in the public eye right now but we are receiving pressure from very very high up to use you.”
“Use us? From where? The adventure society can give us directed contracts but there is still the freedom to turn them down unless under strict monster surge protocol.” Lucy said from where she was studying the doorframe.
Genevieve made a face like sucking a bitter sweet. “The church of hero has asked for the four of you specifically to be given a contract that is coming up, it is one that we normally struggle to fill from the local pool of adventurers and you would actually be almost perfect for.”
“Why does this sound a lot more complicated than a directed contract?” Teddy asked.
Vincent picked up the explanation while the Director sipped her tea. “Because of the timing, the families were due to take on the contract with a pair of their bronze rank prodigies, the problem is there is now only one after the remote village incident, the contract is bronze rank and two stars. It’s elevated due to being incredibly remote, mildly dangerous and delivery to a different adventure society branch. It is strictly a non-solo contract that we need trusted people on.”
“Ok so a few problems.” James started, “Firstly there is a lack of bronzeness, we currently have an issue with one of us unable to make bronze rank, secondly we don’t want to make things worse for ourselves in Greenstone and thirdly we’re not in the church of hero.”
Genevieve looked mildly surprised. “Why should it matter if you are in the church of hero? A god has taken personal interest in your family and you would deny him?”
Vincent made a side to side twitching motion with his hand, not sure if it was directed at them or the Director, Kyra answered anyway.
“Sure we would, he doesn’t own us, we made this bargain with him that we would remain secular and control our own destiny as much as we could.”
Genevieve looked mildly astonished and opened her mouth to speak but Vincent jumped in.
“Before you decide if you are or are not going to take the contract you should hear it out including the conditions that must be met for you to go.” He paused and they all paid him attention, Lucy had sat down and sat with one leg crossed over the other sipping her tea. “The contract requires multiple bronze rank adventurers, not necessarily a team but certainly not solo, the families at the moment cannot field two bronze rank adventurers for various reasons. The remoteness should not be a problem for any job as we hold a reserve of well travelled portal users these days but the area and subject of the contract is highly resistant to portals.” This perked up Lucy’s interest. “So the travel must be conducted overland, the distance required and the cargo to carry is perfectly suited to teams with large transport.”
[Well isn’t that convenient.] James put on the interface.
Genevieve had finished her tea and took up the explanation again. “You may be thinking that it’s convenient that we ensured you would have such a vehicle but please be assured we did not want you involved in this.”
[Sure, sure.]
“The cargo defies dimensional storage and will need to be transported, it is both too big and too heavy for any essence user below gold to carry cross country and we do not use gold rankers to shuttle cargo. The terrain is unyielding and has areas of higher magical density and therefore not suitable for iron rankers.”
The academy annex senior staff had been sitting politely listening to the adventure society staff explain the situation. Rashid sat forward to pick up the narrative. “The Academy has been recognised as something of a handbrake for iron to bronze rank development, while we lay unquestionably valuable foundations for future development through bronze and silver it has been shown that adventurers would have made bronze in the time that they spend in the academy, we have had a number of graduates make the step to bronze and are on their way to silver, we are happy that the delay to bronze is offset by the speed in which graduates make the jump after leaving us and are well set up for silver. You would however be the first team that has all graduated solely from the academy to make bronze. This is something of an opportunity to spin this in a good way for the academy.” He held up a hand to forestall any comments from the Mitchells. “We understand you should not be pushed around for the academy’s interests but we are willing to negotiate a substantial decrease in your indenture contract for your terms here. Furthermore we have been asked by the adventure society to address your lack of ‘bronzeness’ we are offering an accelerated training program to push you all over the line in short order, I must assume you are all almost there? Notwithstanding the current issue Theodore.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“A few powers each now at this point you are correct.” Lucy answered him.
“The time frame for this is quite short.” Vincent said. “The contract is from here to a remote fortress town to a much larger fortress city in the north. They require delivery month after next, the journey will take around a month even with your impressive vehicle.”
“So we have realistically less than one month to all make bronze.” Teddy said. “What would this training program entail?”
“A little pressure.” Rashid said. “We have seen that you are a very capable team, able to take on higher rank threats with some ease. We would continue to do so, not only give you first pick at the bronze rank contracts but reserve them for you through myself in order to increase the danger.”
“Danger, exertion and meditation, the key aspects for essence power development.” Lucy said.
[This doesn’t sound like a bad deal, it’s not what we were planning to do but nothing in it is against our favour except pissing off the local aristocracy and do we really care about that?] James said on the interface.
[They’re not telling us something, they haven’t addressed why hero wants us on this contract.] Kyra replied.
[But hero wants us for something bigger later on, is he going to throw away a talent he is developing?]
While James and Kyra were discussing internally on the interface Lucy kept up the outward conversation. “So who would be leading this training?”
“I would.” Rashid said. “As chief instructor and a silver rank adventurer I can support your team and step in as required, with my particular power set it will be more in the form of support than taking over, enabling you to still take the experience.”
Between the four of them they had decided on the interface that a trip to the temple district to visit the acolytes of hero was in order, whatever they were telling the adventure society about the prisoner and this job they wanted it from the heidel’s mouth.
The team had come to a decision and Teddy acted as spokesperson.
“We recognise the situation. We are willing to take the opportunity you are providing under the understanding that we cannot yet take the contract as we are not bronze rank and therefore cannot receive any punitive action for not taking it if we chose not to. The accelerated training is seen as an academy action in their interest and will be duly compensated in a reduction of indenture terms regardless of contract completion at the end as the training will need to be completed to even make it a viable opportunity. We will review our position before we take the contract and will communicate our intent to the adventure society in good time in order to make other arrangements.”
The formal attorney-style answer stunned everyone present for a moment before Gabrielle unexpectedly, let out a booming laugh, rocking back in his chair. The gold rank aura seemed to warm the laugh, feeling it deep inside everyone present as well as audibly.
“I am always fond of dealing with outworlders, such a unique perspective. Well said Mr Mitchell, well said.”
Vincent and Genevieve shared a series of looks, silently communicating through having worked with each other for so long. The Director addressed the Mitchells. “While we would prefer unbounded enthusiasm to serve the adventure society we cannot disagree with your terms.”
“Ha!” Gabrielle chortled. “Fantastic, if that is settled let us depart Director, we can leave the chief instructor to plan a program of training with the young adventurers.” He stood and gestured to the door, escorting the two adventure society functionaries out. As he was turning through the door and down the corridor they heard him talking to the pair. “Now, has the Greenstone adventure society investment portfolio broken into the exciting world of pottery?…”
Before the door closed on its own a robed arm held the door, a familiar face and familiar swirling vortex containing books and scrolls came through the door.
“Rueben! I thought I was seeing you at the villa later.” Lucy said.
“Mrs Lucy, hello all, I received a note that I was needed as an outworlder specialist here first, I did assume that it involved your family and did not need to inform you of the change.”
James leant back in his chair, turning to face the door and stretched out his left arm, it continued to stretch, turning purple and tentacle-y, it was the same one that he had used against Teddy in the mirage chamber and the brother gave a little shudder. The appendage swung the door shut, engaging the privacy magic to engage. Rueben looked a little perturbed by the tentacle with its toothed hair-like additions waving about and moved further in to sit in a chair, the vortex abruptly stopped and all the contents drifted to the floor around him.
“The goddess knowledge, the deity I now offer my patronage to, would like me to reassure you that I will offer confidentiality bound by the terms of my duty as an acolyte. So how can I help?”
Teddy self consciously checked the room, everyone save family and Rashid had filed out the room and he nodded to Lucy. She opened a storage rune portal and took out a notebook, she flipped to the page she was after and put it in front of Rueben, he looked and saw it was an extract of the interface notification she had written word for word.
All [Dark Essence] abilities have reached [Bronze 0].
Linked attribute [Recovery] has increased from [Iron 9] to [Bronze 0].
All [Swift Essence] abilities have reached [Bronze 0].
Linked attribute [Speed] has increased from [Iron 9] to [Bronze 0].
All [Dimension Essence] abilities have reached [Bronze 0].
Linked attribute [Power] has increased from [Iron 9] to [Bronze 0].
All [Void Essence] abilities have reached [Bronze 0].
Linked attribute [Spirit] has increased from [Iron 9] to [Bronze 0].
Progress to Bronze rank: 100% (4/4 essences complete).
All your attributes have reached bronze rank: ??? ???? ??????? ?????? ????.
??? ???? ?????? ?????????? ?? ???? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ???????? ??? ??????.
??? ??????? ?? ???? ???? ??? ?????????.
???? ???? ?????? ???? ????????: Progress to silver rank: 00%.
Theodore Mitchell
Race: Outworlder
Current rank: Iron
Progression to bronze rank 100% (4/4 essences complete)
Attributes
[Power] (Dimension): [Bronze 0]
[Speed] (Swift): [Bronze 0]
[Spirit] (Void): [Bronze 0]
[Recovery] (Dark): [Bronze 0]
“Fascinating! And when did this happen?”
“A few weeks ago now.” Lucy replied. “We’ve conducted a few trials, every power that is in the magic society register has been checked at its bronze rank power level, ingesting a bronze rank spirit coin still gives the requisite power bump but has the same withdrawal as an iron ranker. As the description shows he is definitely still iron rank.”
“And I assume you have been training and reflecting since this happened and there has been no change to your condition? I would think in this case we should continue with the training, I’m sure the more experienced adventurer Mr Flonds will agree that more consolidation with your new abilities even if you cannot use them to their full strength can only be a good thing. If we can get the another of your family to the threshold that might shed some light on the situation.”
“Well you’re in luck, we were about to discuss how we are all about to conduct a concentrated program to advance as quickly as possible.”
“Oh really? Well if you don’t mind I will tag along and observe your progress. Mr Mitchell,”
“Teddy please, using the family gets confusing with two of us.”
“Teddy, if you would be amenable I would like to conduct some non-invasive tests on you, more getting a baseline of your current magical state to compare as we go.”
“Sure, why not.”
[Sure, thats how it starts, ‘oh would you mind some non-invasive tests’ next thing you know you’re suspended by your wrists and ankles while they see how much value they can get from probing you.] James said.
Rashid and Reuben looked quizzically at Teddy, Kyra and Lucy as they all gave James a flat look at the same time. He threw his hands in the air.
“I’m just saying!”
“Just saying what?” Reuben asked, very confused.
“Don’t worry Reuben, he’s being an idiot.” Lucy said.
“Anyway, It’s time to go back to school. Rashid, what’s the plan?”