Returning to Earth #1 after Zentha Qitris zipped away, I found myself without any clear and immediate goals. That was fine sometimes, but I felt like I was supposed to have gained some ground. Instead, I was barely enlightened with knowledge, and none of it was freely offered by her. Just ominous portents that she had to know wouldn’t be useful.

  I had decent hopes for her, since she’d been so helpful to Izzy. Sure, we’d sought her out in hiding instead of in her fancy manor, but if that was such a problem you’d think she’d have accepted my offer of aid. I wasn’t going to take on a world full of wizards… but surely we could have at least brought her to a world willing to protect her instead of one she was just hanging out in.

  I rarely ever ended up on Earth #2 without an incident with The Scouring. I had been slightly concerned that my presence had drawn them in, somehow. Though the incident with the large batch of Humuruns I pulled through was probably related to their presence more than the Gate.

  It was also possible being cognizant of that issue had helped. My Gate could have been more subtle. Or they were all busy. Surely if they could actually just assault the world whenever they wanted with limitless numbers they would have won already.

  While I was personally disappointed in some of the developments, the Power Brigade probably liked my availability. I did still have some experimentation to do, but mostly I spent time on patrols. Though I did try to figure out how one got a quick with mana manipulation as Zentha. Was that just an experience thing?

  I was probably faster than before. I just hadn’t really thought about that factor all that much, given that I would simply run out of mana faster. But being able to respond to attacks more easily would be very useful. Fortunately, that was the sort of thing I could do on the job, just generally trying to improve my casting speed. It might just take time, but if there was some sort of secret to it I needed to grab someone and make them tell me.

  -----

  It was entirely possible that Zenfer Cloudfound didn’t know what time zone I was in. I came to that conclusion because I received a Sending shortly before midnight and it wasn’t related to some sort of emergency.

  Maybe mages were supposed to have awful sleep schedules. I certainly did sometimes, but there was rarely a reason I couldn’t take a proper rest and continue whatever I had been doing more alert in the morning.

  “Information regarding the whereabouts of grand mage Ixius Uvithar has come to our attention. It may be of interest to you.”

  Whoa. That was a revelation.

  I’d never heard Master Uvithar’s given name, as far as I was aware.

  I got a text from Midnight asking about the magic and my response. I just invited him across the hall. It would be cool if we had a little tunnel he could just run across, but that wouldn’t be the standard for most people in this apartment complex so it was sensible they didn’t have that. Mostly, it was just meant for individuals of various sizes to be accommodate.

  “Sounds like a trap,” Midnight commented.

  “Right?” I replied. “I’m just not sure for who. I don’t think I’ve done anything to bother the super secret cabal lately.”

  “Except for the thing with Zentha.”

  “Oh yeah. You think she’s part of the cabal?”

  Midnight shook his head. “No. She wouldn’t have to be in hiding.”

  That made sense. “So they figured out I saw her somehow?”

  “Not necessarily. It could be a coincidence. Also, there might not be a super secret cabal running things.”

  “Nah. That sounds boring. There has to be.” I pondered for a few moments. “This specific ‘they’ has to be the Archmages of Granbold, right? Think we can trust them?”

  “Who can say?” Midnight shook his head. He paced along the back of the couch- that was about as high as he was comfortable going most of the time. “How much contact have we really had? The initial meeting, a couple messages thanking us for participating in the defense of allies in Linduel, and not much else.”

  “I did get the mana manipulation book. Though maybe it was so I didn’t figure out the true secrets.”

  “Or so you didn’t kill yourself with your mana crystal thing.”

  “They didn’t even know about that. Also, I didn’t stop doing it.” It was still the best way for me to maximize my mana. Though I only over absorbed individual crystals after I got a level to make up for the small difference in potential. It also hadn’t stopped me from wanting to explore other potential mana options. If anything, seeing the safe and approved methods made me think about others. And now I was thinking about how to use mana better, not just absorb and store it.

  Midnight pondered for a few moments. “You have to respond soon, right? How do we politely decline?”

  “Well…” I shrugged. “I don’t know if we should. Because they might actually have information I want. We just need to make sure to be safe about things. Maybe meet somewhere public and bring backup?”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “And what sort of backup can we bring? Undertrained recruits? Jerome?” Midnight asked.

  Oh right. We couldn’t bring supers. “I suppose our options are limited. But Sir Kalman should be willing. And if he’s not available… then we won’t go.”

  “I suppose that would work. Though armed soldiers might be a bit much for some people.”

  Personally, I thought they were reasonable to have everywhere. “There aren’t that many others we can ask. Ceira is super busy and also not really combat oriented. I’m sure she’d gladly grow us a new limb if we lose one, but that's a better reason to not have her. Zeb… might be too suspicious? And Izzy might not want to go.”

  “As long as we end up safe,” Midnight said. “That’s all that matters. But we should think about how to word our response first.”

  -----

  We didn’t finish things with a single Sending. But eventually plans were made and I think we did a great job not sounding too paranoid on our end. We had a whole week to sort out our plans, and we put together our group.

  “If anyone asks, say you’re a druid.”

  “But I’m a beastmaster!” Zeb commented. “I can’t do magic and stuff!”

  “First, I wasn’t talking to you,” I pointed out. “That’s part of the plan. Though you do have a good point.” I looked at Izzy. “Maybe pretend to be a beastmaster.”

  She frowned. “Will they listen to me?”

  “I want to help!” Zeb said. “Of course I’ll listen.”

  “I mean your… companions.”

  Zeb looked offended. “They are all very good boys and girls! Douglas is the best girl besides me, Sugar is sweet, and Tammy hasn’t chewed holes in anything today! He’ll be one of the bestest boys eventually.”

  Zeb was not good with human naming conventions. Or maybe she was just bad at names in general. “Look,” I said. “We just need to know if Izzy can at least nominally tell Squirrels #1-3 what to do.”

  “Their names are-”

  “If you continue gathering squirrels I’m absolutely not remembering all of them,” I cut her off. She’d been surprisingly effective in the last month, tripling the size of her squirrel gang. When she’d heard about the trip she insisted on coming to protect us. That was great and all, but it was not going to be simple to bring her other two oversized- and one otherworldly- companions. Technically the squirrels were from the wrong world too, but only particular people would notice that particular detail. Same with Zeb, since dogs existed and were pretty widely varied like on Earth.

  Not that Zeb was a dog. The various things she was wearing would be attributed to her being a companion. Same with the squirrel trio, though they didn’t have combat outfits yet. I heard that with the power of a beastmaster behind them they were surprisingly effective, though. Mostly through people from the Portal Squad complaining about training.

  Zeb looked pretty big next to Izzy, like one of those pretty good danes or something. Obviously a different build, but proportionately. Izzy was carefully considering the squirrels. She carefully stretched out a hand towards Zeb’s head. “Here, Douglas.”

  The squirrel hesitated slightly. She wasn’t that familiar with Izzy. However, with slight encouragement from Zeb she complied.

  “I guess we can work with this,” Izzy nodded. “Too bad we can’t explain it as you having five familiars somehow.”

  Zeb tilted her head. “I barely even fit on his shoulder! It would be strange.”

  Despite my size, I was willing to say that Zeb did not fit on my shoulder. “That’s not a requirement for familiars, you know,” I pointed out. “Some walk around independently. Midnight does, pretty often.”

  “It’s just so much faster,” Midnight commented. “And easier. You do know that you don’t have to carry your companions, right?”

  Zeb currently had squirrels perched on her head and back- there had been a third moments before. “I know. Otherwise Miss Flutter and Fluffy couldn’t be my companions. Instead, I can ride them.”

  “You don’t have to stack at all,” I clarified.

  “... But why wouldn’t you?” Zeb asked.

  I didn’t have a good answer for that. “Anyway, try not to talk if it’s not important. I’ll leave Translation up for you in case you need to talk to Izzy or someone else, but otherwise just try to… bark?”

  “It will sound really bad,” Zeb said. “Unless it’s actual words.”

  “People will just think you’re a dog with a weird bark. The truth wouldn’t even come to mind,” I said.

  We passed through the lobby of Extra. Especially nowadays we had to keep up at least some proper procedures.

  “... That angel smells funny,” Zeb commented after we stepped into the portal zone.

  “In an important way…?” I asked. Zeb had a good nose after all.

  I looked to Midnight, who shrugged. “I don’t go around sniffing people.” Midnight’s nose wasn’t quite as good, but still better than my orcish one. I wasn’t sure where Izzy ranked in things if we included the squirrels. She could have enhanced her senses that way, but I didn’t think so.

  Zeb thought about my question. “I think she’s okay. I just didn’t expect an angel to smell like that.”

  “Like… what?” I asked.

  “Umm… it’s probably a personal thing.”

  “In that case,” I said. “Maybe don’t bring it up? Though if something is dangerous or concerning we really should know.”

  “It’s not dangerous,” Zeb confirmed. “Or at least, not any more dangerous than being an angel?”

  Angels were pretty dangerous.

  Soon enough we reached an outgoing alcove. Midnight and I split a Gate, partially for regeneration purposes and partially for casting practice. Sir Kalman was waiting on the other side.

  “Ready for a journey?” he asked.

  I nodded. That was the main caveat we had for showing up. No portaling into the capital, not that they’d really want that. No teleporting either- though it would have been an option. I wasn’t willing to risk ending up in the wrong spot in the capital or missing, though. I’d only seen it in Scrying a couple times. And I didn’t necessarily trust them sending a random mage who could teleport us. So we were going to have a proper journey. Sir Kalman could take care of some business in the capital and his presence would help make sure nothing went wrong.

  I didn’t know what could go wrong, but the answer was usually everything I could think of and then ten more things.