Hot on the heels of the announcement of the first fetch quest audiobook comes the second. Available for preorder now, and out 28th Feb.
Further questioning revealed things to be pretty much as I imagined them. A tiny nation—with little economic or military power when measured on a global scale but highly antagonistic to everyone regardless—had been left out of the diplomatic mission to this world. Believing there was no viable way to get their hands on the portal technology, they'd decided to deprive the rest of the world of it instead, by destroying the facilities and killing the researchers and diplomats.
The job hadn't been particularly proficient. An operative had tried to bomb the Blue Skies Institute, but had been captured before reaching it. Nor had they known about the diplomatic mission's departure time, and their attack on the island had come too late. And even if they'd fully succeeded, while killing the researchers would have dealt a blow, I couldn't imagine the portal blueprints hadn't been backed up elsewhere. It would be a delay, and nothing more.
Rather, it was a delay. The reason it had taken longer than expected to get back to us was because they'd needed to repair the damage. Now detached from the System, they'd forgone the requirement for extreme isolation and rebuilt in a more modestly isolated nuclear bunker somewhere.
A pariah state had become yet more isolated, but that was all. It wasn't as if anyone could spare the resources to invade them. The superpowers were the bigger concern; there was a good chance they'd stolen the portal blueprints in the chaotic aftermath of the island's bombing. They knew at least one had stolen an encrypted copy of the data, and they had to assume they'd decrypt it eventually. Probably others had taken what they could get, too. On top of that, while an attempted kidnapping of the researchers had been thwarted, some support staff were still unaccounted for.
There was additional circumstantial evidence that someone was trying to secretly go it alone, in that a number of groups opposed to the portal work on grounds of religion or conspiracy theory had suddenly grown far better organised and funded. The unfortunate Doctor and his team had found themselves at risk from forces both foreign and local, and faced either a lifetime of hiding or this attempt at seeking asylum where no-one could reach them. Yet.
We'd lucked out with our first visitors, but we'd likely have less pleasant guests sooner rather than later.
Fear of disease would act to hold them back, as would the fact our first guests had watched me shrug off a bullet. But it had still injured me. Even though I probably fooled them with [Superimpose], they may well assume higher powered weaponry would be a match for me. They'd be correct, too. My best hope was if they suspected that I, being a child, had lower abilities than the adults. Fear of what we could do may stave off bad actors for some time, but how long for?
I couldn't see them staging an all-out invasion. No-one knew enough about this world. They'd start with reconnaissance. Remote drones, most likely. Maybe some special forces trying to blend in. Perhaps we should spread the information around to report anyone who didn't speak [Common] to me.
But our best option was to prevent the portals in the first place. That required convincing the institute researchers that we needed to block portals, unless I wanted to do all the work myself. An enchantment that detected portals opening and blasted them with raw spatial affinity? Making a small model was beyond my capability, never mind one that spanned the entire planet.
How did the Law decide who could be trusted? Few people from this world had met Earth humans. It had started once I called them humans. This world had monsters. Maybe I could claim Earth had monsters, too?
And, speaking of trusting people, this small group had offered no evidence whatsoever that their story was true. Based on the reluctance of the trio of surviving researchers, it was obvious they didn't really want to be here, but that didn't translate to their reason for being here being exactly as Doctor Withermark had described. I'd kept my [Mana Sight] on the pair of silent Earthlings sharing Krana's back and hadn't spotted any obvious tells as Doctor Withermark was speaking, but I was hardly an expert at reading body language.
That much musing was enough to land us in the fields outside the Dawnhold research institute, where thankfully nothing was on fire or exploding, and most of the previous shrapnel had been cleaned up.
"(Watch where you tread,)" I warned the other passengers. "(This field gets used as a bomb site.)"
The trio stared around in alarm.
"(Ah. I mean, watch for bits of sharp metal. Not unexploded stuff. No-one uses chemical explosives here.)"
The trio calmed down a little as the other three refugees walked over to join us.
"(That friend of yours isn't very bright, is she?)" muttered the guard.
"(Oi!)" exclaimed Cluma, in passable English. "(I'm sure I'd get it if you explained in our language!)"
"(You knew all the words!)"
"What are they arguing about?" I asked Serlv, hoping it was just a language barrier and not a Law barrier.
"I am uncertain. Cluma's level in [Language: English] is greater than my own. I believe she asked them what they were running from, but didn't understand their answer."
Law then, probably. Well, no time like the present for seeing if this trick would work.
"Cluma, are you aware of monsters that look human? Changelings? Heck, even things like goblins are humanoid, although it would take more than a fancy outfit to mistake one for a human."
"Yes?"
"A group attacked the Earth side of the last portal, killed many of the researchers and stole the portal designs. We suspect they're trying to build a portal of their own to attack our world."
""What?"" exclaimed Krana and Serlv, in perfect harmony.
"Huh?" asked Darren. "There are monsters coming?"
"But you said Earth didn't have any monsters?" pointed out Cluma.
"I haven't been there for a while," I replied with a hundred percent honesty but a non-zero amount of evasion.
"You did say the System was spawning dungeons there," sighed Krana, leaping to a completely incorrect but still beneficial conclusion. "But why would monsters attack here rather than remain within their dungeons?"
"Doubtless in search of mana," sighed Serlv, likewise leaping to a conclusion from a standing start, but unlike Krana, very likely getting it correct.
"So we must prepare for a dungeon break type event, with the added complication that we don't know from where it will occur. What of the forces we will face? What are their levels?"
"We don't know that, either. Probably safest to assume they reach fifty."
"An event on the scale of the Emerald Caverns? That is dire indeed. It was only through the power of Erryn that no lives were lost that day, and this time we shall lack her support."
Well, so far, so good. It would be a problem if armed humans started pouring out of a portal and the defenders identified them as humans and froze up, but thankfully, appraisal skills wouldn't work on them. As long as I maintained they just looked human, everything should be fine. Hopefully.
I'd still prefer the event not to happen at all.
"I'm hoping our guests can work together with the researchers here to prevent portals being opened without our permission."
"What are the chances of success?"
"(She's asking what the chances are of successfully blocking portals,)" I translated.
"(She?)" replied Doctor Withermark, staring at Serlv in surprise. Hah. I knew it. "(Sorry. I mean... In a small area? Pretty good, I'd say. Worldwide? I can't even begin to guess how that would be possible.)"
"Not great," I summarised. Small areas were useless. We wanted the exact opposite; portals could only open within a small area.
Krana and Serlv hadn't shrunk down to their plushie forms for this conversation, which was taking place in full view of a wall of institute windows. Full-sized dragons were not exactly subtle. These facts coalesced into a gaggle of oglers wandering out of the building to see what was going on.
"Hey, Vargalas!" I called, spotting someone I knew and causing the grumpy elf to approach from the band of spectators.
"What? What have you done now?" he snapped, wearing his traditional frown.
"Nothing, directly."
"Directly?" he muttered, looking around and taking in the group of strangers, eyes lingering on the impractical outfits of the guards.
"These six are a group from Earth fleeing from intelligent monsters who tried to kill them and take the portal technology for themselves. If they manage to open a portal, we could have another Emerald Caverns on our hands. We need to find a way to block their portals as quickly as possible."
"And why are you telling this to me? I'm no spatial mage. Bug Grover about it; I know he's made acquaintances with a [Spatial Archmage] or two, trying to work out how to use that contulite stuff to improve their portals."
"I intended to. You're the one who came out to see what was going on."
He floundered a little, trying to think of an excuse, but settled on, "Hrumph."
Some of the other watchers were more helpful, and before long, a group had departed to prepare rooms in the dormitories, and someone else had run to fetch Grover. It was nice that others were willing to deal with the boring part of logistics while I dealt with the more important stuff.
Explaining to Grover what we needed, for example.
"Well, there's an enchantment we can apply to a room to block teleportation, but I can hardly apply it to the planet. Rank five I may be, lad, but there are still limits. Besides, even if I could, it would shut down all teleportation. No more portal network. No spatial mages collecting up harvests. And since Earth's portals aren't magical, it might not even work."
That was indeed not ideal.
"We know the System can detect the portals opening, and it responds to them without responding to those opened by a [Spatial Archmage]," I started, before pausing. "Right?" I asked Serlv, to check.
"Indeed. I do not receive notifications about local portals."
"Right," I continued. "So, rather than permanently blocking everything, it should be possible to detect a portal opening and disrupt it."
"Portals are surprisingly fragile, but even so, anything that would disrupt one would also damage the surroundings. If one opened up in a populated area..."
I recalled the cyclopes' roar that had disrupted the Emerald Caverns' portals and agreed we wouldn't want something like that going off in the middle of Dawnhold.
"Okay, so you can't do it with your enchantments, and the Earth team can't do it with their technology. What if you combine your System skills with their technology?"
"We don't even speak the same language, lad. Working together will be difficult."
"I can translate. So can Cluma. If we need more, so can the twin's parents. Heck, so can the twins, although they still can't speak." One more season and they'd turn two. How much longer?
"Hmm... Could one of you be here all day, every day? Aren't you usually gallivanting off in dungeons?"
"This is more important," said Cluma. "We don't want more monsters!"
Grover stroked his beard as he considered it. "Well, it's true that neither of us can do anything on our own, so we might as well try. And it sounds like there could be a lot of lives on the line if we fail. I'll call in Horail. I don't know anyone more knowledgeable about spatial magic. And it's best I train up my [Language: English] skill as quickly as possible."
Initial plans agreed, everyone started settling in. The dragons returned to their lair, Krana dropping Darren off on the way, and Serlv taking a chunk of my finger with her for ease of attracting my attention. She'd promised to alert me the moment another portal opened anywhere, although she didn't quite understand why I wanted to be alerted when I wouldn't be useful in a fight against a swarm of level fifty monsters.
The guards remained suited up, allegedly so that if the worst happened, they could return to Earth to report. They wanted to swap with fresh guards once every couple of days, which I complained would be unfair to Darren, so they settled on carrying out a few rotations, then finding a pair to live here permanently.
All in all, it seemed to be getting off to a decent start. The group seemed to forget about Cluma's behaviour, and didn't understand enough [Common] to have realised the way I was talking about inhuman monsters. That secret wouldn't last long, and perhaps I'd be best off admitting it sooner rather than later, but if we could at least make it to the first rotation...
I was translating for Doctor Withermark as he attempted to outline general relativity to Grover. Thankfully, Grover had devoured all the textbooks, and his System-enhanced intelligence was sufficient to quote them all verbatim. They may not be at the level required for Doctor Withermark to explain his portal theories, but at least Grover understood the basic concepts.
Doctor Withermark cut himself off mid-sentence, spinning around to look at the researchers, who I now knew were called Abigail, Cara and Calvin.
"Who was that?" he demanded.
Who was what? I replayed the last few seconds, thankful for my own System-enhanced memory. He couldn't have seen anything, given he was facing away from them, but I hadn't heard anything odd. Just his voice, and someone... sniffed...
Oh.
Abigail sneezed.
Hot on the heels of the announcement of the first fetch quest audiobook comes the second. Available for preorder now, and out 28th Feb.
Further questioning revealed things to be pretty much as I imagined them. A tiny nation—with little economic or military power when measured on a global scale but highly antagonistic to everyone regardless—had been left out of the diplomatic mission to this world. Believing there was no viable way to get their hands on the portal technology, they'd decided to deprive the rest of the world of it instead, by destroying the facilities and killing the researchers and diplomats.
The job hadn't been particularly proficient. An operative had tried to bomb the Blue Skies Institute, but had been captured before reaching it. Nor had they known about the diplomatic mission's departure time, and their attack on the island had come too late. And even if they'd fully succeeded, while killing the researchers would have dealt a blow, I couldn't imagine the portal blueprints hadn't been backed up elsewhere. It would be a delay, and nothing more.
Rather, it was a delay. The reason it had taken longer than expected to get back to us was because they'd needed to repair the damage. Now detached from the System, they'd forgone the requirement for extreme isolation and rebuilt in a more modestly isolated nuclear bunker somewhere.
A pariah state had become yet more isolated, but that was all. It wasn't as if anyone could spare the resources to invade them. The superpowers were the bigger concern; there was a good chance they'd stolen the portal blueprints in the chaotic aftermath of the island's bombing. They knew at least one had stolen an encrypted copy of the data, and they had to assume they'd decrypt it eventually. Probably others had taken what they could get, too. On top of that, while an attempted kidnapping of the researchers had been thwarted, some support staff were still unaccounted for.
There was additional circumstantial evidence that someone was trying to secretly go it alone, in that a number of groups opposed to the portal work on grounds of religion or conspiracy theory had suddenly grown far better organised and funded. The unfortunate Doctor and his team had found themselves at risk from forces both foreign and local, and faced either a lifetime of hiding or this attempt at seeking asylum where no-one could reach them. Yet.
We'd lucked out with our first visitors, but we'd likely have less pleasant guests sooner rather than later.
Fear of disease would act to hold them back, as would the fact our first guests had watched me shrug off a bullet. But it had still injured me. Even though I probably fooled them with [Superimpose], they may well assume higher powered weaponry would be a match for me. They'd be correct, too. My best hope was if they suspected that I, being a child, had lower abilities than the adults. Fear of what we could do may stave off bad actors for some time, but how long for?
I couldn't see them staging an all-out invasion. No-one knew enough about this world. They'd start with reconnaissance. Remote drones, most likely. Maybe some special forces trying to blend in. Perhaps we should spread the information around to report anyone who didn't speak [Common] to me.
But our best option was to prevent the portals in the first place. That required convincing the institute researchers that we needed to block portals, unless I wanted to do all the work myself. An enchantment that detected portals opening and blasted them with raw spatial affinity? Making a small model was beyond my capability, never mind one that spanned the entire planet.
How did the Law decide who could be trusted? Few people from this world had met Earth humans. It had started once I called them humans. This world had monsters. Maybe I could claim Earth had monsters, too?
And, speaking of trusting people, this small group had offered no evidence whatsoever that their story was true. Based on the reluctance of the trio of surviving researchers, it was obvious they didn't really want to be here, but that didn't translate to their reason for being here being exactly as Doctor Withermark had described. I'd kept my [Mana Sight] on the pair of silent Earthlings sharing Krana's back and hadn't spotted any obvious tells as Doctor Withermark was speaking, but I was hardly an expert at reading body language.
That much musing was enough to land us in the fields outside the Dawnhold research institute, where thankfully nothing was on fire or exploding, and most of the previous shrapnel had been cleaned up.
"(Watch where you tread,)" I warned the other passengers. "(This field gets used as a bomb site.)"
The trio stared around in alarm.
"(Ah. I mean, watch for bits of sharp metal. Not unexploded stuff. No-one uses chemical explosives here.)"
The trio calmed down a little as the other three refugees walked over to join us.
"(That friend of yours isn't very bright, is she?)" muttered the guard.
"(Oi!)" exclaimed Cluma, in passable English. "(I'm sure I'd get it if you explained in our language!)"
"(You knew all the words!)"
"What are they arguing about?" I asked Serlv, hoping it was just a language barrier and not a Law barrier.
"I am uncertain. Cluma's level in [Language: English] is greater than my own. I believe she asked them what they were running from, but didn't understand their answer."
Law then, probably. Well, no time like the present for seeing if this trick would work.
"Cluma, are you aware of monsters that look human? Changelings? Heck, even things like goblins are humanoid, although it would take more than a fancy outfit to mistake one for a human."
"Yes?"
"A group attacked the Earth side of the last portal, killed many of the researchers and stole the portal designs. We suspect they're trying to build a portal of their own to attack our world."
""What?"" exclaimed Krana and Serlv, in perfect harmony.
"Huh?" asked Darren. "There are monsters coming?"
"But you said Earth didn't have any monsters?" pointed out Cluma.
"I haven't been there for a while," I replied with a hundred percent honesty but a non-zero amount of evasion.
"You did say the System was spawning dungeons there," sighed Krana, leaping to a completely incorrect but still beneficial conclusion. "But why would monsters attack here rather than remain within their dungeons?"
"Doubtless in search of mana," sighed Serlv, likewise leaping to a conclusion from a standing start, but unlike Krana, very likely getting it correct.
"So we must prepare for a dungeon break type event, with the added complication that we don't know from where it will occur. What of the forces we will face? What are their levels?"
"We don't know that, either. Probably safest to assume they reach fifty."
"An event on the scale of the Emerald Caverns? That is dire indeed. It was only through the power of Erryn that no lives were lost that day, and this time we shall lack her support."
Well, so far, so good. It would be a problem if armed humans started pouring out of a portal and the defenders identified them as humans and froze up, but thankfully, appraisal skills wouldn't work on them. As long as I maintained they just looked human, everything should be fine. Hopefully.
I'd still prefer the event not to happen at all.
"I'm hoping our guests can work together with the researchers here to prevent portals being opened without our permission."
"What are the chances of success?"
"(She's asking what the chances are of successfully blocking portals,)" I translated.
"(She?)" replied Doctor Withermark, staring at Serlv in surprise. Hah. I knew it. "(Sorry. I mean... In a small area? Pretty good, I'd say. Worldwide? I can't even begin to guess how that would be possible.)"
"Not great," I summarised. Small areas were useless. We wanted the exact opposite; portals could only open within a small area.
Krana and Serlv hadn't shrunk down to their plushie forms for this conversation, which was taking place in full view of a wall of institute windows. Full-sized dragons were not exactly subtle. These facts coalesced into a gaggle of oglers wandering out of the building to see what was going on.
"Hey, Vargalas!" I called, spotting someone I knew and causing the grumpy elf to approach from the band of spectators.
"What? What have you done now?" he snapped, wearing his traditional frown.
"Nothing, directly."
"Directly?" he muttered, looking around and taking in the group of strangers, eyes lingering on the impractical outfits of the guards.
"These six are a group from Earth fleeing from intelligent monsters who tried to kill them and take the portal technology for themselves. If they manage to open a portal, we could have another Emerald Caverns on our hands. We need to find a way to block their portals as quickly as possible."
"And why are you telling this to me? I'm no spatial mage. Bug Grover about it; I know he's made acquaintances with a [Spatial Archmage] or two, trying to work out how to use that contulite stuff to improve their portals."
"I intended to. You're the one who came out to see what was going on."
He floundered a little, trying to think of an excuse, but settled on, "Hrumph."
Some of the other watchers were more helpful, and before long, a group had departed to prepare rooms in the dormitories, and someone else had run to fetch Grover. It was nice that others were willing to deal with the boring part of logistics while I dealt with the more important stuff.
Explaining to Grover what we needed, for example.
"Well, there's an enchantment we can apply to a room to block teleportation, but I can hardly apply it to the planet. Rank five I may be, lad, but there are still limits. Besides, even if I could, it would shut down all teleportation. No more portal network. No spatial mages collecting up harvests. And since Earth's portals aren't magical, it might not even work."
That was indeed not ideal.
"We know the System can detect the portals opening, and it responds to them without responding to those opened by a [Spatial Archmage]," I started, before pausing. "Right?" I asked Serlv, to check.
"Indeed. I do not receive notifications about local portals."
"Right," I continued. "So, rather than permanently blocking everything, it should be possible to detect a portal opening and disrupt it."
"Portals are surprisingly fragile, but even so, anything that would disrupt one would also damage the surroundings. If one opened up in a populated area..."
I recalled the cyclopes' roar that had disrupted the Emerald Caverns' portals and agreed we wouldn't want something like that going off in the middle of Dawnhold.
"Okay, so you can't do it with your enchantments, and the Earth team can't do it with their technology. What if you combine your System skills with their technology?"
"We don't even speak the same language, lad. Working together will be difficult."
"I can translate. So can Cluma. If we need more, so can the twin's parents. Heck, so can the twins, although they still can't speak." One more season and they'd turn two. How much longer?
"Hmm... Could one of you be here all day, every day? Aren't you usually gallivanting off in dungeons?"
"This is more important," said Cluma. "We don't want more monsters!"
Grover stroked his beard as he considered it. "Well, it's true that neither of us can do anything on our own, so we might as well try. And it sounds like there could be a lot of lives on the line if we fail. I'll call in Horail. I don't know anyone more knowledgeable about spatial magic. And it's best I train up my [Language: English] skill as quickly as possible."
Initial plans agreed, everyone started settling in. The dragons returned to their lair, Krana dropping Darren off on the way, and Serlv taking a chunk of my finger with her for ease of attracting my attention. She'd promised to alert me the moment another portal opened anywhere, although she didn't quite understand why I wanted to be alerted when I wouldn't be useful in a fight against a swarm of level fifty monsters.
The guards remained suited up, allegedly so that if the worst happened, they could return to Earth to report. They wanted to swap with fresh guards once every couple of days, which I complained would be unfair to Darren, so they settled on carrying out a few rotations, then finding a pair to live here permanently.
All in all, it seemed to be getting off to a decent start. The group seemed to forget about Cluma's behaviour, and didn't understand enough [Common] to have realised the way I was talking about inhuman monsters. That secret wouldn't last long, and perhaps I'd be best off admitting it sooner rather than later, but if we could at least make it to the first rotation...
I was translating for Doctor Withermark as he attempted to outline general relativity to Grover. Thankfully, Grover had devoured all the textbooks, and his System-enhanced intelligence was sufficient to quote them all verbatim. They may not be at the level required for Doctor Withermark to explain his portal theories, but at least Grover understood the basic concepts.
Doctor Withermark cut himself off mid-sentence, spinning around to look at the researchers, who I now knew were called Abigail, Cara and Calvin.
"Who was that?" he demanded.
Who was what? I replayed the last few seconds, thankful for my own System-enhanced memory. He couldn't have seen anything, given he was facing away from them, but I hadn't heard anything odd. Just his voice, and someone... sniffed...
Oh.
Abigail sneezed.
