The oppressive humidity of the forested area after crossing the Gate was a minor shock after the dryness of the Zilbarn Badlands. But Quangar was a place of tall trees. Very tall trees. And lots of plants. Vines twisting around the trees, but also strewn across the floor in treacherous ways, with knee-high ferns, and sprawling moss mats. Jonas spotted what looked like impossibly bright purple mushroom caps around half-buried small boulders. Quanchal had had the same wet feeling, but entirely different vegetation covering its hills.

Jonas wondered if the name similarity was indicative of the climate. He turned to Cowen, who had already pulled her booklet to check.

“First time in Quangar as well,” she noted. “Which is going to be fun.”

She looked around, then turned to talk to her team.

“I think you can go round and wait for us at the Gate to Inetun. Hopefully, this shouldn’t take long. We’ll be there in five days. Seven tops.”

Aubert gave them a big wave and turned back to the Gate, followed by the other three, much to the surprise of Jonas.

“What gives?”

“None of us has been in this zone before. Maybe Myrl early in her career, but I’m not sure. So the only Gate we can use at the moment unless we do lairs is the Zilbarn one since we came from there.”

“Oh. And since we already need to complete lairs, they would have to join and we probably wouldn’t get completions. Right?”

“Actually, we can split into two teams and each team does two lairs, and we meet back at the Gate. Even Habborlain could solo his way through a tier-two. But Myrl had to negotiate with various outfits to get us three lairs guaranteed to be set aside. A fourth would have been a bit of a bother.”

She shrugged.

“Anyway, all of us worked Inetun before. So the team can go back to Grailburg, which they just did, and then travel back to the Inetun-Quangar gate which they can use from that side. There’s not that many zones and they’re well-travelled, so they should be there in time for us to arrive.”

“Wait, so you don’t need to do the lairs in here?”

“Only if you want to leave the zone by a Gate you’ve never used before. If they come in from Inetun, they can then leave back with us. But they can’t if they haven’t crossed it before. Even though they’re qualified in Inetun. Do I make sense?”

Jonas thought about all the interactions with Gates before asking.

“How do you know which Gates you can or cannot use?”

“Your memory. If your Intellect is relatively high, you’ll find you never forget something you want to remember. Or you can cheat and keep notes. But usually, you’ve used a zone for long enough you remember it, even fifteen years later.”

 

They started in a direction. Jonas hoped that Cowen would know the correct pathways, even without checking with Foale who was apparently their expert at navigation.

“Quangar’s not too big, but it still has over two dozen lairs. Since Myrl selected three that should be left alone for us, we’ll start with the closest two, and hope we don’t need the third.”

“We’ll meet more teams in here?”

“Maybe. It’s a tier two zone. Teams spend typically a few weeks in rotation with other tier twos. It normally takes seven to ten months to qualify for a tier-three from start, so that leaves you plenty of time to open up all the different tier-threes you need for your team.”

She considered Jonas’ team on the descriptor.

 

 

“Although you’re more than halfway there in terms of levels, it still takes a lot more time since the XP keeps growing with each level.”

“20 more levels till I can get my new tier,” Ira said.

“That depends on which profession you want to pick at three,” she replied. “You’ll find all the details at Gatepost’s Professional Office, located at the Archives building. Including which zones to aim for.”

“What choices do I have? There were two in Zilbarn… Page and… Careful Barrier?”

“You can also run along with Stamina-based Professions for other defensive options. It’s a more active style, uses a shield usually. Those are defence-rating picks. But you’d need to pick a new Profession like, right now, if you want to aim for one. I have no idea if the Plaza here has Showman… bollocks, all of you would qualify for that one. It’s cheating.”

She shook her head, adding, “Staying within one’s original style at least for tier-three is usually the best option for the long term. Then you can change paths for tier-four. But there’s your Adjustment thing. You think it will go again for your next pick?”

Jonas answered, “We don’t know if it’s each tier or each Profession, or something else. But yes, once we pick a tier-three, we should get an additional plus-four in each Potential. And an additional 5% less experience. And lots of pain.”

He threw a look at his team, then added reluctantly, “those of us who do.”

“What do you mean, those of us?”

“Well… none of us intended to be Professionals. We didn’t have a choice. We were dumped in the Labyrinth, and we had to do it to hope to get back home. Once we do, however…”

Cowen was taken aback.

“Well… I know it’s a bit different for everyone. But you’re already tier-two. On the way to tier-three. You do know you’re not going to be entirely normal people even outside of the Labyrinth.”

She steeled herself.

“Maybe it’s a bit different. I mean, I went in the Labyrinth without knowing what it was. None of us did at the beginning. But I can’t imagine myself not roaming the Labyrinth. There’s so much to see… so much to gain.”

She gestured to Laura who got startled by the attention.

“You’re a Smasher. Even without any Labyrinth gear, your Strength is… 40-ish, right?”

“Yes. I’m 56 now, but a lot comes from those heroic trousers. And the rest of my gear.”

“The point is, outside of the Labyrinth, you can lift a small carriage by the side without breaking a sweat. You could carry a crate that would break the back of anyone, man or woman. Actually, everything about you is now above the highest peak of a normal person. You know a soldier could fire his musket at you, and even if it managed to hit you in the head, you’d survive. You’d survive multiple shots, even if you’re not a defender.”

Laura was taken aback by the realization. The Labyrinth fauna was powerful, but so was she. Even if she couldn’t tackle anything big in this zone on her own…

“Do you think you can go back to your old job? Any of you?”

Alton laughed, “I’m sure I won’t. Scavenger days are over for me.”

Cowen shrugged.

“There are people who retire. Usually early. But it’s rare. There’s always that itch… normal people can spend years trying to improve themselves a tiny bit. Here, you can do it in days sometimes. You grow… without end.”

Jonas suddenly realized the power of that proposition.

“How high does it go?”

“How high do you think? Nobody knows. We’ve been to tier-seven zones. We’ve seen the tier-seven Plazas… well four of them so far. The British Scouts’ main team is working to unlock Bargami, which will make five. But… in three of those four zones that have been scouted, we found at least one gate to tier-eight.”

“It’s going to take a lifetime.”

“It’s not that much. Anyone could probably do it in… under forty years. But you probably have time.”

“We’re young, but that’s forty years. You’ll see tier-eight and then retire?”

“Nobody knows. How old do you think I am?”

Jonas considered the question. She’d said she was there since the beginning, eighteen years ago. She still looked relatively young, but she could be…

“35? Maybe?”

“Really?”

“You don’t look like 35, but…”

“I’m 46. I know I don’t look that age.”

Laura was the first to reply, “You… don’t age?”

“Good question. I sometimes feel like I’m old, but often, I feel younger than I ever was. The Labyrinth regenerates everything, including wrinkles, joints, that kind of thing. You’re mostly immune to diseases. The only Professional I know who died of old age was 62 and retired a decade before. He was in perfect health, or so they say, and then, one morning, he didn’t wake up.”

She laughed a bit, “I’ll probably retire when I get bored. It’s not as if I’ll have children anyway. That passed me.”

She then sobered a bit, adding, “For now, there’s not much choice. The Gate is closed, and the Labyrinth is all there is. You could stay in Gatepost, but you’ll quickly get bored. Faster than on Earth. Gatepost is tiny compared to London. Usually, a bit over a thousand people. Maybe three thousand at the highest. With the Gate closed, it’s probably a bit more crowded than usual.”

“That team we met in Zilbarn said they were passing time there,” Jonas said.

“That’s the spirit. Go, gain levels, check from time to time what’s happening.”

The team trudged on, leaving Jonas to think about that new perspective. Could he be unaging until the day he died? All of them? That was a bewildering idea. He remembered one of his teachers, and how the Bible spoke about the ancients, living like Methuselah for centuries.

Had Methuselah been a Professional? Is that why he’d been living for so long? Maybe the Earth-113 he’d seen when shanghaied in the Labyrinth meant it was the 113^th Gate open to Earth, and all those people in the Bible had been in the Labyrinth in ages long gone.

Maybe the Garden of Eden was at the end of the Labyrinth, guarded by million-level angels and Artefacts flaming swords.

Then he sobered. Even Methuselah, after 9 centuries, hadn’t found Eden. Maybe God’s garden was at tier-twenty. If that was possible.

 

 

The lair’s entrance was… a bridge made of ropes, rising across a small river into the top of the trees on the other side. Jonas peered at what looked suspiciously like a wooden platform.

“Treetop lair. The biggest difficulty will be not falling from the platforms. I’ve got enough health to survive a fall, but not you.”

“And you will curse a lot and then it’s two day’s rest,” Guss joked.

“Actually, I’ll finish the lair with the rest of the team, and only then come to resurrect you. I’d like to finish this as fast as possible, and I’m pretty certain we will need three lairs anyway.”

 

Once they stepped on the first platform, they were greeted by a trio of 3-feet tall people, whose best description could be charitably “wood-skinned”.

 

 

“They’re at your level range, so you get to work. I’m getting the first, you pick the others. I’ll finish yours after I’ve finished mine,” Cowen ordered.

Ira and Jonathan were taken by surprise. For weeks, they had had nothing to do, and suddenly, they had to remember their moves. Cowen had already charged to the side from where one of the brownies was coming, and the others were already rushing the team at a speed beyond what their small stature suggested.

For a second, chaos reigned as the two veterans ran smack into the team. Jonas got a smash from the side that rang painfully against his thigh.

Tree Brownie Youth punches you for 63 (65-2) damage (20 defence)

Both Ira and Jonathan slashed against the same brownie who turned to Jonathan, yelling something indistinguishable.

Tree Brownie Youth intimidates: -34 mind.

Then both Laymen turned to the other brownie, before looking at each other in confusion.

At last, the two tiny terrors were both focused on the two defenders of the team, when Jonas thought to look at Cowen. He found himself unsurprised that she was… reclining along the central tree of the platform, looking at the team with the corners of her mouth twitching. Upon seeing him look her way, she let her laugh come out.

Then she went in swinging, and the first of the two brownies died, then the other.

The first to talk was Ira: “Okay. That was bad.”

“Oh. Really?”

She pointed out to the first brownie who was starting to decompose as usual, before starting her comments.

“You might have been fighting on your own for weeks back there, but you had to let me do the fighting for weeks now during the rush across the Great Line. Good fighting habits take time to build, and it’s high time you shed the bad ones. Before they get too enshrined.”

“I…” Ira started.

“I won’t be around forever, you know. I took this job because I take the interest of the Kingdom seriously… but once I deliver you to Gatepost, I’m not your mummy anymore. Hell, the Grey Gate Keep is going to regenerate soon, and I’m not going to miss that. I want to qualify for Duparheim.”

“Oh,” Ira dejectedly said.

“Don’t worry. There’s plenty of good people at Gatepost to get you under their wings. If nothing else, the Princess will make sure of that. But yes. Until you can retire, if you really want to, you’ll have to get used to working in a team under normal circumstances.”

She pointed out the next platform.

“So, from now on, you go ahead, and then I’ll come in and finish the fight once you’ve got it in order. Now go. You take the lead. Yes, you”, she said, smacking – lightly, of course – Ira on the back.

 

 

You have completed Quangar Treetop Lair.

“Drat, didn’t get completion,” Cowen immediately said. “Anyone else?”

Alton shrugged, then raised his hand in acknowledgement.

“Me neither.”

“Okay. Can’t afford too many delays, so… one of you will sit out the next lair, so we all get completion, then another for the third. And that’s two additional days for getting there. I’ll let you decide who for each. Except for Mr Raby, of course, since he needs both.”

 

 

Jonas took the sandals that Laura was handing him, and immediately replaced his own. One of the advantages of being in the Treetop lair was that the various pieces of gear were at last of a useable level. They’d gotten a booklet – again – which Guss rejected, a belt that suited Alton even though it was of common quality, and a stupid shield. But two upgrades were two upgrades.

Cowen pointed out the way out.

“Outside of lairs, I’m smashing through. We’re wasting too much time as it is.”

 

 

As they entered the small clearing in the dense forest, Jonas saw the Gate waiting for them. And a group of people waiting next to it, which included Habborlain and the rest of the team, but also a man and a woman they hadn’t seen before.

The people were turning their heads toward them, when Guss started, “Luther?”

“Guss! It’s really you!”