Somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy, enroute Veria
Jonuth Kidravia’s Ship - Abi
07:00 Ship Time
September 9, 2019

My alarm woke me from a restful sleep, one that I would’ve liked to get back to. Unfortunately, I knew that we would soon be arriving, so I needed to get prepared. Leaning over to give Vixa a quick kiss and a scratch behind the ears, I headed to the bathroom to shower and shave before heading to the closet.

There was a suit hanging there, but I skipped over it and picked up a pair of everyday clothes. We would be meeting briefly with Ercan Warvyn before getting everyone settled, at which point we would have much of the day to ourselves. Later tonight we would be having dinner at Ercan’s estate on the planet, so the suit would be worn then.

Once I had cleaned up and dressed, I beckoned Vixa to follow me and we headed to the mess for breakfast. It was odd seeing so few people in the halls, but that turned out to be because a lot of them were in the mess eating breakfast and preparing for a busy day.

I headed over to the buffet line and filled a plate with food before stopping to fill a mug with coffee. Once that was done, I headed over with a smaller plate and grabbed some breakfast for Vixa as well. Looking around the room I could see a bunch of people I recognized, though I didn’t particularly know them very well. I knew my friends and sisters would be up soon, so I led Vixa over to one of the vacant tables and took a seat.

I didn’t have to wait long for someone to show up. It wasn’t my friends or my sisters though, it was my parents. They were wearing casual clothes, which made me breathe a sigh of relief. It would’ve sucked if I had to go back to my room and put on my formal suit.

“Good morning,” my mom said as she sat beside Vixa and began petting her. Vixa had already finished her breakfast, so she leaned into the pets before climbing onto my mom’s lap. “We finalized your itinerary last night, so it should be on your phone now. Oya will be taking us to meet her father once we’ve docked with the station, and after that you’ll have a few hours to explore, if you want to. You’ll need to be back up at around 16:00 to get ready for dinner, as that will be around 17:00.”

I nodded as I chewed a mouthful of food, taking my phone out at the same time. Opening the email I received, I saw that all the information was there. I saw that we would be having dinner with Ercan and his family every few days, but only two of those were marked as formal dinners.

“You’ll only have to wear your suit for dinner tonight, and then the dinner before we leave to return to Earth,” she said. “The rest are casual, though I’ve heard that Ercan is rather spontaneous, and he could change dinner from being at his estate to being at a high class restaurant instead. He owns quite a few, and he has reservations at countless others scattered across the planet. If we do eat at a restaurant, you’ll need to wear your suit.”

“That’s not too bad, then, you know how much I dislike wearing monkey suits.”

She laughed. “That I do. Anyways, we just wanted to stop by and let you know what is planned so you and your friends can make your own plans. We left two days entirely open for you, as you said you wanted to check out Alade. I would recommend setting aside one of those days for Alade and the other for dungeons, because you won’t be getting any other full days to dedicate to either.”

“I think we’ll be able to make it work. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, and here they come. We’ll see you shortly.”

I nodded and then went back to my meal while looking at the schedule she gave me. While it was a vacation of sorts, there was also business that had to be done as well. Tich, Abi and I had worked together to theorycraft improvements that could be made to missiles and mass drivers. Currently, there are only four types of missiles in widespread use.

You’ve got the nuclear variety, laser-delivery systems, plasma, and high-explosive. The first two are fairly self-explanatory. Plasma missiles do all their damage by directing beams of ionized gas towards their target. If that is a ship’s hull, then a missile scoring a direct hit will create a hole easily big enough to make huge sections of a ship off limits without airtight suits. If a plasma missile hits something like a cannon or an engine, then neither of those would be operable anytime soon. The final variety would be like taking hundreds of grenades, taping them all together, and then strapping a rocket to the back. They weren’t as crude, but they were another way of dealing with fighters and bombers.

There were usually stealth coatings on the missiles, so engines could activate for a few seconds before shutting down, allowing the missiles to coast through space. When they got close enough, their targeting computers would find the most optimal spot to blow up, and they would quickly accelerate to reach that spot. When they exploded, a large amount of metallic objects were sent flying in all directions. Those objects might be spheres, cubes, or rods, which make quick work of fragile hulls.

Keeping the four of those in mind, we worked together to figure out how a missile that bored into a ship before exploding would work. The missile would need to be bigger than usual, as it would need to have one of three things mounted to the front. A shaped charge, a laser, or a drill.

The first of the three options would probably be the easiest, and would also allow the missile to be made smaller compared to the others. All the missile would need to do is strike the hull of a ship and the shaped charge would explode, directing all of its energy through a cone until it starts cutting a hole into the ship. That would allow the rest of the missile to enter the hole it made, before detonating.

A missile that carried a laser would need to be much bigger than either the drill variety or the shaped charge variety, because a power cell would need to be installed to power the laser for as long as possible. It could take a few seconds for a laser to cut a big enough hole into a ship, and lasers needed a lot of energy. A drill would also need a power cell, but it wouldn't be nearly as big. While on the topic of weapons, we had also thought about incorporating a shaped charge into a mass driver round, but realized that it wouldn’t work very well. Projectiles fired from a mass driver move so fast that the shaped charge wouldn’t have time to activate.

Once the designs were finalized, we agreed to let Ercan’s people run with them. If they worked, awesome, but if they didn’t then it wasn’t really a big deal. The biggest bit of business to be done would be loading Abi up with several hundred thousand tons of material. A good chunk of that was Warvynium, but we were also looking at a number of different metals that were easier to get here than they were back on Earth. At least in the quantities we were looking for.

Some of that material would go towards making missiles and mass driver rounds, while the rest would go to producing as many of the Mark VII and VIII suits as possible by the time we headed to deal with Dhir. Close to two million suits would need to be made by then, but my dad was confident it would be done. The plan was to have everyone in their suits before entering naval combat, as the suits would provide them with the most protection. If there was a breach in a hull they might be ejected into space, but their suits would keep them alive until they could be rescued.

The dragons and dragonkin especially needed protecting, as they would be the most vulnerable out of everyone. Most of the dragons and dragonkin were less than one thousand years old, which is considered very young by their standards. As dragons get larger and more powerful as they get older, that meant that the younger dragons would be around the same power level as my friends. Compared to most of the people who would be manning the ships, that was pretty weak.

“What are you looking at?” Mason asked as he sat to my left with a plate that was loaded to the point of almost overflowing.

“My schedule for the next two weeks,” I answered, setting it on the table between us. “We’ll have two full days to do whatever we want. If we want to hit up some dungeons on any day but those two in the middle, then we’ll only be able to go in for a few hours.”

“That should be fine,” Ben said. “I’m assuming that you’ll want to dedicate one of those days to activities on Alade?”

“I was thinking both, actually. We’ll be able to move around much more easily on Veria thanks to not having to hide the Grasshoppers, so it will only take us a few minutes to get from the station to whichever dungeon we want to go to. Speaking of which, have you picked what dungeons we’ll be going to?”

Ben nodded before taking a sip of his coffee. “I had three dungeons picked out last week, but had to pick out a few more after you got your Skill Gems. I figured that we would hit up a level fifty dungeon and see how it goes. If it’s too hard or too easy, then we’ll move to a different one.”

“Sounds good.”

“Hey, what’s this here?” Mason asked.

I looked where he was pointing and saw he was pointing at September 20. That date had the most compacted schedule I had seen so far, with a two hour meeting starting at 13:00 simply titled as ‘Keser’s’. Later on in the day there was something titled ‘Iskender’s’. I didn’t know what the first two were referring to, but the last one was obvious. At 20:00, the final thing on the schedule was the Narin Deliktas Opera House.

“Looks like Tessa has quite the day planned out. Huh, I didn’t peg her as someone who was interested in opera. She never mentioned it, at least.”

“Oh! I remember her mentioning something about it,” Anja said. “I think she said a famous opera singer would be performing for two nights on Veria before leaving to perform somewhere else. I can’t remember the name though. Kaina Torr, Kaianna Tor, something like that.”

“Kai’ana Tore was the name, I believe,” Anja said.

“That’s it! Kai’ana Tore! She was very excited and said that she wanted to see her perform for years. She goes from planet to planet, never spending more than a day there, and sometimes she doesn’t come back for years. If we had arrived a little earlier, or a little later, then she probably wouldn’t have been able to see her.”

“Cool, I’ve never been to an opera. It might be fun. Do you guys have any idea what Keser’s or Iskender’s are referring to?”

“Give me a second and I can find out,” Ben said.

I nodded and took a sip of my now warm coffee while I waited.

“So I can’t understand the language yet, but pictures are easier to understand. It seems like Keser’s is a tailoring shop, focusing on men’s clothing,” he said, turning his phone around so I could see as he swiped through several images. The clothing looked very similar to a suit worn on Earth, but there wasn’t a tie to be seen.

“What about the other one?”

He flipped his phone around and did more searching before turning it back towards me.

“Looks like a high-class restaurant to me. The food looks damn good.”

I had to agree with that. Even Vixa woke up at the mention of food and peered at the images on the phone as he swiped through.

“It must be if she wants him to see a tailor before they go for dinner,” Anja said. “You always dress up when you go to an opera, anyways.”

“Keser’s is on the schedule twice, actually. You’re going there tomorrow and then again on 20th,” Mason noticed.

“Tomorrow is probably measurements and everything else involved in having a suit made. If I had to guess, the second one is the final fitting. They’ll quickly be able to make any adjustments, but you’ll walk out of the store with a new suit.”

“I knew we’d be going to an expensive restaurant with a dress code, but I wasn’t expecting to have another suit. I figured that I would just wear the one that my mom had made.”

Sonja laughed. “I imagine that you’ll have a bunch of suits after this trip. You know how it’s considered a faux pas for women to wear the same dress more than once? Especially if they’re a celebrity? The stigma isn’t as extreme for men, but people will notice if you only switch between one or two suits.”

“That’s the only thing I don’t like about this. I don’t particularly enjoy wearing suits, but I guess I’ll be wearing them for the rest of my life.”

“Hey, maybe not,” Mason said. “Once Dhir is out of the way and your family is once again leading the Scyftan people, then you could set any dress code you want. If that’s a toga or a kilt, what is anyone going to do about it?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that imagery, and nor could my friends. We had spent enough time talking though, so after finishing dinner my friends and I headed back to our rooms to gather our suitcases. All that involved was me holding the Beacon in my hand while they handed them to me, but we probably wouldn’t be back in our rooms for a while. With that taken care of, we headed up to the bridge.

“Good morning, everyone,” Tich said when he noticed us enter the bridge.

“How’s everything going?” I asked after returning the greeting.

“We had to take a detour so that added about ten minutes to the trip, but we’re almost there. Less than five minutes now.”

“I guess that I should switch to my Scyftan form then. I’m just so used to walking around in this form.”

“It happens to all of us, though we typically don’t need to blend in for as long as we have been on Earth, and it’s a hassle to constantly switch back and forth, whether you’re in private or public. Especially so for younger Scyftans since it takes them longer to transition between forms.”

I nodded, and then began shifting. It took nearly a minute and when I was done, I was half the size. It required me to look up at my friends, and anyone else that was taller than I was. Usually I was the one of the tallest people in the room, so it would definitely take me time to get used to it.

“I’m not a fan of this already,” I said while looking up at Mason. “Why can’t our natural form be as tall as humans?”

Tich laughed. “Evolution. Or a lack of it, I suppose. Our ancestors weren’t very big either, and one of the biggest reasons that species evolve is to adapt to their habitat. Since we were able to shapeshift, we could take whichever form was best for the area we were living. Since we gained the ability to shapeshift, our species has undergone very little evolution. If we couldn’t shapeshift then it is very possible that our natural form would be larger than it is now.”

“You could also argue that you ‘evolve’ every time you shapeshift,” Ben said. “You get bigger or smaller, grow wings or tails or extra arms, gain abilities, et cetera.”

“You could, and some scientists do. There’s a debate in the scientific community on whether or not you can call that evolution. The majority says no, but the vocal minority says yes.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Abi said. “We’ll be jumping out of hyperspace in one minute. There’s a lot of traffic coming and going, so we’ll be arriving well outside of Veria’s gravity well.”

“Thank you, Abi,” Tich said. “You can probably stay up here for a little while longer, but you’ll want to head down to the starboard landing bay entrance when we get clearance to dock. That is where everyone is waiting to depart from.”

“Got it,” I said, turning my attention to the screens.
We reverted back into normal space a moment later, and immediately started moving forward as the sublight engines were engaged. My friends and I were speechless as we saw the amount of ships that were coming and going. There were two space stations orbiting Veria on opposite sides of the planet, presumably so they didn’t mess with the rotation of the planet. As for defenses, there were two strike groups in the system, as well as thousands of planetary defense platforms forming at least three layers. If someone wanted to attack the planet they would need to either take it slow and destroy the defenses, or suicide into the planet. Either way, it wouldn’t go well for the attackers.

Menseio Station was on the opposite side of the planet from where we arrived, but it had moved enough as we were on approach for us to get a good look at it. It looked like a massive hive as comparatively small ships flew in and out as they dropped off their cargo or went in for repairs or refitting.

The closer we got, the more we realized how protected the station was. There were hundreds of cannons on the side of the station we could see, ranging in size from small pulse cannons to two hundred meter long barrels on turrets, which were either mass drivers or high-intensity particle beam cannons. Either way, any ship hit by either of them would be devastated.

“This is Abi calling Menseio Station. Requesting permission to dock.”

There was a slight delay before a man responded.

“Permission granted, Abi. Proceed to docking bay 11A. Welcome to Menseio Station!”

“Copy, 11A. Thank you, Menseio Station.”

One of the smaller screens changed to display our current course, it seemed like the docking bay that had been assigned to us was on the other side of the station, so it would take Abi a few minutes to maneuver around it. My friends and I headed down to the cargo bay, because we would be disembarking as soon as possible.

Tich was not kidding when he said that everyone was waiting in the landing bay. The Spectres that would be remaining here were formed up into equal groups, all of whom were wearing either the Spectre Mk. VII or Spectre Mk. VIII suits. None of them were carrying any weapons, but I was sure that that could be solved in seconds, if needed.

Both Omar and Yuki were in their own Mark VII suits as they stood beside my mom and dad while they talked. They did have rifles, but they were dangling from quick release slings. Kiri and her team were positioned behind the twins, while my team walked over as soon as my friends and I entered the landing bay. Among both teams were two Phenidae, which were all suited up as well.

“Hey Zaszi, Zogyr.”

“Boss,” they both nodded, before Zaszi began speaking. “It’s time to get your first protocol lesson while we land. When the door opens and the ramp goes down, you are to stay put while Omar and Yuki secure the ramp. Once they have, they will wave our Phenidae forward. They will split up and scan the entire room. If they find anyone hiding then they will teleport back and alert us, otherwise they will teleport back and stand beside their handler. Only once it is clear will you and your sisters descend down the ramp, following Oya.”

“If we come under attack, you are to activate the pocket world attached to your Beacon and pull your sisters through. Once on the other side, you will find a button that will allow you to seal it, preventing anyone else from following after you. You will still be able to communicate with Abi while inside, so she will tell you when it is clear. Got it?”

“Perfectly.”

“If everyone is ambushed, couldn’t someone just steal the Beacon?” Ben asked.

“Nope,” I answered as I turned to look at him. “When activated, a force field appears around it, preventing anyone from touching or destroying it. It draws mana directly from Abi, so they would have to overpower the shield and grab it before escaping. That’s never going to happen.”

“Oh.”

Zaszi nodded. “The original plan was for Jonathan to use the Beacon to teleport him to safety, but the addition to the Beacon allows him to pull his sisters in as well.”

“So I’m assuming that everyone else will be following behind my sisters?”

“Not everyone. The Spectres and the members of The Hellraisers will be heading off to another part of the station immediately to find their shuttles and get started. The rest of the people will eventually be led over to a nearby part of the station where they have already been assigned quarters. I believe the members of the dragon council here will be following you, as they have a meeting with Ercan and Oya after you do.”

“Understood.”

---

A short while later, the ship touched down and the landing bay door opened. Everything happened the way Zaszi said it would happen, with Omar and Yuki clearing the immediate area, and the Phenidae checking the rest of the docking bay. They teleported back with four quick pops and ran back up the ramp to join their handlers.

Satisfied that it was clear, Zaszi told me to proceed, and Oya and I walked down the ramp with a few dozen people following behind us. As we walked, I noticed that there wasn’t as much security here as I was expecting. In fact, there were only four armed Pygmaeans standing around a man that was Ercan Warvyn, and a woman I didn’t know, but one that looked familiar. It was clear to see that she was Oya’s mother, as the two of them very much looked alike. With the long lifespans that Pygmaeans enjoyed, they looked almost like sisters.

I stopped about two meters away from Ercan, but Oya moved forward and to the side, until she was standing between us.

“Mom, dad, meet Jonuth Kidravia. Jonuth, meet my parents, Ercan and Aysa Warvyn.”

“Nice to meet you in person,” I said, stepping forward and shaking hands with him before moving over and kissing the back of Aysa’s hand. “And nice to meet you as well. I can see where Oya gets her beauty. It certainly isn’t from him.”

She laughed. “Oh, I like you. I’m sorry about your parents. I was good friends with your mother and the news of her death was devastating.”

“Thank you,” I said, turning and waving my sisters forward. “I don’t believe either of you have had the pleasure of meeting my sisters. Leenah is on the end, Lucia is in the middle, and Leksi is closest to me.”

Aysa stepped forward and air kissed each of my sisters on the cheek before standing in front of them. “It’s been a long time since I have seen the three of you. You have all grown up to be exceptionally beautiful women. Smart too, from everything I’ve heard. I was on Nedovis when you were born, and stopped by to see the three if you. It was only a few days later that I got the news. I’d love to meet with the three of you while you’re here. I’ve got many stories about your mother I can tell you.”

“We would be delighted,” Leenah said. As the oldest by a few minutes, she was the official spokeswoman for the three of them.

My sisters stepped off to the side and my mom, dad and friends stepped forward next.

“These are my adoptive parents, Tesze Inolgeth and Utych Hios, and my friends and teammates, Mason Reeves, Benjamin Collins, and Anja and Sonja Hansson.”

Ercan stepped forward and shook hands with my friends, while Aysa stepped forward and air kissed my mom and dad, before switching places.

“I didn’t realize humans would be so tall,” she said, looking up at Mason who had to be close to twice her height, and much wider.

I laughed. “Mason is quite a bit bigger than the majority of people on Earth. Probably the top one percent in that regard. As for the twins, the country their parents are from produces some of the tallest women on the planet, but their five foot ten inches is taller than the average.”

“I thank you for switching forms then,” Ercan said. “My neck always hurts when dealing with tall people.”

“You know, I know exactly how you feel,” I replied, looking up at Mason who had a smile on his face.

---

There were a few more introductions to be made and then the majority of the people aboard the ship had been led to the quarters they were staying in, or to the adjacent landing bay which held the shuttles the Spectres would be using. My sisters and their shadows followed Aysa, while Ercan joined me for a tour. As soon as the opportunity had presented itself, Oya ran and hopped in her shuttle and flew it through the airskin shield, to wherever it was that she was headed.

“You’re right about shaped charges and mass drivers. The rounds move way too fast, and that makes a shaped charge useless. The missile idea very well could work though. We’ll test it, along with the others and let you know what the results are. I assume you’re wanting to have them by the time you move on Dhir, assuming any of the designs work?”

“Yes. I doubt we’ll need them, but it would be nice to have them in case we do need them. Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it,” I answered.

Nodding, he looked over the list of metals next.

“We’ve got the majority of these in stock, but it is probably going to take us almost two weeks or so to make this much Warvynium. It’s not easy to make, and Oya is going to be requisitioning some so she can continue her research.”

“We’ll take as much as we can get,” Abi said. “The Spectres are rolling out two new sets of armor, and Warvynium would greatly increase the defensive capabilities.”

“You’ll have it,” he said as the tablet disappeared. “This looks like my daughter’s work,” he said, gesturing to the ship as we walked down one of the halls.

“She worked with Abi and Tich for a few hours designing it, and then Abi changed herself in just a few minutes to match it perfectly. I like the look a lot better than the original one, that’s for sure.”

“She’s very good at what she does, that’s why I let her take over the designing. Well, that and it takes too much time going back and forth with a customer to make everything perfect. I lost the patience for it.”

“I can imagine that. She went back and forth a few times with the dragons while she was there, before they finally decided on a design that wasn’t unlike this one. Just about a third of the size.”

“Are they really as big as Kor said?”

I nodded. “Bigger, even, in some cases. There are two varieties; dragons and dragonkin. Dragons are the bigger ones, and are the only ones out of the two that are able to fly. Dragonkin, on the other hand, are between eight and ten feet tall, and heavily muscled. Both variants continue to grow in both size and power as they age, so they can be quite formidable. Perhaps Selalea and the other dragons will give you a demonstration later at your estate. Assuming they’re invited, of course.”

“Absolutely. They are customers, and it seems like my company will be working with them for a long time to come. So about these quillbeasts my daughter brought back…”

I laughed. “Dragons eat a lot of food. So much so that they have a system down that allows them to cook a great deal of food very quickly. They brought a bunch of land mammals with us, called cows, and that was what they ate for almost two weeks. When we were on Yrranth for a few days they went hunting and brought a bunch back to see how they would taste. I thought the taste was amazing, and this little girl agreed,” I said, bending down to pick up Vixa.

“Your daughter really liked it too, that’s why she brought a bunch back. She said you have the space on your estate, but it will probably be a while before they will reproduce enough to have meat for anything other than a special occasion. There are two males and eighteen females, all taken from different herds around the planet. That should reduce the chances of inbreeding, though you’ll have to acquire some more males, sooner or later.”

“If it’s as good as you say, that won’t be an issue,” he said.

“Well, how about you try it yourself. I wasn’t kidding when I said the dragons eat a lot. There are still a bunch of dragons with us, so they’ll be using the mess to cook most of their food while they’re here. Vixa, wanna lead us to the mess?”

She yipped and then started heading towards the closest teleporter. There was no way she was going to miss out on some good food.

---

“Mmm. Just as good as advertised. I can see why Oya wanted to bring some back,” he said after he had finished his first small bite. “So I’ve heard you’re going to be pretty busy, even after Dhir is taken care of.”

I nodded, savoring my own quillbeast while shielding it from Vixa. She tried going over my arms and under them, but I was able to successfully fend her off. “We’ll be throwing the Confederation back before making the trip over to the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy to look for the rest of the crystals. They were hidden deep underground, so we’re hoping that the aliens that forced my people out haven’t found them. Maybe we’ll even be able to get some payback while we’re at it.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t left already,” he said. “It wouldn’t take you long to get there, you could get in and out fairly quickly. Your species’ original homeworld wasn’t very far inside the galaxy, from what I understand.”

“It wasn’t, but they had a capital ship of some kind that was able to interfere with how the crystals bonded with my great-grandfather and his children functioned. The plan was to jump in and focus their fire on the ship, but when they arrived, nothing happened. They just sat there for a minute or so before they began moving towards the ship. Just before they were captured, all of them self-destructed at once. We still have no idea how badly damaged that ship was, if at all, and I definitely wouldn’t want to go up against it with only one ship. When I go, I plan on taking an armada.”

“We also don’t know what kind of energy they were firing at us, if it was energy at all. Whatever it was, it was able to bypass force fields and eat through hulls with ease. Scyftan scientists think that they have compensated for it, but so far only crystalline ships have been able to withstand it. Even then, they can’t do it for long before they need to jump away and regenerate.”

“Well, technology has come a long way since then. If that issue hasn’t been resolved, you can always follow your great-grandfather’s example and use hit-and-run tactics. Or set up your fleet outside of the galaxy and fire mass driver rounds in complete safety.”

“Those are two ideas, though we might not have to resort to them. You said it yourself that technology has come a long way since then. So too, has the amount of ships that will be available. Assuming not too many ships are destroyed when we deal with Dhir and The Confederation, I should have around eighteen hundred ships, if not more. Xigios is a pretty good tactician from everything I’ve heard, and so is Tich. Hell, split up The Indomitables into two battle groups and give Esriro half of it, and we would be able to pull them into three different directions.”

“Sounds like you’ve been giving it some thought.”

“Abi and I bounce ideas off of each other. She’s anxious to go because she wants to know whether or not any of her brothers and sisters remain. If they are still down there, then my sisters will be much, much safer when we acquire the crystals, so I want to get going as well. We just can’t yet. There is too much to do here.”

“I think you’ll be ready to go before you know it. Dhir’s forces aren’t going to be able to hold up to yours, especially with Abi in the mix. The Confederation forces won’t fare much better. You’ll also have many allies once you take your throne. Many of the leaders in this area of space were great admirers of your father and what he was trying to do. Many of those same leaders shunned Dhir when he asked help with the Confederation. I’m assuming you’ll be leaving your sisters behind to manage things while you’re gone?”

I nodded. “They’re probably better suited for it, honestly.”

---

We finished our little treat and then continued on with the tour. There were a few things he wanted to see, but once we were done he led me the quarters I would be using while we were here. It was even bigger than my room on the base, and the one I had been sleeping in for the previous two weeks but that’s because there was a fully stocked kitchen attached to it. I didn’t know how much cooking I would do, it would be nice not having to head to a cafeteria or mess to eat all the time.

Without any more business to take care of today, we said farewell and I went to find my friends. We had about seven hours to kill before dinner, so I wanted to check out one of the dungeons. It wasn’t hard to find them, though we had to head back to the ship and get suited up before we were able to go. Zaszi and her team also accompanied us, as did two additional teams that were using the other two Grasshoppers.

We headed down to a dungeon that was actually in the middle of a city named Nento. Everything here worked the same as it did back on Earth, so there was a tall building built right over the entrance to the dungeon. The only way in was through the adventurer’s guild, so we entered and headed over to the evaluation area. Before we could get there, however, Zaszi called us back.

“You’re registered on Earth, but you’re not registered here. You’ll have to do that and then go through an evaluation before you’ll be allowed to enter the dungeon. You’ll also need these,” she said, as five black devices appeared in her hand. She handed one to each of us and then gave us a crash course.”

“It works similarly to a regular phone, but it has a few additional features. Your AIs will also be piped into it, so you’ll be able to communicate without wearing your suits. Jonathan, you’ll be using an alias for now, while the rest of you will be using your real names. You’re not known to Dhir or any of his underlings, so you shouldn’t be targets.”

I managed to find my identification stored in my new phone and saw that my name wasn’t bad as far as aliases go. For the next two weeks, whenever I entered a dungeon, my name would be Khel Haneth.

Zaszi showed us how to use everything and then she and her team headed back outside. We would be safe as long as we were in the Adventurer’s Guild or the dungeon, so we went ahead to get registered. It was a quick process, and was no different than it had been the first time around. The five of us handed over our new phones, gave her our team name, and then headed over to the evaluation area.

The evaluation area, and the evaluation itself was identical to the ones we were used to. Since we weren’t in the system, we had to do the entirety of the evaluation, which was not much faster. When we were done I compared the profile on my new phone to my old one and saw that they were the same as well. There weren’t any differences whatsoever.

This registration and evaluation out of the way, we headed into the dungeon. As soon as we were down there, I began shifting into my dragonkin form. I could have stayed in my Scyftan form and been just fine, but I was going to need to be on my toes in this dungeon. The recommended level was fifty for this dungeon, and all of us were fifteen levels below that. I technically had the attributes of someone hundreds of levels higher than me, however, so it shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

“Well that’s new,” Mason said.

“What’s that?”

“When you shifted to your dragonkin form while wearing our old armor, your helmet disappeared. It looks like they fixed that with this one.”

Sure enough, when I reached up my helmet was still on my head. I had retracted the faceplate while talking to the woman at the front desk, and it had remained so since then. With a quick command, my faceplate appeared again, though it was shaped differently.

[Nice,] I replied. Looking around I could see that there weren’t any big changes, in fact, it was perfect.

“If this suit works properly with your dragonkin form, I wonder if it will do the same with your dragon form,” Ben said. “Now that would be scary.”

I couldn’t help but laugh as I imagined what that would look like. [Maybe I’ll shapeshift into my dragon form later and we can find out.

It was immediately apparent that we were in a dungeon that differed wildly from the ones we had experienced so far. The moment we set foot off the stairs, five Vixa-sized insects jumped at us from the walls. We hadn’t even seen them but Anja and I were already moving. She attempted to cut one in two but her sword only cut about two inches into the carapace of the insect before getting stuck. I activated Mana Shield and then stepped in the path of the other four insects which bounced off and scurried away. I wasn’t about to let them do that, so I breathed in and burnt all of them to a crisp. By the time I turned around again, Anja was holding her sword in the air while Ben used Flamethrower on it.

“I fucking hate spiders!” Anja said as she wiped the ichor and soot off her blade.

Ben quickly held his phone up before they could disappear and a beam shot out of his phone. It scanned the creature, a chime sounding when it was done.

“They’re called kiattids, apparently. It says that they’re harmless as long as you don’t let them latch onto your head. If you’re wearing a helmet that is usually good enough to negate them, but they have a neurotoxin that will eventually kill you, given enough time.”

“I guess it’s good that we have these helmets then. Completely airtight and they would have to break through them to get to us.”

“That’s good, at least,” Anja said. “How much experience did we get for that, anyways?”

“They were fifteen levels higher than us, but can only receive experience as if they were six levels higher. That’s about 319.2, multiplied by five, so 1596 experience per kill. Five kills is 7980 experience.”

“Seriously? That’s insane.”

“Yup. We could turn off Legendary Insight, and we would still be earning really good experience.”

“Nah, let’s leave it on,” Mason said. “One thing we need to remember is to use our Siphoning attacks. We just lost a potential of five damage because you two roasted them to death.

“Whoops,” I said, having totally forgotten about the ability. “Anyways, let’s continue. I wanna see how far we can get today.”

While we ran into kiattids pretty often, they were always in small groups and they always attacked us when we were moving through narrow passages, like hallways. Neither Ben nor Anja had siphoning abilities yet, so Mason, Sonja and I took turns killing them off to increase the damage bit by bit.

I was often assigned to crowd control, as it would usually be called. Since the spiders were rather weak for their level, and were quite light, it meant that I could hold them in place using telekinesis or just put a foot down on one to prevent it from running by. It worked pretty well, and our damage and levels continued to get higher at an increasing rate.

We had each leveled up four times by the time we reached the first chamber, but that’s where things got a bit more difficult. At level fifty you are able to use firearms, but none of us had brought any with us. My friends were all eleven levels lower than the stuff we were fighting, that meant that I had to protect them at all times.

The creatures we came across were bipedal, with four arms and an insanely muscular body. Ben brought up his phone again to scan them, and saw that they were something called a bakxey. They didn’t have any weapons, but they were much, much stronger than they looked. Strong enough that one of them could probably take out all my friends, given the chance.

Entering the room, I had Sonja use Tethering Shot one one while I Blinked three times consecutively, taking my spear out of storage on the way. With a push and a quick thrust, I impaled two of them with my spear, which ended up being embedded in the stone floor. Unless they broke the spear or pulled it out of the ground, they would be out of the fight.

One was thrashing around trying to free itself from Tethering Shot, but it wasn’t having much luck with that. I let him be and Blinked again, interposing myself between the last two and my friends. There were a few arrows sticking out of one of them, but that didn’t seem to slow it down in the slightest. I grabbed onto both of them around the neck and held them still, letting Sonja and Mason kill one each with Siphoning Shot and Siphoning Strike before heading over to deal with the final three.

The two that were impaled to the floor were still trying to free themselves, though they weren’t close to doing so and were getting weaker and weaker as blood continued running down the shaft, pooling beneath them. I walked over and killed the one that was trying to free itself, while leaving the other two to Sonja and Mason.

We collected the Skill Gem that dropped, but weren’t too concerned about rolling it off right away. I stored it in a small pouch and then we continued on to the next chamber. The amount of kiattids in each group never really changed, nor did they get anymore difficult. It was a little ridiculous how much experience they gave for how easy they were to kill, but we weren’t going to complain about that.

The chambers made up for the ease of the kiattids, however. The first chamber we came across had five bakxey in it, and every chamber after that had added five more. By the time we got to the final fifth chamber, we were fighting twenty-five bakxey at once. It wasn’t easy, believe me, even with the level disparity having disappeared by the time we got there.

The biggest issue wasn’t that my friends were weak, it’s that the bakxey were very good at fighting in close range. They easily blocked strikes and punched with enough force to knock the air out of people’s lungs and send them flying backwards a few feet. Our suits absorbed enough of the force of the strikes that we didn’t take any injuries, but it was very slow going.

If we had guns, it probably would have made things much easier, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun. I made great use of my new abilities, by pulling out my sword and using Curse of Pain, which did a lot of damage, thanks to my Legendary Spellblade Perk. Curse of Pain had a four second cooldown, but lasted until it was removed or the creature died. At the peak, half of the room had Curse of Pain applied to them before they started dying off from the persistent periodic damage.

That final group of twenty-five ended up giving us just enough experience to reach level fifty-two, but we had to call it after that, for that dungeon at least. We were heading down to the second floor when a voice notified us that the dungeon would be closing in two minutes, so we headed over to the waygate and returned to the surface.

“Ah, I forgot to check what percentage the dungeon was at. A few days ago it was at 51%, but it seems like that goes down much faster here,” Ben said.

“It makes sense. Much bigger population, more adventurers are probably delving into dungeons,” Anja replied.

“True. It was extremely worthwhile though. Seventeen levels in a little over two hours? I’ll take that.”

“Do we want to go and do another one? We could go get our guns and then come back. Maybe we’ll be able to reach level sixty or seventy by the time we need to go clean up for dinner,” Sonja said.

“Well we don’t necessarily need to go back, but we would need to go through another evaluation. It shouldn’t take as long, but that still eats into our time. We would have around four hours or so before we need to get back,” I replied.

“What sort of guns are we able to use inside a dungeon at level fifty anyways?” Mason asked. “The topic of guns is all moot if we can’t use the two we’ve been training with inside of a dungeon.”

“I don’t know, actually. Give me a second and I’ll find out,” Ben said, opening up his old phone. If the rules were the same here as they were on Earth, then he’d be able to find out very quickly.

“Another thing I want to know is how do skills work with guns? I mean they have to, right? If they didn’t then someone who was strong enough would be able to do much more damage with a bow or a crossbow than they would be able to do with a gun.”

“I can answer that one, actually, because I was curious as well,” Sonja said. “The only abilities that affect guns are ones that also affect bows, crossbows and other ranged weapons. I could use a sling, for example, but they’re rather rare and don’t have good damage bonuses. Another example is a slingshot. If I had one and used Triple Shot, then I would launch projectiles consecutively, at a pretty fast speed.”

“With a gauss pistol, activating the ability would allow me to fire three rounds very quickly that would have increased damage. If I used Tethering Shot, and aimed at the floor, then my shot would embed itself in the floor and it would behave the same way as it does with my arrows. If I activated Cobra Shot, I would fire a poison-laced bullet. It gets really weird when you use abilities like Volley, and I don’t even get how that works.”

“When using my bow, I aim into the air and fire a bunch of arrows at once. They fly up before arcing and coming straight down. With a gauss pistol, I could only fire once, and that round flies so fast that it would embed itself in the ceiling. Even if I was outside and used the ability, it would probably take a minute or two for the round to travel up, turn around, and then begin falling back down, but that would only be one round.”

“That’s where magic comes in, actually,” Ben interrupted. “If you’re inside of a dungeon and you activate an ability like that, then the dungeon calculates where your bullets would land and makes that happen. Your arrows do the same thing, you just haven’t noticed it before now. Also, looking at the list, it appears as though none of the weapons we have are suitable. The gauss pistol would probably be too powerful while the pulse rifle is too high tech or something like that. We’ll need to get conventional weapons and use them until level one hundred, at that point we would be allowed to take both pulse rifles and gauss pistols into dungeons.”

“Well that’s a bummer. Anyways, going back to Volley, does that mean that additional rounds are also created when it is used? If rounds aren’t created, then it would be a pretty lousy volley.”

“I believe so, but don’t quote me on that.”

“So what are we doing?” Mason asked. “Onto the next dungeon, or back up to Menseio Station?”

“Let’s head up to the station. I’m sure Abi can make us some rifles once supplies are delivered later today, so they’ll be ready next time we have spare time.”

“Can we put in requests? If so I absolutely want an M4. I’ve fired AR-15s before, but they’re semi-automatic and simply aren’t the same.”

“You’ll have to ask her about that. She’s got a small factory on a lower deck, so it shouldn’t take her long to retool everything so she can make a few rifles and a whole lot of ammo.”

“You know, it would probably make it easier on us and easier on her if we just went and bought some rifles,” Anja said. “If we can only use firearms that use bullets propelled by gunpowder until level one hundred, then they have to sell them here, right?”

“Let’s find out,” I said, heading over to the area that should be where you buy and sell items.

---

“I apologize, but I only deal with items that are found inside of a dungeon,” the man said. “If you would like to buy some Skill Gems or sell off your Mana Crystals then I can absolutely help you, but for weapons you’ll need to go up to the fourth floor. Turn to your right after you exit the elevator, and you’ll be looking right at the gun store.”

We thanked the man and did as he suggested. The gun store was absolutely massive, and had two Adventurer’s Guild employees watching it. We entered the store and Mason’s eyes lit up like a kid entering a candy store. He quickly walked up to the displays and went from gun to gun as he checked them all out. We had to pull him away from the plasma cannons, as we needed something we could use today. Not something that we might be able to use a few weeks from now.

The section with gunpowder-based guns was much smaller than the rest of the displays, probably because they would be sold off as soon as a person reached level one hundred. They still had a good display, set up though, with a number of pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles and bolt-action rifles. Mason was bummed that there wasn’t anything bigger than an assault rifle, but he called over a salesman so he could check out all of the weapons.

The salesman initially tried to sell us on a specific pistol, thinking we were new to firearms, but Mason politely asked him to leave him alone so he could examine them on his own. He removed each rifle from the display one at a time, and proceeded to rack the bolt, shoulder it and then look down the sights. It took him a while to find one that he liked and thought would perform well, and it was also one of the only ones that had an adjustable buttstock. That was important since we weren’t planning on upgrading the rifles, and the girls’ arms were quite a bit shorter than Ben’s, Mason’s and my own.

It seemed like the salesmen earned a commission on everything sold, so the man’s eyes lit up when we told him we wanted five of the rifles, and a few thousand rounds of ammunition. He quickly took the rifle and secured it in the display before directing us to the front of the store to get everything ready. Since we were all unfamiliar with the caliber, Mason asked to see a box of every type of ammunition so he could determine which was the best kind.

They required payment for the rifles before they would bring the rifles out of the back, and since I was the only one with money, it was up to me to pay for it. I handed the salesman my new phone which had a million credits added to the connected account only moments before. Apparently he was able to see that, as his eyes lit up once again.

Everything went extremely smoothly, and Mason settled on two different types of ammunition. The first was a simple armor-penetrating round, while the other was an armor-piercing incendiary round. We would need to check each one out to see which one performed first. Before we paid for the ammo and left the store, Mason walked around until he found the magazines compatible with the rifle we had chosen. There happened to be only a few, and they were compatible with every rifle, because all of the ammunition was stored in dimensional storage. The magazine was just the easiest way to rapidly load a bunch of ammo.

He grabbed two magazines for each of us and then brought them up to the counter as well. When everything was said and done, we all had rifles we could use, but I was down over eight thousand credits. It was fine though, as that was only a drop in the bucket compared to how much my sisters and I had accruing interest. In fact, the amount I spent wouldn’t even equal five percent of what we make every hour off of interest.

We quickly put everything into dimensional storage and then walked out of the Adventurer’s Guild to meet up with Zaszi and her team.

“So how did it go? I’ll admit that I’m surprised you’re back so quickly.”

“We forgot to check to see what percentage the dungeon was at,” Ben said. “We finished the first floor and were about to start the next one when we received notice that everyone would be kicked out in a few minutes. We actually spent the last thirty-five to forty minutes deciding what we wanted to do. We ended up grabbing some assault rifles from the store so we can use them inside of dungeons.”

“You all hit level fifty then?”

“Fifty-two,” I answered. “Ben found another dungeon, so we’re going to head over there and get the evaluation done and mess around a bit. We probably won’t get very far by the time we leave, but we want to see how the guns perform.”

“Well, lead on,” she said.

We walked over to where the Grasshopper was parked and quickly lifted off the ground. It took about a minute to get clearance to fly above a certain altitude. Once we got that, I began climbing to around twenty thousand feet and proceeded to accelerate to just below the speed of sound. It would only take us ten minutes to get to the dungeon at that speed, so it gave Mason and Sonja plenty of time to ask Zaszi and her team some questions.

“Now that we’re able to use guns in dungeons, Mason and I are curious how guns work with skills, specifically, skills that do damage in an area. For example, when I use Volley I take perhaps a dozen arrows out of my dimensional storage and fire them all at once. That isn’t exactly possible with something like our gauss pistols or pulse rifles.”

“Take out your phone and bring up Volley for a second. If you read the description, it should tell you how many projectiles are fired each time you use the ability,” Zogyr said.

“One sec… it looks like eleven projectiles,” she said.

“Alright, so when you use Volley with a crossbow or a slingshot or a rifle, you fire one projectile and that projectile is duplicated until eleven projectiles are flying through the air. The catch, however, is that each time you use Volley, that many rounds are removed from the magazine or dimensional storage. If you used your pulse rifle and activated Volley then the pulse would be duplicated until there were eleven, which wouldn’t generate heat as if you were firing eleven shots, but it would drain eleven shots worth of power.”

“We thought that was the way it worked, but weren’t entirely sure,” Mason said. “I have some questions about some things that have been bothering me, though. Sonja’s bow has a damage value attached to it, do guns have that damage value as well? Also, I don’t think her damage increases based on the type of arrows she uses, is that different for ammunition used?”

“If you find a gun inside of a dungeon then there will be a value attached to it, but if you buy a mass produced weapon then that is a little harder to figure out. You won’t be able to see its stats just by picking it up. Before companies begin mass producing weapons, they create a number of them and test them to see how much damage they do. They can use that damage to figure out that value you’re talking about. You said you bought rifles, can I see one of them?” Zogyr asked.

Mason handed his rifle over to Zogyr after racking the bolt and making sure there wasn’t a bullet in the chamber and that the safety was on. Zogyr turned it in his hands until he saw what he was looking for, and then turned it around so everyone could see it.

“It’s this value here. As you can see, it has a level requirement of fifty and a damage value of nine hundred,” he said, handing it back to Mason. “As for the question about ammunition, it too has a damage value, and that is the most important thing in determining how much damage your assault rifle will do. You see, while arrows don’t have a damage value associated with them, the damage they do is increased by the person’s agility. The same is not so with bullets. That means that someone who is level fifty could fire and do one thousand damage, and a person who is level one thousand could fire and do the exact same amount of damage.”

“When you get up to energy weapons, then it’s a bit different, and the damage value depends on the gun and the power level. The higher the power level, the higher the weapon damage value.”

Mason took the two ammo boxes out of his inventory and looked for a number that would tell him how much damage the bullet would do. It wasn’t hard to find, actually, being in nice big letters in a corner.

“Alright, so the armor-piercing rounds I got have eighteen hundred damage, but the armor-piercing incendiary ones show eighteen hundred slash twenty-eight hundred, why is that?

“That round will have a damage value of eighteen hundred when it hits something that is immune to fire, and a damage value of twenty-eight hundred when it hits something that isn’t. The two numbers probably should have been reversed, as the majority of creatures you will come across are not immune to fire.”

“So it was pointless to buy the armor-piercing round”

“Not really, the incendiary rounds were probably more expensive, right? So you’ll save a bit of money by switching to the armor-piercing rounds when fighting something that would be immune.”

“Ah, true. I’ll keep them then.”

“Those damage values seem insane. I mean, my bow only has a damage value of twenty, yet the gun alone has a value almost fifty times higher. And that’s before the ammo is even factored in.”

“Ah, but you’re forgetting that agility increases the damage of the shots you take with your bow. With a gun, the damage value is equal to the damage you will do, minus any physical or magical damage reduction. So nine hundred plus twenty-eight hundred gives you thirty-seven hundred damage per shot when shooting something that is vulnerable to fire. It might seem like a lot of damage now, but that won’t be increasing as you fight higher and higher level monsters. In fact, it will do less and less damage because those monsters will have higher damage reduction.”

*****

The evaluation was a breeze, and was about twenty minutes faster than the first one, which is always nice. Once inside the dungeon we took a few minutes to load one magazine with the armor-piercing rounds, while we filled the other one up with the armor-piercing incendiary rounds instead. I also handed everyone a little device to add to their gun, which would allow all of us to use the reticles in our HUD.

It was a little circular button-like object that had an adhesive on one side. Once attached to a weapon it would activate and we would need to fire three shots. We would need to wait until we were in the dungeon to fire those shots, but it would keep track of where those rounds landed in relation to itself. After that, it would calculate exactly where the reticle would appear when we pointed the rifle somewhere. We tested each of our rifles to make sure once we were in the dungeon, and the bullets always landed exactly where our guns were pointing.

With everything sorted, we began making our way down the tunnel while keeping an eye on the lifesigns detector so we wouldn’t be surprised. We didn’t see anything by the time we arrived at the first chamber, but what we did see was absolutely disgusting. It was pretty dark, but we were easily able to see something dripping from the ceiling thanks to the nightvision built into our suits.

Up on the ceiling were a dozen or so creatures that looked similar to stalactites, but were bulbous and were writhing as some viscous liquid continued to drop from them. Looking at the small pool below them, we could see that there were wisps of something coming off of it.

“I’m pretty sure that stuff that is dripping down to the floor is acid. Be careful not to get it on your suit,” Ben said.

“Well that will be easy,” Mason said as he pointed his rifle up, set it to automatic and then pulled the trigger.

The monsters did more than drip acid, as once the first one got hit, the rest of them started wriggling. They were attached firmly to the ceiling, but they were able to angle the tips of their bodies and point them directly at us. After a second a hole appeared on each tip and then streams of acid were fired at us.

I barked at Mason to cease firing and then stood in front of everyone with my Mana Shield active. The acid wasn’t able to get through, but it instead dripped down and began eating away at the rock below our feet. Turning the safety off on my own rifle, I aimed up and picked off the creatures one by one. Ben and Mason had Mana Shield so they were able to help out, but after thirty seconds of combined fire, all of them were dead. When they died, their bodies dropped from the ceiling before dissolving and all of the acid in the room disappeared.

“I guess any loot they dropped would dissolve immediately. Either that or it’s to prevent people from taking the acid out of dungeons,” Ben said as we picked up the Mana Crystal Shards and continued onward.

The first floor was much of the same, and that made it incredibly easy. All I had to do was stand in front and take most of the acid fire, while Ben and Mason stood beside me and took out the mavophans, as we learned they were called. I don’t know what humans would’ve called the three monsters we had seen so far, but these ones sounded pretty weird.

When we got to the next floor, we were immediately under assault, like we were when we entered the first dungeon. It turned out that the creatures that swarmed us were kiattids, but they were different from the first ones we had seen. These ones jump on people’s heads and inject them with acid. That acid eats through their skin and bone before turning their brains into nice acidic slurries, which they apparently like to eat.

We found out that the acid wouldn’t go through our suits after Ben got jumped on this time, but we didn’t want to take any changes in case there were different potencies. It could very well be that the acid the kiattids use isn’t strong enough to eat through our armor, but another creature’s acid might.

I ranged out in front, making sure that my Mana Shield was up while keeping an eye on the lifesigns detector. Mason and Ben were doing the same thing at the back in case we got flanked, while the twins were safe in the middle. We saw them coming the second time and I got two clean shots off before grabbing my sword and chopping up the other four.

The first chamber had another new creature, which looked like massive earthworms. They poked out of the floor periodically before disappearing and reappearing in a different location. At any time we could see three of the worms, but we didn’t know if there were anymore below.

“Anyone wanna bet that these things spit or excrete acid?” Ben asked.

“Not me. It’s clear that acid is a major theme in this dungeon. I’m going to Blink in. You two protect the twins and let me know if they start coming after you.”

I began walking forward while unloading into the furthest worm from me. The incendiary rounds easily pierced through its skin and began cooking it’s flesh wherever it hit, as the other worms began spitting acid at me. I paid them no mind until I came into melee range of the first one. Taking out my sword, I quickly cut it in half before I continued onto the next one. There were actually four in total, and they didn’t seem to be able to dig through rock quickly enough to get at my friends. Just to make sure that they were all dead, Mason stepped into the center of the room and cast Tremor. We didn’t hear any noises below, so we exited the first chamber and headed to the next one.

So far, the two dungeons we had explored had noticeable patterns. That could have been to ease adventurers into the dungeons since both of them had over one hundred floors, but all of them were pretty easy. Or I just just so overpowered that it made it easy. Our guns were a massive help, as the girls were able to fight from a distance. It kept them safe from the acid that was constantly being spewed towards us as soon as we entered a room. It was stalactites on the first floor, spiders and worms on the second floor, and then slimes on the third floor. Yes, you read that right.

Slimes, the consensus pick as the weakest monster you can find inside of a dungeon.

They were acidic slimes, to be fair, but they were one of the hardest things for us to kill so far. Thankfully they were rather slow and usually alone, so Ben and I were both able to shoot fire at them until they finally died. Bullets didn’t have much of an impact, and neither of us really wanted to stick our weapons into a slime made entirely out of acid. Anja’s Ice Shards might have frozen it eventually, or it would have diluted the acid and made the slime grow in size. We didn’t want to wait around for either of those to happen, so fire it was.

The third floor easily took longer than the first two did, because we weren’t able to bypass a chamber until we killed the slimes within, and they just took way too long to die. The small amount of monsters on the second and third floors meant that we didn’t level as fast as we wanted to, but we still reached level sixty-three before we had to leave to get ready for dinner.

A quick waygate trip later and Zaszi and her team were following us as we once again headed back to the Grasshopper. It didn’t take as long to get clearance to ascend above the regular traffic, and we were ascending through the exosphere and into space. We had to wait for a little bit to get clearance to dock with the station, but we were soon flying into docking bay 11A, where we set down beside Abi. The other two grasshoppers followed soon after, but they didn’t move too far away from them. We would be heading right back down to the planet shortly, so there was no point.

We headed back to our rooms to shower, but before that happened I followed each of my friends into their room and quickly put their suits into Abi’s dimensional storage before taking them out again. The purpose of that was to clean both the outside and inside, as dirt, sweat, and any acid would have been filtered out. We would be going right back into the suits, so we didn’t want our formal clothes getting all sweaty.

Once I had done that for my friends, I headed to my own room and did the same thing before taking a shower. I was clean once again but there was a five o’clock shadow on my face, so I shaved and brushed my teeth before heading back to my room and entering the closet. Grabbing the suit my mom had made for me, I set it on the bed and began putting it on. Getting dressed was easy, but I still wasn’t able to tie a tie.

I headed over to Anja’s room, knocking on her door, and she called through after a few seconds. A minute later she opened the door fresh out of the shower and I explained my problem. She laughed and tied it properly in thirty seconds, so I thanked her and let her go back to getting ready.

Ben and Mason were ready right after I was, and the twins were ready about twenty minutes after that. When they appeared, they had two more ties to take care of, as neither Ben nor Mason knew how to properly tie a tie, either.

“It’s kinda funny that most women don’t even wear ties, yet a lot of them know how to tie them,” I said as they finished up. “I just watched both of you do it and I still have no idea how to do it myself.”

Anja laughed. “Maybe it’s harder if you’re actually wearing the tie, I don’t know. Our dad doesn’t know how to tie his own either, so he either leaves it tied and just loosens it to take it off, or one of us does it for him.”

“I just decided that I like Pygmaean suits more than I do suits from Earth, simply because ties aren’t involved whatsoever,” I said, getting another laugh from the twins.

Since we were all ready, we headed back to our respective rooms and got back into our suits. The girls had a bit of a hard time since both of them were wearing dresses, but they helped each other out and we headed down to the landing bay. When we arrived, we were surprised to see that the Grasshoppers had been flown back into Abi’s landing bay.

“We’ll be going by Portal,” my mom said when I asked. “The teams that were shadowing you are checking it right now, and as soon as the area is secure, they’ll open a portal back here and we’ll head on through. So what level did the five of you end up reaching?”

“Sixty-three. The second dungeon we went to didn’t have the same density as the first one, so we weren’t leveling nearly as fast. We also found our first thematic dungeon, it seems.”

“Oh? Which one.”

“Acid,” Ben replied.

“Ah, that explains the low density then. Monsters that use acid can be incredibly dangerous if you’re not careful or are unprepared, though I imagine you didn’t have any issues with the armor you’re currently wearing. You should be able to easily withstand acid from monsters up to around level two hundred, after that you’ll need to be careful as acid will be strong enough to eat through your suits. It will take a while, but it’s possible.”

“What’s the hardest thematic dungeon type?” Mason asked.

“Fire,” my mom answered without hesitation. “They are usually located near volcanoes, so they’ll be incredibly hot and there will be hundreds of monsters per floor. Elementals, imps, phoenixes, drakes, kobolds, and wyverns are just a few examples of what you’ll find there. Your suits should be fine in those dungeons as well, as long as you return to the surface periodically to cool down.”

“What about the easiest?” I asked, finding the topic interesting.

“Earth, probably. In those dungeons you’ll find gargoyles, elementals and other constructs made from stone. They’re often very powerful, but are ponderous monsters. You’re fighting the ground yourself inside of an earth-themed dungeon as well, but as long as you’re able to dodge well, you’ll be fine.”

“Okay, what about your favorite?” Anja asked next.

That one stumped her for a bit before she finally named chaotic-themed dungeons as her favorite. “They’re just so interesting with a wide variety of monsters. If you’re unfamiliar with Chaos spells, they typically do damage while draining mana at the same time. So if you’re using Mana Shield and you get hit by a spell, then you’ll lose twice the amount of mana. You’ve got to be careful or you can easily run out of mana, and at that point everything becomes much harder.

Before we could ask any more questions, a portal opened up and Zaszi’s team walked over to it. They conversed with the team on the other side for a minute or so before they waved us over.

“Time to go,” my mom said, leading the way.

---

Once we were on the other side we were met with with an amazing view. We were high up on a mountain that was surrounded by large plains that had hundreds of animals grazing from the land and drinking from the river that ran through it. The plains ended when the butted against a white sandy beach and a large body of water. If I was familiar with the planet then I would know exactly where I was and what I was looking at, but it was my first time here.

Oya got our attention a few minutes later, and none of us had turned around since arriving. We had all been captivated by the view below. As we turned around, we saw that Ercan’s house was built into the side of a vertical face of the mountain, and we were currently on a large section of rock that jutted out towards the plains.

We followed after Oya as she led us up a winding path on the side of the mountain, before entering the house itself. The wall looking out to the plains was made entirely out of glass, as was most of the house, it turned out. It was much, much bigger than it looked from the outside, but that was because they had cut so far into the mountain when building the house.

Once inside, those of us in suits were directed over to a room where we could safely store them, and then we were led to the living room. Everyone mingled in while we waited to be called into the dining room, and servers walked by periodically offering drinks and snacks. I declined any drinks that were offered to me because I dislike alcohol, but took a few snacks to share with Vixa as we walked over to the glass windows that separated us from a thousand foot fall.

Ercan ended up joining us as we admired the view, and I couldn’t help but be jealous. I told him as much.

“Oh, with how rich you are, you could build dozens of houses like this one. Thank you though, it is my favorite of all my properties.”

“I can definitely see why. I don’t think there are many places on Earth with a view like this. At least not anywhere where people actually live. It would probably cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build something similar there.”

“That’s technology for you. With anti-gravity lifts, it is quite easy, and makes everything a lot cheaper. I don’t think I ever would have had this house built up here if I didn’t have access to the technology that was used.”

“Oya wasn’t joking when she said how big your ranch is, either. I’m assuming the quillbeasts will be living down there as well?”

“Once they go through a three day quarantine we’ll section off an area and release them there. If there aren't any problems, then they’ll be released into the general population later on. We just don’t want to put them in there as soon as they get through the quarantine process, and they’re quite a bit more deadly than any of the other animals down there.”

“I understand that. You might be surprised to hear that the dragons actually swooped out of the air and picked them up with one claw while immediately snapping their necks with the other one when they went hunting for ones to eat. When they got back, there were a lot of broken quills, but there wasn’t a single scratch on any of the dragons. Speaking of the dragons, they’re admiring the view as well,” I said, gesturing over to them. “If we were over there, I bet they would be talking about how they want to build their homes on Yrranth or Zokyrth just like this one.”

“From what I’ve heard, that might not be too difficult for them. Is it true they dug down over a kilometer underground in only two days?”

“It took less time than that, I think, but yup. They had a team working on each planet to create the entrances to their first cities, digging through solid granite the entire way through. The entrances are rather bare right now, but they said that they plan on creating a massive mural in each of the entrance chambers. It’s going to take a while for them to build enough so that they won’t be so busy, but I’m looking forward to seeing it when it is finished.”

“Oya said that the dragons have different abilities which is how they were able to dig so fast, but she didn’t go into specifics.”

“There are eight different types of dragons, but they only use seven different schools of magic. Fire, Earth, Air, Water, Ice, Nature, and Arcane. The eighth type of dragon is able to use the abilities of any of the other types of dragons, but they’re not as proficient. Scyftans actually shift into chromatic dragons, which is the eight type I was talking about.”

“They used four different types of dragons during the excavation, Black dragons, who use earth magic, Blue dragons, who use water magic, White dragons, who use ice Magic, and finally Purple dragons, which use arcane magic. They would start off with the Black dragons using their heavy bulbous tails to strike the rock repeatedly, sending cracks throughout the rock and weakening it slightly.”

“The Blue dragons would come up next, and they would shoot a pressurized jet of water into the cracks, making sure that water got as far in as possible. When they were done White dragons would take their place, and they used their extremely cold frost breath to rapidly freeze the water, making those cracks bigger and weakening the rock even further.”

“After that, it was up to the Purple dragons. They moved up and fired off a sustained beam of arcane energy, which obliterated the weakened rock, crushing it into gravel-sized chunks. From there, all they needed to do is move all the gravel and then start over again. Dragons are extremely proficient at moving stuff around, as Black and Chromatic dragons can use telekinesis to move heavy objects, and Purple and Chromatic dragons can open up portals. Once a portal is open, a Black dragon just pushes all the gravel through the hole, and it’s out of the way.”

“It sounds like they could make a lot of money if they wanted to by providing services like that. Most companies end up using explosives and then it takes forever for them to move everything they’ve excavated.”

“Well, they’re extremely efficient, and not just with excavating rock,” I said, proceeding to tell him how they cleared land.

*****

We were called into the dining room about twenty minutes later, and appetizers were immediately brought out once everyone was seated. It proved to be the first course of a six course meal, and was followed by a small bowl of soup. I had no idea what kind of food it was since it was my first time eating a meal made up entirely of alien ingredients, but it was very, very good.

There was a short delay between the second and third courses where many toasts were given and embarrassing stories were told, which ended up being a theme for the entirety of the dinner. The room would be fairly quiet except for the band that was playing something similar to classical music in the back while everyone was eating, and then it would become more lively as everyone was given a short rest before the next course.

There was a small tablet that I had missed sitting under my napkin which explained what each dish was. The soup didn’t taste anything like chicken noodle soup, but there was a bird used in it’s creation, and it definitely looked like a chicken.The third course was a small dish featuring a fish called a Western mallaino, which lived five or six kilometers beneath the waves. Fish isn’t my favorite type of meat, but it was extremely good as well.

Between courses I checked to see what the fourth course would be, but it was currently blank. My guess was that they didn’t want to spoil it, but they were kind enough to let everyone know that the main course would be next.

Even Vixa, Imuna and the other Phenidae were invited to dinner, given their own chairs and plates. All at once each of them pointed their noses in the air and looked towards the kitchens as the servers brought out the fourth course. I knew what we were having as soon as the smell reached my nose. I was looking forward to seeing everyone else’s reaction.

Before everyone dug in, however, there was another toast.

Oya raised her glass. “A toast, to the dragons, our new friends. I wish you well on your new homes of Yrranth & Zokyrth. And I know they taste good and dragons need to eat a lot, just please, please, don’t hunt quillbeasts to extinction. You would be doing the entire universe a severe disservice,” she finished, with the biggest of smiles.

The dragons laughed and lifted their own glasses towards her before everyone began digging in. The room was the quietest it had been so far tonight as everyone was savouring their meals. The chefs had certainly outdone themselves. While the dragons were very good at cooking meat, the chefs under Ercan’s employ took it to another level.

Following up the main course was a salad, which, while good, was probably the low point of the entire meal. The room was loud as people ate, which was a testament to that fact, and there probably also the most amount of stories told and toasts given as everyone was given a little bit more time to rest between the final course, dessert.

When it arrived, I had no idea what I was looking at. It was displayed beautifully with a small syrup-covered ball of what was obviously ice cream, or something like it, but I hadn’t seen anything like the small cubed desert that accompanied it. It had a topping that made it seem like it might be a cake, but under that, the consistency wasn’t anything close to what a cake looked like. Picking up the tablet, I scrolled down until I found what it was.

It turned out to be an extremely rare mushroom that is only found deep within a forest on a planet on the other side of the Scutum-Centaurus Arm, which meant that it was quite far away. Abi could get there in just over a week, but it would take most ships over a month to make the trip there, and another trip back.

Taking my spoon, I cut off a small piece of the mushroom, swirled it into the sauce that encircled it, and popped it into my mouth. There was an immediate burst of flavor as I bit into it, with the earthy taste of the mushroom, the sweet taste of the sauce and the slightly-sour taste of the topping. I finished it all before I even got to the ice cream. I never knew mushrooms could be so good.

When dinner was over, everyone headed back to the living room to relax. As we sat down on the numerous couches and chairs, the glass windows disappeared in less than a second, allowing the gentle breeze to flow through the room. There were many conversations being had, but those all stopped as some of the dragons headed outside. We could see them heading to the same outcropping that we had all arrived on, and that is when they began changing into their natural forms, one by one.

For many of us it was nothing new, for the Warvyns and their employees, it was definitely an incredible sight. The petite human woman had turned into a red dragon that was nearly the size of a Boeing 737 and had leapt off the outcropping before she rapidly gained height. After her, a small boy transformed into a smaller, but still large dragon, before following his mother. One by one, seven dragons of various colors leapt off the outcropping and joined the other two that were already in the air.

“Incredible,” Ercan said as he stood up and walked closer to where the windows had been, as he watched the dragons dance.

I walked over and joined him and he admitted that he thought we were overexaggerating their size. Seeing them up close, he now knew that we had probably understated that, by a small amount.

“You can really transform into something that size?” he asked, causing me to shake my head.

“Dragons get larger as they get older and I’m still pretty young, even though I’m technically over fourteen hundred years old. Physically I am only eighteen years old, so I’m about double the size of the smallest one. His mother is one of the oldest among her kind. I’ll continue to grow as I get older, but it will be a long time before I’m close to her size.”

“It makes my daughter’s toast a little bit funnier. Seeing their size makes me realize that they could eat all of the animals down there in a few days if that was their only food source.”

“You’re probably accurate with that assessment. On Earth they primarily ate fish, but that is going to change now that they have their own planets and don’t need to hide. They eat so much meat that it would probably screw with markets around the world if they bought red or white meat. It would also bring attention upon them who would buy up thousands of tons of meat all at once?”

He chuckled, “I agree that would probably be suspicious.”

The dragons began heading down to the outcropping so they could land, but as they began filing down one by one, there was a sudden gust of wind. I initially thought that it was because we were so high up or the dragons blew the wind towards us, but that proved to be wrong. Removing the Beacon from my pocket, I threw it in the air and began pushing Ercan towards it before the portal even opened. At the same time, I raised my hand out towards where the dragons had been moments later and cast a spell.

Without looking at the spell, I commanded everyone present to enter the portal behind me. Kiri and Yuki stepped up beside me, and the three of us stood as a wall, protecting everyone as they got to safety. Turning back to where I had cast my spell, I looked to see a portal in front of a hovering ship, and another one directly over top of it. The beam weapon that would have killed three people had instead been redirected and was now hitting the top of their ship. They dodged to the right, but the next time they fired another portal had opened in front of them and they had to dodge again.

All of the dragons except for the Purple ones flew away as fast as they possibly could, as there was no way they could contend with a ship. The three remaining dragons spread out around the enemy ship and began channeling beams of pure arcane energy towards it. The ship tried to bring their shields online, but they were immediately dropped by a combination of their own fire and the incredible output of a Purple dragon’s breath weapon.

The ship ignored Yuki, Kiri and I and turned their attention to the dragons that surrounded it. As the ship turned towards one of them a portal would form in and they would fly through it, appearing somewhere else. If they couldn’t move in time, then they would just open up a portal and hide behind it, letting the ship continue to take damage from it’s own weapons fire.

Everyone was safe, so I opened up a portal near the dragons and another one directly into the little pocket world where everyone had run to. The dragons flew in one by one, while Yuki and Kiri covered them, and then the three of us began backing up towards it so we could step inside.

Everything was looking fine, but the image suddenly changed. The three of us spun around and ran towards the portal as a dozen missiles were fired at once, coming right for us. There was no way we would be able to deflect all of them, so we turned and ran towards the portal, hoping to make it before they hit. I ran through first, with Yuki and Kiri right behind me as a series of explosions could be heard behind us.

The image changed again, causing me to immediately step to the right and activate Mana Shield. There was a sharp pain in my back and I heard panicked voices calling my name when everything went black.