I checked with Nia first. She didn’t have anybody there with silver-rank portal skills at the moment. She offered to pay for a portal, but a water link message was all I needed for now.

  I did a bit of shopping, as I don’t know how Olivia kept up with feeding Nkwe. I guess that is one reason they don’t stay in town: so that he can hunt. I popped back to the Temple to find out there was a reply to my message already. I swung back past the Magic Society water chamber to collect it. From that message, I had to go to the Adventure Society and then back to discuss with Nia.

  I then let Kai lead me back past the place our generous iron-rank guests ran to yesterday. It looked like an ordinary house on an ordinary street. No sign, no shop. I might come back at night and investigate more, although it no longer seemed that important.

  As I approached my boat shed, I heard raised voices. Two town guards were at the door to the reception area. One was a silver rank guard, and the other was bronze. Behind them were two other bronze rankers in adventuring garb. The door was blocked by a large Sabertooth tiger who was lying in it with a large Leonid on his back, scratching behind his ears. Nkwe was enjoying the scratch. Kim and Mara were behind them.

  “This is an official warning. We have orders to search this property for stolen goods, and you are obstructing guardsmen from carrying out a legal search.” The silver ranker said.

  I didn’t recognise the two behind the guards, but one smelled like one of the iron rankers we sent packing.

  “What is the problem, officer?” I said, approaching from the side.

  “And you are?”

  “Theo. I live here.”

  “We have a warrant to search this place, and I was about to issue fines and restraints for those obstructing us. You might want to tell them to move, or you will all be taken in.”

  “I see. I’m sorry I didn’t get your name.”

  “I’m Sergeant Striker, and this is Corporal Peters.”

  “And you will let me see the warrant?”

  He reluctantly passed it to me. It was a search for stolen goods. I memorised the names.

  I handed it back. “Thank you, but that is, in fact, not a legal search warrant.”

  “Yes, it is, and you are obstructing the law.” His hand moved to his weapon.

  “It would be a legal warrant if this was a privately owned property. This, however, is a Church-owned property, which you would have discovered if you had searched the property records. For that warrant to be legal, it would have had to be signed by the High Priestess at the Temple of Death.”

  “Do you have any proof of that claim?” he asked sceptically.

  “You can take my word for it,” I said, producing my token that identified me as a Roaming Cleric. Kim and Mara were too far away to see what I passed to him, but they were listening with great interest.

  He frowned as he examined the token. He handed it back. I could sense the two in adventurer garb being unhappy.

  “If this does not check out, you will have the full law thrown at you.” He warned.

  “I suggest,” I said, indicating the warrant, “that you discipline the clerk who didn’t do their job.” I figured that was the one who was probably open to outside influences. “I am sorry, I didn’t get who these two gentlemen were or why they are here with you?”

  “They are here to identify the stolen goods if we had found any.”

  “I did not see their names on the warrant. You are?”

  They were not keen, but I was sure the guards were legit, and they couldn’t really back out.

  “Warren Ambrose.”

  “Michael Joseph.”

  “And where would I contact you if I were to discover something on the property that was not mine?”

  “Just bring it to the Guard station,” said the Sergeant. Rats, I wanted to put more pressure on.

  “Very good sergeant. I will do that,” I replied, imitating the perfect picture of an upstanding churchman.

  They moved to leave, and I left them with, “Remember, the gods tend to get upset when you mess with their people.” That was only sometimes true. My goddess would just welcome my soul into her arms.

  Nkwe shifted to let me in. He didn’t shift much. I had to squeeze past the lazy beast.

  Predictably, Kim was the first to question me, “Why is this the property of the Church of Death and…”

  I silenced her, “Just wait.”

  There was a squeal and the sound of animals fighting, and then it went silent again.

  “That’s better. Kai was just getting rid of the vermin.”

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  “Rats chasing off vermin?” Mara chuckled.

  “Food?” Nkwe perked up.

  “Seriously? No wonder you and Kai get on so well,” I said to him. I turned to Kim and spoke in a tone that made it seem like it was obvious, “As to why this is Church property, it is because I am a Cleric of the Church of Death.”

  “You are not surprised,” Kim said to Olivia, who shrugged.

  “I would suggest we talk in your cabin, Mara, but Nkwe would make that uncomfortable.” I said, “Let’s go out the back as I bought a cow for Nkwe and Kai.” That got Nkwe up.

  We went out the back. Because it was a nice day, I opened the big ship doors and looked down the slipway to the dock, where Mara’s Cog was tied up.

  A thought occurred to me. “Mara, why do you never seem to deconstruct your ship? I know it costs Mana and Stamina to reform, but you could easily take a potion, and we could slip through a portal or something.”

  She looked at me. “Mana, Stamina and Health, but you are right. I would be fine after a couple of hours. It is mostly because I am always carrying cargo. Without the ship, I have no way to move the goods.”

  Right, that made sense.

  “You are stalling,” Kim said, “Spill.”

  I made her wait while I brought out the cow carcass for Nkwe and Kai. Ardisia decided to come out as well, but the carcass was already drained of blood. “Here you go, girl,” I said to her and dropped a massive Troll heart near her. She sunk her roots in deep. Bloodroot vine, indeed.

  “Here is the deal,” I said, pulling out the brief Water Chamber message I had received from the Professor. “There is a group called the Builder Cult working to rip astral spaces from this world for their boss, the great astral being called the Builder,” I looked at Olivia, “Probably that Void thing from the prophecy.”

  “The ‘Void-born’s hate.’ It makes sense,” she replied.

  Kim and Mara looked confused, so I explained, “It is a prophecy from the Temple of the Dark Moon predicting a coming disaster. Stripping astral spaces from this world will cause massive devastation surrounding the gates, like tens of kilometres in every direction from the higher-level ones and mere kilometres for the lower-level ones. The ones with multiple gates could devastate a continent.”

  “What has this to do with us?” Kim asked, “Apart from us staying well away from any astral gates.”

  “You need finance to buy these air stones,” I said, “A long-term contract with the Temple of Death would probably be sufficient for the Treasury Houses to loan you that coin. The downside to this is that Olivia and I are going to be hunting these Builder Cultists, and there is one place we know where we can find them.”

  “Astral gates,” said Kim flatly.

  “On the positive side, the Adventure Society is also about to start issuing contracts to hunt Builder cultists, so there is the opportunity to be paid twice.” That got a scowl. “Olivia and I are doing this. Having Air Transport would be great. Sometimes, we will need to go into astral spaces, and in one particular, the ship would be very advantageous, so there may be times you need to reconstitute it.”

  “What happens if we are in an astral space, and it leaves this planet?” Mara asked.

  “I have no idea,” I replied. “I guess we leave it too.”

  “You are not a very good salesman,” said Kim.

  I shrugged.

  “You also seem very casual about dying,” Mara said.

  “I am a Cleric of the Goddess of Death. I have seen a lot of death. Death is inevitable. The question is, what will we do with the remainder of our lives? Very, very few make it to Diamond Rank and become immortal. I have given up on that a long time ago. My goal and purpose is to bring peace to as many people as possible in the time I have left. Right now, I can do that by stopping Builder Cultists from stripping astral spaces from this planet. If that is the last thing I do, then so be it, and I will join my goddess.”

  “What about you?” Kim said to Olivia. “Why are you so willing to rush off into danger?”

  Olivia said, “Nkwe and I serve the God of the Hunt. Every hunt has danger and a risk of death. We will hunt beside Theo because Theo is responsible for bringing us peace,” Her hand patted Nkwe. She looked Kim in the eye and then at Mara. “Why did you join the Adventure Society? If it was just for profit, then you should have stuck with the Merchant Guilds.”

  “What about Knot?” Kim asked.

  “I imagine we will be leaving small-time local crime bosses well behind us,” I said. “It is a big world out there.” Then I grinned, “Besides, if his reputation and pride are suffering that we got away, imagine what it will be like if he is continually thwarted? We just leave him to stew.”

  “You have somewhere in mind, don’t you?” Kim asked.

  “Yes. The Adventure Society is scrambling people to protect spaces. There is an astral space with multiple gates that I have been to several times. It is large. Huge, in fact. The mana density varies from iron to silver, and it is a series of islands with shallow seas. The Adventure Society of Greenstone recently fought builder cultists there and lost many people. Now that we know the plan, the Adventure Society wants to protect astral spaces where the cultists have been active. That big one has gates in Greenstone, Boko, Southern Kekie, and several others that span the continent's width.”

  “Islands and a sea.” Mara said, “That is why you want a boat. We can’t take on a silver-rank monster in an astral space. Kim and I have a lot of non-combat abilities.”

  “So do I,” I said, “However, you are right. The last time I was in there, I lost a leg to a silver-rank monster.” Olivia raised an eyebrow at that. We still had a lot of catching up to do. “I was Iron Rank at the time. The main non-combat ability I expect to be most useful is your Map ability, Mara. However, I am also trying to track down the team of bronze rankers I was with at the time to join us. They will be late bronze by now, and together, we should be able to take on most things.”

  “Mara and I will have to talk about this before we decide,” Kim said.

  “Take the time. I have set things in motion, but it will take a few days to organise. We can’t be too long, as the Builder cultists have a big head start on us. The day after tomorrow, we will probably be portalling to Vitesse. If you come, you will have to pack up the ship. Vitesse will have your air stones for sale. The Adventure Society might offer a discount, and I would expect with the gains from the astral space, you will probably pay them off when we get back.”

  “If we get back,” Kim said.

  I continued, “Then we will be portalling to Boko. It was a gate in southern Kekie where I ran into people testing a ritual, and we should start there, but I am not portalling to Kekie. We will enter the Astral space near Boko and travel through the astral. I will run tests on the gates we pass, and if we find a problem, we can stop and deal with it. That is the plan at the moment, but it is subject to change.”

  “How many are on this other team?” Mara asked.

  “Three. One of them is a strong Druid healer,” I said. “The three of them were taking on selective silver-rank monsters as a team when I last worked with them. With the five of us as well, we should be able to handle anything silver and lower. Have any of you been in an astral space before?”

  Kim and Mara shook their heads, “No.”

  “Once,” Olivia said.

  “The thing with Astral spaces is not so much the mana density but also the mana saturation. Monsters keep spawning and keep spawning. But so do awakening stones and essences.”

  Kim and Mara left shortly after that to discuss it on their ship.

  Olivia looked at me and said, “I thought you weren’t going back to Kekie?”