Jason pced a f hand on Nik’s shoulder as they walked down a corridor in the cloud ship.

  “I won’t say don’t be nervous, because of course you are,” Jason told him. “What I will say is that they’re going to love you.”

  “You think?”

  “Nik, everyone loves you. Even Neil adores you, and you know how ky he get. The whole Adventure Society loves you. That might just be because of your power set, but it ts.”

  “You think that maybe I could find a team here oh? Maybe I should have joined one of the Geller teams ba Greenstone. I just wao see the world a bit, you know?”

  “I do.”

  “And I wao…”

  “What?”

  “I wao talk to you about it. But year after year, you didn’t e back.”

  Jason grimaced, feeling the shame. He’d had his reasons for leaving, but he always did. It didn’t stop him from leaving his team behind, time and again. And now he’d dohe same to Nik, who had needed him more than anyone.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I give you all the excuses in the world, but it doesn’t ge that. I could promise to do better, but what you need isn’t words. I hope that you’ll give me the ce to do better. To give me the time that I didn’t give to you.”

  “You oold me that you don’t get along with your mother.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Would you give her the time? If she asked for it?”

  Jason stopped walking, Nik pulling up as well. Jason stood, frowning for a long time.

  “That’s a good question,” he said finally. “A hard question. And, if I’m being ho, I don’t know. She’s still here, oh. Maybe I should see if she’s ready for what I’m asking you for. Everyone’s circumstances are different. I don’t know, Nik. I don’t know.”

  He pushed a smile onto his fad kept walking.

  “You know, I don’t think you need a team,” he told Nik. “Your powers just work better in rge groups, which is why the Adventure Society keeps setting you up with expeditions. What you need is a guild who take full advantage of your abilities. We’re looking at setting one up whe back to Palli. I’m not going to let someone else take care of you. It’s you and me, from here on out.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. We’ve been discussing it ever since I had guild issues in Vitesse. Team Biscuit is getting big, and we have some people floating in and out, like me, Rufus and Taika. Probably Zara, too, now she’s back to princessing. It makes seo have a guild that’s small and works like aeeam. Sing people in and out, based on avaibility and need.”

  “You don’t have any silver rankers, though. Doing tracts with a bunch of gold-rankers will get me killed.”

  “uild recruitment would be focused on the lower ranks. Training people up to our standards and helping them rank up. It’s a lot easier than trying to pull in people already gold rank, who have their own ways of doing things anyway. We’d set up pools of people for each rank, base them out of zones with appropriate magic levels. Greenstone for iron rankers and initial training, but we’re looking at setting up headquarters around the world. Clive and that poor woman Lorelei have been w to reverse ehe Builder cult portal work for almost twenty years now. uild houses would be a test bed, before rolling it out ercially.”

  “That would cause a bigger stir than the Sky Liwork Farrah and Travis built. And that was huge. An actual portal work will throw whole tries and industries into disarray.”

  “It’ll be a big deal, yeah, but within reason. It’s not like it’ll be free portal travel, but it’ll be cheaper and more accessible than the current system of finding a portal specialist and paying them a bunoney.”

  Jason stopped them in front of a door to one of the ship lounges.

  “You ready, bud?”

  “No,” Nik said, rolling his shoulders as if limbering up for a fight. “But let’s do it anyway.”

  Jason chuckled and the mist door vahere was a squeal, and Nik was hit by a torpedo.

  ***

  New Water was the city Jasoed in his astral kingdom for the survivors of Boko. Many had chosen to leave and find new homes on Pallimustus, especially those who didn’t like the civic policies Jasoed, such as the abolition of both iured servitude and aristocratic title. Further social development was the purview of the Dominion church.

  The clergy in Jason’s astral kingdom had chosen to remain for his jouro Earth. The initial ti had been from the churches of Hearth, Refuge and Dominion, but as the work expanded, others had joined when Jason took on more people in Rimaros. Members of various priesthoods joio help establish the new city, mostly due to the logistics required for a popution iens of thousands.

  Although the gods of Pallimustus had no sway in his realm, and could their power through their clergy, it mattered little. The gods had made sure that their followers were experts in their areas of influence, magic or not. The ti of experts had their own magic, but it was their knowledge that proved more valuable.

  Most of the gods represented were minor, ed with the day to day lives of ordinary people. There was little need for the clergy of major deities like O, Storm or War. The priests Jason took on were mostly those of professional gods useful to a new city, such as Farmer, Mason, and Grocer. Others were deities often overlooked but critical to a city, such as Hygiehe results of their expertise was on full dispy as the city of New Water went from a refugee haven to a home and a society.

  Farmer’s priests helped establish agriculture in the fertile nds around the city, removing the need for Jason to jure up rge amounts of food. A mix of clergy worked with Jason to refihe city’s design, including Mason, Archited Gardeheir expertise in stru and city pnning guided Jason in adjusting his hastily erected metropolis.

  By y, Jason was gettier at hastily knog up magic cities. Details mattered, however, and professional help turned New Water into a more practical and pleasant pce to live and work. The popution did just that, establishing farms and busirade was the majod, alongside Dominion and Knowledge, who did have a role to py. His clergy were critical in helpiablish the city’s ey.

  Knowledge’s clergy set up schools, along with training programs for the kind of work avaible in this new city. Many people could rely on previous expertise to find work or open businesses, but others needed alternative skills to find a p the new society. Where Boko was heavily reliant on exp the natural resources of the desert, New Water had to find its own equilibrium.

  The priests of Dominion served as overseers of the whole operation, as their task was the big-picture anisation of the city. Leadership and administrative structures o be put ihe efforts of the other clergy had to be woven into a cohesive whole, to avoid them w at cross-purposes or falling into pointless redundancy.

  Language skills were a critical part of the educatirams in New Water, in the adult training halls as well as the schools. Essence users excelled at pig up new nguages, especially as they ranked up, so the training hall csses were highly effective. In the schools, where children were yet to obtain essences, a solid foundation of nguage training would help them to bee polyglots when they were older. The training included multiple nguage options from both Earth and Pallimustus, as Jason anticipated the poputerag with both.

  Jason was gd that Danielle had the fht to include the higher-ranking priests amongst the first to train ih nguages. This allowed them to verse with his three guests from the Australian gover as they toured the city. Jason had left them with his most loquacious non-prime avatar as a guide, known as the cierge. Many of his other avatars were rather automaton-like, their energies focused on perf specific tasks. The cierge was desigo be Jason’s representative when he wasn’t trolling an avatar to do so himself.

  While he could trate on multiple pces at once, Jason sometimes wao put his undivided attention elsewhere. In this case, it was on his prime avatar, spending time with his family. There was also the advahat the cierge was a dialled-down version of Jason, more adept at the diplomacy that Anna and Danielle wanted from him. Danielle had even suggested bringing the cierge out to represent Jason in other discussions.

  The trio of gover officials spent hours t the city, asking the clergy about how it had e to be and Jason’s involvement. They also had the ce to speak with some of the higher-rank residents who had reached fluen English during the trip from Pallimustus.

  The stories that they heard painted Jason as somethiween a messiah and ht god. Destroying their old home because someone assassinated him, unleashing his apocalyptic levels of restrained power. Saving almost the entire popution by evacuating them with his power, then single-handedly killing an army of angels. Bringing them to a new universe, calling up a massive oasis from the desert, plete with a new city at its heart.

  It was a city of magical wonders, from floating ptforms that moved between buildings, to public fountains where the water literally danced in the air, perf like a street artist. People flew overhead on flying carpets, personal flight clouds or exotic creatures. There were alser vehicles, from car-sized right up to buses. These were revealed to be public transport when the cierge used them to move the group from one neighbourhood to the . On reag each location, they walked around, to better take iy.

  Even hours into their trip, Josh was gawping like a try boy on his first visit to the big city. His personal obsession was the flying cloud devices.

  “Sol, everyone here is Monkey Magic!”

  “What’s Monkey Magic?” Solomon asked.

  “How you not know what Monkey Magic is?” Josh asked. “That’s un-Australian.”

  “Josh,” Sue said, “it’s a kids’ TV show from sixty years ago, made in Japan and transted by the British. How is not knowing about it in 2038 un-Australian?”

  “You say that, but you do know what it is,” Josh tered.

  “Only because my husband made me sit through a retrospective dotary from a box set they released a couple of months ago. The sixtieth anniversary edition, Josh.”

  “Wait, he got one of the physical editions? Damn, I got waitlisted.”

  “Also, the show was called Monkey, not Monkey Magic. People just think it was because of the theme song.”

  “How good was the theme song?” Josh enthused. “Maybe your husband and I should hang out.”

  “ we please move on?” Solomon asked.

  “How you be so calm?” Josh asked him. “We’re on an alie, Sol. In a whole other universe, with wizards. Is that a geto shop? I want alien wizard geto.”

  “It’s not teically geto,” the cierge informed him. “It is based on a recipe from your world, but made with local ingredients.”

  “Sol isn’t calm,” Sue informed Josh. “The only reason he seems so calm is he’s trying to avoid losing it pletely. And I want alien wizard geto too.”

  “We don’t know what the food here will do to us,” Solomon said.

  “Sol, Josh and I are bronze rank, and you’re silver. I don’t think anything they’re selling in a take-home cup is going to hurt us.”

  ***

  Jason smothered a ugh as Emi whirled a startled Nik around in circles, csped in a hug.

  “OHMYGODYOU’RESOMUCHCUTERTHANITHOUGHTYOU’DBE!”

  The cloud ship was still in Australia, but Jason had brought his family to meet its most unusual member. When portalliween spirit domains, at least within the same universe, Jason could ignore most of the usual restris on capacity and cooldown.

  Erika and her husband Ian were attempting to peel Nik from Emi’s grip. Jason’s dad and his Uncle Hiro came to stao him, Ken slinging a possessive arm over his son’s shoulder. Jason got the distinct impression it was to stop him from running off again. Amy and her daughters were present, caught between nervousness and wonder. Jason’s grandmothers were with them, stig close to their great granddaughters.

  The two matriarchs were starkly different, in almost every regard. Jason’s paternal grandmother, Yumi, was rail thin and looked around forty. Matriarch of the , her stern practicality demanded as much from others as she did from herself. Courtesy of her blood, flesh and bone essences, she could alter her appeara will. In addition to affeg her apparent age, it would allow her to live lohan others of her rank, making it aremely popur bination.

  Jason’s randmother did have a name, but she was as insistent on being called Nana as Yumi was averse to it. Nana had been through a lengthy process of rec from Alzheimer’s, with a lot of magical assistance, but had been fully recovered for years now. She was in the lower reaches of bronze rank, the magic making her look hale ahy in a way Jason remembered from his youth. Even so, she still had a pillowy physique unusual in an essence user. He wondered absently if she also knew Neil’s aunt.

  Where Yumi was cold and hard, Nana was warm and soft. Yumi ran the , but the recovered Nana was matriarch of the family. Jason was saddehat her familiar warmth had been absent during his st visit to Earth.

  Emi’s parents mao pry her off Nik without res to a crowbar, at which point Hana and Jace could no longer resist the lure of his adorability. Nana and Yumi followed, eveoi matriarch softening in the face of Nik’s ess. Nana got the privilege of sed hug, ing the diminutive rabbit man up like a b.

  Erika caught Jason’s eye and owards the ship lounge’s outdoor deck area. Jason nodded and followed her out, his father stig by his side. The rest of the family had gone in to see Nik, who watched Jason leave like he was seeing the st lifeboat sail off. On the deck were Rufus, Taika and Gary, manning the grill aing up a long piic table. Jason wasn’t going to introduce his team until after Nik.

  “Are you sure I should be here?” Gary asked. “This seems like a family thing.”

  “Our being here lets them have their family time,” Rufus said.

  “Plus, I made a cake, bro. Just a normal ohough. I’m w on magies, but about one in five explode o’s messy but delicious.”

  Jason moved over to the railing and leaned on it, using his aura as a privacy s around himself, his father and his sister.

  “You’re still doing that, then,” Erika said.

  “Doing what?” Jason asked.

  “Finding the baly, leaning on the rail and staring off into the distance like you’ve got super-important things to pte dramatically.”

  “I do have a lot of things to pte. Dramatically. It’s dramatic stuff. Fighting evil. Building magic cities. Deg if I still call it carbonara when Pallimustus doesn’t have guanciale.”

  “You could maybe get away with paa.”

  “They don’t have pork, Eri. There’s a lizard that tastes like pork, so I was w if—”

  “No,” Erika said firmly. Theurned her back to the railing and leaned o him, here eyes ohering inside.

  “You made him,” she said.

  “Yep.”

  “Like that first bit of the bible.”

  “I did make a universe. Smaller than the bible one. More manageable.”

  “And you made a person.”

  “Yeah. And then I turned deadbeat dad for fifteen years. I had to, fate of the os and all, but it doesn’t ge the fact that I made him and abandoned him. We’re still finding our way. I hope you both help me with that.”

  “Try and stop us,” Ke, putting a reassuring hand on Jason’s shoulder.