“Do you realise what you’ve done?” Rick asked Jason as they walked along a hallway in the cloud ship. “The colle of people on this boat is ridiculous. The number of gold rankers alone is mind boggling. If we’d had this group when we went down that god-forsaken tunnel, we’d have wiped that undead army off the face of creation.”

  “I don’t think the gods actually forsook the tunnel,” Jason pointed out. “That was actually kind of the problem.”

  “It was, wasn’t it. But to tinue my point, beyond the number of gold rankers, look at who they are. Prestigious teams from aultiple geions of adventurers. The Archcellor and Vice cellor of the Magic Research Association. One of the rising stars of the alchemy world.”

  “You mean Jory?”

  “I don’t think you realise the reputation he built up while you were off iing your system.”

  “I wouldn’t call that an accurate description of what happened.”

  “The world’s most notorious treasure hunter. Rond Remore’s son.”

  “I’m aware of who is on my boat, Rick.”

  “Aunt Danielle.”

  “Again, I know who—”

  “How many members of royalty, Jason?”

  “Only a couple of big ones. Most of that Rimaros ti are peripheral family members at best.”

  “My point, Jason, is that you o look at things the way the wider world sees them. Yoing off with a multi-national force of top-tier adventurers, magical researchers, royal family members and even clergy. You just ially built one of the most powerful fas on the p, and people want to know what yoing to do with it when y us all back. Found a try? Take a more forceful approa trying to eliminate iured servitude?”

  “I’m going to go home. Hang out. Kill some vampires. When I get back, I’d love to do some quiet adventuring. Take out some messengers.”

  “Jason, even you aren’t oblivious enough to not knoeople are thinking. Not with your history. Look at what happehe st time you came back from Earth. The Builder invasion. The Battle of Yaresh. The brightheart expedition. You were a major pyer in all of them. You might not have been famous with the public at rge, outside Rimaros and Yaresh, but the people in power? They were watg you closely. Then you vanish and reappear fifteen years ter, having ged the very way essence users operate. And it’s not long before you’re doing ridiculous things all ain.”

  “They weren’t that ridiculous.”

  “You evacuated the entire popution of a city with your aura, turned into a bird and single-handedly wiped out a messenger army. And that was after ing back from the dead. Again. Which barely warrants a mention because it’s kind of yods-bedamhing.”

  “We all have rough days, Rick.”

  “Rough days?” Rick excimed.

  Jason ughed and put a panionable hand on Rick’s shoulder.

  “I’ve had worse. Did I ever tell you about my time oh? I got back at bronze rank, and was almost immediately kidnapped by a silver ranker. Again. This one was crappy, though, so I was able to put up a…”

  Rick rolled his eyes as Jason trailed off, his attention caught by Zara walking the other way.

  “Princess,” he greeted, doing a terrible job of suppressing a grin.

  “Captain,” she greeted back as they passed one another.

  “Captain?” Rick asked.

  “It is my boat,” Jason pointed out.

  Rick shook his head.

  “You know, I didn’t even want to e on this trip.”

  “You didn’t? Who wouldn’t want to be a part of this?”

  “Me, Jason. I wouldn’t. Fifteen years of very happily fighting monsters, like a regur adventurer. Now I’m in a magic boat full of people wh trouble down on aanding in their general viity. But my wife wao see another world, so here we are.”

  “Well, I’ll do my best to keep things calm and normal for you.”

  “Is that going to work?”

  Jason patted him on the shoulder again.

  “Not even a little bit.”

  ***

  The cloud ship boasted a variety of amenities, from hanging gardens to a full blown mirage chamber. The most popur spots were the observation decks, featuring a rexed bar, intimate lounge areas and a ballroom-sized dining hall. Each featured transparent hull ses, expansive views of the astral as the vessel passed through it.

  Other rooms frequently occupied were the lecture halls and s. The people from Earth taught the nguages of their home p, along with basic cultural studies and introductory etiquette. Jason had been banned from this by Farrah for both his i ck of etiquette and for reting every social situation to an episode of The A-Team.

  The deep astral wasn’t visible in the normal sense. Instead, straeras of its raw magic with the bubble keeping the ship safe maed around them. Sometimes that meant arcadian ndscapes, with the cloud vessel feeling like a train in the tryside. Other times, it felt like moving through the void of space as bizarre objects aies drifted past.

  With so many powerful adventurers on board, and no adventuring to be had, many had chosen to focus on training. The passengers quickly learo avoid Prince Valdis, who found himself in a heaven of strong people to challenge. With little else to do, however, many took him up or challenged each other. The vessel had both the spad facilities to aodate them.

  Jason was having dinner with Travis Noble and his wife, Gabrielle. Gabrielle was quiet, still getting used to the absence of her goddess. Travis was fasated with the strahings passing by the window.

  “Is that some kind of merman?” he asked. “He’s got webbed hands a.”

  “That’s Patrick Duffy,” Jason said.

  “The season one host of Bingo America?”

  “Uh… maybe?”

  They tiheir meal, Travis and Jason chatting about their journey.

  “Holy,” Travis said, “I was relut to e along. I don’t know that there is anythi for me ba Earth. I e from an old-school work family, and they cut off almost any tact after I joihe Asano .”

  “I get that,” Jason said. “I felt the same way for a long time, but don’t uimate your family es. I have people waiting for me, despite how I left things. They basically thought I was a mass-murdering psychopath, and I’m not sure they were far off the mark. It won’t be easy, going back, but I’m doing it. When was family ever easy?”

  “I remember when you left,” Travis said. “Things were teween your sister and your niece for a long time. Emi got it into her head that you weren’t going to e back. She bmed her mother, and also herself. For not uanding why you became the way you were. I don’t know how it is now, given that I ulled through to Palli not that long after you left.”

  “I have the advantage of calling in. I’ve tried to keep things quiet with my avatars over there, not make myself known too much. I have spent time with family, though. It’s awkward, but gettier. Time gives raw wounds a ce to heal. Speaking of which, I think I owe you an apology, Gabrielle.”

  “Oh?” she said, looking up from her pasta.

  “You and I fell out twenty years ago. We were young. We made the mistakes that young people make. Passion; a little too much fidence. A certainty in hthat age was yet to temper. The sin of disrespect is one I have indulged in many times. Yoddess has helped me time and agai I failed to show her the respect she deserved. Not in her ht, and not before those who hold her in such esteem. I apologise for disrespeg something so tral to not just your life but also to your identity.”

  Gabrielle stared at Jason, as if searg his expression for amusement or insiy. He found that a little hurtful, mostly because he retty sure he deserved it.

  “Thank you,” she said finally. “Faith make you strong, but also inflexible. I articurly guilty of that. Holy, I was a little jealous. Some man es swanning in, bad-mouthing gods and loudly prog that our society was corrupt and broke my goddess kept sh you with attention and I didn’t uand why.”

  “I suspect she was indulgihe way you do a rude child who doesn’t know aer.”

  “I let my rigidity and my envy poisoionships that were important to me, not just Humphrey. I spent a lot of time saying unkind things about you to any who would listen. I am sorry for that.”

  “I think we both pass that off as the poor decisions of youth. You were still a teenager, so that excuses you more thaill, we did get along at first, and it would be nice if we could get back to that. Do you remember the time we danced?”

  She let out a soft ugh.

  “I do.”

  “What’s this?” Travis asked.

  “It was ba Greenstone,” Jason expined. “Sorry, this is really a story about your wife’s ex, if you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, not at all,” Travis said. “I have no problem standing in parison to a guy who is basically Superman but with ethnically ambiguous sensuality and an adorable magic puppy.”

  “Really?” Jason asked. “Sensuality?”

  “Oh yeah,” Travis said as Gabrielle nodded her enthusiastic agreement. “He’s all upright, but passionate. He has a whole ‘I’ll do the right thing otlefield and in the bedroom’ situation going on. Once we get back to Earth, he’s going to get i creeped on hard. Hard. But what was this about a dance?”

  “Um, okay,” Jason said. “So, we were at some kind of social event. A ball, something like that. Gabrielle, here, was what? Sixteen? I think Humphrey was seventeen. He’d been taught how to smite monsters with a big old sword, but he didn’t have the same natural talent for his mother’s social lessons. Now, I could see him mooning over your lovely now-wife, so I decided to stir him into a. I bribed the band to spice things up and introduced Pallimustus to the tango.”

  “You bribed the band?” Gabrielle asked.

  “I had to have something I could work with. Those Greenstone dances had no verve.”

  “You taught my wife the tango?”

  “I thought I did, but thinking back, she picked it up a little too well. Did yoddess pluck the tango out of my head and teach it to you iime?”

  “Basically, yes,” Gabrielle admitted. “Which still ts as you teag me.”

  “No one ever taught me the tango!” Travis pined.

  “Well, that’s easily solvable,” Jason said. “I’ll teach you.”

  “Shouldn’t my wife teach me?”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Travis.”

  “It really feels like it should,” he said, turning to his wife with an impl look. She looked back down at her pasta and tinued eating.

  ***

  Oh, Jason’s Slovakian spirit domain held an astral space. Like the one in Fra tained a city surrounded by wilderhat spanned out to the edge of the space where reality broke down. Uhe French city, this space had no sun. Lit only by moonlight, regardless of the hour, it held Earth’s remaining popution of sane vampires. The looming architecture was influenced by Prague, Istanbul and, more than anything else, Batman movies.

  Jason’s avatar stood on the rooftop of a gothic tower. Rain pattered against his heavy coat and wide-brimmed hat, making the steep tiles slippery enough that he was holding himself ih his aura. Moonlight pushed through the murk and reflected off the tiles, rendered slick by the water. A hatch flipped up, from whi umbrel was shoved out and quickly opened. Craig Vermillioracted himself while awkwardly holding the umbrel, then picked his way across the slippery roof. He stood beside Jason and followed his gaze, trying to find what he was staring at. Not seeing it, he iuro Jason.

  “’t you deflect the rain with your aura?” Craig asked, watg the droplets bounce off Jason’s hat and coat.

  “Yep,” Jason said in a gravelly drawl.

  “Wait, are you just posing dramatically as you overlook the vampire city you made?”

  “Isn’t that what vampire cities are for?”

  “You didn’t have to put gargoyles everywhere. It’s kind of a stereotype.”

  “This is my domain, Craig. I kly hoeople in it are wearing long bck coats right now.”

  “That’s fair,” Craig ceded.

  “Your aura is settling down more every time I see you.”

  “I’ve been w on it. Rufus has been helpih essence user meditation teiques; he’s an excellent teacher. Apparently, his family runs a school iher world.”

  “I might have heard that somewhere, yeah.”

  One of the earliest vampires to actively fight their own risen lords, Craig had accelerated to gold rank after feeding on several of them. Hard to kill permaly without blood magiother vampire dev them was a way to keep the resilient gold-rankers down. That made allied vampires an asset to those fighting the a lords, even at a time when any vampire was hard to trust.

  Craig had cked the power to defeat a vampire lord himself. Even with his new rank, he would be hard pressed to vanquish the a lords. It had been essence users and other human forces doing the actual subduing, leaving him to drain their life ford put them down food. The effects of feeding on such potent blood included a rapid increase in his baselirength, along with pig up additional bloodline powers. The downsides were fierce aggression, feral tendencies, and a drift towards amoral ruthlessness. Voluntarily log himself away for years, Craig had finally e baself around the time Jason’s avatars started showing up.

  “I’m a little surprised you picked here to do this,” Craig said. “Trying to intimidate the Ameris with all the scary vampires?”

  “No. I want this quiet, until I know why Boris is bringing them here. There’s a reason I keep all the secret stuff in this city.”

  “Vampires respect secrets?”

  “No, although that leasant surprise. If there’s a bunch of secret things happening, no one questions one more car with tinted windows moving through the sputtering light of the gas mps, shining off rain-slicked cobbles.”

  “Do you need me to go get you a femme fatale? This is a vampire city; we’ve got them ing out of our ears.”

  “I’m enjoying this a little too much, aren’t I?”

  “I say roll with it,” Craig told him. “You build this pelodrama, right?”

  “Yeah,” Jason said happily, then his expression turned grim. “Well, that was the fun reason. You know we have to talk about what happens with the vampires when I arrive.”

  “I’m assuming yoing to kill all the oill out in the world.”

  “Are there any worth saving?”

  “Ten years ago, I might have said yes. They’re toone, Jason, and have been for a long time. Maybe there are a few who could e back. Who wouldn’t kill themselves over what they’ve done ohey regained a sce. But finding and helping them simply isn’t a practical position. Europe is post-apocalyptic at this stage. It paio say it, but you have to kill them all.”

  Jason nodded, resigned.

  “What about the sane ones, here iy?” Craig asked. “This pce has been a haven, but will we ever get to go back out into the world? There’s too much magic out there now, and humanity isn’t going to accept us. Not after what the others have done. Are we stuck, living forever in a city with no dawn?”

  “There is a world for you. Just not this one.”

  “Yoing to send us into space?”

  “Yes, but not this space. I have a sor system. Like this city, and the one in France, but obviously bigger. There’s a moon whose orbit is synised so that the p is always blog the sun. A perma state of eclipse.”

  “People like it when you s out the perma moon for an eclipse here iy. It makes for a fu. And you say there’s a whole p like that?”

  “A moon, not a p. Smaller thah, so the eclipse always be in pce. I had to tweak some thinks to get the gravity right. Tides are a bit funny. Are vampires into yag?”

  “Not traditionally.”

  “Also, I made the magifused sunlight turning vampires i a thing in my universe, so you go out in the sun there if you want. I don’t have that kind of trol in my Earth domains, yet, sorry. Not outside of the astral spaces.”

  “Jason, these things you talk about like they’re nothing. Making ps. Your own universe. If I hadn’t seen things like this city, I’d think you were a madman. I still might.”

  “Mate, you haven’t seen the half of it.”

  Jason turned his gaze down to the street. A town car that looked like it was from the sixties made its slow way along the narrow thhfare. The windows and the paint were both bck.

  “Boris and the Ameris?” Craig asked.

  Jason nodded.

  “Let’s see what they want.”