The Silver Gate tavern was louder than Alex had ever heard it. Electric, charged, alive. Conversations ricocheted between tables, overlapping in bursts of laughter and shouts of disbelief. The low hum of mugs sliding across wood was buried along with the voice of the singer sitting up on the stage, helplessly trying to be heard over the noise. Alex watched her for a moment as he stepped through the door. She looked like she was desperate for a mic and amp so she could be heard over this crowd. He wondered if HEX could develop some sort of amplification device for her and call it a Bardic spell. He made a note in his HUD to send a message to Dr. Suresh later.

  His team had staked out their usual long table near the back wall on the bar side of the room. The Iron Fangs were all there, even Aila, who Alex hadn’t spoken with yet. Marcus sat at one end of the table beside Elira, relaxed and smiling in his village linens.

  But even Marcus, captain of the Iron Fangs and one of the show’s living legends, didn’t command the room tonight.

  The Wylder Company did, and they were all sitting at a table with the Iron Fangs and… The Side Quest Heroes Alex supposed.

  He understood why Marcus was so excited about this reunion. The Wylder Company was to the Iron Fangs as the Iron Fangs was to his team. Legends of the Dungeon Inc. show and apparently really fantastic people.

  Their captain, Rowan Wylder—lean, sun-tanned, and wearing a tattered half-cloak—stood comfortably against the bar. His hair was tied back in a messy tail with just a few streaks of silver tangled through it, and a scar that cut diagonally across his jaw caught the lanternlight with each turn of his head.

  Beside him leaned Bront Hale, a giant of a man even by Dungeon Inc. standards. He had his shirt sleeves rolled up, revealing arms the size of tree trunks. He was about the same height as Jay, but looked to be at least 50% thicker.

  Across from them, perched on the end of one of the benches like a bored cat, was Tamsin Reed: their scout. Her copper-brown hair was braided tight against her skull and her gaze flicked back and forth over the room with a casual vigilance. A thin strip of patterned cloth wrapped around her right wrist glowed softly. Something from HEX most likely, but not anything Alex recognized.

  Three other Wylde Bunch members rounded out the group, chatting and laughing with everyone at the table and the tavern regulars around them. They were all loud, warm, and apparently endlessly eager to tell stories about the months they’d spent in the east.

  At the end of the table, across from Tamsin, sat Rogan, a broad-shouldered brawler that reminded Alex of Wolverine. A short, hairy, bear of a man stuffed into a leather vest. But every time he laughed, the entire table seemed to quake.

  Classic frontline bruiser, Alex thought. In fact, the entire team was comprised of fighters or ranger/rogue subtypes. As were most of the teams from the early days of Dungeon Inc., he thought.

  Beside him, on the other side of Sarah and Mel, sat Kessa. She was compact and wiry, with her hair shaved on one side and braided into small cords on the other. She wore twin daggers at her hips—not the typical, sleek, and elegant rogue weapons, but long nasty blades that could as easily turn swords as accomplish fast finishes in tight quarters. Her class was listed as a tunnel-runner on Herobook, which they explain as a rogue subclass.

  And then there was Holt, another fighter. He looked more like Marcus or Rowan than he did Bront or Rogan. He was tall and lean rather than broad. Alex knew that he preferred spears and staves to swords. He was a patient, methodical fighter that could hold chokepoints or defend wide areas from attack while the other fighters on the team did the flashy stuff.

  Unlike other, newer teams who typically had more dramatic mixes of weapon specialists, the Wylder Company’s roles overlapped significantly. Just four fighters and two ranger-rogue mashups. No casters. No healers. Very little variety.

  It struck Alex again how different the older cohorts were. How narrow their class pools had been. Clerics and Paladins were added with Marcus’s Cohort, but it was only now, with the current Cohort that Mages were finally added to the mix. There was a lot of excitement, and a lot of pressure right now as a result.

  Alex wondered what would happen to the older teams over time as more and more cohorts were trained up with more nuanced and flexible classes. Would the Wylde Bunch still be able to compete for viewer attention? It would be a shame if they faded into the background just because new classes were added that they didn’t have access to.

  At some point Dungeon Inc. was probably going to have to mix up the teams and add new classes, but that would cause a lot of negative blowback from fans, and probably from the teams themselves.

  Alex folded the thought into the back of his mind. For now he was sitting at a table with both the Iron Fangs and the Wylder Company. At the Silver Gate Tavern. He was literally living out a dream.

  The Wylder Company, or The Wylde Bunch as their fans called them, was the first team to really transcend "reality show participants" and reach mythical status among fans. With their massive front end power, the team simply owned mobs. Even large groups of mobs. The internet was full of clips of the team cutting swathes through crowds of goblins, kobolds or those weird rat men, the Skurlings.

  And now they were sitting at Alex’s table, or, he was sitting at theirs.

  The team, his team, were all sitting, eyes wide, mugs untouched. Danny kept elbowing Sarah every few seconds, whispering something that made her give him a shove. Alex thought he heard “stop being weird” as he got closer.

  Even Rae’s usually unflappable, blade-sharp composure was nowhere to be found as she watched the Wylder Company with barely concealed excitement.

  Jay and Alex took their seats just as Rowan Wylder returned to the table with pitchers of ale and sat next to Marcus.

  “The one and only!” Marcus boomed, grinning wide enough to show teeth. “And best of all, he comes with beer!” Everyone at the table cheered and banged their mugs on the wood until the pitchers were passed down the line. Alex felt like a child sitting between Jay and Bront, especially after Bront grabbed the pitcher Alex was about to pick up and insisted on pouring for everyone around him. He kept refilling after every sip.

  Rowan laughed, a low, warm sound. “We’ve been talking about Tom’s beer for months. It’s almost impossible to find a good drink in the east, it’s all wine and tea over there.”

  “They don’t have beer?” Danny asked, looking horrified.

  Holt looked over at him with a scowl. “Oh they do, but it’s not like this. It’s thick, like a porridge.” He gave a dramatic shudder and squeezed his eyes shut.

  “The rice wine was pretty good, jiu, they call it. Damn strong for wine,” Tamsin said as she pushed her mug towards Bront for filling.

  “Oh Please!” said Kessa. “It tasted like sour fruit and gasoline.”

  “Like I said, ‘Damn strong.” Tamsin shrugged her shoulders. “I liked it.”

  Rowan pulled out a bag from under the bench and, setting it on the table, undid a leather thong and threw back the top flap.

  Marcus leaned forward and laughed when he looked into the bag. “You spent 3 months in the Great Empire of the East and all you got was a backpack full of rocks? Did you get a t-shirt with a ‘wish you were here’ as well?”

  “Hey!” Rowan protested. “They’re gifts. Keep that up and you won't get one.”

  Elira punched Marcus in the shoulder. He made a funny face and, opening his eyes wide, made a zipping motion across his mouth.

  “Come here, you misfits, one and all.” Rowan said to the table dramatically as he reached a hand into the bag. “For the Wylde Bunch comes bearing treats.” He pulled his fist out of the bag and turned his eyes down the table he took in Alex and his team with a surprising sharpness that did not match his words.

  “First, we start with the newbs! It is our duty, as the older generation, to guide you to success and glory.” Rowan said. Alex wondered if he practiced this type of speech for the sake of the cameras, or if he was just a dramatic person by nature. “Marcus has talked you up in his messages and we have selected the finest of treasures to get you started on your journey.”

  “Messages?” Danny said, snapping his head around to look at Marcus, eyes wide.

  “Just the good stuff though, right Marcus?” Alex asked.

  Marcus cleared his throat and sipped from his mug, pretending he hadn’t heard.

  Alex rolled his eyes and looked back at Rowan. “Regardless, it’s an honor to meet you all. I am such a huge fan - your Skerling Expedition arc last year. The one in that old stone labyrinth? Amazing.”

  Mel was practically bouncing on the bench as Alex finished talking. “Yes! OMG Amazing!” She turned to Bront. “That episode where you picked up their champion and swung him around like a club? The Best. Episode. Ever!”

  “Ah yeah,” Bront said, laughing. “I think that was also the episode where Rowan and Tamsin led us into six consecutive dead ends and we had to fight off a mob while cornered in a tiny little tunnel.”

  “They moved!” Rowan said with mock indignation. “Walls shouldn’t move.”

  “Every tunnel is a tiny tunnel for you, big guy,” Tamsin said at the same time.

  More laughter. Alex smiled at the easy camaraderie between these two groups and couldn’t believe he got to sit here with his team and be a part of it.

  Rowan gave Bront the finger with his free hand, which only brought more peels of laughter from the table, and then he stretched out his other arm and opened his fist, letting a small pile of stones clatter down the table like he was rolling dice. They were all a little different and looked a like gray river stones, except they seemed to have veins of yellow and red running through them. Each was nearly the size of a golf ball.

  Danny reached out instantly, but stopped before touching one. He looked up at Rowan who gestured for him to take one. Everyone reached in and grabbed a stone as Rowan took a few more out and handed them out to the Iron Fangs down at his end of the table.

  “Um, what is it?” Mel asked.

  “Observe,” Rowan said, holding one out between index finger and thumb. Nothing happened for a moment, but then the stone began to glow. It wasn’t bright, but at least as bright as a lantern. “Glowstones. Apparently they’re pretty common rocks from the great eastern desert, but the Eastern Empire refines them for illumination charms and other things. These take in a little energy from pretty much any source and then spit it back out again as light. So, sun, or heat or a battery, whatever. Just holding it in your hand is enough. It will pull in your body heat and whatever energy you emit and give you light. Apparently it never runs out as long as you don’t smash the rock.”

  Before he finished talking 12 more stones began to glow. Alex noticed that they weren’t all the same. Each glowed with a slightly different hue, some in yellows, others looked more blue or green.

  Kessa produced a thin lacquered charm on a braided cord. She handed it over to Rae with a little flourish. “For the Rogue! A spirit ward,” she said. “This will hide your energy from monsters who can see you even when they cannot see you.” She tugged on a thong around her neck and showed off a matching charm.

  Ravenna turned it over in her palm carefully. “It’s… beautiful,” she murmured.

  Alex watched the trade of objects with a mix of reverence and fascination. These weren’t HEX constructs. They weren’t Earth-made. These were native to Earth3. Real for this place. And apparently magical.

  He still couldn’t understand how everyone he talked to at the company sneered whenever the subject of actual magic came up when there was so much proof around them. Of course, Dr. Suresh would probably just explain what was happening as some sort of transference of energy and then run off to build a tool that did the same thing.

  Sarah received a thick jade talisman from Holt, inscribed with curling calligraphy carvings that seemed to shift when viewed from different angles.

  Alex blinked. “The words just moved.”

  “Oh yeah! Strange but useful.” Holt said and looked at Sarah. “This thing will give you a bonus to your armour defense, making you a little tougher. In the east, they sell it as a +2 bonus item, but who knows what that means or what it’s based off of. Bottom line, you’ll shrug off bigger hits with this in your pocket. Also, try not to let it touch water unless you want it to sing.”

  “Sing?” Sarah echoed.

  Holt nodded. “Quite loudly.”

  Alex couldn’t tell if he was joking.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “My turn!” Bront looked like a little kid at Christmas. You would think he was receiving something rather than giving it out. “Jay, every barbarian needs barbarian things. So I found you this…” He set a thick, slate-gray leather bracer with bronze rivets around the edge and some sort of dark fur on the inside. He stared at Jay who slowly reached over to pick it up.

  “Whoa! It feels like it’s vibrating,” Jay said as he turned it over in his hands.

  “Thunderhide Wristguard!” The big man said proudly. “Made from the hide of a Thunderback Ox. We saw a herd of those things on the edge of the Storm Plains. Huge. Bigger than a moose and twice as wide with huge horns that curved out to the sides.” He stood up and used his hands to try and show how big the Ox were and how long the horns were, which brought peels of laughter from the table.

  He sat back down and, leaning over, tapped the back of the bracer. “This little guy will prevent all shock effects AND charge all your punches with an extra little omph. No idea how it works, but it works. Also, apparently, I was told by the merchant, if you get hit by lightning, it will collect the energy and make your punches that much stronger. I didn’t try that part though and cannot recommend it.”

  Mel practically squealed by the end of the explanation. “Oh, me! Do me next! Pleeeese!”

  Rogan smiled and slid a small leather pouch towards her. Mel reached over and picked it up like she thought it might be the most fragile thing she had ever held.

  “A Sky Reed Pendant,” he said. “Popular in courts across the East apparently, but also useful on the battlefield. Just blow into the whistle for a few seconds and you will call the East Wind, granting a boost to your speed.”

  Mel stared at the little ivory pendant with a look of awe and didn’t say anything. It had a fine silver chain extending about six inches out the top, ending in a pin.

  “Also, if you draw air through it, instead of blowing. It records the sounds around it. Then, when you blow on it later, it’ll replay that sound. No idea how that works either but we had a lot of fun with it on the way back here,” said Rogan.

  “You did anyway,” said Tamsin, rolling her eyes. Alex felt like there was a story there.

  Rogan grinned at her and continued. “You can only replay the sound once though, then you’ll have to record another. And it fades after a while if you don’t replay it.” Rogan leaned back in his chair and picked up his mug. “May it be useful in your travels.”

  “Oh! Thank you so much,” Mel said quietly as she stared down at the little whistle in her cupped hands.

  Tamsin held out a small package to Danny with a smile. He took it and began unwrapping what looked like bamboo leaves and string.

  Slowly, he lifted out a small charm carved from a deep violet wood. It was shaped like a lotus bud with its petals half-unfurled.

  “It’s warm,” Danny said. “Oh wow, you can barely see it, but the center is filled with silver.”

  Tamsin leaned in and said, “I found this in a shrine out past Lanhua Peak. The monks there said it helps calm the spirit. Thought you could use it as an archer. They said that holding it was like an hour of meditation after a long soak in a hot spring.”

  Danny blushed, staring at it, and whispered, “Wow. I… thanks.”

  Rae snorted “It's the Anxiety-Be-Gone Charm!”

  Mel threw the bamboo leaves at her and said, “It’s an emotional support flower.”

  “Nonsense,” Tamsin countered. “It’s a powerful tool that will help you. Once you are in the flow with this, you’ll be hitting goblins in the eye with your bow at 50 paces or more. And, apparently you’ll be able to sense nearby magics. They called it the Whispering Lotus Charm.”

  “Thank you, Tamsin” Danny clutched the lotus in his hand and held up his mug to click with the Scout.

  At the other end of the table Rowan rummaged around in his pack and pulled out a small object wrapped in cloth. “And for Alex,” he said as he passed the cloth to Marcus, who reached over and handed it to Alex. “We found this in a ruined stone shrine south of the Azure Steppes. When we got back to Lanhua City we had it appraised with some other items we found. They called that,” he said, pointing at the deep green, jade ring Alex had revealed inside the cloth. “A control ring.”

  Alex picked it up off the cloth. It was cool to the touch. More than cool, it felt cold, like he had just pulled it from a freezer. It was a solid band, carved from a single piece of stone and there were rings carved around the inside of the band that criss-crossed each other over and over again creating intricate knot designs.

  “It’s made from, Cale.. Caleden?” He looked over at Kessa for help.

  “Celadon Spiritstone,” she supplied.

  “Right, Celadon. Anyway, it’s supposed to improve your focus and let you feel the energy around you. It didn’t do anything for me, but the merchant offered us a ridiculous amount of money for it once he knew what it was, so I think, if you can figure it out, it should be something useful.”

  Feel energy. He must be talking about magic, or mana anyway. He couldn’t know that Alex could already see the mana around them when he was able to focus himself. And this would help improve that? If it was effective, this ring would be incredibly useful.

  “Thank you,” was all he could manage to say.

  “There was some other stuff about it too. He told us it would store stuff, but he didn’t make a lot of sense, so I don’t know.”

  “Store stuff?”

  “Yeah, he was saying he could put a small spell in it, which kind of made sense, you know, like a magical item, but then he said he could store his weapons or wealth in it… I really don’t know. We had him explain how he thought it was supposed to work, but it was kind of nonsense.”

  “Okay, I’ll play around with it. Thank you, really!” Alex slid the ring on his middle finger. It was icy cold at first, but after a moment he didn’t even notice. He thought he could feel something the moment the ring settled into place, almost a calmness. A magic ring.

  “Don’t mention it! Our gifts to you.” Rowan raised his mug in the air. “To the future of Dungeon Inc.. May we bring down the final dungeon!”

  “The Final Dungeon!!” A round of cheers and shouting ran around the table and everyone drank deeply from their mugs. Bront grabbed a pitcher in each hand and made sure to top them all up again.

  After, they settled in as Team Iron Fang and the Wylder Company members tried to outdo each other with more and more exaggerated tales of heroism and valor. Holt taught them a shanty song he’d picked up from a travelling merchant group and Hiro drank until his vowels became optional. Aila fell asleep on the table and Elira took off her cloak and slid it under her head.

  Eventually the conversation came back around to the Eastern Empire. The expressions on the faces of the Wylde Bunch—particularly Rowan’s—grew more animated.

  “You wouldn’t believe the cities,” Rowan said, hands moving as if sculpting the memory. “Huge! Millions of people with giant forests in the middle of town and towering spires made completely of wood. Floating lanterns held aloft with talismans. Streets lined with shops selling everything from enchanted rice cookers to birds that could talk like parrots to scrolls that whisper you to sleep.”

  Bront grinned. “We bought one of those. Whispered for three days and kept calling us ‘honored guests.’”

  “It was creepy AF,” slurred Kessa.

  “And the guilds,” Tamsin added. “Incredibly sophisticated. And huge. Like, ‘lots of people’ huge I mean. And nothing like Dungeon Inc.’s setup - they had a ton of bureaucracy to run the place. We wouldn’t sign up so they barely talked to us.”

  Alex leaned forward slightly. “Guilds?”

  Tamsin nodded. “Oh yes. Every city has one. Even the little towns we passed through. They have huge chapter houses and they’re ancient. They say they exist to protect the world if you can believe that.”

  Rowan picked up the thread. “They do what we do. When we came here,” Rowan said, stabbing the table with his finger to emphasize everything he said. “When we came here, HEX, or SCRY, or whoever it was, told us that the dungeons were quantum bubbles of whatever… created reality or something. Caused by some sort of ripple effect from us coming here. We open a portal to this world and,” he waved his hands through the air, “Boom. Dungeons everywhere. But it’s not true. Apparently these dungeon realms have been opening up for thousands of years and all the monsters and crazy things here came from them!”

  There was silence for several long breaths as everyone digested the information.

  Marcus broke it. “Did you report that?”

  Holt pushed his mug to the side and leaned in. “Sure did. They dismissed it. Said that quantum works in mysterious ways that we still don’t fully understand and us creating a portal to this world could even have opened up some dungeons in the past. Somehow. I didn’t understand the rest of it.”

  “But that still doesn’t match up with what we were told in Lanhua City,” Rowan insisted. “They said, thousands of years of this shit. We didn’t cause it.”

  “Anyway,” said Tamsin. “Conspiracy theories aside, the adventurers guilds were created by the most powerful magic users in the world, if you believe their story, to fight back the waves of monsters that continuously pour out of all these dungeons.”

  “Really?” asked Jay. Tamsin just nodded in reply.

  “AND,” continued Rogan, “Anyone who joins a guild gets a Sigil—a magical one. It plugs them into the guild system somehow. And then, get this… they receive a system that basically works like our HUDs!”

  “Well, a simplified version anyway,” Kessa said as she filled up her mug.

  “Right. Right… Much simpler apparently. But they can see their stats and more.” Rogan shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was saying.

  “Magic,” Bront said simply.

  “HEX would lose their minds,” Jay whispered.

  “Oh, they already did,” Rowan said. “We brought them samples of talismans and things. Showed them how they worked. They’re still poking at them with lasers and the quantum computer. They're trying to figure out what makes them all tick.” He looked at them all with a serious expression on his face and said, “But… Magic?”

  Tamsin continued, “They call their system The Sigil. It tracks a lot—skills, mission history and somehow it tracks their kills too, which they can turn in at any guild location for reward. There’s a bounty on pretty much everything.”

  Kade, who had been quietly listening and nursing his beer, blinked. “Wait. Kill tracking?”

  Rowan nodded. “Automatic. Instant. You don’t have to collect teeth or tails or even file anything. Slay a beast, the Sigil flares and records it in memory. Then you just show up at any guild house and get paid.”

  “That’s… efficient,” Rae said.

  Rowan shrugged. “Maybe. And it seems to work. There are a lot of tough adventuring teams in the east and despite the hordes of monsters wandering the wilderness, and their general lack of any modern tech, the cities still stay safe.”

  The conversation moved on as the Wylder Company’s stories continued late into the night—tales of storms that shook the earth and mountains that scraped the upper atmosphere. Of traveling swordsmen who moved faster than arrows, and of creatures that swam through stone and sky.

  Alex listened, enthralled, but kept thinking about the adventurers guilds. He wondered how they worked without the technology available to Dungeon Inc..

  And then he saw something else. So clearly he almost jolted upright on his bench.

  Dungeon Inc. had too many teams. Too many narratives. Too many directions for fans to follow. And it was getting worse. Earth3 was huge, much bigger than Earth, and could support thousands of adventurers. Dungeon Inc. wanted that growth because ultimately, they wanted to mine this world for resources. So they needed to create a beachhead here. Their own little kingdom. So, expansion had been the priority and every six weeks or so, another cohort was brought in and trained.

  But that expansion was causing a problem. His friends had discussed it back home even. And there were threads all over the internet talking about it in different ways. Dungeon Inc. was getting too confusing for viewers. There were too many teams to track. Almost 30 at this point.

  The system had made sense for a long time. But now they needed a new system.

  Alex could see it clearly. Dungeon Inc. needed a guild system. A set number of guilds, 5 or 7 maybe, that fans could root for. Then all the adventurers could work under the banner of their guild. It would be so much easier to follow as a fan.

  And if he could bring his friends over to this new world, there would be a place for all of them in a guild called Side Quest Heroes.

  His heart hammered against his ribs. This was the solution he had been looking for.

  He had long since stopped paying attention to the table conversation, but, as his idea came together, before he could stop himself, he blurted:

  “Dungeon Inc. should do that.”

  Silence dropped over the table. Everyone turned to him.

  Rowan blinked and slowly said. “Do what?”

  Alex swallowed and looked around. Everyone was waiting. “Guilds. Like, seven guilds. No more teams. All of the existing teams continue under the banner of one of the guilds.”

  Jay stared at him like he’d grown a second head.

  Rae’s eyebrows rose.

  But the older team members all looked more thoughtful. They knew what it was like, fighting for ratings, trying to be creative and bold to get more screen time than the other 27 teams. Marcus sat back slowly, arms crossed and staring up towards the ceiling, thinking.

  Rowan exchanged a glance with Tamsin. “Guilds, huh? That’s… a big change.”

  Danny whispered, “Dude. Dude!” But no one laughed.

  In fact everyone looked like they were giving it serious consideration.

  Rowan leaned forward. “It would simplify branding,” he said. “Give viewers something iconic to anchor to. It would be like it was last year where everyone had their favourites. There are too many of us now and everyone has their top 3 favourites instead.”

  Holt nodded. “Teams could function as squads within a larger guild.”

  “It would definitely scale better,” Elira added.

  “And you’d be able to update your team, grab a spell caster or a healer next time you go out. It would be fine because you’d all be in the same guild,” Alex said.

  “You’re going to need to talk to Valentina,” Marcus said. “I don’t know how she’ll react, but I suggest ironing out your pitch a little. Guilds may actually be a great idea.”

  “Sure,” Rowan said loudly, good humour returning. He held up his mug high. “As long as The Wylde Bunch is guild number one!” His team cheered and they all raised their mugs and drank. Everyone else laughed.

  Tomorrow. Alex was going to go talk to Valentina.

  First thing.

  ***

  The East doesn’t think about power the way we do.

  On Earth, strength is something you have and apply; like a tool you can draw on.

  In the East, strength is something you carry with you. It’s cultivated slowly, folded into breath, posture, and habits. They do not spend hours in the gym, there are no obvious banners to announce it. Back home, you know who to avoid generally by how they look. In the East though, you have to be more careful, power is often not translated into muscle size and sometimes you only discover you’ve pissed off the wrong person when it’s too late.

  Their cities are full of objects that should not work. I have personally witnessed a stone that drinks heat and gives light; a charm that calms the mind better than a week of rest; and armour that provides heat when wet. Possibly the strangest thing is that none of it is rare or unusual to even the most base farmer of the Empire. It is simply part of their infrastructure.

  What struck us most throughout our travels though, was the attitude.

  People in the Eastern Empire generally don’t rush for very much. They don’t chase numbers or milestones like we often do. Instead, they chase perfection. I asked a woman who was making the most incredibly intricate rugs how long it took to master her craft and her answer was simply: it will take as long as it takes. She did not yet consider herself a master, despite her advanced age and the obvious mastery she wielded in her craft.

  We brought back wine, stones, charms, and stories.

  What we could never bring back is their mindset. I felt more peace in the Empire than I’ve ever known before, but it would take many years of dedicated practice to walk their path and I just don’t know that I have that kind of patience.

  Eastern Expedition Journal

  Wylder Company, Captain

  Rowan Wylder, Fighter

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