“When can I come?” Jackson asked.

  We sat at the table in my house. It was the floor below the bedroom, directly underneath, with large windows looking out over Solacetown. Just the two of us. Dinner was the rest of the skewers I’d grabbed in Crossroads. I had an ale from one of the local places. Jackson had juice. I’d thought about letting him have a beer before, but Kat had shut that down real quick.

  Jack was my ward, but Kat was just as responsible for him. I could have snuck him some, but naw, I was afraid of Kat.

  “Maybe next trip,” I replied, pulling a hunk of meat off the skewer. “This trip is Tammy and Micheal Fields.”

  “Him? Why does he get to go?” Jack asked, crossing his hands and settling back in his chair, pouting like a kid.

  He was still a kid, but at thirteen a pout was not something he should be doing.

  “Sit up,” I said, pointing at him with the end of the skewer.

  He grumbled, but did sit up.

  “I need him,” I said. Jack knew this, he was just being a teen. “Setting up the business relations is one of the reasons for going to Crossroads. Fields may not be my favorite person, but he’s damn good at what he does.”

  “Why can’t you do it?”

  I glanced at Jack and saw him smile. Good kid.

  “What’s the Tower like?”

  “It’ll still be there when you get to Level 100,” I said, smiling.

  I’d already talked to Jack repeatedly about the Infinite Tower. Couldn’t blame him for asking again and again. And again. At his age, with what his life has been, I would have been all over the Tower as well.

  “Tammy and Mike won’t be there long, at least I don’t think Mike will,” I explained. “He’ll need to be coming back and forth. Might only need to be there for the first meeting. I think Tammy will be there more as she’ll be working to set up other stuff. But once we get a delivery schedule worked out, I’ll let you replace Fields for a trip,” I said, seeing Jack brighten up. “But, it’ll probably only be a day. I can’t take that much time off from the Tower. I’ve got a decent start, but it’ll be too easy to lose any momentum I have.”

  “A day is better than nothing,” Jackson said, taking another bite of the skewer. “This is really good. You need to bring back more.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  After dinner was finished, we walked over to the couch that sat facing the window. I sat at one end, Jack at the other. I’d opened my second beer, this one a different style, more of a white ale, which was one of my favorite styles. I was so glad we had Arcanum Crystals that could function like an old style refrigerator.

  One of the greatest treasures I ever found was an old library that still existed. Most old world buildings had been destroyed when the Earth had been remade, but there were still some ruins here and there. I’d lucked out finding that library, which was now one of the most guarded locations in all of Solace. Probably in all of the new world. A lot of books had been damaged, but so many had been preserved. We gained back so much knowledge.

  Granted, all of it had to be reworked to function in the new world with Arcanum, but we had some smart people in Solace. And thanks to System Contracts, it was all for Solace. We owned the System Patents to all of it. The Crystal Tech was what kept us going.

  That library was responsible for so much of what we were able to trade with the rest of the New World. Solace was rich thanks to that library.

  “How’s school going?”

  “It’s school,” Jack said.

  “Those kids still giving you trouble?”

  “Naw, managed to stop that when I beat them all in sparring.”

  Being the ward of one of the strongest people in the entire world, the leader of one of the most powerful Clans, had a lot of benefits for Jack. The girls liked it, which was an issue now and then. But there were some negatives. A lot of the kids in Solacetown resented Jack for his position. Neither him, me or Kat did anything to encourage special privilege but it still happened.

  Some kids in Jack’s class had been giving him some issues. The normal stuff. ‘Spoiled rich boy’ comments. They really didn’t bother Jack that much. At least not that he showed or told me.

  The attention from the girls bothered him more. That was harder to tell what was real and what wasn’t. Were they giving him attention because of him or who I was?

  School was not anything like the old world. There was some time spent on Old World history. We still wanted to know who we had been and where we had come from. But a lot of it was on the Celestial Challenge System, what we knew of the Multiverse, Essences, monsters and all that. There were still general education classes on reading, writing and math. Chemistry was replaced with Alchemy. Physics was a thing of the past, but there were still classes on how Arcanum worked and how physics had changed.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  A lot of school was spent on Arcanum and combat. There were sparring classes, getting everyone prepared for when they had the Tutorials when they turned sixteen. School now only went from Kindergarten to age fifteen. We gave the kids the time from fifteen to sixteen for just training to get ready for the Tutorials. If they took the Challenge, it was pure combat and survival training. If they took the other, it was more training for the role they wanted to come out of the Tutorial with.

  Jack was on the track for the Challenge Tutorial. His lessons involved a lot of fighting.

  “Oh?” I asked. “How bad were the beatings?”

  Jack shrugged, but couldn’t hide the smile.

  I laughed.

  “Good job.”

  “Thanks. Barry didn’t like getting thrashed by a guy half his size.”

  I remembered Barry. I’d seen him at some school functions. A very big kid. I knew the parents. Barry Senior and Judith Croyden. Senior was an a-hole. One of those that thought size mattered. He and Nathan had gotten into it a couple of times. The two were the biggest in Solacetown and Barry Senior always wanted to prove his strength over Nathan.

  Used to be me. But that had ended real quick once I’d gotten tired of it. He hadn’t liked being beaten, soundly, by someone much smaller.

  Sounded like Barry Junior had learned the same lesson.

  Good.

  “How are your scores?”

  “Very good,” Jack said, sitting up, showing lots of excitement. The kid was just like me. “The trainers are giving me high marks in parkour and swordsmanship.”

  “Still leaning towards dual wielding?”

  “Yeah.”

  I probably shouldn’t have let him read the Salvatore books we’d found in the library. But dual wielding was pretty damn cool.

  “Swords?”

  “Mostly. Trainer Dennison has me trying out different things just to get a feel for them.”

  I knew I liked Blake Dennison. He was a good man. Wouldn’t be long before he’d be heading to the Tower. Or maybe not. He did like working as a trainer. He was Level 85, still a good ways from the threshold, and he’d slowed down the last few years since he became a trainer. I might have to pay him a visit, and see if could give him a push.

  We’d need Adventurers like Blake Dennison in Crossroads. Need them a lot more than ones like Barry Croyden. That was not going to be good when Barry Senior hit the threshold. I wasn’t sure where he was at. Would need to check with Kat. There had to be some roadblocks we could put in Senior’s path.

  I really needed to look at the Leveling Lists, see which Adventurers were getting close to the Level 100 Threshold. Would need to see which ones had teams already and which we might be able to hook up with other races.

  How much did we need to track of their progress in the Tower? We’d want to help out those that were pushing their way through, but some we’d want to be hands off and let them do their thing. The way the Tower worked, there were always people that dropped off every couple of floors. They just couldn’t meet the pace anymore. But as a Clan, we wanted people to keep pushing up the Floors and ever stopping. The more we could get to the higher Floors, the more Resources and benefits we’d get as a whole.

  “Nick,” Jack said, snapping his fingers.

  I shook my head, returning to the present.

  “Sorry, got my head wrapped up in admin stuff.”

  “It’s all good. I was just asking if it’s possible for any of the other races to come here.”

  “As far as I know. I’m looking forward to that actually.”

  “You’re going to team up with aliens?”

  “Yeah, I can’t wait for Tracy, Nathan and the others to Level up and they already have a team. So yeah, I’ll work with some Multiversal allies. Help build our alliances.”

  Before Jack could say anything else, we heard a chime throughout the house. I glanced past the dining table, the kitchen area, at the main entrance door, seeing a crystal blinking over the door. Someone was visiting.

  Jack sprung up, vaulting over the back of the couch. He reached the door and opened it. I wasn’t worried about who would be there. I had too many wards surrounding my house. Jack stepped back and let Kat into the house. She was joined by Nathan, the big man ducking to get through the door.

  “Beers in the fridge,” I shouted out to Nathan.

  He grunted, heading for the kitchen. Kat followed Jack back to the couch. A good kid, Jack took a spot on the floor leaving the couch and the one chair for Kat and Nathan. I heard the cork pop out of a bottle, followed by Nathan drinking as he walked to the chair. He nodded at Jack.

  “Evening,” he said, shifting to get comfortable.

  Nathan’s Strength Essence had changed his body. He was a big ol’ boy. Back in the day he would have been a professional wrestler. Most stuff wasn’t sized for him.

  “Tracey says you guys are trying out some healers,” I said.

  “Yeah, tomorrow. Hopefully one of them works out. I don’t want to head into the Tower without a competent healer.”

  “I’ve managed.”

  “We’re not all monsters like you,” Nathan grumbled.

  “I am pretty great aren’t I?”

  Kat groaned. Nathan shook his head. Jack looked embarrassed. I laughed.

  It was good to hang out with family.