“Isn’t it a little early for this?” I asked, taking another sip from my beer.

  It was one of Fred’s local brews.

  “It’s noon somewhere,” Fred said, his Texas drawl thick.

  I really had no idea how he’d retained the accent after twenty-five years.

  We sat on the back porch of his very large ranch. It was a classic Texas ranch. Logs, wood siding. One sprawling story with a couple of loft spaces. The back porch looked out over a small pond surrounded by horse fields just down a small hill, a large stable off to the side. People could be seen walking through the fields, leading horses, riding horses, tending horses. Doing all kinds of horse related things.

  I liked Fred’s place. It was peaceful. He worked hard to keep it that way. He had a place in his capital city, New Austin, which was about twenty miles away. Not far for us, an easy run. Quick jaunt by airship but Fred had a portal in his house that went directly to his place in the city.

  And it was a city. No skyscrapers, but there were a couple of five story buildings. Much more crowded than Solacetown.

  We watched the activity in the fields for a bit. There were a dozen horses of various breeds and colors. I was never a horse guy. I knew there were a lot of breeds, and I could pick out a Clydesdale, but not the rest. I didn’t know what Fred had down in the fields. A lot of animals had survived the System’s arrival and the planet’s integration. Just like humans, they’d been adapted to this new world. There was a huge difference between a normal animal, even one that had been adapted, and an arcanebeast.

  There were no arcanebeasts in Fred’s herds. No one domesticated an arcanebeast.

  “We should have killed him a long time ago,” Fred said finally.

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  Subudai had always been a problem. We could have ended it but just never did. I’d killed a lot of people over the years, but never by choice. It was either defending myself or defending someone else. If Subudai had straight out attacked me? I would have no problem killing him in the fight. But hunting him down specifically to unalive him? That was a line I didn’t want to ever cross.

  Fred felt the same. He was a little looser with the line than I was, but there were still some steps across he wouldn’t take. Subudai, of course, had no such issues. He would have happily killed us at any point if he could have. Still would.

  We were the main things in the way of his eventual dominion over the Earth. At least that’s what he thinks. I’d happily leave him alone if he just kept to his corner, instead of trying to expand his corner to the entire world.

  “But that’s not us,” I said.

  “No, it ain’t,” Fred sighed.

  He tipped his bottle to me and I tapped mine against his.

  “To being one of the good guys,” he muttered, without much enthusiasm.

  “How are things in Crossroads for you guys?” I asked, wanting to turn the topic to something lighter.

  Fred hadn’t seen any Bounding Dragons spying on his store, which was at the end of the west road in the Market District, the Fellowship’s in the south. But he hadn’t thought to look either, thinking the same thing I had been. We were all so new to the Nexus, we’d be busy getting going in the Tower, getting the stores and compounds set up, meeting new beings, that we wouldn’t have time to spy on our rivals from Earth. Guess both of us were wrong.

  “Pretty good,” Fred replied. “A little slow but that’s okay. Oh, thank Fields for sending a couple Factions our way. We got a couple good trade contracts out of those contacts.”

  “I’ll let him know and tell him he can’t try for a percentage from those.”

  Fred laughed.

  “I’ll send some coin his way,” he said. “It’s been good. My team is making progress in the first floor.” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “Not as good as you. You’re making an impression.”

  “I didn’t want to,” I said, sighing.

  “You say that,” Fred chuckled, taking two beers out of his inventory. He handed one to me. I gladly accepted. “Nick, you just can’t help it.” He held up a hand, stopping my response. “You don’t mean to but it just happens. It’s part of who you are. And it works. You have the power to back up anything that happens and it creates an image of you and the Fellowship.” He took a sip. “I like the new name by the way.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Clan Howell never fit,” Fred continued.

  “I probably should have tried hard to tone it down when I got to the Crossroads,” I said, taking a ship of the beer.

  Northtown Brewery was better. Fred’s folks made some good beers, but my guys were just better. We’d even proven it a couple years back when the then-Clan Howell and the United American Alliance had gotten together for a Brewfest. Fred had been upset, and pushed his brewers to get better. They were getting there, just not there yet.

  “Not make a scene, just coast along and build up the connections, run the Tower, don’t get noticed.”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Fred laughed.

  “No, you did the right thing. Your Clan is small. You need that attention or you’ll get buried.” He shifted so he could look at me. “Has Kat told you to tone it down?”

  “No.”

  “That’s your answer.”

  Fred was right. Kat would have made me not be me if she thought it hurt the Fellowship. She was good at reining me in. It wasn’t like I went crazy. I was just me. And for whatever reason, just being me tended to ruffle feathers.

  “Got a team yet,” Fred asked.

  “One so far, from Jeriyan’s Sunrise Formation. Did a couple Dungeons and some biome quests. Make a decent team.”

  “How many are you looking for in total?”

  “Three, maybe four.”

  Fred chuckled.

  “You do realize that five is the norm right?”

  I shrugged.

  Fred just kept chuckling as we watched his ranchers tend to the horses.

  ***

  By the time I got back to Solacetown it was getting late. I still wasn’t sure how time between the Multiversal Nexus and Earth aligned, but figured I could still get a quick run in the Tower before I crashed. I was supposed to meet Sunie in the morning, Nexus time.

  Maybe it would be morning by the time I got back to Crossroads.

  Arriving back at my house, I went looking for Jack.

  I’d told him that I’d take him to the Nexus soon but that plan was going to have to change. With the Anura and the Bounding Dragons watching me and causing trouble, no way could I bring Jack into that.

  Not yet.

  He wasn’t in his room.

  I’d never been the best caretaker for the kid. Being the strongest in the area, then the Clanchief and now the Nexus, I wasn’t around as much as I should have been for him. I tried, and everyone else pitched in to help. The kid really was raised by a village. But he was my responsibility and I felt like I was failing him most of the time.

  I walked down the stairs to the basement. It was built into the mountain behind the house, taking up a lot of space. It was actually a couple of floors but extending up, so it wasn’t a sub-basement, but a basement and a floor? I wasn’t sure how to classify it.

  The main space was a large dojo and gym combination, with a couple of secure rooms beyond. Storage, vaults, that kind of thing. The dojo had a boxing ring, sparring mats, practice weapons. The walls were reinforced and had self-repair runes.

  And runes to control the temperature.

  Jack was on one of the sparring mats, facing off against Nathan. The man was much bigger than Jack, three or four times the kid’s size. And he’d be mad at how many times I’d been thinking of him as a kid still. He was a teenager and had all the surliness and other stuff that came with it. I’d been hell as a teenager and hoped Jack would be easier.

  Nobody had deserved dealing with me as a teen.

  I stayed back, watching.

  Nathan had a shield that he held in front of him, blocking Jack’s swings with a wooden practice sword. It was a longsword, one-handed grip. Thin, just right for Jack’s strength. I was no expert swordsman, but I could see that Jack’s swings were smooth. He kept his balance as he lunged and swung, shifting his feet as he moved around Nathan.

  The big man directed him, pointing out flaws in the footwork and stances. Nathan was no expert with the sword either. He relied on his strength and size. He wasn’t a barbarian, just indiscriminately swinging and raging. Nathan was a smart and calculating opponent, looking for and exploiting weaknesses. He didn’t need the careful footwork or quick movements, which is where he differed from Jack.

  Jack was tall, still had a couple more inches to go. He’d be over six feet, maybe six-four, when done. But he was thin. Not bone thin, just had a thinner build. That gave him speed. He wouldn’t be a tank when he got out of the Tutorial, and the kid was set on taking the Challenge Tutorial. Jack would be a DPS, quick in and out attacks.

  The right thing to do would be discourage him from going through the Challenge Tutorial. Train him in administration, teach him how to run the Faction. All that good and safe stuff. That would be the right thing but I wasn’t doing that. He had his Path to follow and I was going to help him. I’d just make sure he had all the training and preparation he could get before the Tutorial.

  I watched for a couple more minutes. Nathan wasn’t pushing Jack, just having him work on some forms and positioning. Not bragging, but I figured Jack could take on someone older that was Level One, maybe even Level Five.

  The Fellowship had schools to teach children from thirteen to sixteen, get them prepared for the Tutorials. Either one. Let them have an easier time than any of the rest of us did. But Jack had been training even before thirteen. He was above any of them. I’d talk with the instructors and he was the best in the class, which annoyed a lot of people.

  Too bad.

  By the time Jack got out of the Challenge Tutorial in the future, he was going to be stronger than I was. That was the plan.

  They saw me and took a break. I walked over.

  “Nick,” Nathan said. “Causing more trouble in the Crossroads?”

  “You know me.”

  Jack’s face fell a bit.

  “Kat told me,” he said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  I wanted to reach out and scruff the kid’s hair, but he was getting too old for that. He deserved to be treated like an adult in this case.

  “Yeah. I just can’t risk it.”

  “I understand,” he said, and I was sure on some level he did.

  But he was just thirteen. That level that understood, it was buried deep.

  He looked up at me, determination in his eyes.

  “Just kick some more frog butt for me.”

  I laughed.

  “That’s the plan.”