You have defeated the Forerunner Morvarg. He has not died, but is trapped in the astral plane and will be held there until the Wild Hunt begins. You receive partial XP but no slayer bonuses.

  Then the one that upset me.

  Your link with your eidolon is currently unavailable. Future status is uncertain. The results of his current evolution will determine if a new link can be established.

  I sat, letting my frustration stew until I twisted and kicked my leg out. I didn’t mean to hit the shelf, and I shouldn’t have taken my frustrations out on my uncle’s property, but my childish tantrum caused a book to fall. I glanced at it and almost moved on. It was that same journal I’d looked at before, but then something hit me. I remembered that there were parts of it that I couldn’t read before. I’d only had a basic class, but who knew now?

  So, I bent over and picked it up. It buzzed in my hands. As I opened it, words scrolled onto it. Genetic identity confirmed. Uncommon class core confirmed. Section two is available. Do you wish to review?

  I simply thought yes. This wasn’t the system as I understood it, but it was definitely powerful magic and interacting at a level I didn’t understand. As soon as I accepted, I felt my body freeze up, although it wasn’t nearly as powerful as before. Instinctively, I knew that I could probably fight through it, but then I wouldn’t see the message.

  I closed my eyes, and Uncle Dan appeared in front of me. It was like he was just sitting there, exactly as I remembered him in the past.

  “Well, it looks like you’ve made it to uncommon tier. Congratulations, but don’t go getting too big for your britches. You’ll find that there’s still a world of difference between the power of an uncommon and a rare. That is however, exactly what I need to talk to you about.

  “Simply put you can’t trust any of your fellow Forerunners. I can only describe the ones who were active at the time I made this recording, but what I’m going to say applies to any others who might appear.”

  I leaned forward. So far, what he said resonated with the experiences I’d faced with all Forerunners. So his words immediately drew me in. His expression was intense. There was an air of quiet authority. It reminded me of dad in some ways. Which is probably why it struck such a powerful chord within. This was not the uncle that had been called strange and odd prior to his death. Here was a man who had walked through hell and back. Now that I was a Forerunner, I saw it in his eyes and they probably reflected in my own.

  “Let me start with the one I deem to be the least dangerous, Emil. If you haven’t fought with him, then you may not know he is quite powerful, but his build is designed as a beast master of sorts. He captures and tames Earth creatures and then takes them on missions with him. The mana produces some unpredictable changes in them. As of now, Emil likely knows more about mana and its effects on living things than any of the rest of us.

  “He is also a bit unstable. I don’t believe he would intentionally harm you or any of the other Forerunners, but he is one of those guys who can get lost in their work and forgets the realities.

  “Moving on to the most obvious danger, Jiang is the newest Forerunner. As of the time of this recording, he has only just barely formed an uncommon core, but he’s growing faster than any of Earth’s Forerunners before him. He apparently had quite a bit of martial skill beforehand, and that has played over into his vision of becoming a heavenly spearman.

  “He is the Forerunner most likely to kill you if he feels you aren’t carrying your own weight. He is also the most temperamental. Yet, given how competent you’ve always been, I’m sure that won’t be a problem. I know my sister says you can solve any problem.”

  It dawned on me once again that he was speaking to my father, since he thought that dad was going to be taking over for him. I wondered how his message would have changed if he had realized he’d be speaking to me.

  “That brings us to the final two. Nuri and Anika may seem like the most helpful of your fellow Forerunners. No doubt, they’ve likely given you some advice and tried to come across as knowledgeable. But they also have probably been testing you based upon some metric which I was never able to figure out. They are the only two who remain from the first five Forerunners and they’ve seen more of Earth’s Forerunners die than anyone else.

  “Don’t trust them to have your back in combat, but beyond that, it’s hard for me to guess what other dangers they might present to you. Just know that Nuri is hyper religious and sees all of the system as a test of her god. She has very strong notions about who will be found worthy for the new world she believes is coming.

  “Anika is even more mysterious. Sometimes, I feel like she is simply a coward and other times that she’s running the long game on me. I just don’t know, and that worries me. I’ve always been a good judge of character, but my gauge is off when it comes to her. Whatever you do, try to never be in a situation where you absolutely have to depend upon her for your life. Oh, and as much as possible, try not to be oppositional to them—at least not in front of the others.”

  Then he sighed. “I’m sorry that I left all of this to you, but the world couldn’t be in better hands. I only wonder how good Earth would have been doing if you’d been a Forerunner from day one.”

  Chapter 55- Back to Galen

  Once I’d gone through all the changes, I took a chance and tried to cast my summon eidolon spell, but no dice. The spell wouldn’t even take form. At least the notification gave me some relief.

  You may not summon a new eidolon until your connection with the current eidolon is permanently severed. Current status: pending.

  I felt like that character saying, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance?” Maybe I was being delusional, but I just had a feeling that I’d be seeing Urg again. Once that was settled, I walked out of my shed intending to head into the house for some breakfast.

  That had been my plan, but as soon as I stepped out—I heard the singing of birds, the chittering of insects, and—I felt a presence which didn’t belong here. I spun to face the presence, “Show yourself, Anika.”

  The air shimmered, and my fellow Forerunner seemed to step out of another place. “Good guess?”

  I shook my head.

  “Oh, you really have improved. You never noticed when I watched you before. Let’s take a look at your new class, shall we?”

  I felt a wave of magic rush over me. It pissed me off. I activated Adorably Harmless and then flexed my aura. Her eyes got wide and for a second, she clung to the trunk of the tree she was standing next to in order to keep her upright. “Can you turn that off?”

  My initial reaction was to do as she asked, but then I said, “No. You came to my home without being invited. Then once you appeared, you used magic or an ability to learn what you could about my new class. So, you’re the one who needs to explain herself.” I held myself back from threatening her, which was probably a good thing as a second later she seemed to effortlessly shrug off the effects of my aura, that is, if they ever truly affected her in the first place.

  “So, level sixty with an uncommon core. That’s really good progress for basically three weeks of being the newest Forerunner, although I admit to being a bit baffled by your stats. They seem far higher than they should be.”

  I shrugged. It made me uneasy that she could see my actual stats, but I didn’t know how much of my info was open to her, so I didn’t want to give anything away.

  “Well, you’ve grown more quiet than before. When we first met, you practically fell over yourself to please me. I must admit I liked that better.”

  “Did my uncle fall over himself trying to please you?”

  Her eyes narrowed for just an instant. It was so quick that I wasn’t sure if I’d actually seen it. “Dan and I always got along great. I’m not as strong in combat, so he helped protect me on some of our shared missions. Maybe we should do a shared mission tonight?” Her inflection made it a question, but her body language spoke to something more. This was getting weird.

  “I have previous commitments tonight.”

  “What with your Crembori friends? You’ve sure been spending a ton of time with them.”

  I was getting tired of this conversation. I started to walk towards the main house, while still keeping all of my enhanced Perception from Hunter’s Instinct focused on her. “Why is that any of your concern? I’m more than carrying my share of points.”

  “I’d say. Nuri and I have talked about just how much progress you’ve made. I don’t suppose you’d care to share how you earned that many points.”

  I looked back at her as I was walking. “It was a unique opportunity. Now if there isn’t anything else, maybe you could go bother someone else. I hear that Jiang might need some help.”

  She raced forward until she was next to me and then settled into a pace that matched me. “What do you know about that?”

  “I was attacked by Morvarg on my last mission after killing three elven Forerunners.”

  She grabbed my arm and spun me to face her. Rather than jerking back, I only made a point of staring at her hand on my arm. After a few seconds, she pulled it back.

  “Three Forerunners at once?”

  “They were trying to fulfill a revenge contract on me from a prior mission. I wasn’t alone, I had my fifth team member and of course my eidolon with me. But as a last act of defiance one of them had some way to open a portal, which summoned Morvarg. The fight with him was much harder, but we were able to banish him from that world.”

  I could see that she had all kinds of questions, but thankfully she held them in for the most part, limiting herself to one. “Does that mean he won’t be able to hunt us any longer?”

  I shrugged. “I’m still learning all about this magic stuff. I don’t have any idea.” I chose not to share the notification about him being stuck in the astral plane. Maybe it was the warning from Uncle Dan’s journal or maybe just a general unease I’d had about her for a while.

  She stared at me, but we were still walking forward and I’d reached the door to the house. Apparently, mom heard us, because a second later the door opened. Mom looked at me and then at Anika. “Oh, I didn’t know you had company, Silas?”

  “She isn’t staying.”

  Anika frowned and mom said, “Nonsense, you didn’t even tell me her name yet?” It was obvious that mom was curious. Anika was obviously older than me, but an inducted body gave her an ageless beauty. It allowed her to pass for anywhere between mid-twenties and thirties, even though I was pretty sure she was much older than that.

  “Sorry about that, mom. This is Anika. I met her in one of my classes. She just stopped by to pick up some notes I took for her.”

  Anika picked it up, “Yes, I’m sorry that I disturbed you all so early, but class has only just started and I’m already feeling behind.”

  After a bit of small talk, I finally got mom to go back inside. Anika said, “All of this has been a huge waste of time. I only came here to remind you that you need to get in to see Emil. We’ve been patient, but you were given your orders two weeks ago.”

  “Orders? I don’t work for you.”

  Her lips thinned. “Think what you like. We need to speak to Emil and I’d prefer that we do so without causing a raucous.”

  Then she was gone. Some type of illusion power, I was almost certain. Either way, I knew I was gonna have to spend the next hour explaining to mom about a dating life that honestly didn’t exist. She was already anxious to hear more about my classes, but while I’d been going; I was barely paying attention. Somehow, studying how to forge magical items from alien technology seemed far more interesting than a speech in class I totally hadn’t prepared for.

  After Anika left, I sat there with my thoughts for quite a while. I got why they were pressuring me. I even understood that they disagreed with my decisions about what to do with the Crembori. They didn’t see them as a future asset, but rather as a current drain. At least they weren’t going to try to destroy the Crembori ship for now. Although, for all I know, the Crembori had a few hidden aces or technological devices that could take out Earth’s Forerunners, if they felt threatened enough. Once the system destroyed their technology, the Crembori would be weaklings, but for now they were at the top of the heap in terms of technological power.

  Either way, I definitely put off going to see Emil today, if for no other reason than I wanted to deny Anika. I even took motivation from my frustration and managed to shift the bio-metal into a layered pauldron. It was useful progress, and I was learning how to make items which could change shape as I applied mana. None of them met system specifications for a new creation yet, but I felt like I was close.

  After dinner, I went back to the shed a few hours before midnight and did a quick run through of my skills before I focused on feeding more mana into the crystal. It filled up passively but far too slowly after I’d exhausted most of its store of Life Mana on Proximus.

  When midnight rolled around, I saw the first mission pop up.

  Reconnaissance on Galen- learn the current situation in the Anwich Region. Reward: 500 World Points. Subsequent missions may become available.

  It was a really low reward mission and I would have hesitated, but it also seemed simple. In my experience so far, the more vague a mission was, the easier it was to complete. If it said I had to slay all the monsters in an alien graveyard, then that was be very specific and the rewards accounted for it. This one was more information based and not life and limb, so it should simply require me to get an update on what was happening there. Something I was keen to do, anyway. Galen was my fallback plan in case Earth fell to fourth place or lower, that was assuming the clan didn’t actually come through for me.

  As I accepted the quest, I activated all my teammates. They’d all be on Galen already other than Dejin, but this way they’d know I was coming.

  The portal operated just same as all the other times and I found myself appearing right outside of the walls of Anwich, except I did a double-take. The walls were three times higher than they had been and clearly more solid. There were guard towers spread around the wall, and those towers were manned by soldiers wearing the Transhek symbol.

  Except as I looked closer, I saw that wasn’t completely true. It was just the case on this part of the wall. If I looked further down the wall, I could see other guards with different types of uniforms and insignias connected to the other towers. Clearly, something had changed.

  A second later, Dejin appeared next to me. He stumbled, and I did my best to hide my chuckle. I still remembered the first time I’d been teleported to a new world. It was quite the jarring experience. “How fare the Delmin people?”

  He quickly regained his composure and saluted me. “It is as the heaven’s will. The desert is a hard mistress, but your gift has caused the heart of the oasis to blossom again.”

  Damn, who knew he was a poet? I didn’t have any ability for a turn of phrase, but I could try to respect him. “Try to limit the saluting thing. We’re already gonna draw enough attention here.”

  I headed for the gate and the three guards who were standing on ground level came to attention at the sight of us. Two of them were in Transhek uniforms. The third was in more of what I would have thought of as a fantasy adventurer’s garb with weapons all over his person and a nice mix of leather and chain armor.

  One of the corpies said, “State your names and business.”

  “Silas Renner and my companion Dejin of Proximus.”

  Dejin started to correct me, “Uh, Proximus was only the name of a city…” but I waved him off. I knew he was right of course, but now didn’t seem like the time to parse out the details.

  Both corpies were looking at me more closely now. “So you’re him then? You don’t look like much. Maybe Resha’s losing her edge. Well, no matter. The entrance fee for non-natives is 1000 credits.”

  I stared at him, uncertain if there really was a fee or if I was being shaken down. That was when the third man spoke up from the chair he was sitting on. He seemed mostly concerned with what I took for playing cards in his hands, but when he coughed, the other two clearly paid attention.

  “You know the mayor has waived all fees for the Hero of Anwich.”

  One of the men slumped his shoulders, but the other seemed to want to argue about it. “This gate is under Transhek control. The mayor doesn’t tell us what to do.”

  “You can take that up with Acme Corp, Bymorte Corp, and Clan Rayden, but you’re going to let these two into the town. I’ve got my orders and Selmac is a hell of a lot scarier than Resha is, no matter who she calls her father.”

  Apparently, it really was that simple. He never even moved from his chair, but they both did what he asked. The gates opened. I walked into a much busier Anwich with Dejin trailing behind me and a lot of questions on my mind.

  Chapter 56- Corporate Intrigue

  Anwich was far busier than I remembered, but it was only a couple of minutes before I saw some familiar faces. Dori called out to me from the other side of a street now full of wagons drawn by creatures, which looked close enough to horses for me to call them that, with their own distinct differences.

  “Silas! Over here.”

  Nevin stood next to her, smiling at me while Crag was making a spectacle of himself, waving for me to come over. At least he was until Dori elbowed him. I nodded to Dejin who followed me as I ran across the street when there was a break in the traffic.

  “Hiya guys, what’s going on here?”

  Nevin said, “A number of new powers have moved into…”

  Dori cut him off, “Not on the street. Samvek wants us to bring him to the Vice Regional Guild Leader right away. Besides, there are too many eyes out here.”

  I’d been too swept up in the newness of everything, but now that she mentioned it, I did feel like there were a great number of eyes on me. As I glanced around, I saw that at least ninety percent of the people I was seeing were Galenians, but there was definitely a sharp uptick in the number of other races. I saw a few who reminded me of the Transhek representative, Resha, and a couple who were like her muscle, Bek. But that was only the beginning. After a quick scan, I caught six different races and that wasn’t counting Dejin or me.