Cyrion was the capital of Estercost, and enpassed far more than the urbare at its heart. A series of tric walls rihe city proper, with vast spans of agricultural nd iween. Home to some of the most magical and valuable growing nd on the p, it was accly under impressive prote.

  The messengers had, to date, made no attempts to invade Cyrion, fog their efforts elsewhere. In the days before the messengers invaded Pallimustus, the Builder had not been so retit. His cult had itted an unpreted force to attag the city, the remnants of which still y beyond the outermost wall.

  The Builder’s world engineer golems rivalled any diamond-rank monster for size. Almost two decades after their demise, their toppled and rown forms looked more like hills than engines of war.

  Jason and his friends looked down on the fallen golems from an observation lounge on the underside of the cloud ship. The hull was pletely transparent from the inside, allowing uricted views of the ndscape. It did lead to an odd effect where the furniture seemed to be floating in the air.

  “We mao stop those things from activating in the Reaper’s astral space,” Neil said. “I ’t imagiually fighting them.”

  “We were bronze rank,” Humphrey pointed out. “It would be different now.”

  “Not that different,” Clive said. “These golems are realms beyond anything we create on this world. Actual, diamond-rank structs. Even the diamond-rankers on our side wouldn’t have been enough without the city defences.”

  “He’s right,” Danielle said. “Iire history of Cyrion, the battle that left those things here was the only instance of eveer wall being breached. Those golems made it past three yers of defence.”

  “Why did they leave them there instead of clearing them away?” Neil asked. “Surely the salvage would be worthwhile, being ic super golems.”

  “Even dormant, they were dangerous to approach,” Danielle said. “They were sealed off a behind while the city focused on repairing the walls, in case the messeried to take advantage of the damage. Those ihe walls were cleared out, but the ones outside were left where they fell. They were sealed off, to keep the bold and curious from danger. Only years ter were the areas around them unsealed and swept for lingering dangers.”

  “I hope they got it all out before leaving them to grow over,” Neil said.

  “They did,” Belinda said. “Clive and I had a discreet poke around a couple of years ago. Got some good base material if we ever want to knock out some structs of our own, but all the fun stuff was gone.”

  Jason looked through the hull in the dire of the wall.

  “We’re approag the defence perimeter,” he said. “There’s a city official on his way here in a small vessel. e on, Miguel.”

  Miguel Ladiv and the bartender, Jamar, were standing oranslut floor, wobbling as if they had vertigo.

  “What?” Miguel asked, looking up. “Right, sorry.”

  He headed for Jason with the delicate walk of someone afraid the ice would crader their feet.

  “You’re not going to fall through, Miguel,” Jason told him.

  “Uh huh,” Miguel said, a going as he was.

  ***

  Even disting the agricultural sectors, Cyrion was the rgest city in the world. Even flying over it, it stretched out to the horizon in every dire. Few cities on Pallimustus had the sheer scope of Earth’s major cities, but from the air, Cyrion looked like Tokyo by way of the Emerald City of Oz. Grand towers shone in the sun. Massive kes and whole forests fell within the urban sprawl. The sky was filled with air traffic, from small personal vehicles to massive airships the size of Jason’s and rger.

  Shade iloting the airship, but a city official was standio him on the bridge, guiding him along a very precise path. Even cloud ships were on enough iy that it was fully prepared to aodate them. They flew to one of the kes where they were given space to vert the ship into a floating cloud pace.

  Jason’s pns for his time in Cyrion didn’t involve sightseeing, the way they had in Vitesse. It was time to get serious about the return to Earth. During their travels, Jason had been studying more than a decade of work from Clive o the bridge between Pallimustus ah. Ohe expatriate earthlings were collected, they would be ready to head for Rimaros and the final stage.

  In preparation f to collect the scattered Earth refugees, Jason had been w on his trol over the System. The pn was to send out a message that would only reach the earthlings, calling them back to Cyrion. They had all started there, and most remained, making it the logical gathering spot.

  For the first few days in Cyrion, Jason holed himself up in his cloud pa the ke. Meditating for hours on end, he refined his trol over the System with Li Li Mei as a test subject. Messaging her as ahling proved much harder than targeting her as a specifidividual. It took several days of practise before he was ready to take things wider, and those days were mercifully peaceful. Cyrion was one of the few pces where a cloud ship full of gold rankers could arrive without it being a major event.

  While Jason ractising, his team were huntihlings by more ventional means. Danielle went to the Geller pound iy where she herself had gathered them following their arrival. That had been for their prote, given that dozens of outworlders make aig study opportunity. Both legitimate and less ethical researchers were eager to get their hands on such a rge sample.

  O was clear that Jason wouldn’t be ing to hahem, the outworlders had to be allowed out of protective custody. Many had the misfortune of disc why they’d been in it in the first pce, winding up oable of some sketchy researcher. The Adventure Society ended up retrieving many of them, many traumatised and some dead.

  That was the thread Humphrey pulled on, looking into the Earth people through Adventure Society records. As the rescued ended up in the hands of the Healer’s chureil pursued that avenue. Estel took the approach of looking for rumours and stories iy. Maragedies, tales of exploitation and experimentation. Most, however, were almost startling muhe earthlings were mid-rank core users in a rge city, ahe same fate as locals in that position: being hired by noble houses.

  Being a guard for a noble house was a role that became increasingly odd the more promihe family. The most promi members of such houses were usually adventurers, whether active, retired or semi-retired. Anyone capable enough to protect such people were too powerful and important in their ht to be a servant.

  Most house guards were failed adventurers, areated as such. They served as thugs for family is or security for family assets. The more capable amongst them were assigo protect house ss yet to gain their essences, or low-ranking family members who never had adveraining. The most important role of a family’s private guard was to simply exist. Any aristocratic house g a staff of essence users would find its status within society in jeopardy.

  Many of the Earth essence users met the exact criteria for a house guard, being trained in bat but having advahrough monster cores. Their unusual backstory proved exotiough that they were able to and high saries from noble houses that valued such things.

  By the time Jason was ready to send out call through the System, his panions had already built a solid list of Earth expatriates. If Jason’s message didn’t work out, they would still be able to collect a lot of people. It was the ones who had gone roaming, like Li Li Mei who would be the problem. Without a way to call them back, they would have to be abandoned, at least for the immediacy. Jason had no iion of chasing down trails a decade or more old, hunting them one by one.

  Jaso out his message, and his diligen preparing for it seemed to pay off. It did appear tet the earthlings and no one else. The people who answered the call were all from Earth, at least at first, and there were s of anyone else getting strange messages about another world.

  Those enthusiastic to return home were the first to respond, arriving at Jason’s cloud pace as directed. Others were uain about giving up their new lives, seeing little value in what they’d left behind almost two decades ago. For many, that was half of their lives or more.

  Some were on the fence, heading to Jason’s cloud pa search of others like them. They wao discuss with other Earthlings whether they should go back. They also had stories of those who had no i in going back, to the point of fearing they would be forced to. It prompted Jason to send out a seessage, telling all who wao stay that they were free to.

  Whether they wao return to Earth or not, many came to cloud pace wanting to meet Jason and his famous panions. Especially amongst those serving major families, many had heard of Jason, Team Biscuit and their exploits.

  After the first day, a different kind of problem occurred. People who had never been to Earth were turning up, g they had. Some were ughably transparent fakes, trying to escape debts or other problems. Others were better prepared, often would-be spies for various anisations, legitimate and otherwise.

  Jason and Farrah ended up sing people. As even an outworlder aura signature could be faked, their sing process had to be more creative.

  “Best Mad Max movie?” Farrah asked.

  “Fury Road,” the man in front of her said.

  “Incorrect.”

  “What do you mean, incorrect?”

  “The correswer is Beyond Thunderdome.”

  “The oh Tina Turner? She was terrible in that movie!”

  Jason rushed to restrain Farrah, who was jabbing a fi the man as she yelled at him.

  “You shut your filthy mouth! You’re never getting back to Earth, you hear me? The p’s better off without you!”

  Jason was certain that many of the genuine humans had been paid handsomely by different is for a variety of tasks. That was not a disqualifying factor for those genuinely from Earth, but they did get a warning as to what would happen if they caused trouble.

  The problem was harder to deal with than people clearly not from Earth attempting to synopsise the Police Academy films.

  “Jason, none of these people were alive when those movies were released,” Farrah pointed out. “Even the people from Earth ’t tell you what happened in them.”

  “Exactly. Anyone who gives it a go is clearly not from Earth.”

  People from Earth now w for the noble houses turned out to be the rgest issue. If the guards were happy to stay, that was fine. Many had built good lives in the service of the aristocracy. The nobility had proven unwilling, however, to release those who did want to go back to Earth. It wasn’t every house, but enough to be a problem, the nobles leaning on local ws to keep their people where they were.

  Cyrion’s ws were very much built to favour the aristocratic families, and house guards were teically a form of iured servitude. Very well-paid servitude, but if the noble houses wao make an issue of it, they held all the power. Many of those houses were using that power to prevent their guards from leaving.

  It didn’t take a lot of iigation to firm Jason’s immediate assumptions. None of the Earth people were so valuable that the houses had a real need of them. The value they held was that Jason wahem, and that was an advahe nobles could leverage.

  ***

  “I don’t blow up cities on purpose,” Jason muttered to himself. “I don’t blow up cities on purpose.”

  It was Jason’s eleventh day in Cyrion, and the fourth day of meetings with representatives of the noble houses. Ign his instincts to do something drastic, Jason had chosen a diplomatic approach. He had set up meetings with the aristocratic families, their chosen representatives being a message in and of themselves. An important family member being present was a signal of respect, while a bureaucratiary was a slight to Jason and his team.

  Some of the meetings were oo one, while others brought all the representatives together. Jason hahe talks himself, for the most part, drawing on the lessons in diplomad etiquette he had received from Danielle. She was with him, occasionally taking the forosition, but mostly leaving it to him.

  By the fourth day, however, Jason’s patience was dangerously thin. These families were opportunists, using legal privilege and what amouo sve ws to get what they could out of him. There didn’t eveo be something specific they were after; they had found a lever to pull and saw no reason not to pull it. Iurn for releasing the guards they were asking for anything from Team Biscuit’s services in their family’s is to insider information from Clive’s Magic Research Association.

  Seeing Jasoering on the edge of doing somethirue to his nature, Danielle ehe meetings for the day and led Jason out. The venue was Jason’s cloud pace, so they went further in while avatars led the representatives out.

  “You’re doing very well,” she said. “In terms of keeping your temperament, at least.”

  “These talks are going nowhere in a circle.”

  “Because you’ve been unwilling to make any cessions. If you want them to give something up, you o as well.”

  “Their stance is immoral.”

  “They don’t care. Or even share your opinion. In the culture of Cyrion high society, this is all normal.”

  “I’m entirely happy to respeeone’s culture, so long as that culture is at least nominally worthy of respect. I accept people having different values to me, but there has to be a line. Using what amount to sve ws to trade people like chips in a card game is over that line for me.”

  “Then you are at an impasse.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Meaning?” she asked, her voice thick with suspi.

  “I realised from the beginning that these people were simply being opportunistic. They saw that I valued something they had more than they did, and could use the circumstances here in Cyrion to take advantage. While we’ve spent four days running around in circles, I’ve been preparing something that could possibly retextualise those circumstances.”

  “Jason, what did you do?”

  “Nothing. Yet. I wasn’t even sure I could make it work. Figuring out how tet messages to the people from Earth was good practise, though. I’ve been building on that to do something a little more widespread.”

  “Please tell me you aren’t going to try and blow up Cyrion.”

  “Nothing like that.”

  “Then what?”

  “Well, I started by getting a list of all the tries and city states that have iured servitude ws…”