“That might work somewhere else,” Jory said, “but not here. There’s an inherent magic to all the water coming down the Mistrun River. It has a strong life vitality, so you can’t stop the growth here. The best you can do is beat it back. After a surge, they let it go until the next one is due. They’ve been keeping it clear for more than a year now. The last few surges have all taken longer than expected to arrive.”

“Aren’t longer gaps good?” Jason asked.

“Yes and no,” Jory said. “Think about the logistical costs of a surge. Whole populations shift, herds have to be culled and moved. Being in a state of readiness for years at a time is expensive.”

“I can imagine.”

“Haven’t you seen it for yourself? You would have been, what? Ten, twelve when the last surge hit?”

“They don’t have monster surges where I come from,” Jason said. “They don’t have monsters at all.”

“They don’t have monsters?” Jory asked. “Where are you from, exactly?”

“I was living in a city called Melbourne,” Jason said. “A long, long way from here. Very lean on monster activity.”

“It must have an absurdly low magic density,” Jory said. “Even compared to here, and that’s saying something.”

“Oh, there's definitely less magic there,” Jason said. “We’re pretty isolated from anywhere with real magic.”

“How did you get here, then?”

“Not entirely sure,” Jason said. “Some kind of magical accident out in the desert reached out and dragged me right out of my bed.”

“Must have been some accident. I have heard about long-distance teleport experiments with shaky results.”

“It was something like that,” Jason said. “I was lucky enough to run into some adventurers who helped me get my bearings.”

“Not to mention a full set of essences,” Jory said.

Jory was iron rank, like Jason. He could sense the essences in Jason's aura as easily as Jason could sense his. Jason was still new to aura sensing, but he was getting a handle on it. Ordinary people were faint, barely detectable, while those with essences were much clearer. Most villages had one or two people with an essence, while anyone who had reached iron rank with a full set radiated out like a beacon.

Monsters had an aura strength similar to those of an essence user, but their auras had a different feel to them. Rufus, Farrah and Gary had powerful, bronze-rank auras, but Jason had only caught glimpses. They could all suppress their auras, hiding them from Jason’s senses. Farrah had told him that higher-ranked essences users were expected to contain their auras.

“I kind of stumbled into those essences,” Jason said. “They came quick, but they didn’t come easy.”

They joined a queue of wagons at one of the city gates. The line moved quickly, the guards barely glancing at the contents of his wagon.