“Then shall we?” Danielle asked with an inviting gesture. “I imagine we can discuss the reason for your visit just as well amongst the gardens.”

“I would very much like that,” Rufus said.

Danielle picked a path under an archway overgrown with flowering vines, leading him deeper into the grounds. Rufus soon discovered them to be every part the equal of their promise.

“Your estate grounds truly are a joy to experience,” Rufus said.

“Thank you. My family came here as the region was first being settled. The walls of our estate are older than the walls of Old City. Last I heard, we even have a member of that generation still around somewhere.”

“Oh?”

“She reached diamond rank a couple of centuries ago. Not so good at keeping in touch, though. You know what diamond-rankers are like.”

“Agelessness engenders an unusual perspective, I imagine,” Rufus said.

Danielle smiled.

“Let us hope we both go far enough to see for ourselves,” she said. “What brings you out here today, Mr Remore?”

“Seeing the ancestral home of the Geller family isn’t reason enough?” Rufus asked. “I’m a little surprised to find you in residence.”

“We call most of our bronze and silver-rankers home when a monster surge is imminent,” Danielle said. “The family has placed me in charge of defending the estate, this time, and my husband and daughter will be back sometime in the next few months. Really, though, I’m back to overlook my son’s final training.”

“You really train all of your family members here?” Rufus asked.

“We do,” Danielle said. “Our facilities might not be the Remore Academy, but we’re proud of it, nonetheless.”

“And rightly so, by all accounts,” Rufus said. “I have heard my grandfather express his respect on more than one occasion.”

“High praise indeed,” Danielle said.

“If I may ask,” Rufus said, “why here? I know this is where your family first rose up as a power, but now you’re established in major cities around the world. Why send people born in high magic areas to train here?”

“We send everyone to train here,” she said. “Those high magic areas are just the problem. Before you came here, did you ever go out on an expedition without at least a silver-ranker to watch your back?”

“No,” Rufus said darkly, “which led to a recent mistake on my part. Overconfidence led to insufficient caution. It almost cost my people everything.”

“That is precisely the reason we still use this place,” Danielle said. “The low magical density makes the monsters weaker. The dangers smaller; the consequences, less severe. Not to say there aren’t real dangers, but we can send out our iron-rankers to face them alone. No one to rely on but themselves and each other.”

“You let them make their mistakes when those mistakes are less likely to kill them,” Rufus said.

“Exactly.”