“What?”

* * *

Hester was the member of Emir’s staff who had opened the portal to Boko and back. She was widely travelled, which was an advantage to anyone with such a power. Portal-type abilities had several limitations, starting with destination. They could only be opened to locations where the one with the power had been before. There were also limits to who could use it, based on rank. The only reason she was able to create a portal the gold-ranked Emir could travel through was that her portal ability had reached gold rank, even though she hadn’t.

After Emir reunited with Jason, Rufus and Gary in Boko, they were all returned to Greenstone via portal, right next to the cloud palace. It was late in the afternoon and Emir led them inside where a large meal was quickly arranged. Emir’s people went about their business after that, except for Constance. She joined Emir, Jason, Gary and Rufus on one of the many terraces the cloud palace had to offer. They took after-dinner drinks as they watched the sun set over the ocean.

Jason let out a loud sigh.

“I’m just now remembering the crisis I was dealing with before the other crisis,” he said. “I missed the essence and awakening stone auction. Is that mysterious thing of yours still coming up, Emir?”

“I’m going to push it back,” Emir said. “I was intending to rely on the Greenstone’s iron-rankers, but that clearly isn’t viable. The entire adventurer community here will be reeling from the results of this expedition. Even if that weren’t the case, the standards here are lower than I feared. A few stand-outs aside, the general skill level is woeful. I’m going to put out an open contract and ship more capable people in.”

“You’ll have some competition, Jason,” Gary said.

“Competition for what?” Jason asked.

“Something that will, for the moment, remain unrevealed,” Emir said. “Suffice to say, there is a place that only iron-rankers can go, in which there is a thing iron-rankers cannot use. Whoever brings that thing to me shall receive glorious prizes.”

“And this place will have essences and awakening stones?” Jason asked.

“If the conditions are what we believe, then yes.”

“Still,” Jason said, “if you’re moving it back, I’m going to need another source of essences.”

“You still want to make this thief girl an adventurer?” Emir asked.

“That, or send her so far from here it’s not worth anyone looking. Given how hard it would be to get her into the Adventure Society, that’s the direction I was leaning. That may change, depending on how much trouble Elspeth Arella is in.”