Exiting the rift near Ravis, Jon deflated the ring as they traipsed away. Kay paused behind him, watching it go limp and flaccid on the leafy and moss-ridden forest floor.

She said, “It grows and wilts at will.”

Jon declined to comment. If inflating and deflating tubes got her this excited he wondered what his next big toy would elicit. It used a lot more air; he’d have to be careful.

They hiked for most of the day, arriving at an unassuming field of wild grassland in the late afternoon. “You’re sure no people of at least human intelligence will stumble upon this place for a few hours?”

“The surrounding forest is considered cursed. Aside from beasts and lesser races, we should be left alone. You insist the direwolves were your handiwork. As such, either you are powerful enough to protect us, or I am stupid.”

“Your optimism is reassuring. Fuck.”

“What is wrong?”

“Nah, I just realised I hadn’t cursed in a while. Needed to correct that.”

“Do you feel better now?” Her condescension was improving but needed a dash more sarcasm. They split to secure a perimeter.

As they drew more than 50 metres apart, he spoke. “Am I coming through on the headphones?” Kay was fitted with simple wearables. Vibrating drivers pressed up against the bone just ahead of the ear, conducting perturbations through to the hearing canal without obstructing other sounds.

“Remarkably, yes.”

“I’m activating your visor. It'll show you where to place those two buoys. Augmented vision may be disorienting at first, but I need you to get used to this kinda stuff.”

Jon paced out his own two buoys; they needed a wide area of about 100 metres square for deployment. The next few hours were crucial. If anyone—or anything—managed to damage his tech, well... think happy thoughts, dude. The power of positivity! Jon’s interocular lenses fed him the HUD, so he needed no visor. All the same, he wore sunglasses in the strident afternoon rays. As for voice and audio, they too were very discreet implants.

“Oh my, the world has become a rainbow with nets everywhere. How by the gods can you see anything with this on!”

Jon placed down the first buoy and paused to assist.

“Your eyes are much better than mine, could be the opacity is too low. Put your right hand to the side of the glasses. Do you feel two triangular buttons.”

“Buttons? Like clothing?”

“Protrusions, they will depress when you push them.”

“Ah, yes, I believe I have found them... I see. It alters the pallor of hues.”

“Yep, adjust to a brightness you prefer. Maybe focus on a tree or rock as a benchmark.” Jon scanned the surroundings while she fiddled.

“Hmm, you asserted colours show heat while the netting shows form, yes?”

“You got it.”

“Scouts or spies would find these trinkets a boon. They work in darkness, yes?”

“Uh-huh to the latter and no-shit to the former. Let’s continue; I want a secured defensive perimeter before sundown. We’re burning sunlight, recruit!”

Turning ninety-degrees, he hiked off to the second sensor spot. The wispy grass brushed up to his waist, both a help and a hindrance. Obscuring their schemes was useful, albeit the buoys had to use telescoping stakes for view clearance. Tallgrass in the preindustrial wilderness was a common enough obstacle that extensible sensor buoys were already in stores. I wonder how many Divers have written ‘thwarted by tall grass’ in their reports. Probably not many, ‘thwarted’ was an uncommon word. Definitely not him, that was for sure. No, he used ‘foiled’ or ‘stymied’.

His modifications had become standard gear amongst local Divers, with a nice trickle of royalties to boot. Continuing that tradition these had yet another non-standard attachment on the top of the spheres. A small silver ring was perched on a motorised 2-DOF—Degrees Of Freedom—joint. Essentially, two servos manipulating an upright ring to give him 360-degree rotation and angular pitch.

He elongated and staked the last device. The silver ring made a few test rotations up, down, and around before settling again. Four black buoys floated atop a sea of undulating tawny grass as he swept his gaze across the field. They claimed a 100-metre square as their domain. Jon let out a breath and a single nod.

“My task is done; the vision confirms it,” reported Kay on audio comms.

He glanced over to where he might have missed Kay’s blond bobbing head among browning stalks, but she was haloed in AR green.

“Good job, move to that off-centre waypoint and we’ll begin deployment.” He converged as well.

“So, which is it Kel-sun?” Asked Kay.

“Hmm?”

“Are you a scout or a spy?”

“The only difference would be whose flag you’re under.” Jon replied.

“That is perhaps true. So, which do you think you are?”

“I’m not under any flag, Kay. The multiverse is a bit more complicated than that. My role changes depending on what I find, and who or what finds me. For now, I am a rat in a maze.”

“A maze?”

“A labyrinth. You’ve heard stories about them, right?”

“Why a rat? Do you burrow through the walls?”

“In our world, we use rats to do tests. I am a test subject, and this world is the maze.”

“And what does that make me, Kel-sun?”

“It makes you free to choose. But I know how these things go. After you took that pill, things changed. You can’t go back even if you wanted to. You're committed for now.

“However, what role you choose is certainly one of the next choices. Take your time, and be true to yourself, I don’t wanna hear any bullshit down the line that I made you do or be something. Ain’t nobody got time for that!”

They met at the AR flag.

Kay said, “you know Kel-sun, betimes there is savagery to your wisdom that both assuages and irks me.”

“Just how I like it.”

Keya leapt at the task of flattening the surrounding grass. Clumsily she wrestled with obstinate stalks, while Jon retrieved a much larger version of the rift stake he’d used the previous day. This one was made of steel and looked like a giant metre long screw the diameter of his calf. He initially softened the hole with a similarly retrieved fold-out pick and then hammered the stake in with a mallet. Kay held it upright as he did so.

Thereafter they had to resort to screwing it into the earth on its large threads. It had opposing fold-out hollow handlebars for this purpose. They inserted the long handles of the mallet and pick on each end for extra leverage. Fortunately, they hit no large rocks below the surface. First time was the charm. This really is a fantasy world!

“Just how, by the Gods, does that bag work Kel-sun.” She wiped her brow from sweat, and they both drank to rehydrate.

“Come over here; I’ll show you. Have you ever seen a wine cellar?”

“At a tavern or two, spirits stacked in wood or pottery alcoves,” Keya said.

“Fan-fucking-tastic, a reference you got on the first try. Back at base, I have a cellar with round alcoves just like those you’ve seen. Except mine stores different items, like this mallet, for instance.”

“I expected substantially more magic up to this point, honestly. So how did you retrieve it here?”

“You already know. Look in the bag.” He showed her the rift at the bottom of his pack. Its iris widened to the circumference of an empty cylindrical port. “This shelf is back in the Bunker.”

“Of course! A door could also be a cupboard!”

“Good! Now put the sledge back. The correct slot is already aligned.”

She hesitated.

“It’s perfectly safe. Even if it closes with you halfway through, the wormhole threshold will simply hug your arm until you pull out. De-synced edge effects can be pretty exotic, but that’s about it. Think of it like dipping into a pool of water.”

“You are certain beyond a shadow of a doubt?” asked Kay.

“I have substantial experience with this tech on industrial scales. No bullshit about severed limbs or molecular edges to worry about." They were well within protocol, best not to confuse or scare her so early on.

"Did you say 'severed limbs'?"

"Safe as puppies. Almost.”

Glaring at the last word and then proceeding warily, she stowed the tool through the iris. Her eyes widened as she thrust past the bottom of the bag. “Why did it pull to one side of the hole after passing through?”

“Because the orientation here and there is different. It’s a wall shelf on that side not a hole in the floor. Once you move past the event horizon, the body force of gravity that side takes over.”

“That is vexing to imagine. How by the Gods did anyone conceive such an elaborate idea? Also, what is gravity?”

“Oh, hell no. Lee can handle Newtonian physics in night class with you. We don’t have time for that now. You got that, Lee?”

“You’re an arsehole; you know that, Kel?” Jon’s Australian handler finally piped up in their earphones.

“Heaven’s above, I hear the spirit again!”

“Welcome to the party, love! The name’s Peter Lee, noice ta meet cha.”

Jon swore Lee laid the Ozzy accent on extra thick for newbies.

“I wasn’t gonna let you lurk in chat all damn day,” said Jon. “And you’re a wonderful teacher, Lee-sensei.”

“I’m Chinese ya cunt.”

“Ey, tone it down for the ladies won’ cha? And like you can speak a word of Chinese, what are you like, fifth- or sixth-gen.”

“Fucken ‘Nihao’ bitch.”

“Uh-huh.”

“My word, he is worse than you! I had thought spirits communed with somewhat greater decorum.”

Jon answered, “Well, now you know where I got it from. For the record, Lee is not dead, he’s just very, very far away, on my homeworld. He’s my handler, helps with operations, debriefing, and oversight. The veritable man at the mic.”

After ensuring the auger was mostly level, he stepped back. “Alright, let’s get this bloody show on the road.”

He reached into the top of the hollow steel spike and pulled out four stabilisation cables. Once inflated, they were anchored in the ground to stop the structure from billowing in the breeze. Activated rifts provided a bit more structural integrity, but not enough for something this big. It was a hassle more than anything dangerous.

The stake hissed, spewing its inflatable contents. A plain brown tube, six metres in diameter, inflated. For the sake of symmetry and rigidity on such a large loop, wind-permeable fabric spanned the interior, and the lip was 7-centimetres thick.

Fully inflated, it was the height of a 2-story building at its peak. Not the hugest Rift Jon had seen or used, but a majestic sight nonetheless. Accordingly, Kay was standing enraptured, again, staring up at the thing.

“You saw the same thing earlier,” Jon said. “It’s just bigger.”

“Much bigger!” She replied without looking away.

I guess size matters to her. “Anchor these two cables at 45-degrees, adjacent to the ring. Just a little tension, you hear, not enough to warp the loop.”

She nodded, and Jon did the same his side.

Done and satisfied, he said, “I’m turning it on. We're connecting to the Bunker’s centre chamber, not the Rift Room.”

It flicked soundlessly on; showing the central vaulted chamber: the garage.

“This hall is part of your manor as well?” Kay asked.

The area now visible beyond the ring sequentially lit up as fluorescent lights flickered on. The bulbs hung from a 15-metre high geodesic domed ceiling. With the grass field in the setting sun’s shadow, an artificial glow emanated from the towering ellipse in space.

Keya spoke, her expression displayed abject awe. “How much bigger can these marvels get?”

“As big as you like, but power costs climb, and alignment for larger segmented rings is a bitch. Rift engineering is a booming business.”

Jon stepped through, lifting his leg to clear the tubular lip and the ramp on the other side. A large white cabin trailer stood in the centre on tiny wheels. Draped limply upon and around it was a similarly white, composite, rubberised cloth.

Off to the right of the main attraction was a parked rubber-tracked forklift. An array of other lifting and bulldozing attachments were strewn nearby. The faithful little machine was scratched, dirtied, and rusted with use. To the left were racks and bins hosting numerous tools. They too showed all the signs of rigorous punishment.

Muttering mostly to himself he said, “Hello, my babies! Your aid is needed once more.”

“Did you just speak to your stable of contraptions?”

That damn elf hearing!

“Are they alive?” She remained in the field within the small area of flattened grass.

“No, they aren’t. These tools are just super useful. Come on in. Have a look at our primary field asset.” He turned to inspect his prized, almost paid for, possession. Diver credit was the best in the multiverse, backed by Alpha itself. If not for that, his insane machinations might never have come to fruition.

The white trailer was, in reality, a gondola that tapered toward the bottom. It had luxuriously sized windows along the front and fuselage. Rounded squares of transparent polycarbonate extended across most portions of the side-hull. The unobstructed backs of seats currently rotated to hug the walls were visible. If a person sat inside with seating turned forward, they would be seen from head to toe. The cockpit was like that of a helicopter: two seats and copious viewports below and around the flight console. On top and around the gondola sat the flaccid envelope. The cabin was fused directly to the balloon instead of being hung below via cables. The whole bundle and further composite cloth dragged behind. Packaged as such, it could pass through the Rift, barely.

“Explain Master; I am growing tired of asking what, why, or how every minute.” Kay approached to stand next to him, arms folded, looking up at the thing. She had reverted to the ‘Master’ moniker. With no one around he’d let it slide for now.

“Yeah,” He turned to look at her. “we need a safe word. This is a military-grade, long-term surveillance hybrid airship. I call this beauty the HAS, short for Hybrid Airship. With the main plot off a cliff, we are sacrificing subtlety for manoeuvrability.”

“And what do all those words mean?” She folded her arms, fixing him with a side stare.

Lee replied. “It’s a flying ship, love. A ship that flies, an airship.”

Keya’s cajoling laughter answered. “Perhaps on a wyvern or dragon, if you could tame such a thing it is possible, but a whole ship! This I will have to see!”

“Oh, shit! You have dragons and wyverns? Lee, check the Diver’s Wiki and Net. I need operating elevations of pterosaurs.”

“Already on it!”

“Of course, I’ve never owned or even gotten near one,” said Kay. “Perhaps some kings or nobles have the riches and fortune to rear and train them.”

Jon spent a few minutes kicking the dirt with impatience. If predators that large could reach them in the skies there was no guarantee the point defences would be enough. Still, by land would be no safer.

Lee returned. “Estimates on pterosaurs are sketchy, given habitat diet and migration they stay pretty close to sea-level. Birds, however, are another story up to 11000 metres for Ruppel’s Vulture our side. If it’s that high our measly 6K operating elevation won’t cut it. Depends on how close these beasts are related to what.”

“Fuuck! We have to eyeball it. Alright Keya, time to earn your keep. Kudos on the giant flying reptiles PSA.”

“What do you need, Master?” she asked, immediately all business.

“Where do dragons and wyverns live, and any other large flying beasts for that matter.”

“I am no expert, but I have heard of caves hills and cliffs. Gryphons are similar.”

“Fucking Griffins too! Okay, do they live above the tree-line, you know where trees stop growing on mountains?”

“I cannot say for sure, but I suppose so.”

“Right, so how about this. In the stories, are their lairs easily reached by humans, no mention of thin air or difficulty breathing?”

“I believe not, but I will have to consult Grandpa’s bestiary to confirm it.”

“Remind me to scan that book when we get back tonight and all your damn books for that matter. Lee needs homework too.”

“More, bloody work!” Lee quipped.

“What about behaviours and feeding habits? Do they migrate? What do they eat?”

“They are known to stay in lairs for years at times. Livestock and big game are their preferences. Gryphons have seasonal perches.”

“Crap, that’s not helping. Alright tell me about body structure, you’ve seen pictures and descriptions right. Are they muscular? What’s relative wing-to-body size?”

“Well, I have not seen any personally, but if the Elven Huntsmen are to be believed—and they are famed to take pride in their work—then these are all dangerous beasts with hulking muscular bodies. They are hunted by ambush and chasing them on horseback across the countryside. The beasts must repeatedly land to regain stamina; eventually they are too spent to fly off.”

Jon mulled to himself. “High oxygen expenditure and low endurance, that makes high altitude capability unlikely. Possibly apex predators. Why would they need to fly high; food is low, as is the lair? High perches are for protection. What do they need protection from?”

“They are the hunter, not the hunted. Save for some valiant heroes; few would approach their homes, even animals.” Kay replied.

“Fair enough, we’re gonna roll the dice. But I’m switching some munitions to flak. Lee, please get me a specialist opinion. I’m risking a serious asset here, and it’s not even paid for yet. Don’t be stingy.”

“Got it, Guv.”

“Hey! Abstruse language my thing! Kay, thanks a bunch. That kind of intel is what you’re here for. We may have just dodged a bullet.”

“You’re most welcome, Master. From the banter, I assume the ‘airship’ will be safe.”

“Probably,” Jon said.

“Probably!” Replied Kay.

“Yeah, nothing’s certain beyond death, taxes, and loss of data. Now, c’mon over here, I’ve got a special job just for you.” He smiled.