Baudouin Martin was a frumpy-looking blond man, in a full set of ringmail denoting his main Professional role. The man was in his late thirties, but as many Professionals, he looked in perfect shape and health for his age. Yet, Jonas felt like the man was tired.

“You’re the guy that wanted to see me?” he asked with his slight accent, looking curiously at Jonas’ robe.

The two Professionals exchanged descriptors. The man was a mid-tier four, level 290 Massive Shieldrunner, an interesting fully defensive build without the slightest offensive or support skill. The man looked surprised at Jonas’ own low level before recognizing the name.

“Oh. You’re one of them. I hadn’t realized,” the Frenchman said.

“Yes. The Duke of Wellington wanted me to talk to you a bit.”

“Wellington? Does the man still work at the War Office? He was starting to take charge of logistics for the war when I arrived in 1810.”

“He does. Not yet Minister but close.”

“It’s been a long time since I got one of those visits. Back then, I had people come to talk to me every couple weeks before I was even offered to go back in the Labyrinth. What, surprised? Not enough Professionals. They did not have that kind of lens-thing you now have to find qualified people.”

“The Duke didn’t go too deep into your story. I think he didn’t want me to have pre-impressions.”

“Okay, that might be a bit long then. Let me pick something.”

Martin went to a shelf and picked a half-opaque bottle, a pair of glasses and directed Jonas to a small table to the side of the Saltesford Services’ main room. The two men sat and the Shieldrunner poured a measure of dark ruby port for both of them.

“So, what are you here for? I’m surprised. I thought I’d sang all my songs back in the day.”

“Well, your ex-compatriots have been making big moves recently,” Jonas tried to explain without explaining.

“No kidding. I was just arriving from a supply run with Fast Travel in the Gate clearing when it blinked hard behind me. I freaked out when the descriptor appeared on the Gate, that’s for sure.”

“A guy named Jacques Deschanel directed the attack. Know him?” Jonas asked.

“Yes, I heard of him back in the days. Not many ever met him, he stays in the shadows. He’s the right-hand man of Bonaparte, though. One of his trusted Professionals from the day the Labyrinth opened. That’s how the Tyrant works – he uses only people he trusts.”

“Did he trust all you base Professionals?”

“He trusted our loyalty, yes. Everyone handpicked before they tested for the Labyrinth… The Professionals are his right hand in the Labyrinth, as the Grande Armée is his left hand in the world.”

The man’s tone was solemn, and Jonas realized he was reciting old slogans the Frenchman had heard back in the day.

“Like an army, then?”

“Eh. That’s why I was not too unsettled after they made me the offer to go back to the Labyrinth with the Royal Company. They almost ran it like an army, only worse. Do this. Do that. Why aren’t you running that lair yet.”

“Haven’t seen that time,” Jonas confessed.

“Youngster,” the man snorted.

“They wouldn’t have known what to do with you. I can hate the Tyrant, but I have to admit the Corsican knows how to use his men.”

“Why did you defect then? What made you hate him?”

Beaudoin contemplated his port, his mind obviously transported back a decade ago. He sighed.

“My sister got embroiled in a land dispute. My family didn’t have much, and me being made a Professional meant I wouldn’t work the farm anyway, so it was going to be hers. But the guy had the gall to say his family had an old claim on some of our best land and produced papers. And then the avocats, the lawyers came in, and they started to ask to be paid upfront because of the claims.”

“Your sister lost?”

“I tried to come and help her settle, but the officers said no. I had Milestones to achieve and chests to plunder, and France first, Family later.”

The Frenchman gulped his port and poured another almost immediately.

“By the time I could get a permission, a ten-day leave, she had too much debt. The judge said that being Professional meant nothing when it came to a civil dispute anyway. Ce n’est pas votre affaire, it’s not your concern anyway. What good is it to be the elite and all that if that means nothing for you or anyone you care about.”

“So you defected.”

“My sister had to marry the guy. Which I think is what he wanted anyway. That way, he got the land and the wife.”

“Ouch.”

“I would have liked nothing more than shredding him to bits. I might have been only upper tier two then, but he couldn’t do anything to me and I could bash him to a pulp. But she would not have inherited, of course. Being the sister of the murderer would be no good.”

He looked at Jonas inquiringly.

“You know how few Professionals stop to have children, right? But it’s okay, they say. Your family goes on. Your progress makes France safe and better for them and everyone. And your nephews and nieces will look upon you as the shining example of the Dominion. Except it’s also the children of that salopard, that bugger. Fine work this is. And they said ‘tough luck’ when I came back.”

He swallowed his port in one gulp again. But then, with a Stamina-based tier four build, he could outdrink any mundane, and probably Jonas too.

“You wanted to know? That’s why. Napoleon may say he cares about his Professionals, but the truth is, that Dominion he built does not. At least here, you got people who look to you as great heroes. In France, you’re a cog in the great war machine. And bugger if I work for that connard, that ratbag’s fortune. Or his brats’.”

The Frenchman did not even look angry. More… resigned, Jonas thought. The man poured himself yet another port before focusing back to the present.

“So, what does the esteemed Duke want to wring from me after all this time?”

“Some information about the French zones.”

“Blah. As if I knew much. I was almost finished with my tier two when I swam across the channel. I know nothing about the high tiers, which were only tier four and a handful of five when I left anyway. Heard they’re in tier seven now.”

“That’s true. Deschanel was tier seven, and we know that Napoleon at least is.”

“His entire inner circle is probably seven. Or at least upper tier six. He rotated them as governors for the conquered provinces but brought them back for levelling further regularly after a year. Probably hasn’t changed that.”

“I’ve seen a list with French zones, though.”

“You probably have spies with better information than me, so maybe it’s longer than it was. Back then, nobody even knew if there were connections between each country’s Labyrinth areas, like the two that have been figured out on tier five. Everyone had heard of the Great Line, but nobody was sure how far it extended.”

“Have the French explored it?”

“When I ran away, nobody had really gone far yet. I know it’s over a dozen tier three zones before you get close to England anyway. In total, it would be shorter to walk on Earth if there wasn’t the channel in the middle. And I suspect everyone’s watching their link to that one. Nobody I knew had any idea what was on the other direction, though. If any.”

“What about the lower tiers then? Tier one, two. Thanks to you we know a bit, but even if nobody was interested in those at the time, we may as well get full information. Argenmart, Brocarres, those zones,” Jonas suggested trying not to betray his interest in those particular zones.

“Well, they’re tier one. Full Profession choice at Plaza, lots of lairs, very huge. The usual. There’s not much to say about it. I only spent two weeks in Brocarres – one of my escouade, my squad needed a tier two accessible through there. Not a popular zone. Why those zones?”

“Looking for a feel of the zones compared to our own. That’s where the materials for Napoleon’s war machines would come from.”

“Well, for one, we had an advantage. Three connected tier ones, so we could spread a bit. Not that it mattered, since they were shooting for the higher gear rather than drop everyone in the Labyrinth to farm the lowest tiers. Only the best tiers of materials for his landcruisers. So Brocarres, it's a split zone. A huge mountain range in the middle, like a barrier. You need to pass through the Plaza to go between the halves. Or climb like a goat because there isn’t a real pathway anywhere else.”

Jonas internally grimaced. The geometry looked bad.

“All of the Gates are on one side in the forest, but there were only like half a dozen lairs that side. You need to walk a couple of days to cross and there are nearly twenty on the other side. Didn’t go there though. The sergeant said it was much friendlier. But there are very few Power Crystal to harvest, most of the lairs are outdoor, so it was never very important for the war effort.”

“I would have thought you’d still run all the lairs possible for materials.”

“Tier one wasn’t a priority anymore back then. Napoleon wanted his machines and guns made from the best materials and he didn’t care for other uses, so getting us to higher tiers was the priority. Running lairs was a side benefit.”

“Any special funny lair you remember? Our tier one zone had a weird tunnel maze with worms. And drunken badgers.”

Baudoin laughed while simultaneously swallowing a drink, a feat that was probably impossible for a mundane.

“I’d love to see those. Probably a fun fight. But no, we went only through the closest lairs since we were only there to enable people that needed to pass to the tier two. There was a big sinkhole, with skinny wolves at 10-12. Very short and easy. And a small mountainside lair around 25-30. Like a tiny hamlet full of giant rats, but stuck on a near-vertical cliff. You climbed a lot in that one. The last house was a pair of elder rats, a kind of mated couple which would be kind of hard for us at the time without the Sergeant to help. But once we’d finished, we Recalled back straight away. The only time we came back was to cross for the tier two of Alain and we went straight for the Gate.”

“And Argenmart?”

“Did my first Milestone there, but we then levelled mostly in Ornalur, the other tier one zone. The Gilded Gate is smack in the middle between the two Gates for Brocarres and Ornalur, with the two tier two Gates at the opposite side of the zone. Now Argentmart, that was a zone. Nearly forty lairs. Lots more than the one you call a starter zone here in England.”

“Did you have an equivalent to Gatepost?”

Baudoin seemed surprised by the question.

“They really didn’t tell you much? No. Of course, they moved a Recall Stone there, but it was mostly warehousing for transfer of gear harvested from higher tiers, and a small administrative office. All of the real stuff was on the Earth side. The Chateau was converted into the main headquarters, and the town of Versailles was mostly devoted to supporting the Professionals when they were around.”

“Oh. I’m surprised they didn’t establish a town within the Labyrinth.”

“Nobody told us why, but it didn’t really matter anyway. Your travel ticks the same on Earth, and Versailles was easy to build in. Didn’t need Professionals to be masons and the like. Besides, we were always in the depth of the zones, getting experience, or stuffing our bags with Power Crystals.”

“I think London’s more crowded. Can’t build that much, unless you wreck the Queen’s gardens.”

The Frenchman laughed again at that, before raising his glass in mock agreement.

“Now that’s sure. If the Gate had opened in Paris proper, that would have been different. Although Napoleon might not have cared about the Parisians’ ideas anyway.”

“The American Gate opened in the middle of fields. There were maybe a dozen farms within miles,” Jonas said.

“Lucky for them. Now, Gomerlan, that tier two zone we went to until I left… it was something else as well…”

Massive Shieldrunner

(tier 4)

Required: 85 STA, 36 CON

Provides:

+18 health/+10 endurance/+7 mind/+5 aether per level

+1 Milestone/12 levels

Massive Shieldrunner Milestone: +9 STA, +5 AGI, +4 CON, +3 FOR, +1 FOC, 2% defence economy

Skillset: Physical / Defence