Morning came as it always did. Or at least, on any world I’d actually been on, which was three of them now. Which was admittedly not that many, in the grand scheme of things. Regardless, plans were still in place to go back to the first one posthaste and all that. Midnight was still nervous, but not quite as much. And I didn’t plan to give him much time to think about it.

First I had to go find Comhghall. I thought I managed to catch him off guard, but I was the one who ended up on the floor as usual. “We’re leaving this morning,” I said from my position.

“I am aware,” he said, pulling me to my feet. “Try not to come back.”

“Sure thing,” I said.

I wasn’t sure if I hated this guy or not. I guess Doctor Patenaude would help with that. Just thinking I could be back home this evening was exciting.

Our little group got together after saying our few goodbyes to the locals. The last exception was Ailen. “Thanks again,” I said. “I doubt we could have gotten here… ever, really. Not without a good map, at least.” Izzy was decent with navigation, but it was a long way through an unfamiliar plane.

“You are welcome,” Ailen nodded their head. “It was interesting to meet new people.”

Did that not happen here? Actually, that made a lot of sense. In the vast area we’d gone through, there were maybe like a hundred orcs and one city of elves. Theoretically a city of elves, since we only saw two.

“Alright Midnight,” I said. I didn’t want anyone to sit around being nervous. “Come on. Remember, Izzy and Senan go through first. Ceira alone through the second portal. Then Midnight and I will go through the third.”

For maximum familiarity, we went to our training spot at the river. I counted down to synchronize Midnight and I. The portal shimmered and formed a few moments later. When it was stable, I nodded to the first two who hurried through. Though for the sake of it, we kept the portal open for its full duration. It only took them a couple seconds to get through, so it was simply sitting there for three or four times as long.

Then it closed up, and the two of them disappeared from our sight. “Okay Ceira, you’re next. You have plenty of time, but don’t dawdle.”

“Okay…” she said nervously. She’d already been through a portal, so it was probably the limited nature of mine that was the issue. Well, that was what all this work was for so it would actually exist and be safe.

After about a minute of rest we opened the next portal. She hesitated for a few seconds, but seeing Izzy and Senan on the other side waving encouraged her. She scurried through with a few seconds to spare on the back end.

Midnight and I could have probably squeezed through, but it was better to be cautious. After another bit of rest, we created one final Gate. Midnight was on my shoulder, so it was up to me to step through. I confidently strode forward, taking a couple steps past and turning back to see Comhghall and Ailen. The elf had a strange look on their face, as if they wanted to say something. But then the Gate closed.

“Whew,” I said, shaking my head. “This is the first time I’ve felt so much pressure from a portal.” Before we had the benefit from opening a previous portal. Actually, why didn’t that apply here? Maybe because it was never stable or long term enough to make that sort of connection. Well, it didn’t really matter. “I guess we just need to wait around for a few hours for each of the next ones. We could probably do it in two or one, but I don’t want to push things,” I said. “Though the first one has to be a test anyway… just in case.”

“That was the plan,” Senan agreed. “But… we also intended to visit your master.”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Right. It’s better than sitting here in the field anyway.”

“Mmn,” Izzy nodded.

I didn’t know why she had such a noncommittal grunt. Not until the trees got out of our way. “Weird,” I said. “The tower should be right… there…”

It should have been right there, but I couldn’t see it. Until I looked lower, and caught a glimpse of a pile of stones.

I ran forward, the wreckage of the tower coming into vision more clearly. The whole thing was collapsed, barely one stone upon another. Broken chunks and burned debris were all that remained.

“... what happened?” I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t make any sense.

As I collapsed to my knees, I felt Midnight’s paw rest on my head. “It will be okay, Turlough. You said Sending was deflected… so he has to be around somewhere, right?”

“Yeah…” I nodded. “That’s right.”

I don’t know how long I was there, just staring at the rubble. But by the time I was paying actual attention again, Izzy and Senan were scouring the remains of the tower.

“Looks like a magical attack?” Izzy said uncertainly. “Fireballs or something…”

“It should be…” Senan frowned, picking up some scraps of metal. “Since we’re in this world, magic is the logical conclusion. I would have judged it to be explosive ordinance though.”

“Uh…” Izzy spotted something and ran over to pick it up. Just a little bit of metal. Brass, maybe? “Turlough, what would you say this is?”

I approached to look at it closer. “Definitely some sort of brass… thing.” Familiar, for some reason. “I don’t know what sort of magic it would be for.”

“And if it wasn’t magic?” Izzy asked.

I frowned. Then I cast Storage, pulling out my gun. I popped out the clip, retrieving a cartridge. It was smaller… but honestly comparing them was totally unnecessary. Just looking at the bottom of the casing with English letters and numbers made it very clear. “Why are there bullet casings here?”

“I don’t know…” Izzy shook her head. “I see some impact holes too,” she brought me over to a few pieces of debris. “And maybe a bullet?” she held up a disc of metal.

“What’s going on?” Ceira asked, a worried look on her face. As if it was somehow unclear what happened here. But she probably didn’t want to believe it any more than I did.

Midnight had something rather calming to say about that. “Looks to me like a bunch of people blew up an empty tower.”

Empty? Actually, aside from doors and walls, I didn’t really see anything. From another angle, I spotted a bookshelf- but while it was scorched, it didn’t have ashy remains of books on it.

“Oh.” Ceira said, looking over at me. “You… grew up here?”

“Yeah, mostly,” I admitted.

“I’m sure your friends are okay,” Ceira said.

“... Friends?” To be honest, I didn’t really have any of those in this place. On the other hand, I didn’t want the other apprentices to be hurt either. “Yeah, I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

“Maybe we can find out more in town,” Senan surmised. “I do believe I see one nearby.”

“Yeah, Mossley isn’t far from here,” I nodded. “They’ll know what happened.”

As we walked towards town, Izzy naturally took up the lead position. And when she stopped, the rest of us stopped with her.

“Hey Turlough. And Senan. And Midnight, I guess. Do any of you know what a sigil of crossed rifles means? Like, who that belongs to?”

“What kind of rifles?” I asked.

Izzy shook her head. “Can’t tell.”

“Colors?” Senan asked.

“Gray on a blue background,” Izzy explained. I just assumed she could see this, but I could barely make out the town gates.

“Hmmm…” Senan closed his eyes for a few moments. “That might be… the Grey Gunners? But they’re all the way out in Yew-Kay, what would they be doing here?” He paused for a second, “Oh right. Literally a different world.”

I grimaced. “Another mercenary group, I presume?” I knew the ones local to New Bay, but I was less familiar with those outside.

“That’s right.”

A small bit of lightning crackled through my fingers, “What do you think the chances are that they aren’t responsible for that destruction.”

“Low, but… technically possible,” Senan shook his head. “We need to learn more first. They might have a good reason to be here.”

“And to blow up the tower?”

“Maybe it was full of… ghosts or something,” Senan shrugged. “Look, I’m not saying that this seems fine. Or that we should be seen by them. But we do have to inspect the situation first. They could be here to protect Mossley from… something.”

“There shouldn’t be anything dangerous in the area but them,” I declared. “But… I will defer to your wisdom. Also I’m still low on mana and this area has low levels of natural mana.”

“It is rather… sluggish, isn’t it?” Midnight commented. “I thought this was supposed to be a magical world.”

“Yeah, and most of it… has something like this as a baseline.”

“We should get off the road,” Izzy said. “If they haven’t spotted us yet, the longer we stay the more likely it is to happen.”

“You actually saw some people?” I asked.

“That’s right. A couple fellows with guns,” Izzy said. “And patches like I described.”

“They have supers too, just to be clear,” Senan said. “But their regular soldiers are just… guys. Or they should be. Not like SSI.”

Taking Izzy’s advice, we moved away from the road where we shouldn’t be seen. “So what next?” I asked.

“I sneak into the city and get information,” Izzy said. “Simple. The townsfolk know me, and I’m not… orc sized.”

“Bring me too,” Midnight said. “... Please?”

“I’m climbing over the walls.”

“Oh, well, uh… they’re only like… ten feet high?” Midnight said nervously. “I’m sure that will be… fine.”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind having some magic with me,” Izzy said.

“Yeah I have… a little bit left,” Midnight said. “Enough for a Haste or something.”

“Well, if I need it… I’ll really need it,” she said. “But let’s hope we’re sneaky. Mossley isn’t that secure anyway. It doesn’t look like they’ve changed much.”

“Ahem,” Senan brought attention to himself, “Before you go, might I suggest looking like a normal cat?”

“But I-” Midnight looked down at himself. He had his Power Brigade outfit on. “Man, Francois does good work.”

The three of us nodded. Comfortable and functional. And apparently stylish, for people who knew that sort of thing.

“Usually this goes directly into Storage,” Midnight complained as he began to remove his outfit. “But I’m not exactly overflowing on mana.”

I bundled up the cloth and put it in one of my pockets. “We’ll wait here for the two of you to return. Try to be back before dark.”

“That’s the plan,” Izzy confirmed.

Then they were off. I was only able to track them because they weren’t hiding from people in our direction, but even then I lost them for a bit. I could see enough of the walls to pick them out when they approached those, however. But Izzy picked just the right spot between two protrusions in the wall to sneak up. It was like she had done it before.

And maybe she had, though Mossley didn’t have a habit of turning people away.

I frowned as they went out of sight on the other side. I felt like I was supposed to have a thing to see what was going on. But perhaps that was the influence of Earth’s media. Something about sharing senses with a familiar? Or scrying on them?

Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything good for Scrying, or enough mana to reasonably use it. It would pretty much tap me out. And using anything new would be a bad idea, especially if it distracted Midnight. At least I could keep track of their general location, and the fact that Midnight was moving around. And he was only a little nervous, never anything that made me think they were in real danger.