Sitting in the captain’s chair on the bridge of his dimension ship, Jota Withers let out a sigh. This was not the trajectory his life had bee to take. The universe-city of Iice was, for most practical purposes, the tre of the os. Only diamond rankers were allowed entry without invitation, with gold-rankers like Jota only allowed in as menial workers. Even so, to be a resident of Iice was to stand at the pinnacle of the ic order. Jota had never made it.

  The popution of Iice came from two pces. One was the wider os, where people ranked up in various universes before entering the iunity. Diamond rankers only occasionally emerged from such realms, like someone from a small town making it big iy. At the other end of the prominence spectrum were the polities that spanned multiple dimensions, like the Radiant Snty and the stel Empire. The diamond-rankers from such realms at least knew what they were getting into.

  Standing above them all was the universe-city, Iice, and the peripheral universes attached to it. Those ected realities rgely existed to produce the future elites of Iice society, dedicated to raising people to gold and ultimately diamond rank. Those who graduated the feeder programs had unparallelled knowledge, training and resources.

  Feient species were born as gold or diamond rankers. Not even dragons, phoenixes aruda could boast as much. In the peripheral universes of Iice, the people born there had every advao help them grow strong. Staggeringly ri ambient magic, their civilisations were advanced in knowledge of both sd the are. Those born into such ditions had unparallelled opportunities, with an inside lio Iice that even citizens of the ic empires envied.

  Jota, like everyone born in such realms, had been part of a feeder program that would ultimately lead to reag Iice at gold rank. To be a servant in heaven was still to stand above everyoside it, promising a pce amongst the ic elite on reag diamond. The harsh reality, however, was that the success rate for such programs was infinitesimally small, most never making it to a gold-rank posting on Iice. There was nothing stopping them from heading there on reag diamond, but only as a normal person, not a specially groomed member of the chosen few.

  Just in his sor system, let alone his entire universe, Jota had been one of trillions to fall short. Most moved on with their lives, still enjoying the massive head start their upbringing gave them. Some, however, were unable or unwilling to accept their failure. Like many before him, Jota had taken his talents and abilities to the wider os. Even a failure from the Iice lesser universes restigious figure on the ic stage, or so Jota had believed.

  The reality he discovered was that the os was unkind to gold-rankers. They were not built for the challenges of roaming the deep astral, operating out of high-magiiverses and artificial pocket realities. It ce for diamond rankers, astral entities and even transdents, and a gold ranker o find a patron amongst them.

  A patron made it possible fold rao establish themselves, acquiring the resources to operate successfully. Most important was having a backer, someoo ward off those who would see them as prey. A patron was a shelter fold rao huddle beh until they achieved diamond rank for themselves. Until then, they were little better than servants. It was not lost on Jota that this was a refle of Iice itself, but without the prestige that came with it.

  Jota’s arrogance over his background had cost him opportunities and taught him harsh lessons. By the time he learo humble himself, his choice of patrons had bee lean. He ended up in the service of a self-styled ic admiral who, iy, irate lord preying upon isoted worlds in astral backwaters.

  Decades after Jota had left his home universe, diamond rank seemed a distant dream. His failures had impacted his path to self-realisation, stunting his advahrough gold rank. He had long ago e to terms with the fact that he would o y low, be diligent and slowly find his p the os. Only with that stability could he go back to the exploration of self required to advance as an essence user. That wasn’t easy in the employ of ‘Admiral’ Aractus Jakaar.

  There were rules about entering universes and the worlds within, especially those with native life. Some of those rules could be nudged and others pushed, and this was the bread and butter of the Jakaar fleet. They were careful, however, on what they did and who they crossed. For all his grandiosity, Admiral Jakaar was careful to avoid the Cult of the World Phoenix. The dreaded first sister might have retired to bee a hierophant and transd, but that did not mitigate their influence. While her successor settled into her duties, the other sisters had been aggressive in the execution of their duties.

  As his dimension ship traversed the astral, Jota wondered what the admiral had in store for him. His vessel was a rarity, being only gold rank, but that was a y for certain jobs. The lower the rank, the less strenuous the rules arouering universes. Jota and his gold-rank crew could go pces and do things the admiral and his main forces could not.

  Not wary of letting his emotions show while he was alone on the bridge, Jota sighed again. His thoughts dwelled on the isoted backwater he would iably be sent off to, the test in a long series. He told himself that he had e to terms with his shattered expectations, but the lies rang more hollow with each passing year. If he had truly reached acceptance, his progress through gold-rank wouldn’t have stalled out.

  ***

  Jason carefully pced the little pstic roof on the head of his meeple like a hat, theu to the hex.

  “I’m building a dwelling, obviously. I’m going to use s in pce of…”

  He trailed off, tilting his head as if listening for a distant noise.

  “Sophie,” he said. “Your mother is waking up.”

  ***

  As his dimensional vessel he dimensional boundary, Jota reflected on his ued life as a ic pirate. He fancifully pared it to the age of sail experienced by many primitive worlds, with universes as isnds in the o of the deep astral. From his cultural studies, he khat many worlds romanticised frontier eras, legendizing ofteing brief and brutal periods to bee cultural touchstohe stories masked the harsh and grim realities behind them.

  Jota’s time sailing the astral had borhis out. His arrive, like a ial forever served to make things better for the locals. Because of his low rank, it was always to some low-to-mid magic world where gold rankers were like god-kings. He needed only a thieo satisfy the intrusion rules, then he would take the p for all it was worth. Strip mining; people traffig; essence seizure. It had bothered him, in the beginning, but not enough to not do it. And hat much, if he was entirely ho with himself. He was from a pce so far above these little worlds that the natives might as well be animals.

  Jota signalled his bridge crew to assemble for the transition into the universe where the main Jakaar fleet was holed up. He hoped the location was suffitly advahis time; he was sick of backward worlds where the use of magic had stalled out the growth of teology. The ones with all ted no magic were just as bad, their adva choked itlenecks of physical ws that magic could ly sidestep.

  They shifted into physical reality, arriving in space at the outskirts of a sor system with no inhabitable ps. The vessel’s sensors picked up extensive mining operations and a rge space station orbiting a moon. Jota checked the detailed senss and smiled. It wasn’t everything he could hope for, but still a pritech station. For this far off from major traffies, it was better than he expected. He firmed that the fleet was docked there and directed the helmsman to rendezvous.

  ***

  “I’m sorry that your first experieside of my spirit realm is inside what amounts to a smaller version of my realm,” Jason told Melody. “The timing was unfortunate.”

  “It’s fine,” Melody said, sitting up in her cloud bed. “I’ve been living in your soul realm all these years, and I’ve watched it go from an unstable pocket universe to housing a p as solid and real as the one I was born on. I didn’t feel cooped up, and now I get a whole new world to explore…”

  She squeezed the hand of Sophie, sitting beside the bed.

  “…with my daughter. I couldn’t ask for more than that.”

  After her reunion with Sophie and checkup by Carlos, Arabelle and Neil, Jason had bee in to speak with her. Alongside Sophie, he had expiheir current situation, travelliween worlds. After their versation, Jaso mother and daughter alone, finding the three members of Healer’s clergy outside her room. Carlos was a soul healing specialist, Arabelle a mental healing specialist and Neil a traditional body specialist. After her ordeal, Melody was in need of all three.

  “How is she?” Jason asked.

  “Better than we had any right to hope,” Carlos said happily. “She’s suffered extreme and prolonged physical and spiritual trauma, but all signs point to a slow but full recovery.”

  “Her desire to explore your world with her daughter is good,” Arabelle said. “Once she discovered her daughter was alive, Melody’s desire to reunite even overrode the brainwashing she’d gohrough. She’s showihy signs of dealing with that, with little of the obsession that drove her to push back the influence upon her. She needs ongoing care, but I’m optimistic, given the positive signs I’m seeing. Early days, though. You know yourself, Jason, that mental recovery is her a smooth nor short process.”

  “So long as she’s protected,” Carlos said, “I see no problem with having her roam around a low-danger world. No self-defehough. Not using her powers, anyway. I have a stri for the resumption of using her abilities, to avoid any long-term spiritual damage.”

  “Her body is going to take time,” Neil added. “Like when you overdid it with that portal in Rimaros, the spiritual strain has rendered normal magical healing iive. I’d like to discuss bringing in Jory and his alchemists, since we have them with us. A more medie-based approach might get us better results than trying to pump her full of healing magic.”

  Jasohem to discuss treatment, w if he could get someoo take Sophie’s pce when he resumed the bame.

  ***

  Aractus Jakaar was an unusual man in that his body carried a lot of fat as a quirk of his power set. He was also taller than most, making him a very rge figure. He had a scraggly beard but a thick, bushy moustache. His long, greasy hair was mostly stuffed into a pointed hat that he cimed pirates had historically worn on his homeworld. The result was a ical appearahat Jota knew was a very bad idea to mock. He’d seen it happen and the depravities Aractus had carried out iribution.

  “This is an iing ohe self-procimed pirate admiral said. He was sitting behind a desk in his captain’s , in a chair that struggled to tain him. He tossed a file onto the desk for Jota to pick up and peruse.

  “It was sealed to anyone over silver rank?” Jota read.

  “Yeah. Which means it was effectively sealed to everyone, because what silver-ranker is roaming through the astral? The World-Phoenix just ope up to gold-rankers, though.”

  “If the World-Phoenix is paying attention to this pce, shouldn’t we avoid it? I don’t want the attention of its cult to fall on us any more than you do, and that’s at the best of times. If it made a point of opening the pce up, what does it know that we don’t?”

  “Normally, I would agree, but almost no one has a full and ready team of gold-rahat go after this. The new boundary is a hard line, so no diamond-rank support.”

  “That doesn’t fill me with fidence, Aractus.”

  “There is also the reason it was closed off in the first pce. Keep reading.”

  Jota did as instructed.

  “Reality cores?”

  “Yeah. The locals have lost access to them, but with the right magic, we start digging them out again.”

  “Again, I have reservations. If nothing else, wouldn’t farming them destabilise a phe World-Phoenix has put signifit effort into stabilising?”

  “Yes, but if we get in first and farm them up quick, we move onto plundering other resources before it goes too far. Leave the guy to face the wrath of the phoenix’s cult.”

  “That still sounds risky, especially reading this background information. This universe is ected to another one. Oh fewer restris, but even so. And the pair of them was the reason the inal Builder got repced? Which is why the reality cores are even accessible.”

  He dropped the file ba the table.

  “The more I read, Aractus, the less I like it.”

  “There’s risk,” the admiral aowledged. “But the rewards are worth it. Reality cores, Jota. Under normal circumstahey’re impossible to extract. Just the attempt would have the Builder cult swooping in to stop you. But this world is different, and it’s been cracked like an egg. Best of all, the Builder has already been burned interfering with it. So long as we don’t push our luck, we do this. Even if we only get a few of the cores, it’s worth it.”

  “You mean, pushing my luck.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Jota. You think the great astral beings will leave me be if you take things too far? Look, yes, I don’t like that we will get attention from both the Builder and the World-Phoenix for this. But the advantage of using only gold-rankers is that they won’t be too harsh. If we go too far, they’ll start with a rap on the knuckles for me and I’ll take you off the reality cores. Move you on more traditional exploitation while everyone else either watches with envy or draws the ire of the cults away from us.”

  Jota’s sigh was unhappy but resigned.

  “What’s our pretence?” he asked. “With this much attention, we’ll o follow the rules on this one. Nudging our way around the letter of the w is trouble we ’t afford, here.”

  “Ah, now, this is the beautiful part. Keep reading.”

  Jota picked the file back up and skimmed forward while Aractus tio expin.

  “The locals have an issue. Of these two worlds, someo sucked off the more restricted one ao the other.”

  “An outworlder.”

  “Yeah. That was a couple of years ago, and now he’s apparently heading back.”

  “With more power than the people of the restricted world are ready for,” Jota realised.

  “Exactly. There’s only so much my scouts have been able to observe of this world through the restris, but the locals are desperate for a solution. I’ve offered my help, and the native powers have accepted. You strht in, free and clear of the rules, courtesy of an invitation from the locals. An invitation those following behind you won’t have.”

  “That does make for an appealing opportunity,” Jota ceded. “We just have to deal with this outworlder?”

  “Yes. He’ll have some people from the other world, but it’s still just an isoted backwater, and the restri on diamond rankers still holds. I’ll expand your team to make sure and you wipe out the lot of them. Ohat’s done, you’ve met the ditio by the natives and you start ging the deal on them. Once you’re in, you’re in.”

  “How many of these gold-rankers will we be dealing with?”

  “Our information is oeam, so five, maybe seven at the outside. But remember these will be backwater bumpkins, not proper warriors.”

  “Don’t uimate those who trained in the ic wilds, Aractus. I’ve learhe hard way that training in the best ditions make you soft.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll boost your o make sure. You’ll have twenty-five or so; enough to solidly overruhe st thing we want is a fair fight. I don’t io lose anyone over this.”

  “Thank you, Aractus.”

  “I’ve told you before, Jota: call me admiral.”

  “Sorry, Admiral.”

  “Thank you. There’s a reason I’m wearing this hat.”