Chapter 118 – Ranger Convocation (Patreon)

I held my hands up as the crowd roared approval, my mind shorting out.

Me. A Sentinel.

Many things suddenly made sense, but for every answer I got, I ended up with two more questions.

Me always being in teams of nine, with me in command. It wasn’t a team of nine- it was a team of eight, plus one. A full Ranger squad, with a Sentinel in command. Practice.

But wasn’t I too low level to be a Sentinel? Wasn’t my combat prowess not enough?

The trip to the frontlines, being given massive resources. It was to get my level up, get my stats right.

But why? Was Night playing ‘build-a-Sentinel’? Was it off of sheer potential, [Oath] promising that I’d get there, or was I already one of the best?

I mentally shook my head, as my arms were raised up in front of the cheering crowd. I’d ask Night later. Or maybe Ocean now, if I could grab him for a few minutes. Ocean was responsible and helpful, he’d have answers and be willing to tell me. Unlike Sky.

Julius said a few more things, and the crowd broke up, milling around, starting to talk with each other.

Well, like a third of them. It felt like the remaining two-thirds started to descend upon me, and I was starting to get some serious anxiety. I didn’t like social things! I didn’t dosocial gigs!

And I’d just been offered up as a slab of meat before hundreds of hungry wolves, all salivating and wanting a bite.

That voice came back, impossibly close, whispering in my ear even though nobody was around.

“You’ve got this. We’re all here, and will help screen people somewhat, so they don’t all rush you.”

“Probably should introduce myself. Magic. Mirage-Sound. Glad to properly meet you, Dawn.”

I put my arms down, getting ready to greet the first person. Julius beat me to it.

“Elaine – Dawn now I suppose – congratulations. You’ve done me proud.” He said, beaming at me.

I couldn’t help it, his grin was infectious, his happiness contagious, uplifting my spirits. Heck, he was a Leader, he very well might have a [Raise Spirits] skill or something.

“I nominated you for Sentinel way back when, since the feat’s hard. I thought it’d take more than a decade before they agreed! And look at you! Level 240, give or take! That’s incredible.” Julius said.

“Thanks!”

The other Sentinels came up to me, offering their congratulations, calling me Dawn for the first time.

I rolled the word over my tongue.

“Dawn.”

It was solid. I liked it. Could’ve been so much worse – Healing, for example. Recovery. I shuddered at the thought of all the bad names.

The rest of the crowd made it to the podium, then it was sheer hell on Pallos. Heck, give me the Hell Months back. It’d be easier to handle than all this… socializing. Bleck.

“Dawn! Congratulations on your promotion!” The first Ranger had made it up to the stage, someone I recognized as being from Team 1.

“No chance I can get a top-up healing is there?” He asked, grinning. I happily tapped his hand, pulsing [Phases]through him. I have no idea if that took any mana or not- my regen was high enough for it to immediately recover, if anything was spent.

“Thanks! Congratulations again! We hope we won’t need you – but if we do, we’ll be sure to call!”

I smiled and thanked him, the second person coming up, another Ranger.

He glanced down, and asked the worst question.

“No chance you’re single is there?”

I just gave him a Look, that was apparently not terribly effective.

“Not interested.”

Bless the old Team 4. I’d never gotten grief from them.

Everyone – fucking everyone, even the Rangers – had a “nice, unmarried relative”, or worse, actively propositioned.

Kallisto eventually made it to the stage with his wife.

“Kallisto! You made it, you’re alive! And married!? What happened to the playboy I knew!?”

His wife punched Kallisto in the arm, juggling the baby with another.

Kallisto just laughed it off.

“Cordelia happened! One look and I was smitten,”

“As usual.” I said, having no mercy.

“one thing led to another, and we were married!” Kallisto finished.

Cordelia rolled her eyes at that.

“He’s neglecting the part where I had to sneak into the Ranger’s wagon to start the trip together.”

I nodded my approval at that.

“I couldn’t believe you pinning down Kallisto any other way.”

Kallisto half-heartedly swatted at me.

“Anyways, this is Flora!” Kallisto said, gushing over his baby. “She’s the sweetest, best, most perfect, wonderful…”

Kallisto went on in this vein for some time.

“… baby there ever was!”

I smiled, and looked at her. She looked something like a mashed potato.

“She’s so cute!” I said, faking enthusiasm. Babies weren’t really my thing.

“Anyways, Kallisto,” I whispered to him, leaning my head forward. “Any chance I could borrow your ring? The mob’s relentless.”

Cordelia was clearly listening in.

“Here, borrow mine real fast. I totally get relentless suitors.” She said.

“Bless you. How’d you manage?” I asked, slipping the ring on.

“Poorly. I’m the daughter of a Senator – his only daughter. Everyone wanted a piece of me. Fake ring’s good, making it known to direct everything to your dad works best, though only if he’s in on it.”

Good, good, taking notes.

“He probably would be, he’s here somewhere… just ended up at the back of the crowd. Thank you so much Cordelia, I’ll get this back to you at the end of this.”

She laughed.

“It’s more that I knew Kallisto would happily lend you his, then he might start getting ideas.” She said, glaring at him.

“Of course not, love.” He said, clearly smitten. “You’re the only one for me.”

How the hell had Cordelia managed to wrap Kallisto around her finger like that? Wow.

Hang on – was that why Kallisto was Team 1 now? His wife’s dad pulled a string? The idea wasn’t impossible. Rangers did their best to avoid politics, but it didn’t mean it couldn’t happen.

Remus society was fairly permissive, and just because you were married didn’t mean or imply monogamy. Bit of a valve on the arranged marriage thing. From the sound of it though, Cordelia had someone convinced Kallisto to go steady with her.

A ring did help though, for a variety of reasons.

Kallisto, Cordelia, and Flora hung out on stage, while more people came up. More of the members of the audience were coming up on stage, as a number of Rangers had already said hi, or were discussing with their team.

This sucked. This had to count as harm, right? Mental anguish? Trauma? I could start blasting in self-defense, and jet away, right?

With a sigh, I politely healed someone else, a surprising amount of mana vanishing. Oh. He’d really needed the help. Maybe this wasn’t the worst…

A commotion came, and I saw Artemis flying over the crowd, skipping the line with mom and dad in tow on top of a large stone slab.

The person she cut in front made a noise of protest, but she ignored him.

“Elaine! We’re so proud of you!” Dad said, giving me a hug. I gave him my strongest hug back, suddenly realizing – I was much higher level than he was.

Mom and Artemis piled in, and we spent a long moment like that, shielding me from the rest of the crowd. I took a moment to relax, some of the tension bleeding off.

“Dad.” I mumbled into his shirt. “Dad, you’ve gotta shield me from all these suitors. Just tell them all no. Or make up that I’m engaged or something.”

Mom laughed.

“Sure, will do!” Dad said.

It got better from there, and Maximus made his way over.

“Dawn! Congratulations!” He said. “Now that you’re a hotshot, I dunno if you’d want a copy of this fascinatingstory I found…” He waved a scroll at me.

“Gimme!” I said, grabbing it.

“Thanks for looking out for me.” I said, tone serious.

“Anytime. Hey, now that you’re a Sentinel, might be able to call you in on injuries.”

I shrugged.

“Hell if I know. I only found out today. No idea what’s going to qualify as ‘call in Dawn’ or not.”

Maximus shrugged.

“Yeah, it’s going to be tricky. My best bet are mass casualty events. Like, if Destruction is sent somewhere, I bet you’ll tag along to clean up his mess.”

I had to remind myself that any problem Destruction was sent on, he’d be going regardless. I’d just reduce the body count, which was my whole raison d'etre.

“Do you know if Arthur’s around? I assume he’s alive, his chair’s here. Unless they decided to give both me and the retiring Commander a chair – I was worried about that.” Julius asked me. I shook my head.

“Frontlines. Up to something.” I said.

“That’s a shame – I was hoping we could get the entire old Team 4 together for dinner, to celebrate your accomplishment, and all of us surviving.”

“Why not?” Kallisto asked, popping back round with Cordelia. I slipped her ring back, with a mouthed “thanks”.

“We should go out, celebrate!”

“Ah, why not. Elaine, Maximus, Artemis?”

“Sure.”

“I’m in.”

“My treat!” I said.

“Errr… assuming I’ve been getting paid.”

Artemis gave me a Look.

“Seriously? You don’t know if you’ve been getting paid or not? That’s like, the first thing to do! Who works without pay?”

Mom lightly punched my shoulder.

“Clearly she does. Always insisted on getting paid – I taught her well – but never cared how much she got paid.”

Ocean popped around.

“Why don’t all of you meet at The Blue Harpoon tonight? I gotta grab Dawn for some Sentinel stuff.”

Julius almost saluted before catching himself. He was a Commander now, one of the head honchos. Other people saluted to him, not the other way around. Clearly, he was still settling in, but by the long speech he’d given, they’d clearly prepped him ahead of time. Probably had a long interview or something.

Would I need to interview with Command?

Maximus and Kallisto saluted and left, and Artemis left with a cheery wave, arms hooked into mom’s and dad’s arm. Looked like they were off for a fun day in the city!

Ocean, Brawling, and Hunting led me out of That Room, down to the basement of Ranger HQ.

“The first thing to know is, your badge. While the Ranger’s badge shows our authority, the Sentinel’s badge actually does things. Namely, it keys you to the wards, and lets you pass certain barriers.” Ocean started off by saying, as we reached a desolate stretch of a basement corridor. There was nothing here, and so I was betting…

“We have ‘official’ quarters up above – if you don’t want to buy a house – but our real quarters are down here. Helps avoid people being pests, and on a more serious note, avoids assassins and thieves.”

“I mean, we recruited the biggest thief in history.” Bluebeard – Hunting – muttered grumpily. “Night was fine for all that.”

“Night has a reputation to maintain, and having Acquisition deflects blame onto him.” Ocean retorted.

I blinked.

“Wait…”

“Yes, Night’s the deadly assassin. Acquisition’s mostly a thief. Spatial. Can just teleport objects to his hand if he’s close enough.” Brawling said. “Knows enough to teach the trade, knows enough to teach new Rangers how to assassinate unsuspecting targets, but we don’t want to start training and creating good hitmen. We did that once. Ended terribly. Night had to hunt them all down personally.”

I was a Sentinel now, and apparently, that meant the curtains were being pulled back, and I was getting a look at the inner, real workings of how things were done.

“Lot of smoke and mirrors.” A voice said from behind me, and I nearly jumped.

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Center of the Galaxy] has reached level 234!]

Instructor Jason was behind me, and I narrowed my eyes.

“You’re not Jason. You’re Magic.” I said.

“How do you know I haven’t always been Magic, simply disguising myself as a humble Instructor?” He asked.

“I watched Sky throw Jason out of the Pegasus. No way he did that to another Sentinel.” I said. Investigation class away!

He shimmered, turning into a plain-looking man. I didn’t believe it was his real appearance.

“Yup, you got me.”

“Stop distracting her. Dawn, watch this pattern.” Ocean said, tapping some random parts of the wall. With a rumble, the wall folded back, revealing a passageway.

“Through we go!” Ocean said, and I stepped through into a luxurious passageway.

We passed doors on either side, until we got to one a few doors down, a sun painted on the door.

“This is your suite. It’s yours, until you die. We have a passage from here to Ranger Academy island. It’s a bit of a jog, but it beats waiting for a ship. Of course, you could just fly over.”

“Every morning, around 7thGong or so, we meet quickly here.” Ocean said, pointing to a comfortable room that reminded me strongly of a living room, just mostly underground. “That way if something’s come up that needs one of us, some problem a Ranger’s told us about, we can find you and dispatch you.”

“Last thing.” Ocean said, opening a red door. “Down here is one of the capital’s great secrets, and you need to know about it.”

He spent some time fiddling at the entrance of the door.

“Right, traps are disabled. Keep your badge on, that disables the rest of them. Let’s go.”

We walked very carefully down the hallway, to another door, and a massive room, with a giant slab of quartz in the middle.

The thing was massive, plunging down into the depths of the earth, over 80 meters by 20 meters on each side. Glowing lines of inscriptions lined the crystal, and spiderwebbed from it to all the walls, mystic runes speaking a language I didn’t know, but Origen would’ve.

“We call this The Heart. As you know, skills can be stored in gemstones. Well, gemstone mages and artisans can do interesting things, and long story short, this generates a massive barrier to protect the capital if a serious problem occurs. Only a Sentinel can activate it – which now means you.” Ocean said.

“Let’s head back.” Brawling grunted. Dude was massive, like a stereotypical bodybuilder.

We made it back to the living room, where we settled down into the luxurious seating. I’d grabbed a chair that looked simple, but was so soft it basically ate me.

I had to get me one of these. Or two. Couldn’t be too hard to drag one to my new suite could it?

“I’m sure you have some questions.” Ocean said, prompting a flood from me.

“Why me? I get that I was promoted, but I don’t feel like I meet the requirements. Especially not on the combat front, I’m only 180 in [Ranger-Mage].”

Ocean nodded.

“Good question. Frankly, the requirements we state aren’t the real ones. The real ones are – best in your field. A grand feat, that demonstrates your usefulness to the Sentinels. An open seat. A level that’s not embarrassing – which is usually tied to the first one. The right character. The rest are just fluff.”

“Smoke and mirrors!” Magic said, poofing outta nowhere. I rolled my eyes at him.

“Let me guess, you do that all the time.” I said.

Brawling started laughing his ass off.

“She’s got you figured, and it’s only the second time you’ve done it!” He said, slapping his knee.

Magic just looked sour. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Hang on, you said you’re Mirage and Sound. But all the stories say you can cast any type of magic, making you the Magic Sentinel. Is it all just…?” I said, hardly daring to believe.

Magic bowed, then straightened up with a flourish.

“Nope! See!” He said, flipping his tunic inside out.

Dozens – hundreds – of gems were strapped to a sash against his body.

“I have a support staff, mostly gemstone artisans and people who I use to find and get powerful skills from Classers. Costs a pretty penny, but in the end, I can make a convincing illusion – sight and sound included – of any skill I want, and I can make it in reality. Costs an arm and a leg, but that’s the secret – I’m the front of a dozen Classers working together to create one of the more powerful second-tier Sentinels. Speaking of, I’ll probably want to get your [Phases of the Moon] skill. Great healing spell. Actually, it might become one of the standard gems we carry around, for that matter. A panacea skill?” Magic said, fanning himself.

“Why all the…” I said, gesturing.

“Smoke and mirrors? We operate solo. A large part of our protection is our mystique. By making it look and seem like we’re invincible, we can bluff our way out of problems.”

Ocean started to tick off his fingers.

“Night’s helpless in daytime. Acquisition can be killed by a stiff breeze. He’s probably even worse than you on the combat front, if we’re being honest. Sealing’s only good in single combat. Bulwark has limited offensive capabilities. Sky struggles to kill things under shelter. Destruction takes ages to channel a spell. Away from water, I’m pretty mediocre. Nature struggles in cities, or rather, where there are no plants. Toxic’s poisons don’t work half the time against big, big monsters – although you probably knew that already. Hunting’s the most well-rounded of us, but a bad stinkbomb and Katastrofi’s down for the count. Brawling has no range, and Magic is really three midgets in a toga.”

Magic threw something at Ocean, who ignored it. It vanished upon hitting his face.

Ocean shrugged. “That’s not to say we’re weak or anything. But we all have serious, serious weaknesses. Ranger teams are carefully crafted such that people are able to cover each other weaknesses, so there are no glaring holes. That falls apart once people start to die, but we try to have redundancies for that reason. Anyways. We work to cover and mitigate each other, and the joy of being a Sentinel is we only send people after the right problem. Sky will never be asked to take out a fortified position, just like I’m never going to be sent inland. Acquisition’s only sent to retrieve items, just like Night doesn’t fight in the day. And it’s not like any of us are slouches.”

“Yeah, stop saying I have no range. I have plenty of range!” Brawling protested.

“Throwing a rock with no skill doesn’t count as range!” Hunting protested.

“It does when it works!”

“Anyways.” Ocean said, bringing the conversation back. “There are three tiers of Sentinels.”

“The first tier is Night and Hunting. The strongest, best-rounded Sentinels. Even then, Hunting barely made it in, and there’s some debate on it.”

“I’m honestly flattered to be mentioned in the same sentence as Night, but I don’t fit.” Hunting said modestly. “I’m a top second-tier at best. You should also be considered a tier one.”

“Nah, I’m not that good. My ‘out of water’ weakness is too big.” Ocean said modestly.

“Well regardless. Magic, Destruction, myself, Nature, Brawling, and Toxic make up the second tier. We’re all in on sheer combat capabilities, each of us having a different method of fighting, and monsters and Classers we’re good against.”

“The third tier are Sentinels that are in because they’re the best at something. Bulwark is the best wall-builder and Inscriptionist in Remus. A monster takes out a town wall, and Bulwark is out there almost immediately to stabilize the situation before a goblin horde or worse can take advantage.” Ocean continued.

“Sealing is in a weird place. The short version is, single-combat, he’s practically unbeatable. Can seal people away in barriers, and slowly stop them from casting anything. Reflects attacks, applies ranged mana drain, and 1 vs 1 only Night could stop him. At the same time, he doesn’t – or can’t easily – kill. Imprisons well though. Hence Sealing.” Ocean said.

Hunting snorted. “Keep in mind our definition of ‘can’t easily kill’ is radically different from everyone else’s. We’re talking about top-tier Classers, people like Artemis. Someone like the average Ranger Academy graduate is killable enough to not even enter into our ‘can we kill them or not’ calculation. Experienced Rangers and up is where our line starts, and that doesn’t include ambushes.”

“Sky’s unmatched in aerial combat, and he’s good at dropping rocks on people on the ground. At the same time, there were other Rangers with grand flying feats and were faster and stronger in the air. He was picked because of his Gravity class, being able to move a number of people around Remus faster than anyone else. Our rapid deployment – for everyone except Hunting.” Ocean continued.

“You’re our backup when it’s a problem on the Nostrum.” Hunting pointed out. “You’re also able to move Katastrofi around, which Sky can’t.”

Ocean tilted his head in acknowledgement, before continuing.

“Acquisition’s a master thief. You wouldn’t believe how often something sensitive gets stolen, and he needs to bring it back. Worst part is, it’s usually some political game, where its information changing hands. Still, that gives him good practice for when we need to re-collect something important. His combat prowess is possibly worse than yours – he’s all about stealth and stealing things, not fighting. At the same time, we know there are better thieves out there, and he acts as a deterrent, as well as being a lightning rod so Night’s not blamed for assassinations.”

“And now you. Your healing prowess is probably legitimately the strongest broad-healing, although I know a Caecilius that might give you a run for your money in a plague situation.”

“Hey, I know him! Great dude!” I said.

Ocean nodded. “Exactly. Right now, we have a hole in our ability to heal. Heck, we’re all about smashing and killing problems, not healing people. We leave that to civilians. But, well, you’re strong enough, and you qualify. I’m eager to see how it works out! At the same time, all of us help with the public perception of Sentinels.”

“I hate the arena so much.” Brawling jumped in. I turned to him; mouth open in shock. “Not allowed to kill anyone. The fight’s always fixed in my favor, not that it needs to be fixed. But nooo, can’t risk me losing a fight. There’s never anything strong enough to be a real challenge. Evvvvvvverrrryone wants to talk with me, wants a piece of me, and I need to be a great fucking showman, instead of fighting people. I could end most fights in seconds, instead I need to drag them out.” If we weren’t in the living room of the Sentinel’s space, I suspect he would’ve spit.

“I need to be the serious one.” Ocean said. “Constantly attending the Command meetings, keeping an eye and pulse on politics, making sure that things don’t start going wrong for us. Not why I signed up – believe it or not, a long time ago I started as a fisherman. Wind in my sail, a harpoon and a plan, a struggle to get dinner on my plate. One thing led to another, and…” He shrugged, as if to say ‘here I am!’

“On that note, I think you’re both going to love and hate your role – just like the rest of us.” Ocean said. “You’re going to be the social pretty face, the healer saving everyone. People will see you, like you, and by extension, like us. [Pretty], single, and free healing? We’ll hopefully get less flinching when people see the rest of us, not to mention what you can do with a rapid response the next time we hear of a plague. We can just send you, and the 3rd never gets tied down in a single spot for a year again. We spent the last two years getting information out of you, and we know there’s more. Also, as you attend events, people will gain a positive perception of you, and by extension, us and Rangers. It’s not something that’ll pay off anytime soon, but you’ve got over a hundred years easy to sway people. A whole generation of movers and shakers will grow up knowing you, creating what they think is a good back channel – and warm fuzzy feelings towards us.”

“I won’t give you better ways of killing.” I promptly said. We’d had the discussion a few times already, but I figured it was best to reiterate it.

Brawling waved his hand. “Bah. We’re good enough at that.”

“Those rebellions were miserable.” Magic said. “At least two rebellions started off of that, because they heard the 3rd wasn’t able to move. Figured they’d take their shot. We had to come down hard before more people heard about them, and we had a real problem on our hands.”

Hunting groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

“Also, most Sentinels you see have been Sentinels for years, if not decades. We’ve all had time and resources to help boost our levels up high. Part of our mystique being our high level. Once we’d decided that yes, you should be the newest Sentinel, Night stuck you on the frontlines to get some basic experience. It happily coincided with us deciding to execute the plan to try and get Toxic to do some serious damage on the frontlines. Same meeting, believe it or not.”

Hunting interrupted.

“Speaking of Toxic, you’ve seen the type of support he gets. You’ll get similar support, although one thing that can’t be done is any sort of bodyguard. Ruins the invincible image.”

“What other questions do you have?” Ocean asked.

“There are two other healers that are already Rangers. Why not one of them?” I asked.

“They’re support staff, and, quite frankly, you were almost made support staff as well, instead of a full Sentinel. However, you have combat capabilities, are a real Ranger, and have an excellent character. You wouldn’t balk at being sent to a combat zone, you can mostly solo walk from A to B. And hey, worst-case, you can hijack a Ranger team or join a caravan.”

I snapped my fingers.

“That’s why Rangers get so damn nervous when a Sentinel shows up.”

Brawling nodded.

“A part of it, yeah! Hijack and redirect to a completely different town, completely throwing off their round, and murdering a year’s worth of vacation time if not more. Or requisition supplies – we’re much more free to ‘borrow’ a Ranger’s gear than try the stunt in town. That, and we know what Rangers have, and that it’s good quality. Try not to do that too much, although if you do, try flirting a bit.”

I shot him a withering look.

“Fat chance.”

“It’d make them happy!”

I tried to put some pieces of another puzzle together.

“Hang on. The Ranger Academy villa. The connecting tunnel. It wasn’t originally an Academy was it?”

Ocean shook his head.

“Good catch! No, it used to be our private island. Then some idiot Sentinel 400 years ago started teaching, and we didn’t have a strong political grasp. Before we knew it, we’d been press-ganged into teaching, the villa got converted to a honeypot, and we need to spend a few hours every day teaching.” Ocean pulled a sour face. So did the rest of the Sentinels.

“Hence why I take my ‘keep my finger on the pulse of things’ job seriously.”

We spent more time chatting, getting to know the basics of being a Sentinel, of my new job.

Short version: Lots of support and equipment to go along with a host of new duties and responsibilities.

“By the way, feel free to walk around without your badge on. You wouldn’t believe how many people can’t recognize us without the badge on – comes from us flaunting it when we do have it on, so people focus on the badge, not the person.”

“Works extra-well for me!” Bluebeard grinned.

I stared at him, his distractive… bluebeard… a huge marker.

“Seriously? Even with that?” I said, pointing to his beard.

He laughed.

“Between the badge and the dinosaur, almost nobody recognizes me without them. It’s great fun!”

“On that note,” Ocean said. “in a few days, you and Commander Julius will be having a meeting with all of us, as we bring you up to speed on a few of the other secrets.”

“We’re going to have a clinic next to HQ for you. Both for the public perception, and light experience while you’re in town.” Ocean said.

I stared at him.

“You’re serious?” I asked, with some disbelief.

“Of course!” He said.

“I’m going to get almost nobody, and it’ll look worse than no clinic.” I said. “The type of people who live in this area already have their own personal healer, and the people who need to be here, I bet that if the guard doesn’t disallow them from being here, they’ll be heavily discouraged. Come on. Set me up in the slums or something. Central market squares are also good.” I said.

Ocean pursed his lips, while Magic just laughed at him.

“We’ll see. On that note, I believe you have a meeting with your friends soon?” He asked.

“I do! Mind if I leave?” I asked.

“Not at all! Remember, while we’re senior, in theory, we’re all equal. You’re a Sentinel now. You can, for the most part, tell us to stick it where the sun don’t shine.” Ocean said.

“Ha! Anywhere Dawn is the sun’s shining!” Brawling said, slapping his knee at the frankly terrible joke.

“Just don’t tell that to Night. He’s the only tier one, the boss, the highest level by almost 100 levels, for a reason. He says jump, even Katastrofi asks how high.” Bluebeard said, a note of reverence and respect in his voice.

I saluted – it felt wrong not to – and made my way out of the Sentinel Suite.

Party time!