Chapter 42

“Emie, Stephen, this is Jace,” Heaven said, introducing the unfamiliar man standing next to her. I couldn’t recall having seen him the evening before, but that didn’t necessarily mean he hadn’t been present. “Jace will be serving as Stephen’s mentor and is most familiar with the western half of the Cavardian continent. If you’re familiar with the guild’s mapping system, that’s roughly between zones NC1 and NG8.”

I was only vaguely familiar with the map in question, but luckily, there was one mounted prominently in the guild lobby nearby. A glance at the map showed that the area referenced only accounted for a tiny fraction of the world’s surface. Perhaps 1/100^th if I were being generous.

The city of Portal was located in zone NC5. Sorenguard, by contrast, was located on nearly the opposite side of the massive world in zone SR12.

I’d already known roughly where the two cities lay in relation to each other, but seeing it laid out in a grid square granted a new perspective.

“I know that might not seem like much when you look at the big picture,” Heaven continued, “but I assure you both, it’s a lot. To put it into perspective, Norm and I cover roughly NA2 to NC6, and that includes nearly fifty cities.

“Most focus on no more than a dozen locations, so Porters like us are pretty rare. You should both feel quite lucky to have gotten us as mentors,” she added proudly.

Shaking his head in either amusement or exasperation, Jace extended a hand toward Stephen, “Well met. I’m only available for the next week, so I hope you’ve cleared your schedule. It’s going to be tight trying to fit in every location I’ve got stored as a waypoint in such a short time period.”

“That’s what the circlets are for,” Heaven said, handing me a bronze band that looked like a plain version of the one she wore on her head.

Mirroring her action, Jace handed Stephen an identical circlet, making it clear that the circlets themselves were some kind of identifier within the guild.

“What are these for?” I asked as I examined the metal band carefully.

“They serve two purposes,” Heaven answered. “First, they work as a sort of guild badge, marking you as a member of the Porter Guild. The metal directly corresponds to your current rank, which keeps things simple.

“As new members, your circlets are unadorned. As you increase your standing with the guild, the bands can be modified with increasing levels of embellishment,” she said, motioning toward her own circlet, which was heavily decorated.

Now that I was paying closer attention, I recognized a few different symbols carved into the band surrounding the fingernail-sized blue gemstone that was mounted in the center of her forehead.

“The second purpose is to aid in establishing waypoints by allowing you to create short memory echoes, which can then be linked to specific locations. Be careful not to lose them,” she said with more seriousness than she’d shown thus far.

“Go ahead and bond the circlets with a drop of blood,” Jace said, clearly not wanting to spend any more time hanging out in the guildhall than necessary. “That will let you connect with it to create the memory echoes. Using it is pretty intuitive, so I doubt either of you will have any trouble figuring it out.”

Though I wasn’t too sure about connecting to a device that could literally copy my memories, I did as instructed and bonded with the circlet in my hands. I’d examined the item closely enough to feel confident there was nothing malicious about the enchantment. As far as I could tell, it did exactly as described.

“Alright. We have a lot of distance to cover and not a lot of time. I hope you’re feeling well-rested since we’ll be busy for a while. Is there anything you need to take care of before we leave the city?” Heaven asked me.

“I wasn’t aware that I needed to clear my schedule for the week,” I said with a wince. “I just need a few minutes to make the arrangements. Please excuse me for just a moment.”

When my platinum-ranked mentor nodded, I teleported directly to the medical facility and let Seraphine know that I would be unavailable for the next week. I apologized and asked her to extend my apologies to those whose healing would be delayed.

Once my healing responsibilities were dealt with, I sent a message to Cora through the communicator, letting her know what was happening. I didn’t like changing things at the last minute like this, but I knew that Cora and Mike would understand.

In fact, they’d probably encourage Stephen and me to spend as much time as we could extending our potential travel network.

Once the message was sent, I teleported to the Enchanting Shop and let Donnovan know about my absence.

Thankfully, I’d shifted to more of a ‘direct sale’ approach instead of accepting individual commissions for spatial items. I was still accepting a few special requests, but I was confident I would have enough time to complete those I’d accepted before the deadline.

I might have to make use of time dilation in my demesne to manage it if we spent literally all day, or night, rather, traveling between cities. But that was fine. A little grinding never hurt anyone.

I really should have anticipated things a little better, especially knowing that travel was going to be a part of joining the Porter Guild.

“Everything taken care of?” Heaven asked with a raised brow when I returned to the guild lobby holding Aerie.

I felt bad about leaving her in stasis so much, and I figured a trip to various cities would be safe enough.

“Yes. Thank you for your patience.”

“No problem,” she said before shifting her attention to Aerie. “And who is this cute little one?”

“This is Aerie,” I said, scratching the kit’s head. “She’s still pretty young, but I was hoping it would be okay for her to come along with us. Otherwise, she ends up sitting in stasis the whole time since I feel bad leaving her alone.”

“It’s fine. Bringing her along won’t be any trouble. However, you probably won’t want to have her with you when you’re actively working as a Porter. At least, not until she is trained well enough that you are confident she won’t cause any problems.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“It isn’t really an issue for this trip since I’m just taking you on a little tour to set waypoints, but presentation is very important to the Porter Guild. Keep that in mind.” When I nodded in understanding, the platinum-ranked Porter said, “Alright. First up, Portal. It’s time for you to visit Headquarters.”

The main guildhall of the Porter Guild was almost identical to the one built in Sorenguard. The only real difference was that the guildhall in Portal was clearly much older.

The apparent size of the structure wasn’t all that different, though I could tell there were numerous enchantments at play in the space. More than were overlaid on the Sorenguard guildhall, that was for sure.

Consequently, it was significantly larger inside than the branch location, providing plenty of room for anything that might be needed within the space.

We didn’t stay long. In fact, it was our shortest stop of the day by far. Once I’d looked around the guildhall enough to feel confident I could return, Heaven had swiftly moved on to the next location.

I soon discovered that using the circlet to memorize locations was quite simple. All I had to do was activate the enchantment and examine my surroundings, focusing on whatever I could find that made the location stand out as unique.

Obviously, the guildhall in Portal was the primary focus for that location. I was a little worried about the other cities we would visit, but thankfully, every city we went to had a unique sign right by the arrival area with the name of the city displayed.

Once Heaven had pointed out the feature, I realized that even Sorenguard had a similar arrival area in one of the rooms within the Dungeon Complex.