Chapter 7

I spent the next two weeks just studying, practicing archery or stick fighting with one of the Tribes better fighters, and hanging around my little one and Ellen. Silver and a few trinkets were sold off for real cash, and we now owned the rental home outright, as well as a good used minivan ... yep, I was a big bad Dad in my late teens driving a minivan.

Our vacation was a wonder. Ted and Linda joined us for a ten day trip to Bermuda, which was half “comped” as Ellen put it. I was to lead an exploration of two Portals, one pink, one purple, with a team of hotel employees. These guys and girls were fitter than I expected, but completely lacking any real practice with their weapons. One lady had a long handled, but short bladed axe like thing, she was more dangerous to her teammates than to the almost horse-lizard creatures in the portal.
I found them to be extremely unusual, but the locals called them a name in their local dialect, obviously familiar with them. (I would find that this pattern held true all over the world, the pink portals were oftentimes populated with monsters themed on local legends). Towards the end of the week, we tackled a purple Portal, which turned out to be a small-ish island with zombies that made me think of an old Kids pirate movie ... they had a “Pirate” look to them, but they went down all the same. The Ghoul didn’t look any different though.

I grabbed some different woods that I came across as well as some sand, shells and even a few coconuts. Heck, it might be useful. There were sapphires in the sand on the beach and I collected them as I usually did. I had about 600 of these now, without a clear idea how to use them besides turning them in for silver.
There weren’t many magic items being found recently, and the Net was overflowing with reasons why, just not any good reasons. My small stash of toys was appreciating nicely in value.
Some sand, warm sun, and an ocean you could swim in along with an open bar ... I overdid a bit of everything but had a great time, the worried and pressures of regular life far, far away.

The airport was a headache though, when asked to declare if you had any weapons on “your person” I was at a loss on how to answer. “No, not at the moment, but I can have two swords or a spear in my hands in less than a second” seemed like the wrong thing to say. I used the phrase “I am Weaponless” and it seemed to do the trick, and had the advantage of being completely true.
Our Weapon and Profession wasn’t on our licences or passports, but it was only a matter of time. Stupid and evil people got weapons too ... apparently.

The majority of those with weapons that I met fell into one of three categories.
The easiest ones to understand were those without much of adventurous spirit, but felt it was their duty to protect the rest of the public by entering a portal every so often just to “keep it down”

Then there were also those motivated by money, they were after the cash, but usually took the easy way out and just picked up the easy to find silver and left. Too often these people got trapped and were hurt. They didn’t grow in power or ability very much, and eventually went too deep on their local portals, unwilling or unable to stray very far from their home-base to try other portals.

Lastly, there were the adventurers. They fell into two camps, those seeking glory and the spoils (most of them) and those searching for the meaning of all this (I included myself in this smaller group).

On the topic of finance, the world currency markets were a bit of a mess, indeed the economy took a bit of a hit during the first portal “Outburst” as it was being called. The public opinion was divided between this being the beginning of the end of days, and this being an inexhaustible new resource of wealth.
The wealth part was real. I could enter a portal, paying my portal tax (the governments had quickly gotten around to putting that in place) of 2-5 silver depending on where you were, and what colour of portal you entered. If you killed everything yourself and found a decent amount of the silver you could end up with as much as quarter of a million dollars, not bad for a few days work.

You could also end up dead.

Teams of 3 or more were made mandatory (but badly enforced) and full teams of 6 were supposed to be the norm. Those who dropped into a portal weekly were the Nouveau Rich of the upper middle class, and the world’s economy was running hot on their spending for the last year. Some countries (and most banks) now accepted Portal Silver (often called just Silver, or Pieces) as easily as other currencies.

The American Dollar took a bit of a hit for a while, but it was soon realized that these pieces of silver couldn’t be transferred to another person beyond a certain amount. (This is where those Sapphires came in, I made a killing on these “Fully transferable” items, selling them on for far more than their “Official” Silver value) The value of Silver wobbled a bit, but there were plenty of people willing to buy it to spend on improvements to weapons, armour or abilities for their children or themselves.

Crime by Weapons was reported completely out of balance to crime by others. If I waved my club at someone, it’d be in the paper. If a regular guy broke a pool cue over someone’s back, nobody even blinked. The spotlight was harsh.

There were some religious nut bars out there too, screaming that we were the instruments of the Devil, and should be “purged in the fires” or some nonsense. Both the Vatican and most of the voices from the Mecca / Medina area were silent about that sort of thing, but it was believed that most religious authorities had their own teams anyways.

Rumours of powerful healing potions and such had the world’s rich and powerful Sponsoring their own teams to find and bring out valuable goods, but most Weapons realized that they’d be better off on their own.

Ellen tried to remain out of the spotlight, but public interest was just too great. When she was hounded by photographers while grocery shopping, Ted put his foot down and had us move into a double wide on the property of his trucking company, patrolled by his security, and members of the Tribe.
The Tribe was still in the midst of its own renaissance, the young were interested in making things and using them in the old way, which was good since there were very few tools that weren’t wood, bone, or stone that could be used if one wanted to make a weapon that was able to be Equipped (way more valuable) I managed to keep up with material demand, barely, but I had to ask them to focus on high-demand items with a high value only. At least I got my pick of spears, almost nobody wanted them to my continued surprise (I kept 5 on me at all times in the portal, and had a dozen stored at home)

Their internet presence was still fairly large, and tourists were finding a reason to visit in droves. (At least in the summer).

Ellen kept plugging away at the research, finally publishing a comprehensive list of the portal rules, descriptions of the first level of Pink, Purple, and Blue in all their variations (information provided by mostly myself) as well as the techniques usable to defeat them safely. It was a modest best-seller.
I was still spending most of my time in level 1 portals with new Weapons, and other not-so-new weapons who had scared themselves but lived through it, deciding to improve their skills and knowledge before going in again.
I hit level 4 within the year, but got only the standard Status point, and a health increase. I was aware that others with access to other colour gates and deeper levels were rapidly outpacing me, yet I still believed that there is more to these first levels then just “getting past them”. Interest waned in myself and in our training company.

I had a class one day, a younger Weapon who worked for the CBC and was doing double duty, both learning how to best use her staff (another fire mage!) and putting together a radio interview with myself, and another instructor. Bent Stick (Should’ve named him Short-Arrow) was with us today, since we had an archer and a guy with a staff-sling, a first for me!

The Fire Mage finally asked what I thought was the purpose of all this. I paused for a moment before deciding that there was nothing to be gained by not telling her, the timing was right.

“Many people believe that we are being tested, and evaluated but they cannot tell you what for. I have been in over 300 portals, no exaggeration (This was a major reveal here. I had just announced I’d done triple of what most other Weapons could do. This would pull a lot of attention back to myself, but I wanted all this attention here for my next comments), and I have had the chance to study not only the portals, but the people entering them”. I paused to see if she was listening. She was, and recording too. “These portals change by location, and they offer up monsters and challenges and situations that reflect the culture at their particular location. They are a mile wide, but only an inch deep. Dig in the ground and you find solid stone fairly quickly. The forests are mostly bare, with no sustainable eco-system. The samples brought back have no discernable DNA, nor are there any diseases moved from place to place.”
I continued “When we first received our weapons, we were healed of old injuries. Many of us have since Levelled, or found a prize that changes us, stronger, faster, smarter, tougher. What we need to ask ourselves is what would a people who could build these portals and put them here want with us, why would they bother to do this? Keeping in mind that they have the ability to change us...”