A couple of pretty uneventful weeks passed.

The deadline for Katya to return for her answer came and went without any sign of her arrival. I wasn't sure whether this was a good sign or not.

Lia thought that, because Anchorfall's reputation with the Empire had tanked into the toilet, we'd ended up automatically refused the 'protection' of the Emperor. That made sense, and I certainly wasn't disappointed not to have to meet with the woman who'd already killed me once before.

I did worry, though, what all the radio silence might mean was being planned…

So we weren't wasting any time. Scar and his band of Not-Quite-So-Unmerry-As-They-Had-Previously-Been-Lads-And-Lasses made good use of the opportunity to keep building up the village, with a focus on bolstering our defences in particular. He'd spent a week trying to give me back control of the Village Interface, but I wasn't having any of it.

The guy clearly had more of a handle on all of this than I did. I knew Aunt M had loved me dearly, but I was pretty sure she'd known admin wasn't ever going to be in my skill set. I doubted she'd want me focusing on resource management when there was proper Wardening to do.

Especially as the Shadow incursions kept coming thick and fast.

On the one hand, all the breaches to the Veil were stressful, dangerous and consistently disturbing, but on the other, they gave me plenty of opportunity to work on practising my new role. My whole strategy used to boil down to just trying not to get noticed and running and surviving if I was. But now? Well, as Jonty, a very brief and unwelcome acquaintance in Oslo was want to say 'come at me, bro!"

These fights weren't easy, don't get me wrong. There's nothing easy about entities made of darkness and extradimensional spite trying to bite your face off. But, alongside Scar and Lia, we'd started handling them. No, it was better than us just handling them. We were repelling them. We were rapidly perfecting the art of driving anything that appeared back into the fractures they came through with such ruthless efficiency that the last few attacks had felt… embarrassing. For them.

Obviously, none of us had set out to become Bayterran's version of Supernatural, Buffy, and the Ghostbusters all rolled into one. But the frequency of incursions in and around Anchorfall had made improvement non-negotiable.

And we were good. Now she had me to soak up the damage, Lia had started to refine her entire fighting style. Her blade work had stopped being about overwhelming a foe as quickly as possible, relying on her level advantage to crush what was coming back, and more about synching her timing so that her strikes fit around the work of others. One cut to stun, a pivot to flank, then - when clear - the finishing blow. She wasn't wasting movement by going all in anymore. If possible, she was even more dangerous.

Scar's role, on the other hand, was to bolster the defences I brought to the table. In a brawl, his axe was less weapon and more territorial marker at this point. Anyone stepping into range uninvited got introduced to it immediately, and usually not more than once. He made our frontline feel like a wall, not a sieve. Combined with Lia's ferocity, there were very few Shadow beings that were up to a sustained engagement.

And Dema, when she began rejoining us in the last few days, had rapidly grown unnervingly accurate. Hanging well back, her arrows always seemed to appear right when I was about to get spanked. She was solving problems from a distance with absolute finality. To be honest, it was all a little spooky, but in a good way.

As for me? Well, my kit was really starting to click.

Aggro Magnetism had gone from being risky to my team to completely reliable. Plus, it now had a rhythm the others were learning to follow. I'd light the attacker up, the baddies would be pulled into rushing me in a mad frenzy, and Lia or Scar would begin chopping before I even needed to call it out.

Unwelcome Mat kept the squishier party members safe, for the most part, and I'd gotten good enough at timing Crash Tackle that we'd started using it as our opening move instead of a last-ditch play. My Stamina regeneration had finally reached the stage where I'd stopped feeling like I needed a nap after every fight. And between a level boost to Stubborn Constitution and Lineholder's Instinct, I felt I could stay in the thick of it longer than I had any right to.

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Our little group still didn't have a healer, though, and that was the one part of the ensemble we'd yet to sort out. But with decent Health regen and a steady supply of potions from our up-and-running Brewing Station, I was more than holding together.

The important part, though, was that we weren't scrambling around anymore. The defenders of Anchorfall were working like a team. One with bruises, grievances, and trust issues, for sure, but a team nonetheless. Lia with her sword. Scar with his axe. Dema with her bow. And me as the target. The wall. The Warden.

In fact, the only slight shadow on our world was the tension that came with me hitting Level 6 and coming in touching distance of Lia.

"Do you know how hard I had to work to reach Level 7!" she snapped, almost baring her teeth at me when she saw I'd levelled up.

"Look, Lia," I said, trying to defuse things which, let me tell you, isn't all that easy with -3 Charisma. "It's different strokes for different folks, isn't it? You levelled up with years of feats of bravery, courage and appalling violence. And I . . . I'm just special, I guess." I gave her my best, winning smile.

Have you ever seen someone defuse a bomb by surrounding it with dynamite, throwing a barrel of petrol over it and then telling the American government you'd found oil underneath it? Good times.

All work in Anchorfall ground to a halt as Lia lost her shit with me.

I stood there and took it. You see, I don't think she was actually particularly irritated with me right now. I think this most recent explosion probably had more to do with the whole 'being cut from The Maker's pattern' thing. Oh, and that Jorgen keep being seen hovering around the edge of the woods like a bad smell.

"Are you even listening to me, Eli?"

"I don't know what you want from me here, Lia. I'm sorry my Class is irritating to you. However, the last time I checked, we were on the naughty boy list for two major powers in this realm, and if we're going to survive them making an issue of us, we need to get stronger. It's not like I'm wasting my gains on a throw of a roulette table . . ."

Ah. -3 Charisma for the win, there.

On the plus side, being Level 6 meant I was able to take a slap in the face from the Dark Wren an awful lot better than might have been expected. In that I came round an hour or so later, sharing a room with Dema in our spiffy new Level 3 Medical Centre.

"Let me guess," she said, once I sat up and looked around. "You irritated someone about yay high and with a massive sword."

I glared over at the Huntress, trying not to stare at her injuries. For whatever reason, whereas this building had helped Lia bounce back like a champ from her mauling at the hands of Balethor the Magnificent, Dema just wasn't healing up anywhere near as well.

Scar had said it was probably because of the level disparity between Berker and her, plus the fact that the blow really should have killed her. "Not everyone has it in them to be a legendary hero, Warden," he'd said. "Dema is game, for sure, but when us small folk get mixed up in battles between the great and the good, we tend to get hurt. And bad."

I waggled my jaw about to make sure all my teeth were still in place. "Yeah, I made a rather unwise joke about her dad."

Dema raised an eyebrow, scar tissue pulling at the side of her face as she did so. "Well, aren't you the daring conversationalist?"

"Yeah. Not one of my smarter moves."

"No," Dema said, and then glanced up. "Level 6, though, that's cool."

I still hadn't figured out how to stop announcing my status to all and sundry. "Yeah," I said, a touch self-consciously. "I'm blasting through it all a bit, aren't I?"

"Look, there's somethings in life a girl doesn't want a guy to rush –" I might have choked a little at that – "but levelling is not it. More power to you, I say. Even if I don't think any of us quite understand how you're doing it."

I looked at her for a moment, debating whether I wanted to tell her everything. It would be good to unburden my soul some, to have someone to discuss being a Warden with. Since Aunt M had gone quiet, I'd been feeling more than a little isolated. And Lia's reaction to my levelling was making me feel more than usually anxious about things.

Dema must have seen the look in my eyes because she held up both her hands. "No, no, no. Don't even think about it."

"Think about what?"

"You've got a look on your face that says you're planning on pouring your heart out all over me. Well, no thanks. I am absolutely not your go-to person for that sort of thing."

"Hang on, why not? I thought you liked me?"

"Oh, honey. I like you just fine. I took a mace to the head for you, didn't I? But I'm a big girl and I've been around long enough to know when a guy is just looking for a distraction. Sure, I could let you tell me your secrets, but, and trust me on this, I'm not the one you really want to tell." She smiled at me then. "I don't have the sword for it."

I didn't really have a lot to say after that.

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