I wanted to set out right away. We had the scouts reports, and that had been what I’d been waiting for. But the news of the invaders at the Dungeons changed everything. And I was forced to wait.

  Again.

  I hated the wait. There were enemies to fight.

  Would the planning ever end?

  The next couple days were hell. For me and the people around me. I got pretty snappy. Of course I apologized and everyone said they understood. Tracy, being the one there that knew me best, set me down and scolded me. She channeled her best Kat impression.

  It worked. Especially since we had someone coming in from the front. Mason Hampton, the strongest person in the former Gray Wolf Clan. I’d asked Tommy, who was still in the camp, helping construct it, about the Dungeons but turned out he was even more useless than I had thought.

  He delegated everything and when he did that, he didn’t bother learning. He just enjoyed being the Clanchief and left all the actual business to others. I did the same, but I was out fighting for the Clan as a whole, and I still kept up to date on all the happenings. I would have known about the Dungeon Surges and gone out to deal with them myself if needed. Tommy didn’t know a thing.

  I didn’t fully believe him, but I also wasn’t going to torture it out of him either.

  So we had to wait for Mason.

  Who was due to arrive any minute.

  The command tent was pretty full.

  Maria, me and Derek were behind the table, the map spread out before us. Daphne Culpepper was at the end, doing her best to remain unnoticed. She was there as representative of the Gray Wolf. Nathan was at one end, Sunie and Geralio at the other. Geralio was the leader of the six Sunrise Formation members that had been loaned out to us. We sat waiting for our new friend to arrive and I really hoped this was going to be the last of these sessions.

  The guest of honor finally arrived. He walked into the tent and I could tell he was angry.

  Tall and muscular, but not large like Nathan. He wore a mix of plate and leather armor, the fur-lined cloak hanging off his back. I’d learned that the clocks were made from the hide and fur of a special wolf that spawned in one of the Dungeons. It had some cold resistance and defensive properties. I kind of wanted one, but I couldn’t pull off a cloak.

  Mason made it look good.

  Long shoulder length blond hair, neatly trimmed beard. He looked like the pre-System movie Thor, not the one from the comics, but the movie one that all the women went nuts over. And definitely not Bro-Thor movie Thor. He even carried a two-handed hammer, the thing laying across his shoulder.

  “All due respect, Lord Howell,” he said, bursting into the tent without preamble. “But I have better things to do. I need to be back out there. There are invaders to crush.”

  I liked him already.

  “Hi Mason,” I said, smiling, extending a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  He looked like he was going to snap something but took a deep breath and extended his hand.

  “Sorry Lord Howell but..,” he stopped upon seeing the two elves. “Are they elves?”

  Sunie waved. Geralio just glared. I’d noticed he did that a lot. He was very good at it.

  “Friends of mine I brought back from the Nexus to help us,” I said, motioning to Mason to sit in the one chair on that side of the table. “And I’m sorry for bringing you here. Trust me, I’d rather you be fighting too. I want to be out fighting. But we need to plan and for that we need information.”

  Mason nodded, letting out some of the tension.

  “I can get that, but wasn’t there anyone else here that could give that? I thought I saw Lord Payton helping put up a wall.” He tilted his head, scratching at his beard. “Which to be honest, is kind of weird. He’s not the type to do manual labor.”

  I laughed.

  “Sounds like you’re not a big fan.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Aren’t you worried how I might take that?”

  “Honestly, I don’t really care,” Mason said with a shrug. “I have one job around here and that is to fight things. I leave the politics alone.”

  “You and me,” I said, pointing at him and then myself. “I think we’re going to be friends.” I leaned forward. “I’m going to be honest with you. Tommy doesn’t impress me. I’m most likely going to strip him of any authority he has when this is all over with. So let me ask you something, and then we can get to the part where you and I, that guy there,” I pointed at Nathan. “And those guys,” I pointed to Sunie and Geralio. “All head north with some other powerful people and kill some invaders.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Mason smiled.

  “What’s your question?”

  “Why aren’t you in charge?”

  That surprised him. He scratched at his beard as he thought.

  “I never wanted to be,” he finally said. “I went through the Challenge Portal to get strong enough to protect those around me. That’s all I wanted to do. I could have been in charge but I also know myself. I hate politics and I knew that if I was in charge, I’d have to be involved in everything. I couldn’t be otherwise. And that would mean not doing what I wanted to do.”

  “Protect people,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Excellent answer, so I want you to start thinking of who could be Tommy’s replacement.”

  Mason’s eyes drifted over to Daphne.

  “Why me?”

  “We can get into that later,” I said, pointing at the map. “Now, what can you tell us about all this?”

  ***

  Mason spent some time explaining what he knew of the Invaders. He said there was a main encampment about three days north of the Gray Wolf Territory border, in the unclaimed wild lands. That was how they were able to bring in an army before anyone spotted them. And as they weren’t working to claim any of that wild territory, it hadn’t set off any System Notifications. Once they hit the Gray Wolf border, that’s when we got the Incursion Notifications. Mason and his team, the Wolf Claws, not his choice of a name, had already been out there. They’d been trying to deal with the Dungeons.

  “How did they get to that state?” I asked.

  He sighed and looked very unhappy.

  “Typically those three were in my team’s rotation. There’s a lot of high level Dungeons up in that area and not that many high level teams in Gray Wolf. I’d petitioned Lord Payton to join the Solace Fellowship a couple years ago because we really needed the help dealing with it all. But he refused. With just us clearing those, they were always running close to the edge, but we managed to handle it. But about four weeks before the countdown ended, Teresa Johnson had us moved out of the rotation.”

  “Whose that?” Maria asked.

  “She’s the Dungeon Coordinator for Gray Wolf,” Mason explained.

  “Why did she take your team out of rotation?”

  “She said that they wanted to bring one of the other teams in, get them the experience. I only agreed because that had always been the plan. When one of the other teams was ready, they’d slot in behind us and join the regular rotation. It would take some of the pressure off us and make sure the Dungeons never got close to surging.”

  “Didn’t go to plan?” I asked.

  Mason shrugged again.

  “I have no idea,” he admitted. “By the time I realized they weren’t being run, the invaders had appeared.”

  I leaned forward so I could look at Derek.

  “Send someone to XXX and find this Teresa. We’re going to want to talk with her.”

  He made some notes.

  I looked around the table, meeting everyone’s eyes.

  “This does not live this tent, understand?”

  They all nodded. Maria already knew, probably Derek too. But the others didn’t. I didn’t know if I could trust Mason, but my instincts told me that I could. He needed to be brought in on this.

  “The invaders, the Grimdar Sect,” I started.

  “That’s what they’re called? Mason interrupted and then looked sheepish. “Sorry.”

  I nodded and continued.

  “The only way they were able to get here for the incursion inside of the ten year window was because they were invited.” Everyone looked shocked. “We don’t know who invited them yet.” I looked at Mason. “And it probably wasn’t the Lord Payton because he wouldn’t have the ability. The person that invites an Incursion has to be a clanchief and be one of the ones on the World Council.”

  “Do we know who did it?” Mason asked, looking very angry.

  “Not yet, but we’re working on it. Being on the World Council narrows it down and I have a bad feeling that Teresa Johnson may know who it was. That the incursion happened here, and that they apparently knew the Dungeons were going to surge…” I finished, everyone knowing what all that meant.

  “Dammit,” Mason growled, slamming a fist onto the table. “Dammit.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s a cluster and made worse because some of our people, earthlings, are working with the invaders.”

  Mason leaned forward, studying the map.

  “Aside from the Dungeons,” he said, pointing at two other spots. “There are portals there that I know of. The invaders haven’t launched from that one yet,” he pointed at the one farthest from the Gray Wolf Territory. “But we’re fighting them here.” He pointed at the one spot we knew of. “We think their main portal and camp is in this area,” he waved a finger around a spot in the literal middle of nowhere.

  I turned to Geralio.

  “Donadio and your scouts will head there at once,” he said. “They will need a ship.”

  I turned to Derek, who made a couple quick notes.

  I turned back to Mason.

  “Which Dungeon to we need to hit first?”