[Befriend, Advantage]

  Mossbeard and I used a portal muffin to reach the estate. Thirty one hundred gold is what the winning bidder paid. So the town would have a seven hundred gold fund for future civic projects. We walked to the front door and knocked.

  A stuffy looking man in a black suit answered the door.

  “Hi I’m Rose and this is Mossbeard we’re here to install the private portal.”

  “Tradespeople go to the rear door.”

  “So that’s where you want the portal installed at the rear door? Because once it’s installed, that’s one of your portals, there is no moving them and you only get the three.”

  “Tradespeople go to the rear door.”

  I pulled out a paper and wrote one portal to be installed at the rear door.

  “Please sign this, stating that the first portal is to be installed at the rear door.”

  “Tradespeople go to the rear door.”

  “Yes we’ll be happy to go there after you sign, if you don’t we go back to the town and when your boss inquires why his magical portal hasn’t been installed, I’ll inform him that the stuffy looking man in the suit sent us away. Now sign or goodbye.”

  “Please come in.”

  Mossbeard and I walked into a tacky and stuffy looking hallway. It takes a special talent to make something look both tacky and stuffy at the same time. I wondered if the owners achieved this rare balance on their own or if they paid someone else to inflict it upon them. Everything was colored either gold or white. No wonder the butler was stuffy looking, it was a job requirement. I’m surprised he wasn’t dressed in gold.

  “Please wait here.”

  He scurried away.

  “Lady Nemanja will see you in the library.”

  He led us to the library, between the marble statues and the gold knick knacks. I'm surprised there was any room for books.

  “You must be Rose, I think I saw you at the club with your rather tipsy friend.”

  Ah she was one of the young socialites.

  “Yes, I’m sorry about my friend, she usually sticks to a glass of wine, I don’t know what we were thinking, getting martini’s especially during the day. If it’s any consolation she really paid for overdoing it when she sobbered up later. But I’m here to install your arrival portal, do you want it in the hall or outside?”

  “I think in the hall.”

  “Ok we’ll get started on it right away, it’ll be done by the end of the day.”

  “What about the other two?”

  “Where would you like those?”

  “One at the entrance to the barn, the other at our warehouse in town.”

  “We’ll get started on the barn today but for the warehouse I’ll need to get the Burgomaster’s approval. As you’d be bypassing the guard post at the town gate. I’ll go speak to him if he’s available. We’ll be back to install all three as soon as it’s approved.”

  “Why not install the other two while you are here.”

  “I will if you sign that you are willing to accept the Burgomasters decision and still pay thirty one hundred gold. If not that’s fine we’ll just move down the list to the next highest bidder.” I should have outbid everyone anonymously, then I wouldn’t have to deal with these rich people.

  “Fine but go get Arthur’s permission and come back today. We want it working as soon as possible.”

  “We’ll be back once we get permission.”

  With that I yanked out my wallet,had Mossbeard hang on and jumped to townhall. We walked into the assistant’s office and asked to see the Burgomaster. He was in a meeting so we waited, and waited and waited some more. I know I need to work on my patience but there were so many other things I could be doing. I really, really regretted not just winning the stupid auction. It seemed like a great idea sticking it to the rich, but I hadn’t thought it through. I’d be the one who had to deal with them. The meeting was finally over.

  “Rose, Mossbeard, please come right in, that meeting was about what civic project to do with the seven hundred gold. Now what can I do for you? Would you like some tea?”

  “No thanks Arthur, the Nemanja’s want me to install their third access point in front of their warehouse in town, from their mansion in the hills. I want your approval before I let them jump past the gate guard.”

  “Ah, I see. Thank you Rose, I expected that all the access points would be in town.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “So did I Arthur, should we just go down the list to the next person?”

  “No, let's go ahead and let them, I mean they could complain that anyone with a wallet was just jumping past the guard. So to avoid going to court, rich people love to sue and we don’t want to get the town involved in a lawsuit.”

  “Alright Arthur, I just didn’t want to do it without your permission.”

  Arthur gave me directions to the warehouse and Mossbeard and I walked over. It was very close to town hall. It was also very well guarded. I told the security guard I was there to install a portal. I was beginning to get a very bad feeling about this. We were shown in to see Mr Nemanja, yes he wanted the portal installed as soon as possible. I made a show of reaching for no existent paperwork.

  “I’m sorry Mr Nemanja, it seems I’ve left the paperwork at the shop. We’ll be right back after I get it.”

  We left and I asked, “Mossbeard, do you know any good lawyers?”

  “Elder Glimmerdus was trained after the colony made such a poor deal with the town. He’s never lost a case.”

  “Let’s go see him.”

  We portaled to townhall then walked the rest of the way to the gnome colony. We asked to see Alvyn and were shown to the meeting room. I told Alvyn what I was worried about and what I needed. Fifteen minutes later we left with the paperwork I'd requested. We portaled to the townhall then walked to the warehouse. Where we installed the portal. I had Mr Nemanja sign then I told them it would be working later today after all three nodes were connected and the magic was activated.

  We used a portal muffin to jump back to the mansion where we installed the two requested portals then had Daria Nemanja sign that the work was done and handed her a copy of the paperwork. We portland back to the bookstore where Mossbeard would paint two paintings for each of the access points. Then Opal would activate them.

  Then I portaled to the bakery. Paula was a little busy so I waited on a customer who was waiting. When we had cleared out the store.

  “Rose, are we going to con some more rich people into buying portal access?”

  “No, I wish I never got involved with rich people, I think the winning bidders are going to use the portals for something illegal.”

  “Want to go on a stake out tonight? I’m going to ask Lu and Draco as well.”

  “Absolutely, what do you think they’re doing?”

  “I’m not sure to be honest, it’s just a feeling, and they never asked to be hooked up to the public network. I mean if they bid for the access for convenience you’d want to be hooked up to the public network. They have three accesses, the main house to the barn about a two minute walk and their warehouse in town. If they need medical or guard they have to portal to the warehouse and then the townhall is a five minute walk away. Why can’t they walk two minutes to the barn, but don’t mind walking five minutes to townhall. Should I ask Nora to join us, or should we just gather information?”

  “I’ll talk to her, we’ve become pretty good friends, she’s been Eldara’s friend since she arrived from Quintessence, so we see her quite a lot. Where should we meet tonight?”

  “I was thinking that we could meet at town hall, I’ll bring enough magic paper so we can surround the place but still keep in contact with each other. Would that be alright with you?”

  “Yep, sounds good.”

  Then I went to the pub and of course Lu said she was onboard. Then I portaled back to the bookstore and the paintings were all done and activated. Mossbeard and I portaled to the mansion where we hung the paintings and got Daria Nemanja’s signature on our paperwork showing that we’d installed the mansion and barn portal.

  Done for the day, we portaled home to the tower. I threw the supplies we needed in a messenger bag, Draco and Groucho insisted on coming as well. At nine pm we all portaled to town hall, Paula and Nora stood there waiting, I handed paired magic paper to everyone. Nora had never seen it before, so I explained it to her. Magic paper has a number of uses but was originally designed to write letters, first pair the papers together then write on your copy and what you write shows up on the other part of the pair. That person can reply. What I did was pair up all the sheets of magic paper so if someone wrote something we all saw what they wrote and we could all reply.

  We surrounded the building, sat down and waited. It wasn’t until after midnight that the activity started. The first man appeared with a box in his hands, he placed the box on the ground, unlocked the door and walked inside. This happened six more times.

  Just as the man set the box down, Nora and I approached him.

  Nora said, “Sir, I’m Guardswoman Nora McGowan, I’d like to inspect the box please.”

  “No way, you guards can’t just stop people in the streets and ask to inspect packages.”

  “Actually sir if a package is carried through the transport network we can, just like we can at the front gate. Are you the owner of the access point sir?”

  “No I’m not, well the owners signed the terms of service agreement today. What’s in the box sir?”

  He dropped the box and took off running; he made it about five meters before he ran into an invisible dragon. Lu bent down and picked him up, by the collar and held him a foot or so off the ground.

  “We need a little help here”, yelled Paula from the back of the building.

  Draco took to the air and Lu handed the prisoner to Nora who put manacles on him, hand and foot. Then she headed to the back as well. That’s when the front door opened and a very large man came charging out. I reached out and touched him and jumped then deposited him, then quickly jumped back as the manacled man attempted to crawl away. I touched him and jumped, depositing him. Jumping back to the warehouse.

  Nora, Lu, Paula and Groucho ushering four more men, who’d been trying to escape out the backdoor, an invisible Draco still guarded it. Nora began blowing on her guard issued whistle. Soon we had guards coming at us from every direction.

  “Rose, did you let the manacled prisoner get away?”

  “No, Nora, a big man came charging out so I jumped him to another location where he can’t get away and when I got back the manacled man was trying to crawl away so I put them together, in case someone else came out of the warehouse.”

  Nora borrowed some manacles from another of the guards who were now guarding the warehouse front and back.

  I jumped Nora and I to Hilltop, floated up the manacled man, touched him and jumped back to the warehouse, handing the prisoner to another of the guards. Then I jumped back to Nora. She threw down the ankle manacles and instructed the prisoner to put them on. He refused.

  I floated him and the manacles one hundred feet up, told him to hurry and get the manacles on, I couldn’t possibly hold much more than ten seconds longer. With much alacrity he put them on. I floated him down, Nora put his hands in another set of manacles and we portaled to the guardhouse.