Two months later, he had reached the point where he could create a thunderstorm in his immediate area that produced a lot of lightning that he could induce to strike where he wanted, sort of. It was all very frustrating compared to some of the other things he was doing! And his parents were making noises about him getting a job, lecturing perhaps, given his academic record. No? Well, what else did he plan to do to earn an income other than losing his money at Vegas? He had visited the local casinos for small cash gains a couple of times since returning from England, enough to keep him comfortably in funds without standing out in the small local places. He hadn’t let on to his folks just how well he was doing financially, but he would probably have to do so fairly soon.

      He finally decided he had to sit down with his folks at dinner one night and explain that he was doing well at the gambling. His father still thought he was playing poker, and Jason was careful not to disabuse him of this idea. He explained that his target was to make two thousand dollars a month, after all the expenses of traveling, accommodation, food, and such, which would give him five hundred a week. They looked at each other at this point in the conversation in one of those silent parental communion things before facing him again, so he added.

“So far, I am doing better than that. In fact, I have had a couple of particularly good results along the way, so I have a good cushion in case I have a bad run. But really, I am being very careful and treating it like a job.”

      “A job?” His mother said looking, dubious.

      “Well, I guess if you are doing that well and being careful, there is not that much we can do about it, is there?” His dad commented, not looking pleased either but clearly resigned to Jason’s left turn career-wise. Jason had always been very careful to pay the nominal rent his parents charged him. However, with his newfound funds, he now started buying groceries and other household stuff on top of his weekly rent to help them with the living expenses, much to his parent’s surprise.

      Jason got up and walked around the table to give both of them a hug. “Look, I know you’re worried I will lose all my money, but I truly am being very careful about what I am doing, and I don’t really feel like a gambler. I’m certainly not playing like some of the people I’ve met. Really. I look at it more like trading on the stock market. I put up money based on my judgment of the situation, and yes, sometimes I lose, but I win more often than I lose, and so far, I’ve rarely come home behind. It has happened once or twice, and it will happen again, no doubt, but I am confident I can continue to win more than I lose, and already, I am a long way up. Believe me. I am being very careful!” In fact, he hadn’t actually lost in a single session of play, but that would sound way too suspicious!

He started playing about nine in the evening and left the casino at one, thirty thousand pounds up,, around thirty-six thousand dollars. By the time he flew out on Friday, he was nearly a hundred thousand dollars up and getting strange looks from some of the staff, although the pit bosses and senior supervisors, it seemed, had not lost their faith in the roulette wheels getting it all back over the long run! Ha.

Chapter 15

Back at home

Flying home, he knew he should feel guilty but found he just didn’t care where the casinos were concerned. They existed to fleece people of their money and were therefore fair game as far as Jason was concerned. Back in San Diego, he made no mention to his parents of the sheer amount of money he had won. He told them he had enjoyed the dig in England, gone to Monte Carlo to check out was probably the most famous Casino in the world, and had actually done quite well there. He brushed off their concerns mentioning he had several thousand euros that he needed to change, which stopped them cold, and they were flabbergasted when he admitted he had brought home nearly ten thousand euros in cash and five thousand pounds as well!

Even though he thought the casinos deserved what he was doing to them, his conscience nagged him that what he was doing was wrong. Which it was. Two wrongs don’t make a right. The casinos made their money by fleecing the unwary, but no one made people walk in the front door of any casino in the world. They did it voluntarily. He wasn’t going to stop lining his pockets with their money, but the more he thought about it, the more he became determined not to slip into the behavioral patterns of those “supers” from that TV series who engaged in any activity they thought expedient. No sir. A little Robin Hooding with casinos was as far down that slope he was going to let himself go!

He spent a couple of days relaxing after his return and then decided to concentrate on improving his magic skills, working on several things he had thought of while in Europe. He worked on developing a narrow, high-powered version of the kinetic force he was using to move the roulette balls. With practice, he quickly developed the power to punch a small hole through a wooden board at ten yards range. He had thought of a problem with his bullet shield and was proven right when a baseball club still clobbered the bush in his test ravine despite the defensive spell. The bat simply wasn’t moving fast enough to disintegrate. Hmmm.

He played around with other ideas, including an idea for a knockout spell that would be useful. The problem with that was that he couldn’t really test the spell without going for a walk in a bad area of town which could put him in trouble if it didn’t work! He spent a lot of time reading physics books and books on physiology, trying to work out things he could do. To overcome the slow-motion attack, he developed a shield spell that put a circular barrier in front of him that resisted slow attack weapons such as strikes by baseball bats! It would probably also work against swords, spears, arrows, and similar weapons if he traveled to other Earths where things were not as advanced as here on his Earth. The problem with the shield spell was that it was exactly that, a shield and only covered his front. Hmmm.

      He studied how weather worked online and began playing around with the local weather above his ravine. It took him a while to work out how to generate a strong up current that pushed the warmer ground-level air upwards, creating a vertical air column reaching higher and higher. And even longer to get it to turn into a small local thunderstorm complete with lightning bolts. Plus, it was exhausting! He found he had to leave thunderstorm creation till last each practice session; otherwise, it wiped him out so badly he couldn’t do anything else. The trouble with getting the storm creation to last was that trying to do it after practicing other magical activities meant he was tackling it when already worn out, so progress was slow! And frustrating! And the online explanations of how weather worked were only so much help with practical storm creation.

He spent the next day observing the French countryside as the high-speed train whisked him north to Paris before swapping to another train that raced north west before rushing through the Channel Tunnel and then terminating in London. He spent the next day in the Museum and had an early night before heading north to Newcastle by train again and gave himself a day to explore in the old industrial city before meeting Katerina at the restaurant she had suggested.

They had a lovely evening chatting about the dig, Roman stuff in general, her Masters Thesis, and life in general. She was determined to concentrate on her Thesis this year and made it plain to him that while she wouldn’t object to the occasional get-together like they were engaged in that evening, she was not interested in a boyfriend. At least not until the end of the year, and she had gained her MPhil. Plus, she was going on a dig in Libya straight after finishing for the year, although she hoped to submit her thesis well before then. Jason made noises about joining the dig, but apparently, the diplomatic difficulties were such it would be impossible for him to join the rather small group unless one of the other Westerners pulled out. Also, it was the third year for this particular dig, and the Libyan authorities were very wary of foreigners looting their sites and generally only allowed known people on a dig in their country or some such stuff.

Jason had to reluctantly accept her restrictions, but when he asked if it would be okay for him to come over in the mid-year break and spend some time with her, she tentatively agreed to that plan. She seemed to be giving off those not so keen vibes in her responses, something Jason found hard to ignore. He had so much experience with girls giving him such hints previously. The few girls he’d managed to persuade to go out on a date with him. That would be pretty much every girl except Daiyu. Nevertheless, he still hoped to overcome her negative vibes gradually over time. And she made a point of not inviting him back to her dorm at the university when they finally left the restaurant. Damn.

He’d deliberately left this period free, so he could spend time with Katerina, which meant he had nothing else planned till his plane back to the US on the following Friday. So, despondently, he took the train back to London and spent his days seeing the sites, The Tower, Imperial War Museum, British Museum again, Buckingham Palace, and such while hitting the casinos in the evening. He found the Grosvenor chain of casinos to be adequate and went through the process of opening an account with them.

He linked his new Grosvenor account to his US bank account without any issues. Instead of transferring funds in, he pulled out a bundle of the Euros he had won in Monte Carlo, and the Grosvenor people were only too happy to change them to pounds and add the total to his account. Ten thousand Euros came to a bit over eight thousand pounds, and once they saw the size of the stakes he was aiming to play with, they happily gave him a membership as well, which would entitle him to all manner of freebies, apparently. Jason wasn’t particularly concerned.

He found a roulette table with a five-thousand-pound limit and put four thousand pounds down to be exchanged for chips. While the dealer counted out the money, he handed over his card to the supervisor so that his play would be noted and rewards, therefore, ensue based on his betting action. He was starting to feel like some big-time professional gambler! The table had a few five hundred pound chips of which he was given eight and immediately plonked two thousand on the last color the wheel had thrown up, in this case, red. He followed the same routine as in Monte Carlo. With a win, he would double the bet up to four thousand, and if that won, he’d take four thousand off and so on.

He decided to change things up again to try and confuse things, so after each loss, he stood out and didn’t bet for at least a spin. Sometimes he would not bet at all for a time when he would make a show of waiting for a particular color had come up three in a row before betting against it. Doing all this gave him an obvious system for the supervisors to watch and laugh at. At the same time, it slowed down the action for Jason, which meant it took longer for him to wear out mentally and need to take a break.

He resumed using the progressive ten thousand bet system and made sure he only gained slowly. Still, no one seemed concerned with his winning! By the time he decided to break for dinner, he was up another eighty thousand without any apparent concern being shown by the casino staff. A quick visit to the cashier where he sent another fifty thousand home, paid more tax and went to dinner.

He was feeling pretty tired by now. Playing for such stakes was stressful! And while the push spell wasn’t that draining for him these days, although using it so frequently and carefully over long periods of time was wearing him out! He also found he had a couple of followers. Two young women attached themselves to him at the bar when he returned to the casino, and he found it hard to resist the friendly chit-chat the two very attractive girls used to try and become friendly with him. Hmm. Were they plants? Gold diggers or just high-end hookers? With expensive food and expensive women, now he was really starting to feel like Mr. Bond!

He spent the next several hours winning and losing, deliberately not getting more than fifty thousand up before losing that fifty back to the house plus a bit more, then winning his losses back and so on. He finished up a mere twenty thousand up for the session and debated with himself about what to do with his two newfound friends. They were older than the early twenties they looked, he decided. Probably both in their late twenties. They had very nice bodies shown off well by their tight-fitting but classy looking dresses. It was tempting, but in the end, he decided he wasn’t that desperate for company that would no doubt turn out to cost him a considerable part of his winnings. The somewhat predatory smiles the two showed may have had something to do with that decision. They’d enjoyed an evening of drinks on him, so that would have to do!

He dodged them by simply heading out the front, asking where they were staying, having a taxi called while he stood and chatted with them, opened the door to let the two slide into the back. He opened the front passenger door, told the driver which hotel to take them to before shutting the door with him still on the sidewalk. The taxi pulled out and started up the road, and by the time the girls got the driver to stop, he had slipped down the street and found another taxi to take him back to his hotel. The next afternoon he returned to the casino to cash in his chips from the previous evening and sent ten thousand more home. That meant he had transferred two hundred thousand to his bank account, and even after paying the local taxes, he had nearly thirty thousand in cash remaining despite the new clothes and expensive dinners. The two hundred thousand euros became a bit over two hundred and twenty thousand dollars after currency exchange and bank fees, and he felt very well served by his time in Monte Carlo.

He stayed away from the casino that night, finding a restaurant with a nice view over the bay while he ate a relaxed dinner. He called Katerina finally, and she was surprisingly friendly after the semi-cold shoulder she had shown him after the dig. Hmm. Women. She was going to be back in Newcastle in three days, and after she stressed that she really wanted to concentrate on her Masters, she agreed to have dinner on Friday night. Great! He stayed at the restaurant till nearly ten before heading back to his hotel for an early night.

Late again so I’ve made it a bit longer.

He then tried to make it look like he was losing his cool and threw down a two thousand bet instead of his normal one thousand size bet. That won, doubled to four, won, added two and took two, won, took four added two, won, took six and added two, won took eight and added two and lost. Thirty thousand up. Ha! Did a few more win, lose, win, win, lose, lose, win, etc., sequences and then quit at a point when he was back to thirty thousand up. Worn out, he made his way over to the cashier in the now rather packed room where he cashed the chips. Most went into his casino account, although he took some in cash. He had them transfer twenty thousand from his casino account back to his bank account as he joked about not letting himself lose all he’d won. That done, he headed to his hotel, where he managed to undress before collapsing on the bed, totally exhausted both from the magic and the adrenalin.

The casino didn’t open till two in the afternoon, which gave time to have a late breakfast or early lunch, ah, yes, brunch was the term, he remembered, and then he did some shopping for some decent attire to mix in with the upper classes better than he had. Men’s tailoring was not at all cheap in Monte Carlo, and he settled for three outfits, a very off-the-shelf suit for that night, a tailored suit that would be ready the next day, and a tuxedo in the current style to have in case of need. He listened to the man closely and realized he’d need a couple more sets of clothes to really mix in. It wouldn’t do to be seen wearing the same two suits day in and day out!

The afternoon he spent wandering around the normal floor area where he made a slow and careful twenty thousand by the time he broke off for an early dinner. He relaxed over an overpriced, somewhat slow to arrive, but very enjoyable meal before ambling around the casino for a bit before he found a private salon where he could play roulette along with only a few other people and went to work. The table limit was only ten thousand, so he decided to repeat his method of the first day, only with five thousand bets. So, five out, double up to the maximum when it won, and leave ten thousand out there while taking his ten winnings off. And by carefully controlling the winning and losing spins, he built his profit up to fifty thousand slowly with lots of ups and downs to confuse things. He took a break as he was getting mentally exhausted, hit the cashier, and deposited the money in his account. He then transferred another twenty thousand back to his bank.

After relaxing at the same bar as he had previously and enjoying the passing parade of casino patrons, he felt ready to resume. By this time, the casino had become a good deal busier, but he found another private room containing a roulette table with a fifty thousand limit on the bets like the one he had played at the previous night that wasn’t too packed. He repeated his other betting system of bet one unit, upping the bet by one unit each win, except instead of the one thousand unit bets of the previous night, he intended to use ten thousand unit bets!

He became so engrossed that he played for hours without realizing how much time had passed as he slowly gained by carefully controlling the winning and losing colors. He conversed with the supervisor several times and even the pit manager as they happily watched him bet on either red or black, depending. Their smug friendliness reflecting their knowing that however lucky Jason was in the short run, eventually, the built-in bias in the odds would result in him losing. No one can beat a roulette wheel betting on the outside, even with the English single zero wheel. The house edge is two point seven five percent every spin. Jason smiled at their smiles.

By the time he got to the point of being too exhausted mentally to be able to continue, he was a hundred thousand up that night. Woot! He let his last bet run freely and won another ten thousand as a bonus before the bet finally lost! He transferred the whole lot to his American bank account, much to the cashier’s dismay, but no one objected, just as long as he paid the appropriate taxes. Which he had no hesitation doing as it was essentially free money as far as he was concerned. Even after transferring the hundred thousand euros back home, he still had twenty thousand in the casino account.

The next afternoon things were a bit quiet at the Casino, and there was only one private saloon operating. As soon as he entered the room and reached the table, he was surprised by the pit manager asking if he wanted the roulette outer bet limits raised from the ten thousand during the afternoon to fifty thousand? Certainly! He smiled at the pit manager. The pit manager smiled back at him. Everybody was happy! Ha! Watch out, sharks; the killer whale is here!

Kyron has finally returned to Marhingia, but there is still war to be waged. Before he can even think about putting his feet up and relaxing, he has to deal with what remains of the huge Allied army that Verenia and her troops have so valiantly fought off during his absence. Winlan, Southia, Swadingi and Dodridia are still intact and even Foroughi hasn’t been crushed completely, yet. All four Kingdoms will need to be dealt with, and quickly, before any other Kingdoms are foolish enough to form up against him. Even without further outside interference, Kyron and Verenia face a huge task integrating the lands they have conquered, and no doubt there will be new challenges for them to overcome.

US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HJM2515J
AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0HJM2515J

Black this time. Bet a thousand on black, which left him six up. Let ball land. Got a black anyway, so double the bet up. Red. Bet a thousand on red, leaving him five thousand up. Red. Double up. Red take two off, back to seven thousand up. Black. Bet black with a thousand, so six thousand up, black, double up. Deliberately lose. Bet a thousand on red. Five up. Black. Bet a thousand on black and now only four up. Win. Double up and win again, so six up. Made the result black again, so eight up. Red. Bet red, so seven thousand up. Lose. Bet black, so now six up. Win. Double up and win, so eight up. Black again. Ten up. Lose on a red and stop. Go to bet, then hesitate. He was deliberately obvious about counting the chips he pulled out of his pocket, then smiled at the watching dealer and walked off.

Jason wandered over to a very elaborate bar that looked like something out of Hercule Poirot movie. There he was able to procure an overpriced scotch and spent the next forty minutes ogling the passing parade of the rich, and he presumed, famous, not that he recognized any movie stars. Some of the women were gorgeous, and even the men all looked very well-groomed and were wearing expensive suits. Mostly. There were a smattering of obvious tourists and a few intermediate types like himself wearing decent evening wear but nothing special.

He finished his drink and headed back to the grind. He meandered into a different area and found another roulette table with completely different staff in the pit, as the inner areas were called. He noticed a table with a couple of stacks of five hundred value chips and began the same game as earlier. Win, lose, win, win, lose, and so forth. He was trying to make it obvious that he was using the simple betting strategy of following the ball and betting the color it came up with last. He walked away finally with fifteen thousand euros in profit and headed for the cashier. He changed four thousand euros into cash to replace the two he had started with and then added the twenty thousand to his account, keeping three thousand in chips.

He then found somewhere to relax and have a much-needed break before approaching the tables again. He played a few spins, made a couple of thousand net after a lot of winning and losing, and then he noticed the supervisor near the wheel and asked if there were tables with higher maximums around. They called over a smartly dressed suit who explained the process of getting access to what they called a private parlor. Eventually, after taking down a few details and giving him a card, he found himself led to a very hushed room where people were betting huge amounts on the roulette wheel there. The minimum bet on the outside was five hundred euros! The maximum was fifty thousand! Woot.

He started with a thousand on black. Then he doubled it up when it won. He then upped it by a thousand when it won again and took a thousand off. He let that lose and swapped to red. He followed the same process. The three-chip bet won, so he took two off and added one, which made the bet four chips. So, he was now two thousand up. He lost that bet deliberately. Swapped to bet on black for a break-even two bet sequence. Back to red and lost deliberately, which meant he next bet black. Time for a sequence, he decided. He caused a run of black numbers allowing him to run the bet up to two, three, four, and five chips before finally causing it to lose. He was now up six thousand. He spent the next bit just marking time, win, lose, win, lose to lull any watchers, letting his winnings fall back down to zero. Time for another sequence of one color results. This time it would be a red sequence, and he progressively raised the bet up to eight before allowing it to lose. Ha! He was now twenty thousand up. He spent the next period deliberately winning and losing until he was down to only fifteen thousand up and then lost three bets in a row.

Damn! Forgot this on Monday. No excuse. Here is a double length snippet in compensation.


They left this grave area for the next dig as they lacked sufficient time to work through it and instead concentrated on the gate area. More finds produced Saxon and Roman belt buckles and broaches, some more Celtic type adornments, and then they were all surprised to find a folis of Honorius in amongst the Saxon and Roman-style material giving the fort an early fifth-century date or at least a terminus post quem for the building of the fort. Much argument ensued, but little was resolved during the dig. Which finally came to an end. Much to Jason’s regret, while he and Katerina had been getting along very nicely, they had not done anything more romantic than talk together after dinner during the dig period. They were both too tired by all the work to do anything more, anyway. He did feel that she was open to romantic suggestions once the dig was over, though!

      Unfortunately, she proved remarkably difficult to pin down privately, which belied his belief she was, like, interested in him. They had barely returned to the hotel for the last time than she announced that she was off home in the morning for a two-week visit before returning to Newcastle and her next semester at the university there. She was nearing completion of her Masters thesis, and with the dig over, she was now focused totally on that, as far as Jason could tell. Damn. Despite not sharing any more all-night talks alone with her, he enjoyed her company during the after-dinner round table discussion and was sure she was attracted to him. Well, he came away with her phone and email details, at least. If she was going to be otherwise occupied, he decided to re-arrange his own plans and booked accommodation in Monte Carlo, got a visa surprisingly easily, and headed to France.

On the train trip back to London, he realized that he not only hadn’t used any magic during the entire time on the dig but had he hadn’t even thought of using his magic! Ha. Good thing too, he told himself. He had no intention of drawing any unwanted attention to himself because he was pretty sure his treatment in real life would be very different from the way super people were treated in the comics and the movies!

Chapter 14

Bond, Jason Bond

The Casino de Monte Carlo was very much as he had imagined it would be. He went to the cashier’s desk and was directed to the section that dealt with foreign money exchange, where he asked for five thousand euros worth of chips and then had to set up an account at the casino. That completed, he transferred in the roughly five and half thousand dollars required to give him five thousand euros in chips. He then spent a great deal of time simply wandering around, looking at the décor and taking in the ambiance of the casino. There were the lavishly decorated ceilings, the paintings, and the polished wood panels. The sheer opulence was all very amazingly upper class, and he felt like he was in a Bond movie! And it was all so much more old-worldly and classy than the casinos in Vegas!

Two weeks working with Franny at the dig in England had improved his French considerably, undoubtedly helped by Urasmian’s spell. As he walked around the Casino listening to conversations, his fluency improved even more despite many of the conversations being in English or other languages, Spanish being common. Finally deciding it was time to earn some money, he approached a roulette table and put one thousand euros down. The croupier, none of that crass American terminology here, thank you very much, picked up the money and looked at him questioningly.

“Do you have a thousand-euro chip?” Jason asked.

The fellow glanced over into his float as the collection of chips at the rear of the table was called.

“No, sir. Only five hundreds, I’m afraid, sir.”

“Two of those then, please.” He responded.

The whole chips for cash process was carried out without issue. The procedures appeared to be pretty much the same in all casinos worldwide, even though the language was different. Chips in hand, Jason placed them on red. He then made sure the result was black. More euros.

“Same again, please.” He informed the croupier.

A thousand on black this time, openly following the color of the previous result. Black it was. Double the bet up to the table maximum of two thousand and made sure a third black came up. Took the two thousand payout chips away, leaving the two thousand bet out there. He was back to square. He made sure the result was red. The supervisor kept a close eye on things right from the start, so Jason was working to convince the fellow that Jason was following one of the simple betting strategies that everyone knew. And one that any fool knew would eventually lose despite any gains in the short term.

Back to a one thousand bet, this time on red. Red. Double it up and made sure the result was black. That put him down a thousand. He placed a thousand on black. Win. Double it up. Black. Take two thousand off while leaving two thousand out there, and he was square again. He made sure it was red so that he lost. Bet red. Double up again. Red. Take the two thousand off, which meant he was now a thousand up. Black result, so he lost again. Bet a thousand on black. Double up. Black. Take the two thousand winnings off. Let the ball land wherever. Red. Right. Back to red with a thousand. Black deliberately. Bet a thousand on black. Double it up when it won. Black again, back to two thousand up. Black again. He was now four thousand up. Red. Bet a thousand on red. Three up still. Deliberately made the ball land on black. Bet a thousand on black. Win. Double up. Red. Down to being up two thousand. Bet a thousand on red. Win and double up. Red. Take two thousand off, three up. Red. Five up. Let ball land as it would and got another red. Ha. Seven thousand up.

First off I have a short story about Bargan (Taroniah’s son) in this:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFSSFKPC/

Kyron the Conqueror is off to the editor and I have started writing The Kelad Return

I haven’t decided what will follow the Kelad Return – either the next Taroniah book or something new….

Been a bit slack with the writing over the last couple of months but will try and do better between now and the end of the year.

For what it is worth, apart from Pam Uphoff books I have been reading books by someone called peachRoad (sigh)
they are alt history books with the ordinary person from the future taking over a historical figure and changing things.
As a rule they are badly formatted and full of inconsistancies with a lot of obvious AI writing but the way the author changes the timelines is very clever. Can;t recommend them but they are interesting if you like alt history.

Jason had never done as much physical labor in his life and by the third day was stiff and sore, but got a break that day as the professors and senior postgrads all concentrated on the newly found corners of the two forts. The bottom extended maybe ten yards further than the upper one, and the digging to determine the nature of the structures they had revealed slowed as the afternoon wore on. Jason was too tired to give his full attention to what they were finding, but then the next morning, feeling a little more rested, he paid closer attention to the finds and the conclusions being drawn. Finds of armor fittings, horse bits, and other material left behind during the construction of the lower fort led to a firm dating of the late first century and almost certainly a mixed force of legionaries and cavalry, probably a cohort of infantry and an ala of cavalry.

      The upper fort was more ambiguous. The corner had been built up with a wooden tower from the post holes left behind when the tower was burnt down. Careful excavation throughout the day resulted in a few hard to define burned bits and pieces and a shield boss, the date of which was hotly debated, with Professor Schmidt favoring a seventh or even eighth-century date with Germanic provenance. At the same time, Professor Armstrong thought it was fifth or sixth-century Romano-British. The shield boss was so damaged and too nondescript for any certainty in its identification, and the rest of the bits and pieces too badly burned to be easily datable. Several of the large pieces of charcoal that had been tower timbers were sent off for lab tests, but the team only had a limited budget for those sort of expensive dating methods.

      Normal digging resumed the next day as efforts were made to find the western side of the forts and the southern ends. After two days of carting muck and finding nothing exciting, they finally found the southern end of the lower fort. They found the southern edge of the upper fort the next day a good distance further south. The corner there was also found to have had a wooden tower on top of a substantial base, and this tower had also been burnt to the ground. It took another two days to find the western edge of both forts, which finally gave them some idea of the size of both. The older, lower fort they now revised to hold at least two infantry cohorts and the cavalry cohort or an even larger force, while the upper fort had clearly held an even bigger force given its rather large dimensions.

      Gradually more and more bits and pieces from the upper fort came to light. Some fittings looked Saxon, found near the middle of the east side, where they were now undertaking a slow search for a gateway. A coin was found that, after some work, proved to be from the reign of Valentinian the Third, which dated the upper fort to at least the late fourth century. It took several days to finally zero in on a gate on the east side as it was actually off-center to the south, not to the north as everyone had expected when nothing was found in the center of the wall length. The gate had been a substantial structure, with wooden towers on a sod base, and the left side was not quite as burnt down as all the rest of the remains. A mass grave was found just inside the gate where a large number of bodies had been thrown in a hole and then burnt before being covered with a mound of dirt.