You'd think being over a hundred miles inland in Cheliax would make you safe from raids. It seems like a pretty safe bet; most of the Eagle Knights' ability to project power comes from their ships, and and there's always somewhere more important to send people who can teleport. Moreover, Cheliax is incredibly hostile to any attempt to travel by their own citizens, much less foreign agitators, and their network of patrols, checkpoints, and garrisons does their best to make transit impossible. You'd have to be crazy or desperate to try it.

Joy's always been a little bit of both. It took him years to get out of third circle, doing things the safe way, and being stuck at fourth is just torture. Everyone knows how desperate the Eagle Knights are for teleporters, the shortage measured in every mission that comes back in caskets instead of in triumph, and while nobody would even think of pressuring him to hit fifth it doesn't mean it doesn't eat at him every day. And besides, it's not like you really need that to get around - his phantom steeds are twice as fast as a normal horse, and he knows both the trick for making a whole group of them with one spell and the one for letting them run unhampered on rough terrain. So when word comes in through the grapevine of some big Asmodean project to make a new dam on the Tomarsulk River, nobody knows what they're planning but the local church bigwigs are putting a fortune into it - well, Joy gets talking to some of his buddies at the bar about maybe making them regret their investment.