After Lancaster hurried off to whatever was happening elsewhere in the city, Rissa and Serenity went hunting for her parents. They were both in the guest room, watching television. The news was on, talking in exclamation points about the upcoming local elections.

Phoebe switched it off as they entered the room. “I hoped they’d have something useful; knowing who’s running for mayor next year doesn’t seem relevant.”

Serenity nodded. It was an odd juxtaposition; so much was normal from his old life as Thomas in the background while he tried to deal with things that were in no way normal.

“Are we ready to go? I assume we’ll be driving?” Phoebe looked at Serenity for confirmation.

A thought occurred to Serenity and he looked over at his future father-in-law. “Not quite. I found out why my magic wasn’t regenerating correctly; it was, but I was holding a spell that used it as fast as I could generate it. I think it’s not progressing right now, but if I use what I’ve got to finish it, then I should go back to normal.”

Russ stared back at him. It took a moment before he made the connection. “Whatever you did in the dungeon, it’s still active?”

“I think so. It was for Rissa, wasn’t for Lancaster. I think it’s resolved on Raz, too, so that only leaves you.” Serenity paused and thought about the others. All of their statuses had changed; Raz hadn’t gotten a Core, but the other two had, and both Rissa and Raz had their Species change. Rissa seemed to have had the most extensive changes. Russ already had a core, so either it would change or he’d also change Species. “Can you share your Status? Just the top few lines, down to Path.”

Name: Russel Latimer

Species: Human (Guardian Variant)

Core: Primarch

Evolution Path: Auspex

Path: Guardian (Locked)

Level: 18 (80/190)

Tier: 1, 0/18 Spent

“It’s a little different,” Russ noted. “Instead of Progression, it says Evolution Path. I feel like I should know what Auspex means.”

“It’s one of the many ancient words for a soothsayer. Omen-reader? Whichever.” Phoebe interrupted. “I’m sure there’s a reason it picked that particular term, but I’m not sure what it would be. There are so many, and most of them have been corrupted with time to mean everything and nothing.”

Russ shrugged and looked back at Serenity. “Are you sure you’re up for it? If it means you’ll need to use a lot of magic, should we wait?”

Serenity looked at his resources; there hadn’t been enough time to refill them after they disappeared into Rissa, and while he hadn’t yet truly cast the tracing spell, building it had used up most of the mana he’d managed to regenerate.

He sighed. “No, I’m not. Can we run by a ley line, maybe? I know I can fill up there.” Not only that, but a ley line would feel good. Serenity ached all over. He’d been sore ever since his mana and essence drained into Rissa. A ley line would relieve the emptiness quickly, and they always felt soothing.

Russ nodded. “Sounds reasonable. There’s one nearby; I think there’s one close to everywhere in the city from that map you made. If there’s any chance we’ll be getting in a fight, I’d just as soon do it with us all in good shape, too.”

Serenity hoped there wouldn’t be a fight, but who could tell? They were following a thief, after all.

Since they would have to come back to start tracing the stolen artifact, Phoebe stayed behind to “add some minor protections”. She wouldn’t say what they were; all she was willing to say was that they wouldn’t remove the traces of the thief. She seemed unhappy that she couldn’t clean those up, but she didn’t suggest it.

It wasn’t a long drive to the ley line Russ was thinking of; in fact, he drove them to a tiny parking lot rather than the ley line itself. Serenity wasn’t sure what the parking lot was for; it was just an empty gravel lot with no building next to it. “It seems to run down the alley, so I figured we’d park here and walk. If anything, this is more convenient than the map looked; it showed a building there.” Russ gestured off to the side, where there seemed to be a pile of rubble on dirt.

There wasn’t anyone around; it was midmorning on a weekday again, and the streets in this residential area were mostly empty. It was just as simple as Russ suggested.

When he entered the ley line, Serenity could feel the energy pour in. It was like drinking an entire pot of coffee all at once; he hadn’t realized how run down he felt until he didn’t anymore.

After a full minute, Serenity realized that while it felt good, he wasn’t recovering nearly as quickly as he’d expected. This was a far smaller ley line than any of the others he’d been in. He walked the width of it and realized that it was only about six feet wide, far narrower than any of the others he’d been in recently.

In fact, it was narrow enough that unless he’d driven along the length of it, he might have entirely missed that it was a ley line while driving around the city. He’d probably have felt something, but he doubted he’d have realized what it was. Was that why he hadn’t noticed how common ley lines were on either the trip to the dungeon or the way to the hospital? Were they simply so small he didn’t notice?

Serenity shrugged to himself. It was something to keep in mind, but it didn’t really change what he was doing here. He sat down and concentrated on pulling mana and essence into his still achingly empty reservoirs.

It didn’t work well, so he decided to try actively eating it instead. That worked; it even started filling his reservoirs. He didn’t start feeling full until after he was full of both mana and essence.

“You’re glowing brighter. Does that mean you’re done?” Rissa tapped Serenity’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I think it does.” Serenity turned to Russ. “Are you ready?”

“May as well.” Russ reached out to hold Serenity’s shoulder; he was still standing while Serenity sat, but that shouldn’t matter. Rissa hadn’t been bothered by the change, after all.

Serenity reached out for a link the way he had with Rissa and Lancaster, only to realize there wasn’t one. He’d established those links back in the Tutorial, when they were feeding him Death-tinged mana to help keep him alive. Russ didn’t have one.

On the other hand, Serenity was pretty sure that creating the network he linked to was also when Rissa and Lancaster had gotten their cores. They weren’t active then, but he’d seen the tiny things. Russ already had a core. Maybe he just needed to push some essence at it?

Serenity tried, and he heard Russ grunt right before a good bit of mana and essence was ripped out of Serenity with an oddly protective feeling. It had to be the formless spell’s Intent again.

It was less than he’d used on Rissa. That was the only comparison Serenity could make as he looked down at Russ and saw the magic swirl around him. It still dwarfed the man’s own magic pool, and it still didn’t flow into the pool. It seemed to roam Russ’s body for a moment, then it settled down and seemed to vanish, just like it had for Rissa. Serenity knew that was because it was used by the spell.

[Completion of a purely Intent-driven spell of significantly higher Tier has been Noticed. Additional Paths are opened]

[Alteration of others’ physical and magical forms and destinies in a unique manner has been Noticed. Additional Paths are opened. An additional Evolution is available]

Serenity stared at the notification. He’d done more than he’d realized. No wonder it said “significantly higher Tier”; that level of spellcraft shouldn’t be possible at his Tier. At least, not without it being exactly what the person specialized in.

The mana cost was simply too high, and the precision required was extreme.

Serenity stopped himself. He had to remember that he wasn’t really the Tier his Status said he was. Not only was his mana far higher than it should have been, it seemed to be denser. In addition, he had the skill of the mage he’d once been in the far future.

It seemed like the Voice had stripped less of his abilities than he’d thought. All of his old Path Skills seemed to be gone, but everything he’d worked for and practiced was still there. Some of it was rusty, like he hadn’t used it in a long time, but that was accurate; it’d been a long time since he’d done anything, and some things were longer than others.

Serenity looked up at Russ. “Are you okay?”

Russ stood there for a moment before he replied. “Yeah, I think I am.” Russ looked around them. “Is this what you normally see? All this silver glow?” Russ’s voice sounded filled with wonder.

Serenity glanced around. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, certainly not anything silver. He could feel the ley line through his aura, but that was all. “No? I don’t see anything silver.”

Rissa also shook her head.

Russ stared at them both, then walked outside the ley line. “Huh. I’m actually seeing the ley line. I’ve never been able to do that before. Whatever your spell did, it definitely did that much.” he looked at Serenity. “You look like a hole in the ley line; I don’t see any silver where you are. I wonder what happens when you aren’t regenerating magic?”

Serenity shrugged and started actively eating the magic around them. He was already hungry again, after all. It wasn’t long until he was back at full resources.

Russ stared at him. “Huh. Now you’re an eddy in the silver. I can see it going into you, moving around, and coming back out. It doesn’t do that for Rissa.”

Serenity shrugged. “It’s probably why I glow. If I knew how to stop it-” He stopped himself. Here, he probably wouldn’t stop it. Elsewhere, he might; glowing was not usually helpful. “If I knew how to stop it, I probably would, sometimes.”

Russ grinned and chuckled. “Fair enough. Oh, I bet you’d like to see my Status? It’s not much of a change.”

Name: Russel Latimer

Species: Auspex Protector

Core: Primarch

Evolution Path: Auspex

Path: Guardian (Locked)

Level: 18 (80/190)

Tier: 1, 0/18 Spent

“Not sure I’d call a new Species ‘not much of a change’, Da.” Rissa grinned at her father. “It’s probably fair, though. Here’s mine.”

Serenity didn’t see Rissa’s, but he knew what was on it; there was no reason for it to have changed in the past few hours. “You both have Auspex. I wonder if this is as much a bloodline thing as anything?”

“Could be,” Russ stated. “I still think there’s something I should remember about Auspex, and it’s not just what Phoebe said. So maybe it’s something about my family. It’s hard to say, so many in my family are a little cracked that even if I was told something I can’t remember, it might not mean anything. It’s not like there’s no good reason; living in a room with people shouting all the time is hard to deal with, especially when no one else can hear it.”

“Da, what color are your eyes?” Rissa was looking at her father’s face with an expression Serenity couldn’t read.

“Brown, why?”

Rissa nodded as though she’d expected that answer. “They’re gray now. I can’t see anything else different about you.”

Russ’s face scrunched as he looked at Rissa. “You were expecting physical changes?”

Rissa didn’t say anything; she simply lifted her shirt to show her father the scales on her belly.

Russ’s gaze turned to Serenity. “Right. You said it was protection, didn’t you?”