Serenity regretted that he couldn’t hear the other half of the phone conversation. From what Liam had said, the person he was most likely to openly talk about the ritual with was Frank, and Serenity really wanted to hear what Frank was saying.

Serenity wasn’t completely confident that Liam didn’t know about Frank’s methods, but he was completely confident that Frank had never tried to buy it from Rissa. Rissa would have mentioned it if someone had, after she knew it was what Macho had come after. She knew they were trying to figure out what was going on, and it would have been an excellent lead. They might even have been able to let the police handle it if they had that sort of a connection.

While Liam was on the phone, Serenity took the chance to step into the circle himself and examine the completed artifact. It strongly resembled some he’d seen in the past, both at the Academies he attended and elsewhere in the multiverse. It was clearly intended as an aid for a particular spell; possibly a ritual, but it seemed more like the kind of aid that would be used in an elaborate spell that had been repurposed to use in a ritual.

It reminded Serenity strongly of a school of design he hadn’t seen until centuries into his previous life and far, far away from Earth. He had no idea how a Netissan design would have ended up on Earth, but everything about it - the “glass” fused with metal, the legs that joined together to bring a “harmony” that the Netissans craved, even the fact that the bowls were created as part of the “glass” screamed Netissan.

As did the fact that when he tapped it, Serenity could feel the resonance that said it wasn’t glass at all; it was a structure of what the Netissans called ‘mentirk’, but that Serenity would once have simply called solidified mana.

Today, he knew he’d have been wrong to call it that. Yes, there was mana woven through it - that’s what the patterns on it were, the ones that Rissa had said gave her a headache - but that wasn’t what it was made of. It was made of essence.

As he touched it, Serenity felt hunger. He could dissolve the bonds holding mentirk in a solid form and consume it. It would destroy the artifact, but he already knew it would taste wonderful. He hadn’t eaten anything made of essence in far too long.

What was he thinking?

Look at what happened the last time he ate something! That was something associated with the artifact, too; simply a weak piece of its mana residue. Eating the artifact would be a really dumb move, unless he had to.

Knowing that didn’t make it less tempting.

Serenity shook himself and concentrated on the mana embedded in the mentirk artifact. He had some serious doubts that the actual purpose of the artifact was ‘opening the inner eye’ the way Liam seemed to think. That didn’t require a ritual; in fact, using a ritual was exactly the wrong way to do it. A ritual would overpower resistance without adding any control unless the ritualist was extremely skilled.

On top of that, a simple spell would have more than enough power to manage it temporarily; even some potions could do it. The long-term solution was to either gain a Path Skill or simply learn how to do it yourself; tearing a hole so that you could sense through it was the worst of all of the options, but it was the only outcome Serenity could see as likely if a ritual was used.

As Serenity examined the meaning embedded in the mentirk, he realized that it wasn’t in a language he knew, yet it somehow formed patterns that not only didn’t hurt, they made sense. Path/Home/Live was one of them. Hold/Fast/Bind was another. Link/Join/Together/I/We. Hide/Become/Expand/Grow/See.

Serenity tore his senses away from the artifact. It wasn’t telling him anything that he could translate into a goal; what the concepts he was getting meant would change greatly depending on how they were linked together, and he wasn’t seeing that part. Perhaps it was in the rest of the ritual setup?

Examining the circle didn’t make Serenity feel any better. The entire setup still seemed more like a summoning or binding ritual than something intended to grant a skill or enable additional sight. Perhaps there was something more to it?

Based on the circle, Serenity’s first assumption would have been that it was intended to stop something with more metaphysical reality than physical reality from escaping. It didn’t look like it was set up primarily to actually stop a summoned creature, but spell residue or even attack spells were possible. It wasn’t the best design for that, though, since it was a hybrid.

Serenity flattened out some of the circle that was distorted by the weight of one of the candles on the carpet and realized that there was actually a targeted binding that might work on a creature. Without seeing it active, it would be hard to be sure exactly what creature it would work on, but there was a spell signature match woven into it. It would only work if the match was strong enough and the ritual itself was active, but that made it even more likely that the ritual somehow involved summoning.

Liam was talking about doing a ritual that looked like a summoning ritual and aiming it at a person. That wasn’t a summoning ritual; that was more likely to end in possession.

While Serenity knew there were many things in the universe capable of possession, from what the Nightmare Wraith could do or the more physical form apparently used by Hegemon Worms to mental control by a strong enough Mind mage, he still hated the idea. If they knew what they were doing, he’d let them, but he didn’t think they did.

“-participate?”

Serenity suddenly realized Liam was off the phone and talking to him. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. I thought you were still on the phone. What did you ask?”

Liam didn’t immediately repeat the question. “You were looking over the ritual? What do you see?”

“Summoning. Binding. Not a bit of anything that would grant sight, at least not in any way you’d want to get it. At the most, it’d tear a hole in your-” Serenity stopped. He couldn’t think of an English word for the concept. Self? Being? They were close, but didn’t really have the right connotations. “External interface. You might be able to sense through it, but I doubt it’d be understandable. I’m not sure if it would ever heal properly, either. And I have no idea how that artifact got to Earth.”

Serenity wasn’t sure exactly how far away Netis was, but seeing as it was a galaxy-spanning empire, he suspected it was actually in another universe.

Liam didn’t seem offended by Serenity’s harsh judgement of the ritual. Instead, he seemed almost amused. “Come here, look at the book.”

Serenity shrugged and looked over the pages Liam indicated.He could see minute indentations where they'd been written on, but it wasn't clear enough to actually tell what the ritual was. He was really looking forward to being able to see again. If only he could figure out how to make the neural adapter work!

Serenity handed the book back to Liam. “I’d really recommend doing a proper training program before trying any of these rituals. You’d know what the bits mean, and be able to tell when it just doesn’t make sense, like this one doesn’t.”

“Then you’re not interested in participating tonight? That’s too bad. I was really hoping you would.” Liam set the book down on the desk he’d picked it up from originally, then looked off towards where Rissa stood and nodded.

Serenity turned to look as well, which meant he was watching her as she swayed on her feet and sank to the ground. Serenity ran the few steps it took to get to her, then felt something tiny prick his hand.

[Sleep Resistance increased]

That wasn’t a good sign at all. If a single dose could make his resistance go up, it meant he’d barely resisted it, and more doses would put him under.

More importantly though, what would they do to Rissa? He could stand a lot more poison of any sort than she could. He’d heal. She might not. One dart was dangerous enough.

Serenity picked up Rissa and tried to shield as much of her as he could while he headed towards the hallway to the exit. He was nearly in the hall when he felt another tiny prick on the same hand. This time, his Sleep Resistance didn’t increase, and he started to feel somewhat woozy.

Two steps later, someone stepped out of a doorway in the hall right in front of him, raised a small gun, and hit him in the forehead with two more darts.

Serenity felt like he should have been able to stop it, but he was moving so slowly. He was so tired. He couldn’t -

Serenity took one more step before he started to sink to the ground. He couldn’t stay awake any more, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t drop Rissa. He set her on the ground carefully and covered her with his body. He wasn’t going to let her get shot again. She couldn’t handle more than one dose of whatever this was. Not if it was making him fall over so easily.

He hoped he wouldn’t shift to dragon form. He still did whenever he fell asleep, but this time he couldn’t afford to. It would reveal his nature to enemies, but more importantly it would leave Rissa without protection.

He barely heard one of his attackers mutter about heavy clothing while Liam asked if he’d survive that much of the drug. Serenity didn’t hear the answer.

Russ sipped his coffee and stared down at the apparent video running on his phone that showed two people collapsing under what felt like a hail of darts, even though Russ could see it wasn’t that many in truth. “Can we rescue them yet?”

Phoebe had to make that call, since she was the Seer. Russ didn’t always like letting Phoebe choose, but he had learned the hard way not to gainsay her in cases like this. Sometimes she was wrong - it was all guesswork, even with a sense for the future - but she was right more often than he was.

Even if this was definitely one of the cases where he didn’t want to wait.

“No. That’s all nonlethal.” Phoebe didn’t only have coffee; she’d ordered a full meal.

Russ couldn’t stand the thought of food while he let his daughter take the risks that he should have been taking, or at least should have led her through for the first time. Having his latest student be Rissa’s fiancee didn’t make leaving him there any easier, either. “Is it? That’s a lot of darts.”

Phoebe looked at the screen while she finished her bite of burger. “Rissa was only hit once; she’ll be fine. They want them alive, one hit will be low enough. As for Serenity, I can’t find a future where he doesn’t survive this. He’ll be fine too.”

Russ sighed. Phoebe was always like that when she was nervous but trusting her abilities. It almost always worked out. “Right, but why do they want them alive? What are they going to do with them? Who are these people, anyway?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out.” Phoebe ate another bite before she relented. “I’ve already called Red. She’s trying to get a standby flight now, she’ll let us know when she knows what flight she’s on. Adrian’s already on the road, but he’s going to have to get through Customs, so he can’t bring gear. The others all had situations currently happening in their areas; even Theo is caught up in something, so she won’t be with Adrian.”

“Red, Theo, and Adrian are the closest anyway. Even so they probably won’t be here in time for anything but cleaning up.” Russ sighed. What he’d said was true, but it was still good to know that help was on the way if they needed it.