New Land Discovered?

The latest images returned from space reveal new island chains in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans! DigitalGlobe CEO Ron Stefanopolis has refused to comment, but many users of Google Earth have noticed that even on land, the same coordinates do not always map to the old location. Google has suspended automatic map updates until the cause of the fault is found.

New York City Parks Update

Bird-watchers were astonished yesterday when an unusually colored bird was seen in a flock of mourning doves. This morning, several more were seen. One has been captured alive and will be examined to determine its species. The city naturalist has refused to speculate, but one bird watcher stated that “it looks just like a passenger pigeon.”

The birds were noticed at the Pelham Bay Park, which has also had a significant increase in the rabbit population.

Dreams plagued Serenity - only he wasn’t Serenity in the dreams. He was George Miller or Robert Johnson. Only scraps remained afterwards, but it was enough to know that he had dreamt and they were not his dreams.

When Serenity woke in the morning, he was back in his hatchling dragon form. It was oddly comforting to know that hadn’t changed. Rissa was curled up around him, and he wiggled out from under her.

The surprise was that there were two phones sitting on his bedside table. One was his; the other he didn’t recognize immediately.

The bed squeaking behind him told Serenity that he’d woken Rissa up. “Why are there two phones here? I know one’s mine, but where did the other one come from?” Serenity tapped the button to wake it up; it showed the time, but when he tried to swipe to unlock it, his scales slid across the surface and nothing happened. Maybe the phone didn’t recognize scales?

Rissa waved a hand in the general direction of the end table. “That one? It was in your pocket when I put you to bed. I’m not sure where you got it, but I figured you’d be more comfortable with empty pockets.”

Now that he looked, there was also a wallet and some change on the end table. Serenity flipped the wallet open and was greeted with a driver’s license behind clear plastic.

Liam Brown’s driver’s license.

Which meant it was Liam’s phone.

If he shifted to his chimera form, the one he still thought of as Serenity, he’d be able to interact with the phone, but he wouldn’t be able to see it. Not being able to have hands and eyes at the same time was-

Was something he didn’t have to worry about anymore. At least, not if he was willing to do what was necessary.

It wasn’t like it was going to hurt anyone. Liam was dead, and Serenity knew he didn’t care anymore.

Serenity took Liam’s shape. As he had previously, he noticed that he had to shift through the Void Sovereign form to get there. It felt completely different from the Basic Draconic Shapeshift he’d had before, and Serenity had a feeling there was meaning there, but it was too fast for him to grasp.

“Well that’s different.”

Serenity twisted towards Rissa instead of picking up the phone. “What is?”

“Your shapeshifting. It was smoother and looked less painful. Not to mention that you’re wearing clothes. The same clothes you had on last night, I believe.” Rissa put her hand on his back; he could feel her through the T-shirt as she leaned over and kissed him.

Serenity put his hand up to touch the spot she kissed. “What - but - I’m - Liam - “

It wasn’t the most coherent thing he’d ever said, but Rissa seemed to understand. “You feel like Serenity, I know you’re Serenity, and if you’re worried about looking like Liam, you don’t.”

Serenity knew he was in Liam’s form, so he stared in shock at Rissa for a moment before he could speak. “What?”

“Your eyes are purple - the iris, not the whole eye, thankfully. That was weird. Your face is different, more like Serenity. Plus you’re more muscular. Liam was a skinny little twig.” Rissa shrugged.

Of course his eyes were purple, that was the color they were supposed to be.

Only that wasn’t a human eye color. Had he forgotten what Liam looked like? He didn't remember ever noticing Liam’s eye color. Liam would have known, but those memories weren’t there anymore. He’d thrown them away.

Rissa was likely right about the rest of it too; if he’d forgotten eye color, it was likely he’d lost more than just that. It was a lesson for him: the forms he knew weren’t saved anywhere except his own memory. If he forgot things, he’d get the shape wrong. Had he gotten anything wrong about Liam’s form that wasn’t obvious?

It somehow made Serenity feel better to know that whatever he was taking from people was more like a copy than actual theft - and an imperfect copy, at that.

Could he make his own form if he tried?

As he walked back to the bedside table with the phones, Serenity realized he wasn’t feeling the technology static he usually did. He hadn’t felt it all morning. He could only assume that the device Tek gave him affected only his Chimera form.

When he picked up Liam’s phone, there was a moment of worry as he realized that he didn’t remember what the password was. Fortunately, the phone wasn’t locked. Very poor security, but very useful in this case.

Serenity intended to look for “Frank’s” phone number, to see if they could use it to figure anything out, but a notification of new text messages caught his eye first. When he opened the app, one was from Frank.

How did the ritual go?

It was only an hour old. Frank must have gotten tired of waiting. Serenity looked through the chat log and found that this was a common pattern - most of the conversations started with a text from Frank and only had terse replies from Liam.

There was one that repeated several times; Serenity decided it would be a good answer.

Not perfect but well enough I guess.

It wasn’t truthful from Liam’s perspective, but he was dead. From Serenity’s it would do.

The answer was almost immediate.

Well enough to perform for real? Or do you need more tests?

Serenity grinned. He remembered that Frank wanted the ritual performed on himself; he was convinced that it was the only thing holding him back from becoming the next Merlin. He was obviously not going to do it; he couldn’t without the mentirk and he wouldn’t have anyway.

Well enough. Tomorrow?

Not today?

Can’t do it before sunset today.

Sunset it is. Meet you at the warehouse, just come on in.

Serenity wanted to meet Frank rather badly, but he wasn’t sure how much they had to prepare first - and he also wasn’t sure if anyone had remembered to take supplies to Raz. He’d had enough for a few days, but Serenity didn’t want to leave him alone or even make him subsist on rations. That was never fun.

It was already midmorning, and the rest of the day disappeared as they went shopping, then stopped by Aki’s dungeon for lunch with Raz. When they reached the dungeon, Serenity suddenly shifted into his hatchling dragon form; he quickly discovered that the dungeon would only permit his dragon and chimera forms, and seemed to prefer the dragon.

Phoebe was quiet the entire trip into the dungeon. Serenity had never thought of her as loud, but now it was almost like she was trying to avoid looking at both him and Rissa. It didn’t seem to be a problem yet, so Serenity mentally filed it away as something to figure out if it continued. If it didn’t, he’d likely forget about it.

Raz met them soon after the entered the dungeon and seemed overjoyed about having another dragon in the dungeon; he even offered to carry Serenity. Serenity wasn’t certain if Raz appreciated the show of solidarity or just that there was someone who was even smaller than he was. Either way, Raz seemed far more relaxed.

The dungeon seemed similar to before, though the grass was taller and more lush. As they walked over the hill to Aki’s home, it was clear it was no longer a shelter under an overhang. Instead, there were three wooden doors set into the side of the hill. The moment he saw them, Serenity couldn’t think of anything other than hobbit-holes, but it was only a passing resemblance.

The inside of each was small and sparse, yet still tall enough to accommodate any of them. Two of the hill-houses held only sleeping and bathing areas, while the third also had a kitchen and a gathering area that would easily seat the five of them. Aki’s crystal sat in the middle of the table, with its base set into the table itself.

:You said you might come back and stay here. We did the best we could.:

Serenity remembered that; it was back when they were worried about what had happened at Rissa’s house. Still, it was obvious that Aki and Raz really wanted the company. “You’ve done a great job,” Serenity stated. “I didn’t think even a dungeon could do this so quickly. Is it the three ley lines?”

:Partly, but mostly it’s been all the people in the dungeon, enjoying themselves. It’s truly wonderful to just have people here.:

The dungeon covered a large part of the park. So far, it was safe, but Serenity didn’t know if that would last. “People come here to enjoy a safe time with nature.”

:Yes. I managed to get a Rare bird. That brought many people. I plan to find others; things that are pretty to watch or play with. Strife and danger can come later; this is a place for a child. A child who hunts, but still a child. Nothing here should be particularly dangerous.:

Rissa turned to Serenity. “Do you need to be at the house? I think I’d rather stay here. I liked my home, but-” She stopped and shook her head. “It’s been violated twice now. It’s not a safe place anymore.”

Serenity nodded, then hugged Rissa’s leg, since it was all he could reach. It felt positively ridiculous, but she laughed.

They were on their way out of the park when Rissa’s phone rang.

Serenity could hear only half of the conversation.

“Lancaster?”

“Yeah, we’re on our way out of the park. Which one? Pelham Bay of course … no, there’s a triple ley line, it’s …”

“Oh. Yeah, I think we can. Let me ask.”

Rissa turned to Serenity. “Can you do another tracing spell? They’re still tracking Made’s movements, and want to find her boyfriend. He’s the last person they need to check of her close connections, and he’s nowhere to be found.”

“Yeah, I can do that. We just have to be done in time to make it to the warehouse before sunset.” Serenity wasn’t going to miss the appointment.

Rissa put the phone back next to her ear. “Yeah, we’ve got a few hours .... Meet you at the hospital? Why? … Oh, that’s great news. Yeah, we’ll be there as soon as we can, with traffic.”

After Rissa hung up, she gave Serenity and her parents the good news: Made was awake again. They didn’t know how much she’d recover, but she had a chance.

Even better, they’d caught a few more people, and the wasp venom worked wonders. They were working on better application methods to get the worms to leave on their own, but it was a good start. There were already promises being made about compounds created by purifying the venom or distilling it down to its subcomponents, but even in its raw form, it worked. It was also just as easy to harvest from the Wasp Dungeon as Serenity had suggested.

Lancaster didn’t say anything about approvals for testing; Serenity wondered a little, but didn’t ask.