After the interview, Serenity returned to releasing the people dominated by the Hegemon Worm Queen. By dinnertime, he had a raging headache and decided that a trip to the Tutorial was a good idea. He’d recovered enough to safely teach magic and if he could free people from there, it would save time in the real world. His spare time could be spent looking into how the other magic teachers were handling teaching magic.

It was a terrible idea.

Serenity couldn’t even reach the people he needed to free. It gave him a sick headache from the strain.

Curio appeared in the Tutorial when Serenity did; fortunately, the voidling appeared to have settled on the shape of a shadowy kitten. It was surprisingly useful to have around; the kitten got more attention than the strange circumstances did. Somehow, Curio seemed to get in even more trouble than a real kitten.

Serenity's class was larger than ever, and had more people who just wanted to learn the basics of magic than who wanted to learn runes or Death magic. Trying to put together a book on what he could about the greater universe or even just magic made his continual headache worse, and he had to shelve that project for a future Tutorial. Teaching was going to be all he could manage this time.

Serenity did the best he could, but about two weeks in, he found Blaze waiting with Sillon in the breakroom when he went in for breakfast.

“Good morning,” Serenity greeted the two men. He felt groggy and wrung out, but some zeht would help. He was drinking it like water to try to stay awake the past few days.

Serenity barely had time to sit down with his breakfast before Blaze turned to him. “What’s wrong? And don’t tell me nothing, it’s obvious that isn’t true.”

Serenity closed his mouth on the word “nothing” and replaced it with “Stuff at home. Can’t fix it here.” That was the problem after all; the compressed time meant he couldn’t do anything about the weight of the dominated people.

Blaze sighed. “Uh huh, and you know you’ll be back in seconds or you wouldn’t have come. Students have less of a choice than you do and I don’t accept that from them without checking them out either. Do you want me to check you here or do you want to meet me at the healing hall after your classes for the day?”

“This evening.” Serenity probably could have refused, but it didn’t occur to him until after he’d already agreed, and he was sure Blaze had done it on purpose. He needed more zeht.

“General exhaustion and stress,” Blaze diagnosed. “There’s nothing wrong with you that rest won’t fix. You’re not teaching tomorrow; no, you won’t be in Trials and no you may not enter the dungeon either. You can go explore or sleep. If you want to, you can come here and keep me company; we’re far enough in that it’s quiet most of the time.”

“But-” Serenity didn’t have time to rest. There were always things that needed doing; more students that had questions, if nothing else.

“No. I don’t know why you’re so worried, but we all take time off. You have been too, even if not as much as most - but not this Tutorial. If you keep this up I’ll start enforcing regular rest days.” Blaze shook his head at Serenity. “I don’t know where you picked up the habit of treating your body like it doesn’t matter, but you’re not immortal and you’re not immune to the need to rest. Quit abusing yourself.”

Serenity knew the problem this time wasn’t just him abusing himself, but he had to wonder if there wasn’t still some truth to what Blaze said. Was he treating his body like he was immortal and without fatigue - like he was still undead?

Had Blaze figured out something about him without ever realizing it?

Serenity wanted to protest, but at the same time he knew he was exhausted. Maybe he could afford a day off after all?

“You have the strangest luck,” Blaze said, setting his hand down. “Whenever I have a really good hand, yours is better, but when I have a bad hand, your hand is somehow worse. It’s no wonder I’m losing.”

Serenity smiled. He couldn’t keep his emotions off his face, and that would normally make him lose at a supposedly chance-based betting game like Royals and Dragons, but there was far less luck involved than Blaze thought. “It’s the secondary hand. You keep forgetting it’s there and playing like it’s two separate hands instead of using them to work on each other. You should be planning several hands ahead and gathering a simple draw to complete a Reign or a Flight, but you’re only playing it one hand at a time.”

Blaze shook his head. “So you’re telling me it isn’t luck?”

“Nope. Definitely not luck. I want to take you with me the next time I get to a tournament. I won’t bother to enter, I’ll just bet on you and rake the money in from people who think they’re taking advantage of a newbie.” Kerr tossed both of her hands at the center of the table. “It’s not just you, Blaze, he’s taken all of us for a ride.”

Serenity had a lot of practice with betting games, and Royals and Dragons had the huge benefit of being easy to learn and hard to master, so a lot of people played it. Vengeance had mastered it. Admittedly, he’d had the advantage that most people couldn’t read a draugr’s facial expressions, but the big benefit was that until he was known, everyone treated him like a mark with beginner’s luck. Draugr were known to be dull; not as stupid as zombies, but not particularly bright.

“Another hand?” Serenity was having fun, even if they were literally playing for nuts. He had the most nuts in his bowl, but he hadn’t cleaned the others out yet. Serenity’s pile was smaller than it otherwise would have been since he kept eating his nuts and he was pretty sure that Curio was sneaking some of them as well, but it was still more than anyone else at the table.

Sillon eyed Serenity’s bowl for a moment, then tossed his cards on top of Kerr’s. “Nah. It’s time for something different. Something where Serenity can’t card-sharp us into poverty or at least out of snacks. Let’s play some Delve Deeper.”

Serenity didn’t recognize the game. “What’s Delve Deeper?”

“I knew I missed something.” Kerr’s statement seemed out of context until she continued. “You didn’t ask about the rules for Royals and Dragons.”

Serenity shrugged. “I’ve played it before.”

Kerr snorted as she pushed her chair back a bit from the table. “Yeah, I noticed. Do you think Delve Deeper is fair, Sillon? Serenity’s barely done any dungeons and Blaze hasn’t done many either.”

“You didn’t see him explain the Trial monsters when he’d never seen them. How did you do that, Serenity?” Sillon picked up the cards and tucked them away before pulling out a board, some dice, a set of game pieces, and a small box.

The box radiated magic; it wasn’t an Affinity that Serenity recognized immediately, but he could easily tell that it was entirely mana-powered. He’d have needed to spend some time examining the enchantment to determine what it did, and spending the time seemed silly when he could just ask.

Serenity shrugged. “They were what they looked like.” He didn’t feel like explaining his actual past, and admitting that every single one of the monsters could have been straight out of a story from Earth didn’t seem much better.

“I’ll partner Serenity,” Blaze volunteered.

Kerr stared at Blaze then turned to Sillon. “I’m blaming you when we lose.”

“Against two novices? Don’t be silly.” Sillon shook his head. “Now, we’re both melee ourselves but if I know Kerr, she’s going to want us to run different types. I’ll take a melee anyway; that way, I can use my own attributes and specialties, without picking them openly.” He set his hand on the box and a card appeared in front of him. It showed a stylized male human dressed in ordinary clothing without a weapon.

“Mage,” said Kerr. “Secondary specialization in trapfinding. Darkness demon, I think; the resistances and special abilities will make up for the weaknesses.” She touched the box and a card showing a gray-skinned figure with black horns outlined in shadow appeared. Like Sillon’s card, Kerr’s figure was dressed in ordinary clothing and weaponless. A glow seemed to gather at the figure’s hands; that must be the indication that the character was a mage.

Serenity’s bowl meowed and the nuts shook as Curio dug itself out from under them. As it sprang out of the bowl, nuts scattered across the table.

Curio looked much plumper than it had when the game started and the bowl was emptier than Serenity had expected. “It’s a good thing you can eat anything, Curio. I’m pretty sure nuts aren’t normally catfood.”

Blaze chuckled and reached over to pet the kitten. “We should probably just play our own specialties, Serenity. That way we know what we can do. You won’t need my healing, so I can go a bit more offensive; I don’t get to do that often. Delve Deeper is about dungeoning, everything from preparing for the delve to figuring out how to beat the monsters. It’s technically a training game, but it’s fun enough that a lot of people play it just to play.”

Serenity wondered how he’d missed it, then. Perhaps it’d fallen out of favor before he started playing games again? Or perhaps it was because he’d mostly played games with strangers for money.

Blaze set his hand on the box and the card was as Serenity expected - a male human, dressed plainly, with a glow around his hands.

Serenity shrugged. He’d probably end up with a half-dragon, the way this was going; that’d be fine. Half-dragons required specialized, more expensive equipment, but they had the benefits of their draconic heritage.

No, he really shouldn’t risk it. He didn’t know how deeply it read people; what if it turned up a card that showed a dragon? How much did he trust them?

This was Sillon, Kerr, and Blaze; if anyone else had been there, even Ekari or Margrethe, Serenity knew what the decision would be, but these three? They were friends, and unlike Margrethe, Blaze wasn’t a Guild member at all and Sillon and Kerr only belonged to the Mercenaries’ Guild.

He was overthinking it. He was with friends; there was no reason to be paranoid. Serenity reached out and tapped the box.

The card that appeared in front of him didn’t have a figure on it. Instead, there was a faint shadow. “That doesn’t look right.”

Everyone stared at the card. Even Sillon looked at it blankly for a moment before pulling out the bag he’d carried the game in. The last thing in the bag was a small booklet. Sillon flipped to the back. “Card appears blank instead of showing a figure … here it is. Unrecognized species or true shapeshifter. Determine threat level; if you decide to continue the game, have the person choose another species.” He raised his eyes to meet Serenity’s. “Should I be afraid of you?”

“I don’t see why you would be?” Serenity had no reason to be hostile, after all.

He needed to pick another species. He started to say “human,” but that seemed a bit too boring. “Sage Draugr, hybrid, my specialties. Will that work?”

“If a Sage Draugr is a real race. I’ve never heard of it. It’s not what you are?” Sillon gestured towards the box.

“No. It would be pointless to pick something it doesn’t recognize.” Serenity tapped the box again.

As the card changed to look like a draugr, Kerr hissed audibly in Sillon’s ear, “Told you I’m blaming you if they win.”