“You do realize that you’re the reason I’ve been stuck behind a desk for weeks now, don’t you?” Nightwitch’s words were harsher than her tone of voice. “Couldn’t you have at least called a bit earlier?”

“Uh. I didn’t - I was busy.” Serenity wasn’t sure what would have gone differently if he’d called, but it was true that he hadn’t, even though he’d said he would when the Tutorial ended.

Nightwitch laughed. “I heard. I’ve been talking to Rissa, but that doesn’t let you off the hook. You know, if you actually talked to people you might learn things earlier.”

“Learn things earlier?” Serenity had a feeling he was about to be surprised, and possibly not in a good way.

“You’ll have company soon. I know Rissa’s been arranging things, but she said she didn’t want to bother you while you were concentrating.” The glee in Nightwitch’s voice was positively frightening.

“Company?” Serenity stared at the blank cell phone screen. He’d shifted back into his chimera shape after entering the number so that his voice would be recognizable, but that meant he couldn’t actually see the screen.

As he stared at the phone, he realized that Tek’s token had done something. The technology-static was gone. Maybe she’d simply disabled it? Serenity would be happy with that outcome; he had a way to see again and didn’t really need to use cameras now.

He doubted he was that lucky. Tek didn’t seem like the sort of person who would give up on an experiment.

Nightwitch’s tone went from teasing to serious as she spoke. “I’m not going to spoil the surprise. I’d drag it out more, but really it brings up something you need to fix. You need a staff.”

“What?” Serenity mostly used a naginata these days; it worked well against most enemies, and he could use it more or less like a staff if needed.

“At least an assistant. Someone to handle arranging your public appearances, probably also manage your schedule in general. You said you wanted a reliable group to work with to deal with the invasions; you need to start building it. You also need to think about funding your group. Lancaster isn’t building UERT alone; if you’re going to be a sort of famous troubleshooter for hire, you need to have everything he has and still pay for it. Rissa’s been handling it for you so far, but you need her doing what she is good at, not an assistant’s job.” Nightwitch wasn’t pulling her punches; she’d clearly thought more about his situation than he had.

Vengeance had jumped from problem to problem, doing whatever needed to be done. Serenity remembered a very long time where he’d been poor, barely able to keep his equipment repaired and make it to the next trouble spot. It had been worth it for Vengeance, since he didn’t have a bigger goal, but Nightwitch was right.

Serenity had a bigger goal and he needed to start acting like it. So far, the only thing he knew for certain that had changed on Earth was the Hegemon Worm invasion and the invasions that abandoned the planet early. He didn’t know how that would change things.

He was missing the obvious. Rissa was a Seer; why didn’t he ask her where the biggest impact he could have was? Once he finished dealing with the Sterath, at least. He hoped he’d have a clue there soon; it bothered him that he’d been back more than a week and the only information he had was that a single patrol unit had seen a kangaroo in armor. Even the news reports of kangaroos had stopped.

“How would I even get an assistant?” The only hiring Serenity had ever done was corporate, and somehow this just didn’t feel like that was how it would work. Funding could also be a problem, but it was one he could potentially solve with Rissa’s help. “Or maybe I should find someone who knows how to work the auction sites, wherever items are being sold. I can probably run some dungeons pretty quickly if we need the income.”

“Start with figuring out what you need. I can tell you that you need someone with PR experience. That’s why you called me, after all.” Nightwitch had a point. “As for why you actually called, the interview was fine, but next time see if you can add a requirement that you have to approve what goes out before it airs. That would have cut several bits from the first interview.”

That was an even better point.

“Once you have an assistant, have them call me. I’m working with the team compiling everything we know about the invaders around the globe. So far, we’ve been able to handle the ones we’re aware of with conventional forces, but we’ve only managed to isolate one portal, and it hasn’t closed.” Nightwitch seemed to be about to hang up.

“One hasn’t closed? Then you don’t have it isolated. An opponent still has control of the portal.” Serenity suspected there was an important distinction there. It was supposed to be possible to close a portal by killing the invasion leader, but that only worked if the invasion was set up without a proper succession. What you really had to do was make the Voice, the invasion’s leadership, or the support back home believe that the invasion was nonviable; any of the three could issue a recall and then shut down the portal.

That’s essentially what Serenity had done by killing the Hegemon Worm Queen and taking over the Swarm, even though there wasn’t a recall period. Serenity suspected that was because there wasn’t anyone to recall.

The long-term solution was a teleportation barrier, but that only prevented new portal formation and the Voice could get around it. A sufficiently skilled powerful mage could as well, but it reduced the danger significantly.

“There’s a barrier between us and the portal. A few things have come through the portal and turned back around, but we can’t get through the barrier to do anything about them. It’s not urgent yet.” Nightwitch paused and seemed to consider something before she spoke again. “You might look into hiring someone who knows how to deal with the federal procurement system or at least how to find someone who does. We haven’t put a contract out for bid yet, but…”

Serenity wondered if he could get hired as a consultant. It would be convenient since it would solve the funding issue if he could draw on government resources, but at the same time there was probably a rule against it somewhere, given who his father was.

Serenity hung up the phone and went looking for Rissa. Nightwitch had given him a lot to think about, but the first thing he wanted to do was locate an assistant. She was definitely right about that; he needed someone to help him keep the list. He was continually losing things from it.

“Serenity!”

Who was that? Serenity didn’t recognize the voice. He came around the corner and stopped short at the sight of a woman he didn’t recognize. There was something familiar about her, but it was more of a resemblance than knowing the woman herself.

She froze when she saw him, then asked, “How did you do that to your clothes?”

Serenity looked down. He was wearing his armor without anything over it. He hadn’t done that outside the house since he got to his parents’ home, but as far as he could tell there wasn’t anything unusual about the armor. “Do what? Wait, who are you?”

“Serenity!” That voice was one he recognized, and it was matched by the woman who had just turned the corner. “It’s great to see you!”

Serenity grinned. “It’s good to see you too, Katya. How long have you been here?”

“Not long,” the other woman said. “I had to detour to pick her up. I’m Red, I think Phoebe’s mentioned me?”

Serenity nodded. “Rissa has too.” Serenity looked back and forth between the two, then waved them into the kitchen. It was a good thing that Aki kept expanding their house; it would have been extremely cramped to have two visitors if it were the original size.

“Did you know there’s an entire Settlement named the same thing you are?” Katya slipped into one of the chairs at the kitchen table, even though she seemed to not want to sit still.

Serenity could already tell that keeping up with both Katya and Red was going to be exhausting. Still, that wasn’t a reason not to answer the question. “Yeah. I got a notice about it while we were on Tzintkra.”

Katya seemed completely surprised by that. “What - it’s that young? And why would you know?”

Serenity shrugged. He seemed to do that a lot. “We were at the Whale of a Time Inn. I can’t remember which morning it was. As for why, apparently they needed my permission to use my Name.”

While Katya stared at him with her mouth open, Red took the chance to jump in. “So how did you do that to your clothes? I’ve been trying to figure out a way to do a really good stealthy visual effect for years.”

There was still nothing strange about his armor. Maybe it was something he couldn’t see?

As he thought that, Serenity realized what it had to be. “Is it still completely nonreflective, blacker than black?”

When Red nodded, he sighed. “It was an accident. I thought it would be temporary, but I guess not. I haven’t checked the clothes I was wearing over my armor that day.” He’d thought they were normal, but maybe not? He couldn’t remember if he’d looked at them with any eyes other than his chimera’s.

Red looked confused, so Serenity decided to explain a little more. “I can’t see color, just shapes. It’s the eyes.” He pointed at his eyes and saw her jump a little. He was pretty sure she hadn’t even noticed them before he pointed it out.

Red seemed to recover quickly, at least. Katya was still acting shocked. “Do you think you could repeat it?”

“No. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Well …” Serenity thought for a moment. “I might be able to safely, but I’m not sure it would be safe for others. Even if it were, it’d be a really wasteful way to make stealthy armor. You could probably just bind a spell to them, but that’d be temporary. For permanent, you’d really want to get someone to make it. Hey, Katya, that’s the sort of thing your family does, isn’t it?”

“You … accidentally … made … no-light … armor …” Katya’s words made Serenity realize he hadn’t actually tried to Identify the armor yet, but a permanent change probably would show up.

Void Elemental Armor

This armor is made from tanned minotaur leather, reinforced with adamant-infused steel. It is specifically designed to be adjustable to accommodate wings and a tail if needed. It has since been touched by the Void, eliminating its magic resistance while removing its ability to be detected except by observing what is not there.

Options: Absorptive (selected) / Invisible

Enchantments: Minor Self-Repair, Minor Self-Cleaning, Minor Elemental Protection (increases all Elemental-type Resistances by 10), Minor Durability

“It says it’s Absorptive, not no-light … or I can choose invisible?” Given the limited other clothing Serenity was wearing, he decided that making his armor invisible was not on the agenda at the moment, so he left the option alone.

Katya buried her face in her hands. “Do you know how much that’s worth? Even with nothing else on it?”

Serenity shook his head. “No idea.”

Katya seemed to silently shake. “Absorptive is … it doesn’t have the rest of the suit, no gloves or head cover. But .. even without that … the true value is because it’s hard to do, but it’s the best. It’s not made often because it’s so expensive.”