Explosions in Chinese waters!

A series of underwater explosions were detected today coming from the coast near Tianjin, China following some “unscheduled exercises” nearby. No explanation has yet been provided by Chinese authorities.

Once he left the dungeon, Serenity stopped seeing in color once again. It was something he was going to have to look into; if a dungeon could temporarily restore his vision in his chimera form, there had to be a way to do it permanently. Not having to shift to another form to see normally would be incredibly helpful.

Outside the dungeon, Greenstick became unable to understand (or speak) English. Serenity had never known that dungeons could provide translation, but apparently it was one of the possible options. Greenstick said it was “only taken on new worlds”, but Serenity wasn’t sure how much weight to place on that. He suspected that Raz and Aki were far more knowledgeable about dungeons in general than Greenstick was.

Greenstick had never seen a car before; in fact, he’d never seen any transportation device before. After the third time Rissa had to pull over to fish him out from under her feet in the first half-hour of the drive, Serenity was ready to downgrade Greenstick’s apparent age from “teenager” to “two-year-old”. The only thing Greenstick wouldn’t go near was Curio, so Serenity set Curio in Rissa’s lap.

Greenstick managed to stay in the back after that. Curio enjoyed being a lapkitten and promptly fell asleep.

Greenstick’s directions weren’t very good, but he was able to direct them in the right direction based on a ‘feeling’ of where his home portal was. Serenity had completely forgotten about that, but once Greenstick reminded him of it, he recognized it as one of the features the Voice added to invasion portals. It wasn’t intrusive, but if you thought about it, you knew where your way home was.

Serenity expected the portal to be somewhere near Austin, but they reached Austin and kept going northeast. Greenstick fell asleep half an hour after they left Austin, after telling them it was “still a long way away”. Serenity guessed they were headed to another large city, so they let Greenstick sleep for a couple of hours.

When Serenity started seeing signs for Fort Worth, he knew they couldn’t wait any longer; they could be missing the turnoff any time. Serenity picked Greenstick up from the headrest he was sleeping on and set him in his lap.

Greenstick clearly liked his naps. “Why’d you wake me up? I was having the best dream and we’re not there yet.”

“We’re coming into a city. Is it still ahead of us?” Serenity was concerned. If they’d already spread this far, they were going to be very difficult to root out. The options at this point were either an agreement of some sort or a direct assault on the portal. An agreement would be far better, because while closing the portal would prevent more Traa from coming to Earth, it wouldn’t do anything about the ones already present.

Either way, knowing where the portal was would be a huge help. He didn’t really like taking advantage of Greenstick’s naivete, but the portals were hard to find. He’d had high hopes for a detector of some sort, but so far there wasn’t one.

“Yes. We’re getting closer, but it’s still going to be a while. Can I go back to sleep?”

Serenity shook his head. “How much longer is a while?”

Greenstick seemed to concentrate for a moment. “Don’t know. We’re a lot closer but the First Cave was even closer than this. Not sure how far that was. This is a lot faster than riding a leyglider.”

Serenity had never heard of a leyglider, but from the name he was fairly confident what it meant. “You have flying animals that can follow a ley line and carry you?”

“Nope. Gliders, not birds. They can levitate in ley lines, they’re great. I’ve never flown. Can you fly? Dragons can fly, right?” Greenstick didn’t sound sleepy, but he also wasn’t as energetic as he had been before.

Serenity smiled. Greenstick was painfully young, but the world must be so amazing to him. “Only with help. I’m too young to fly on my own.” That was physically true of his hatchling dragon form, at least. He also didn’t have the mana for sustained flight; he knew several different spells that could do it, but there was no point until he had more mana.

“Too young?” Greenstick looked up at Serenity. Serenity had stayed in his chimera form despite the discomfort; there was no need to reveal things to a possible enemy, after all. “You’re pretty big. How big do dragons get?”

Serenity laughed.

The Traa portal turned out to be in Arlington, Texas. Serenity was amused at the coincidence, but doubted it meant anything; Arlington was situated more or less between Dallas and Fort Worth, so it was likely that both had counted towards whatever criteria the Voice was using to pick portal locations.

The portal was set into the side of a building near the Trinity River. Serenity used Mana Sight as well as Essence Sight to look around, and he noticed a small shelter supported by several trees a ways back from the portal. Serenity would have assumed it was unrelated to the portal if it hadn’t been cloaked in an illusion. The Traa clearly hadn’t bothered to block any senses other than visual, so it was blindingly obvious to Serenity.

Serenity had a choice - he could go to the shelter or he could head to the portal. He had the feeling that heading directly to the portal would be seen as threatening, so he headed over to the shack with Greenstick on his shoulder.

Curio was left in the rental car with Rissa. Serenity didn’t need any more kitten antics interrupting the negotiation.

When Serenity reached the portal, it was clear there was also a small corral set up under the shelter. That was probably why the shelter was there at all, and likely why it was covered in an illusion. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any Traa present.

Not that Serenity could tell Traa apart from geckos.

Serenity looked around the area, but it wasn’t simply that they weren’t in the open; he simply didn’t see any geckos at all. If they were there, they were hiding well. It was time to say something in Bridge and hope that they would listen. “I would like to speak with your elders. I believe that we can reach a mutually satisfactory agreement.”

Serenity then leaned against a tree. He wasn’t tired, but it was a way to appear less ready to fight without giving up all of his readiness.

It was an hour before anything happened.

“Greenstick.” The voice came from on top of the shelter. With that clue, Serenity could just barely see the head of a gecko peeking past the edge. “You brought an outsider here. Why?”

It was far more volume than a gecko should be able to make. That was true of Greenstick as well, even outside the dungeon.

Greenstick started. It was like he’d been dozing on Serenity’s shoulder. He scurried down Serenity’s arm, then down the tree trunk. “He’s a DRAGON! And he wants to talk about - about TRADE, not tribute! He says that’s good for everyone because everyone can get more than they lose, since what’s valuable to you may be less valuable to him. Or something like that.”

Serenity wasn’t sure that was the right lesson to take from the discussion, but he supposed it wasn’t the wrong lesson, at least.

There was a moment of silence. Serenity was sure that if the gecko on the overhang were human he would have had a significant reaction, but Serenity couldn’t read the gecko. He could only hope that the gecko felt the same way about him.

Before the moment got too long, Serenity spoke up. “I am here to talk about trade. I think we can come to an agreement that will help everyone. You’re beastmasters, aren’t you?”

“And that would make our portal not count against you.” The gecko spoke with conviction.

Serenity smiled. It was good to talk to someone who knew the score. “Yes, but it’s not like this is the end. And I do know where your portal is now. Unless you want to significantly reinforce it…”

“Hah. No Tier One can damage a portal.”

Serenity’s smile turned into a predatory grin. “There are two things wrong with that statement. I’m not Tier One and I’ve already closed a portal.” It was also likely that heavy enough weaponry could do it, but Serenity would prefer not to mention that.

There was another long pause before the older gecko spoke again. “A dragon, you say? It’s too bad you are not a beast, I would enjoy taming you. Return in two days. We will test you then. Greenstick, get over here. We need to talk.”

Serenity watched Greenstick hurry eagerly up to the top of the shelter and shook his head. Greenstick clearly had no idea what was coming.

Serenity headed back to the car. The negotiation so far was on track, but it definitely hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped. He’d hoped to at least find out what the Traa wanted and what they could provide so that he could start figuring out who to talk to; without that, he was going to have to guess. The obvious things were that they’d want to keep the caves (which was likely to be tricky, since they were probably all on privately-held land) and that they’d want animals (which should be much easier).

What the Traa could supply was harder. Combat support in the form of beastmasters was the most obvious, but Serenity knew that was a poor choice - it would be trading something long-term for temporary assistance. No, he needed to figure out something else. Perhaps they could train some humans? That would be useful.

Before that, though, it sounded like they needed to test him to see if he was worthy of trading with. It wasn’t a good sign; Serenity definitely didn’t want every trade representative having to pass some sort of test. It was worse that they wouldn’t even tell him what the test was.

He’d simply have to pass it, whatever it was. Combat against a Traa beastmaster seemed likely, so there wasn’t much he could do to prepare. The one thing he could do was talk to his parents; his father referred him to his mother as soon as he understood what Serenity was asking about, and they spent several hours each day brainstorming possibilities.

After the first hour, Bethany Rothmer called in some “specialists”. She never said what their specialty was but by the end of the second day, Serenity had a good idea what he should and shouldn’t offer, and where he’d need to get permission to give more. It wasn’t quite where he’d expected it to be; in particular, it turned out that it might be possible for the caves to be handed over to the Traa - but it wouldn’t be easy or cheap, and it probably would require some very specific concessions from the Traa.

Serenity hoped he wouldn’t actually be the person holding those negotiations. Setting them up was plenty.

Other than the conversations about the Traa, it seemed like a good time to visit some more Tutorials. He’d been overwhelmed by one thing or another for the last two visits and hadn’t managed to get any of the guide he wanted to write done; this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Writing the guidebook would be something different.

Rissa spent the time looking for an assistant for Serenity. She seemed to think it was the most important item on his list, but told him he wasn’t allowed to do the looking “because you’d just end up with someone just like yourself and that’s not what you need”.

Serenity felt that was a bit harsh, but he didn’t argue. Hiring people wasn’t something he enjoyed.