Excerpt from the first draft of An Earthling’s Guide to the Larger Universe

Invasions

By now, you’ve probably heard about it: Earth is being invaded. There’s even a Quest to deal with the 512 Invasion Portals.

This probably seems like a test set up by the Voice.

It is and it isn’t.

Until all 512 Invasion Portals are resolved, no other portals can be used to reach the planet for any reason, including trade. This means we can’t look for help from other worlds and we can’t leave, but we also won’t have any new invaders arrive.

Almost all of the current invaders will be relatively weak by outside standards; the Voice always establishes protections against the Great Factions when it finds a new world. These protections only last for about ten years, but they give a new world valuable time to get on its feet and have a chance.

Dealing with an Invasion Portal doesn’t necessarily mean closing it. The Voice determines when the conditions are met, but generally they can be:

The portal is closed by either the invaders or the invaded An agreement is reached between the invaders and the locals (anything from a trade agreement to ceding some land has been recorded as working in the past) The Voice otherwise considers the situation “stable”; it is believed that this includes cases where the invaders are now considered “locals” by sufficiently dominating the area near the portal.

In the last two cases, the portal will not immediately close, although ones created with an item will still observe their maximum time limit. It is usually considered “best” to use an alternate portal method, as Invasion Portals are one of the most expensive transit methods available.

Serenity took days to write down as much information as he could think of or pull out of the Instructor’s Guide. He ended up with several times as much information as was in the Instructor’s Guide, and surprisingly little of it was duplicated. Earth didn’t need to know about approaches to calm students down or introduce them to the concept of Paths; instead, they needed the information on the Paths themselves.

It was supposed to be taught in the Tutorials, but wasn’t included in the Instructor's Guide because the teachers were supposed to already know the information.

Serenity included some things that he was pretty sure were barely mentioned, like invasions. They were common on new worlds, but the only place they were mentioned was in the general orientation information on the first day. That wasn’t the best place to talk about it.

There had to be other large gaps. What else was missing?

Serenity spent a lot of time trying to answer that question.

Once he had something to start from, he started asking some of the instructors he trusted to review it. Incomplete or not, it would help, but he wanted another set of eyes.

At the end of the first Tutorial that day, every student went home with a copy of his “first edition”. It would be a long time before it was really ready, but even a first edition was better than nothing.

He’d probably still be working on it when the last Tutorial he had to do was done, but at least it was finally started.

The old Arena was still in surprisingly good shape. Of course, it should be; they were barely able to use it at all. The two Traa paid little attention to the arena itself; both had seen it when it was busy, but it had been silent for long enough it no longer caught their attention.

“Are we truly expecting a dragon?” The scarred silver-and-yellow Traa stared unblinkingly at the albino.

Longsight twitched his tail. It was an old nervous habit that he’d never quite managed to eliminate. “That’s what your youngest says, Lord Widetail. I’ll take the Settlement’s scryer out to confirm it. He looked no more than half dragon; more human than not, but you know the legends.”

“Wasn’t this a Tier-One Human world? That’s why we picked it.” Lord Widetail sounded dubious. “Humans are flexible, but rarely dominate their worlds enough that we can’t find beasts. A dragon world - no, it can’t be. There are far too many humans in that settlement, dragons wouldn’t allow that.”

“The pickings have been particularly bad so far. We tried placing Greenstick farther from habitation, but it hasn’t been long enough to see if that will make a difference, other than the dragons.” Longsight turned towards the Arena and away from his friend and Lord. “The world has been full of anomalies for a Tier One Human world. Not enough beasts, too many humans, less magic than any Tier One world I’ve ever seen, a Sovereign and now a dragon. If we could afford it, I’d say we should pull out. Some already have.”

"No. You know as well as I do that we can't." Lord Widetail's tail was moving agitatedly until he visibly calmed himself. “We can’t even afford to kill him. Even if he’s too weak to trade with under more normal circumstances.” Lord Widetail sounded like he hated what he was saying. “It’s too bad he’s not one of the local human rulers, but whatever he can get us should speed up the process. New lands-”

Longsight settled down to listen to his Lord. It was a good thing he’d said two days; Lord Widetail was going to talk for at least a day now that he’d started.

Longsight would simply not mention comparing the dragon to a beast. He hadn’t expected to be told to accept a lower-Tier trade partner; he’d expected to be allowed to defeat him and either kill or break him. Dominating a dragon was dangerous, but they were powerful as long as it wasn’t noticed by anyone who was powerful enough to stop it.

Now he’d have to plan how to handle the difficulty to get a true test with little chance of killing the dragon. If he was lucky, the dragon had told the truth; Tier One was simply too low to be acceptable. Two was painful, but it was the best he could expect. The mana field on the new world was low; Traa were fine there at Tier Three, but Longsight doubted a dragon would be. They were simply too magical to enjoy a low-magic environment.

Two days after leaving the Traa Portal, Rissa and Serenity arrived back at the pleasant riverside area again. As she’d done the first time, Rissa stayed with the SUV while Serenity headed up to the shelter.

There was no sign of any Traa when he arrived, so Serenity leaned against a tree again. He wasn’t surprised they wanted to make him wait; it was probably a negotiating strategy, just like telling him to wait two days for a test, without telling him what would be tested.

The elder Traa only made Serenity wait about half an hour before he poked his head past the end of the shelter’s roof. “Good, you’re here. Head over to the portal; there are some tests we need to do before you can enter and participate in the trial.”

“Standard city entry tests?” Serenity knew that if he were a City Lord accepting a hostile emissary, he’d make the emissary pass at least as many tests as anyone else. Most of the standard tests were looking for things that could kill a city or take away its ownership, but some were for things as apparently simple as unapproved plants or animals. It all depended on what the city felt was dangerous or taxable. It was possible to fool the tests, but they were generally pretty reliable.

The Traa seemed startled at the question, but answered it anyway. “Yes.”

Serenity nodded. “What should I call you? I’ve been thinking of you as “the Traa”, but somehow that doesn’t seem like a good identifier.”

The Traa seemed to want to take his time to reply. They were standing about ten feet from the portal when the Traa spoke again. “Stop. Greenstick, Catstooth, get over here!” The Traa kept walking forward, but shortly before he reached the portal, he stopped and looked back. “I am called Longsight. You can be glad I am here; I am old enough to remember the last trade agreement we had, and I know enough to see the mark of Ptah on you. That is all that allowed you to be heard.”

While Longsight spoke, a pair of Traa scurried over from near the portal carrying a pouch that was larger than the two of them combined. It had to be enchanted; that was the only way that would work. As Serenity watched, they pulled a metal chain with a fist-sized complex ornament attached to one end out of the pouch.

“You can use the scryer, but I won’t let you chain me.” Serenity knew exactly what the device was; they were common. The chain was exactly that: it was intended to capture people who didn’t pass the scryer’s tests. Serenity knew how to defeat one, but wasn’t entirely confident in his ability to do so quickly. Not now. He simply didn’t have the power he’d had when he fought one in the future-that-wouldn’t-be.

Greenstick and Catstooth turned to look at Longsight, who’d stepped a little closer at Serenity’s statement. Longsight nodded and they set up a small stand to support the scryer. It was usually held by the person doing the testing, but Serenity could see how that wouldn’t work well when the Traa were smaller than the scryer.

Longsight moved forward to the scryer’s focal point, examined it, then looked up at Serenity. “It agrees that you’re a dragon, but you don’t look undead.”

Serenity snorted. He knew exactly what the problem was. “You need to get a better scryer. That one must be looking for a Life Vital Affinity. An undead would have Undeath or Death, but they’re not the only people with a different Vital Affinity. I’m an elemental. Some dragons are.”

“Elemental” simply meant that he was neither “living” nor “undead”. It was a catch-all category for the oddities. Serenity wasn’t certain how common elemental dragons were, but he knew they existed, and they weren’t the only famous creatures that could be elementals. Phoenixes tended to move from “living” to “elemental” as they aged. At least, Serenity thought it was age-related; it might be when they were reborn, instead.

Serenity shook himself and looked at the small Traa. Longsight was looking through the information revealed by the scryer. “Any other questions?”

“No. All I’m seeing is a non-living dragon and a non-living shadowcat. I’ll have to get a better scryer in the future, but you told the truth when you said you were an elemental. You can follow me.” Longsight headed towards the portal while Greenstick and Catstooth started trying to fit the scryer back in the pouch, chains first. Serenity shook his head, but didn’t say anything; they weren’t going to have much luck until they realized the scryer had to go in first, but he’d let them find that out on their own.

It really was a low-end scryer if all it could detect was living or non-living, species, and a limited truth-detection. Serenity suspected that the truth detection wasn’t even very reliable; at the low end, it was no better than a lie detector, and probably worse. Still, it was probably all they could afford; unless they were a high-magic multi-planet civilization, anything better than that would be extremely rare and expensive. Most groups that met those criteria would be counted as Great Factions and barred from Earth for the moment.

The Sterath were probably close to the top end of what was allowed; the Hegemon Worms, for all they were dangerous and horrifying, were at the bottom.

Serenity paused a moment before entering the portal. If the Traa weren’t interested in trade, they could well be luring him into a trap. He didn’t think they were, but it was possible. On the other hand, if he didn’t go through the portal, he’d be throwing away the chance for a peaceful resolution; he’d have to destroy the portal and hunt down all of the Enhancement Caves.

He’d already decided it was worth the risk; it still seemed worth taking the chance. Serenity stepped through the portal behind Longsight.