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

Invasion Portals (Continued)

For now, let’s ignore the case where the Voice has decided the situation is stable and the invaders are now locals. That’s what we’re trying to prevent after all. We’ll also ignore the case where the portal times out, since that’s really not very helpful.

If the invaders close the portal or you reach a deal, all you really need to know is that they’re no longer a threat. Fortunately, there’s a relatively simple (not easy) way to do this for first-wave invasions.

First-wave invasions are always within a certain range of both water and a population center. This means - for Earth - that they’re always close to a city and are usually within the city’s boundaries defined both as we would and the way the Voice sets them.

This results in what is known as a contested city. Basically, the city’s being attacked.This status is readily apparent to the City Manager or City Lord with the use of a City Crystal or Node. While most Cities in the outside world are started with a Settlement Crystal in place, the Voice tends to provide them for existing cities when it finds a new world; the first place to look is at a ley line nexus.

Even if the invaders capture your City Crystal, they cannot take control of it unless it meets the city’s establishment requirements (for example, it’s ceded to them by a higher authority) or the Voice considers them to “have control” of the City. This is not an easy requirement.

“No one’s here to greet us.” Doyle looked concerned as he pulled up next to the Settlement Crystal. “Echo’s supposed to have to let anyone in before they can even find the settlement. She didn’t even know I went to get you, why isn’t there at least a guard? There should have been one at the edge of the woods.”

“I suspect it’s not open, but Echo can’t keep me out.” Serenity hopped out of the truck’s passenger seat and stretched. Two days in a car was bad enough in human form; he didn’t want to think about what it would have felt like if he’d also had to sit on his wings. As he stretched, he shifted; he felt positively confined after spending all day stuck in human form. Void Sovereign was freeing, but chimera was the shape that was the most comfortable.

As he finished his stretch, a voice called down from above. “Hey guys. When did you get here?” There was a tapping sound of the ladder hitting the tree as Echo climbed down, unconcernedly swinging instead of carefully controlling her descent.

Serenity smiled. “Good to see you too-oof.”

A just-over-a-hundred-pound guided missile of a girl slammed into Serenity, making him put a foot back to brace himself. She flung her arms around his waist and hugged him as hard as she could.

Serenity patted her on the back, slightly lost. What was this about?

“It’s so good to see you! I mean I know you were safe, Katya knew you and even if I had to teach her English I knew you were ahead of her and had to be safe and I talked to Rissa and Doyle talked to Rissa but I missed you so much!”

Did Echo really say all of that in one breath?

“I’m fine. I wasn’t in any danger on Tzintkra, not really.” Serenity sighed to himself. He hadn’t thought about how it looked to others, heading out of the Tutorial so he wouldn’t starve then being out of contact for a couple weeks. “I - everything was fine after that first day. The Voice was right about the quest reward, it did fix things. It just left me a long way from home.”

“I know. And I know why you didn’t come visit. Doyle told me about the worms, nasty. I still missed you.” Echo stood there holding Serenity around the waist for several minutes. Serenity just kept patting her back, unsure of what to do.

He looked at Doyle. Doyle had kids, didn’t he? Maybe he’d know what to do?

Doyle was leaning against the pickup, trying not to laugh - or at least to keep his laughter silent. Serenity mouthed “So helpful” at him; it only made Doyle have a harder time staying silent.

Once Echo finally let go, she skipped cheerily over to the Settlement Crystal. She seemed completely unaffected by the emotion she’d shown when Serenity arrived. “This is why I needed you to come. There’s some stuff you need to set up, plus - well, you’ll see."

After his experience with the Necropolis, Serenity had a good idea just how much needed to be set up. It wouldn’t be as much here; this was a Settlement, not a world capital. Still, it could take quite a while, if Echo hadn’t been able to set up most of it. Serenity was sure he’d be rubberstamping decisions she and Doyle had already made.

He reached out and touched the Settlement Crystal and it was immediately obvious what the “you’ll see” was.

There was a large bright red banner at the top.

==CONTESTED SETTLEMENT==

He tapped that first. It seemed like the thing to do.

Opponent Portal within range of Settlement. All known opponents have been defeated, but the portal must be closed to resolve the contest.

Serenity dug around in the menus, but none of them told him where the portal was. He could determine that it wasn’t within the Settlement area itself - not even the extended Settlement Zone that he’d noticed on the way in - but because it wasn’t in the Zone, all it would tell him was that it was “within range”, whatever that meant.

There wasn’t a city particularly close and the nearby waterways were all streams, not navigable waters. Wherever the portal was, it was either a lot farther away than he thought made sense or this portal violated the established rules for invasion portals.

Serenity was willing to bet it was the second option. The universe - or at least the Voice - ran on exceptions as much as it ran on rules. If there was a species that didn’t want water anywhere nearby, it might well end up with a portal that wasn’t near water, the same way a marine species would end up with one that was underwater.

He couldn’t immediately come up with a reason that the portal would be so far from a population center, but he doubted it was a coincidence that it had opened in (or at least near) a potential Settlement and triggered a Trial. That sounded like something the Voice might do.

Serenity pulled himself away from the crystal long enough to question Echo. “Do you know where the portal is?”

She shook her head. “We’ve looked, but we can’t find it anywhere in the warded area.”

Could she not see the maps? “It’s not in the Settlement Zone. Are the maps - I bet I need to enable them. Just like I bet I need to authorize you as Settlement Manager. Hm. There was only one rockfish?”

Both Doyle and Echo nodded, but Echo continued her answer. “We’ve looked for them too. No luck. Not that I’d think we’d see them, since they can swim underground.”

Serenity disagreed. “If they were here, I think you’d know. Not by seeing them, maybe, but they’d test the bounds of the Settlement. If you haven’t seen that, there aren’t more. That might be why this is so odd.”

“Rissa passed along that your dad doesn’t have a method to find portals, either. I keep hoping they’ll come up with one; something reliable.” Doyle sounded frustrated. “I can probably deal with a single rockfin on my own, but only if I can find it.”

Serenity actually knew that; it was something he’d talked to his father about several times. Unfortunately, all he knew was that it was possible; he didn’t have any idea how it was done. At least, not yet. He was going to have to try to figure out how to detect portals sooner than he’d expected, wasn’t he?

This portal was also odd in that it hadn’t closed. If there was only one rockfin and it was captured, why was the portal still open? The Voice should have judged the invasion as over with all of the invaders incapacitated. That was one of the options for closing a portal; it was usually the most difficult, but it still should have worked.

Voice? Why is this portal still open?

[Its time has not yet expired]

They aren’t just time-based. You close portals when the invasion is defeated.

[Rockfin are not a hierarchical species. Outside of a few specific times, they are not particularly social; instead, they are highly individualistic. The portal’s location is known. If it is not used for a while, another rockfin may choose to make use of it]

That was not good news; it meant he had to close the portal himself unless he wanted to put guards on it.

Actually, guarding it wasn’t a bad idea. It might or might not convince the Voice they’d “won” and get it to close the portal, but it was a fairly simple solution. One rockfin at a time shouldn’t be a problem.

Is that why it was put here instead of near a city?

[A city is an inappropriate challenge and location for rockfin]

That was a yes.

Serenity turned back to the Settlement Crystal. There was a lot of stuff to set up before he started trying to figure out how to find portals.

After meeting everyone else in the settlement over a surprisingly nice meal, Serenity retreated to the treehouse Echo set aside for him. It was next to the ones for Echo and Doyle.

First of all, he needed to read the book Althyr gave him. Serenity had a sudden thought; when Althyr gave him the book, he’d assumed the relevant Affinity was SpaceTime. What if he was wrong? What other Affinities might be needed?

Portals was obviously going to have SpaceTime as an option. It would probably work for closing them, too. Finding them, however, might need something special. There were Affinities for things like detection and divination, but they were rare; more likely was something … EM spectrum? Maybe? He could probably fake that with one of his Affinities. Or maybe he could just follow the magic? The Necropolis City Core was able to do it, even at a huge distance, but-

Serenity stopped in the doorway to the treehouse. Echo had told him where it was, but she hadn’t told him that the only furnishing was pillows. He wasn’t confident how comfortable that would be.

On second thought, the pillows would be really comfortable for a dragonling. Serenity shifted shape and dove into a pillow pile.

“Squee!” A voice from the entrance made Serenity dig his way out of the pile. “SO CUTE!”

Dammit Echo. He’d thought he was alone.

“Would you be willing to come play with the kids? They could really use some playtime, and I think a cute dragonette would-”

Dammit Echo. Not the puppy dog eyes. He couldn’t resist her puppy dog eyes. “Don’t call me a dragonette again and I’ll play with the kids.”

The book would have to come later. Maybe after the kids were sent to bed?