This is a terrible idea. But even after what I’ve managed to get out of the book, it’s the best one I have.

Serenity finished painting the second portal circle onto the dirt. Serenity wasn’t planning to create an actual portal; that would be pointless when the circles were all of six feet apart. Instead, he was going to use the ‘First Look’ spell to see if he could take apart the spellform after creating it with the spell in the book.

Unfortunately, he was going to have to cast the First Look spell by rote with only the information in the book, and from memory at that since he couldn’t pull the book into the physical world. Anything he got wrong - well, he’d better make sure his Intent was clear, that was all.

The one bright spot was that while Aide couldn’t follow Serenity into the dreamworld, Serenity had found that he could save the information immediately after he returned, so Serenity only had to remember it perfectly for a short time period instead of for the entire spellcasting. Not being able to actually use the source material while he was casting the spell or even drawing out the physical supports was worrying, but this was the next best thing.

Doing this properly would take weeks, months, or even years; he’d simply have to accept that he didn’t have the time for that if he wanted to get a tool in the hands of Earth’s people in time for it to do any good. For some invasions, like the Traa or the Hegemon Worms, they needed to find the portals because the invaders weren’t planning to attack directly, simply to last long enough to be able to stay. For others, like the Sterath, finding the portals earlier would mean fewer enemies to fight. Either way, he needed to get this done quickly.

Serenity sighed in exasperation. He knew better than to rush things, yet he didn’t have a better option. He’d been rushing ever since he left the Tutorial the first time - no, he’d been rushing even in that Tutorial. He’d paid a price for his haste, more than once. It didn’t make it any less necessary, unfortunately.

The circles were complete and matched the spell in the book, which was closer to what Serenity would consider a small ritual than a normal spell - but then, he didn’t cast spells this way anymore. If this went well, he’d only cast this one a few times until he memorized the appropriate spellform components.

The book had a variant of the portal spell that Serenity thought was specifically tuned for the SpaceTime Affinity, so he was starting with that one. If - no, when - he had time in the future, he’d try some of the others; the book didn’t call them out by Affinity, so there was a good chance he could learn something from them.

“Arebija nocoletha essrya tolok. Dzovan…” Serenity chanted the nonsense words and made the required gestures as he stood absolutely still at the edge of the painted circle.

“...Ekali egret.” As Serenity finished the spell, he felt the mana he’d invested in the spell condense itself, warp to the other circle, then establish the portal to the circle he stood at. It was odd; he’d expected the portal to start from where he was instead of from the other location.

Serenity took a step forward now that the spell was done so that he could look at the spellform more easily, only to find that the portal he was next to moved away from him as he stepped forward. He stopped and stepped back and the portal followed again.

When the book said to stay still, it meant for the entire duration of the spell, not simply during the casting. Argh.

It did explain something about why the Messenger’s Guild didn’t have portal mages carry the mail themselves: they couldn’t. The mage creating the portal couldn’t go though it. Serenity was sure there was a way around it, but it was clear that there had to be tradeoffs.

The spell itself had taken a surprisingly small chunk of Serenity’s mana; almost a tenth of what he could hold in the reduced mana levels of Earth. That was far less than the book had suggested was normal for a planetary portal, but still more than he would have hoped for a portal that went less than six feet. The cost to maintain the portal also seemed oddly low.

Hopefully, a lot of the cost was in stabilizing the portal instead of the distance it traveled; otherwise, Serenity didn’t see how it would even be possible to establish an interstellar portal at a reasonable Tier, and he knew they existed. He’d seen one on Tzintkra, though it’d been open only for seconds each time.

However it worked, the Voice had to be using a more efficient method for its portals or they wouldn’t pay for themselves with a small cost in Etherium. Invasion portals also had to have a lower maintenance cost; there was no way they’d be open for months if they cost what this one did. They might have a higher startup cost; Serenity would have to look at that. An item that was consumed when it was used could afford things that a person couldn’t.

Hours passed as Serenity examined the portal pair and its spellform. Aide ran tests, but did not interrupt Serenity with the results. Farther back, the DARPA scientists watched the equipment they’d moved from the rockfin portal to the pair Serenity created.

Serenity pushed images to Aide as he became confident in them; back when he’d originally learned spellforms, he’d written them on paper, but sending the full image to Aide to store was simpler and more reliable. It would also work better for any image that wasn’t simply flat, but the spellforms here were simple and two-dimensional, like most chanted spells.

The first result of his analysis was disappointing. The Messenger’s Guild spell had only a single set of coordinates and its structure was different in ways that Serenity was going to need time to tease apart. Its second opening was apparently set based on its caster. It wasn’t a good analogue for the invasion portal, especially not for how to destroy it. He’d have to experiment with the original, and that meant he’d only have one try.

The second result was far more hopeful. The single coordinate set it did have was nearly identical to one of the two coordinate sets from the invasion portal.

The loop in the destination portion didn’t exist. While Aide was able to get a signal off the portal and the high-frequency signal was similar to the one from the invasion portal, the low-frequency signal was far weaker. Since Aide knew what to look for, it was able to find a signal that seemed very similar to part of the pattern from the invasion portal coming from each side of the portal Serenity established. It was enough to identify which pieces were the coordinates in the signal.

When Serenity released the spell, he was very low on mana and had the dizziness he’d started to expect from it.

Aide, can you give me a warning next time, so that I know when to stop before I start feeling ill?

I cannot sense your mana level.

Well, that wasn’t helpful. Serenity could, but he still wasn’t used to needing to stop before he ran out. Normal people didn’t have to; running out could cause momentary weakness or a flash of nausea, but it would be gone in moments. Low mana didn’t cause them to pass out or have consequences when there was still some left. He’d just have to learn to be more careful on his own.

Serenity looked around the field. No one seemed to be paying all that much attention; instead, they were all looking at computer screens. Serenity smiled to himself; closing the portal must have created an interesting signature.

It also seemed likely that no one wanted to bother him. Serenity was fine with that.

He headed over to the large pavilion tent where Dr. Mattingly usually stayed. He’d check in with her, then grab a meal.

On second thought, he diverted over to the mess tent first. Food would make him feel better, he could talk about the results when he stopped feeling dizzy.

If anything, Serenity was farther along in decoding the low-frequency signals than the scientists were; that only made sense, since he at least partially understood the destination coordinates they were related to. He’d given what he had to them, but they didn’t understand them. It was like trying to solve two related puzzles without a tie to anything else.

That didn’t mean the scientists hadn’t made progress. Their primary focus had been on a different problem, after all.

“Can you repeat that tomorrow, in another location? We have a prototype portal-detector that should get here midmorning, I want to have them find the one underground, then send them off to find yours without knowing where it is. It’s the best test we can give.” Dr. Mattingly seemed intense as she spoke.

Serenity nodded. He’d have enough mana back by the following day, even if he didn’t visit a ley line. Visiting a ley line sounded like a wonderful idea, though; he was feeling better, but he still ached. There were several nearby, and it wasn’t even that far to the closest nexus.

Now that he thought of it, it would be fun to check out the nexus and see if there was a dungeon there. “Before then, I thought I might look for a local dungeon. There are a few places nearby that look likely. Do you think any of your people would be interested in going? Probably without me, I only want to go through them once, but as far as I can tell none of them are known yet.”

“You can find dungeons.” Dr. Mattingly’s voice was toneless. She sighed. “Because of course you can. Yes, I’m sure there will be people who will be interested; let us know where they are once you’ve found them. We have quite a few people who seem to really like dungeons.”

For some reason, Dr. Mattingly looked to her left when she said that. Serenity followed her gaze and was puzzled until he got a good look at the shooting range someone had established. It wasn’t set up for guns; instead, it seemed to be set up mostly for arrows and … were those scorch marks from lightning?

“I see what you mean.”

Serenity texted Echo, Doyle, and Morwen to see if they were interested in running a dungeon and when they’d be available.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Perhaps you can step through the portal as well? I believe we’re ready for that. I’m hoping it changes the high-frequency results; that would confirm what we’re looking at.”

Serenity looked up at Dr. Mattingly. “Tomorrow, sure. Send me a copy of the results?” He’d have offered to step through immediately, but although he no longer felt dizzy, his mana was still lower than he wanted to start a fight.

“Of course.”

Serenity smiled to himself. There was a good chance she’d have forgotten if he hadn’t said anything. It probably wouldn’t have even been deliberate.