The stairs took up the side of the large open room, starting to the right of the front door. The entire stairway was open all the way up, with only a wooden banister preventing people from falling off the side. The far side was a blank wall; at the top of the staircase, it met a hallway lined with doors on the left, a series of long, skinny rooms that covered the giant room below. The only room to the right was the bathroom, directly above the bathroom on the floor below.

Serenity stood at the top of the stairs and glanced down the hallway. There was an oddly sweet smell that Serenity recognized coming from the bathroom. At least, Serenity had always found it odd that one of the smells of a dead body was sweet; so many of the others weren’t. It was all too clear from the smell that the body had been there for days, probably a week or more.

Serenity was almost surprised that he wasn’t any angrier than he was. He’d gone into this suspecting that at least some of the Sterath safe houses were houses where the occupants were killed; the confirmation simply saddened him.

He considered checking the bathroom to confirm what he smelled, but that wouldn’t be in line with the plan they’d quickly put together. Lieutenant Smith wanted to pull all of the Sterath into a kill box on the stairs; Serenity wasn’t as confident as the lieutenant that it would be that easy, but he definitely didn’t need to kick things off with a fight in the bathroom at the top of the stairs; that would definitely make it harder.

To get the attention of all of the Sterath upstairs, however many there were, he’d need to make sure he was heard; that would be difficult from the bottom of the stairs without something like Echo’s Sound Affinity.

Theoretically, sound fell under Energy in the affinity set Serenity had. He’d used spells to muffle sound on more than one occasion, but amplifying it and keeping it understandable wasn’t something he had that much experience with. He’d done it, but as he remembered the effect had been similar to the PA system in a poorly-set-up stadium; you could tell someone was saying something but you might not be able to pick out the words. That definitely wasn’t good enough.

Even a bullhorn would be better, but they didn’t have one. Even if they did, Serenity wasn’t confident it would be good enough from the bottom of the stairs.

No, to get their attention he had to be at the top of the stairs.

Fortunately, there was an easy and relatively safe way down.

Serenity took a good look at the banister protecting the side of the staircase. It was a bit too close together to fit through easily, but the vertical posts seemed to be wood, just like the railing. There were good, sturdy supports every four feet, but in between they were about a half-inch in diameter round rods. He braced himself against the wall and kicked one of the posts. It cracked at the first kick, then splintered and separated at the second. A third kick knocked enough of it out of the way that it wouldn’t be a problem as long as he didn’t try to go through the broken pieces that remained.

The next two were just as easy to deal with.

With his escape route secured, Serenity stood next to the opening. His head reached above the second story’s floor, but not by much. Serenity shouted in Sterath, “I came here expecting Sterath warriors, not cowardly rats that send the weak out to die in their place. Will you come find me or do I need to dig you moles out of your burrows?”

There were creatures much like the Earth rat and mole on the Sterath homeworld; they were considered to be dishonorable because they hid underground. The mole was worse; the rat, at least, would use swarm tactics to take on things bigger than itself. That was something a Sterath warrior could get behind.

Serenity waited until the first door opened, then ducked below the level of the floor, slipped through the opening in the side of the stairs he’d made, and lowered himself until he was hanging from the stair by his hands. It wasn’t much of a drop from there - only a couple of feet - so he let himself fall.

Shouting in Sterath came from the second floor while Serenity ran the few steps needed to reach the bottom of the stairs. He wasn’t in time to meet the first Sterath, who had launched himself down the stairs; Lieutenant Smith dodged into the room while Officer Surrey plastered herself against the wall. She punched the Sterath as he tried to land, pushing him the rest of the way off balance. He slammed into the wall facing the foot of the stairs and was shot twice by Lieutenant Smith before he turned to face up the stairs.

The second Sterath came slower. It was almost funny in a sad way watching the Sterath work his way down; he clearly wanted to hop, but the steps really weren’t wide enough for that, so he was doing something much closer to walking and seemed quite uncomfortable with it. He seemed to test each step as he came down the stairs.

When he was about halfway down, Lieutenant Smith opened fire on the Sterath behind the overly cautious one. He was a couple of steps above the one in front, and Lieutenant Smith hit him squarely in the knee. He fell to the side, catching himself on the banister. He roared and pulled a knife, throwing it accurately at Lieutenant Smith. Lieutenant Smith dodged as quickly as he could, but it wasn’t even close to fast enough at the short range, and the knife caught him in the right shoulder.

Serenity watched the stairs; there were only the cautious Sterath, the knife-thrower, and one in the back that Serenity hadn’t yet gotten a good look at left on the stairs. The two in front and the one lying several feet from the foot of the stairs were all low ranking, similar to the members of the Scour Strike Group Serenity fought at the portal, but Serenity didn’t think any of them were good leader material. No, that was probably the one in the back.

Serenity couldn’t get a good look at him with the knife-thrower in the way, so he took a couple of steps farther into the large room. Since it was an open staircase, he could see from the side. What he could make out of the carapace said that he was definitely Kaelitha and not a no-rank, but though Serenity could see that there were rank markings, he couldn’t see enough to know what they said.

Officer Surrey had drawn a gun and was shooting the closest Sterath. Unfortunately, she was following her training and shooting at the center of mass - which meant she was hitting the Sterath’s aches plates. Her bullets were bouncing instead of penetrating. She might manage to crack one of the plates eventually, but she really needed to shift her aim to a more vulnerable area or let Lieutenant Smith do the shooting. The magic he added to his bullets seemed to be able to penetrate the carapace of the Sterath in the middle, though the bullets didn’t seem to be stopping him.

As long as he had a good view of the Sterath in the rear, Serenity decided to do what he could at range, and threw his ax between the stair’s supports. It hit the Sterath officer cleanly in the upper arm, biting through the armored plating covering it.

The Sterath screamed, “This is not honor! Fight us like warriors, bug!”

Serenity grinned as he called his ax back to his hand. “We aren’t warriors. If you want to fight, come down here and fight me!”

Getting the officer pissed at him would hopefully keep him from attacking the policemen. Serenity could already tell that he had a very good chance against the Sterath officer. The others would just have to handle the other two while he took care of the big threat.

Serenity knew the fight should have been weighted in the Sterath’s favor; not only was he probably slightly higher Tier than Serenity, Sterath were innately stronger than humans. On the other hand, Serenity suspected that although he was weaker in human form than his chimera form, he was probably stronger than almost any human with the same attributes; that wouldn’t make up the entire difference, but it would help.

The real difference makers were twofold. First, equipment - for all that the Sterath’s was generally better, Serenity’s ax made the Sterath’s carapace nearly as unimportant as the Sterath’s sword would probably find Serenity’s armor; if anything, equipment evened the scales a bit. Second and more importantly, Serenity was able to injure the Sterath before the fight began. He’d grow weaker and Serenity wouldn’t.

The officer reached for his belt with his uninjured hand and drew a dagger. Serenity knew what was probably coming next and dodged to the side as the dagger flew in his general direction. The officer took advantage of the time he’d gained to pull himself over the banister.

He was just hopping forward off the tiny ledge on the far side of the banister when Serenity’s ax hit. Serenity had aimed for the knee joint, but the movement meant the Sterath wasn’t quite where he expected and the ax hit the lower left leg, closer to the ankle. The Sterath landed awkwardly as Serenity called his ax back to his hand.

The officer pulled the longest knife on his belt, really more of a short sword than a knife, and hopped towards Serenity. He seemed to favor the left leg, but it was more of a slight hitch to each hop than anything easy to take advantage of. Unlike before, he didn’t say anything.

Serenity smiled. This officer seemed really easy to piss off; the angrier he was, the better. “Decided to wipe out the stain on your honor?”

“Blood cleanses all!” The Sterath snarled as he whipped the sword at Serenity.

He hadn’t expected his taunt to work so well; he didn’t even have to dodge. The Sterath simply missed.

Serenity recognized the words; it was a Sterath saying about the way to regain lost honor. Serenity had a moment to wonder what the Sterath society was like outside the warrior class; surely they had people who handled the rest of the civilization, didn’t they? It wasn’t possible to run a society with only warriors, but while Serenity knew quite a bit about their warrior culture, he knew little about any other piece.

Perhaps Ita would know, but for now he needed to keep his head in the fight.

“You call yourself a warrior? I’ve seen children aim better than that!” Serenity darted in as he taunted, twisting to avoid the sword, and smashed the same arm he’d hit before, only a little higher. This time, he saw the armor plate give and he felt his ax jar against the bone in the middle of the arm. It was now probably disabled; he’d at least cut through a great deal of the muscle.

When he tried to pull the ax back out, it seemed stuck; he’d have to lever it out or at least have something to brace against to pull it out, and he didn’t have time. The short sword was short enough to slash him if he didn’t keep moving, so Serenity released the ax handle and dodged back, out of range.

The magic on the ax was a higher Tier than Serenity; it was worth a try. He called his ax to him. As the Sterath lunged forward and the ax leapt for Serenity’s hand, it dragged the Sterath more than a foot forward before it tore its way out of his upper arm, completely ruining the strike he tried to take while Serenity was disarmed.

Serenity attacked again, but had to abandon the strike as the Sterath officer went for one of his legs. He couldn’t afford to lose that much mobility, even temporarily until he healed.

The next several strikes were like that, with the Sterath officer retreating into a more defensive style that meant Serenity would have to accept being hurt to get through to him. Once Serenity realized that was all it would take, he waited until the attack from the Sterath was aimed at somewhere that wasn’t quickly lethal and wouldn’t impair his mobility before continuing the attack.

As his ax smashed the Sterath’s uninjured shoulder, the Sterath’s sword slid into Serenity’s abdomen. It hurt, but that didn’t stop him from the next step. Serenity released the ax and grabbed for the sword with both hands. The Sterath’s hand relaxed around the hilt and Serenity held it stable.

The officer was no longer a threat, but he still wasn’t down.