Helios jumped from a roof to the cliffside to the top of a damaged wall. The monkeys were right behind him, but this time he had a plan. This was the third group he’d led into the same trap. Helios started calling on the Sun to send down its power. Some of the movements hurt; he clearly needed to practice the spelldance more often, but at least he wasn’t tripping over the words.

They might be smarter than the monkeys he’d known before, dressed in armor, and wielding weapons, but they were still dumb monkeys. The armor was barely-tanned leather and the weapons were simply chipped rocks. The individual monkeys were also only about the power of a trained human warrior; certainly nothing to cause a god trouble. He’d simply been taken by surprise before.

Once enough of the monkeys had gathered and started throwing things at him, Helios triggered the release of the power he’d pulled from the Sun. The gathered monkeys died as their brethren had before, either incinerated or desiccated by the power of Sunlight.

Helios was about to head off to gather the next group when something hit him that actually hurt. Was that a bolt of darkness?

The next one answered the question: it was.

At the same time, it provoked another question, the same one the next bolt brought. How was the monkey sending power at him so quickly? Magic was slow. That was why Helios had to plan ahead when he called down the power of the Sun; admittedly, it was also useful to gather as many monkeys as possible, but that wasn’t the only reason. He needed the time it took them to gather to cast the spell.

Helios dodged another bolt of darkness, jumping to another part of the wall while he thought. This mage might be fast, but he still didn’t have the speed of a true bowman; as long as Helios didn’t make a large mistake, he wouldn’t be hit.

There were only four spells that Helios had managed to embed deeply enough in his own matrix that he could cast them this quickly, and two of them only came after he reached godhood. Was this monkey possibly on the road to Ascension?

He didn’t feel powerful enough for that. Helios glanced over at the monkey; he was keeping to shadows and whenever he wasn’t in shadow, he didn’t throw a bolt until he was back in partial darkness. Was he unable to cast it in the sunlight, or was it simply less powerful?

In fact, he felt little more powerful than the monkeys Helios had just killed as a group; it was clear that he’d only survived because he was in the shade, probably because his magic worked better there, and enhanced it with his darkness magic.

Helios threw one of his own Sunbolts at the monkey, then followed it with another. Two was enough; the monkey managed to throw one more darkness bolt even after the pain of the first injury, but the second one seared a hole in his midsection that Helios knew he wouldn’t recover from. He’d have to keep an eye out for more of these strange casters, especially if the monkeys had any that were more powerful, but Helios was happy for that; it wasn’t any fun if it was too easy, and killing monkeys had started to become a chore.

It was time to go gather up that fourth group of monkeys. He should probably find a new gathering point as well. The monkeys were getting harder to find, but he could probably manage one or two more groups before the Sun was low enough he’d need to leave for the night and return in the morning. Perhaps then he’d be able to actually search for the “invasion portal” that was his actual goal.

When Serenity walked in through the destroyed front door of the building the invaders had retreated into, there was no sign of invaders or their portal. Serenity reached out with his mana senses and had Aide monitor the electromagnetic signals in the area; they weren’t as long-range as a proper portal detector, but between the two he should be able to tell when he was close.

A moment later, he knew: he was. He was very close. It was lower than he was, and a little to the side, but closer than the rockfin portal was when he was above ground. “Downstairs. Feels like one level, I think.” He turned to the soldiers, “Have we found stairs?”

They were able to point him at stairs leading down. The door was undamaged, but there were several interesting signs on the way down. The stairs were cracked in places, as though something extremely heavy had stood on them or maybe walked up them, and the wall had some scrape marks that didn’t look like the sort of scuffs you’d get from furniture; instead, they looked more like someone had accidentally rubbed a weapon against the wall and damaged the sheetrock without realizing it.

Sheetrock was really quite flimsy to a higher-tier person.

Serenity pointed out the signs as he saw them on the way down. Rissa and Raz both watched with interest; Serenity was fairly confident both Katya and Ita already saw the same things he did. The soldiers seemed clueless; Serenity wondered if they’d ever tracked anything before in their lives. It really wasn’t that hard, you just had to pay attention to things that didn’t belong.

When they reached the basement , Serenity gave a sharp bark of laughter. The portal was directly in front of them. “It’s right there,” Serenity pointed straight ahead. Why hadn’t they found it?

“Where? I don’t see a portal?” Raz sounded puzzled.

There was no reason he shouldn’t be able to see it; it was easily visible to normal eyesight. Serenity turned back to look at Raz, only to find out that he was looking off to the right of the portal. Several of the others also looked puzzled, even though they hadn’t spoken up.

“Look a bit more to the left, Raz.” Rissa spoke before Serenity could.

Raz turned his head to the left; he was now looking well to the left of the portal. “Still not seeing it. Are you sure it’s here?”

Rissa shook her head with a smile on her face. “Well, I guess we now know why no one found it.”

“You’re telling me you both see it and I can’t.” Raz sighed.”What do I need to work on now? I know I need to consolidate my Tier, I was in a hurry but I should fix it before it causes problems. I can work on whatever sense I’m missing at the same time.”

“I don’t think it’s a sense. I think it’s your Mind Resistance. Mine’s very high, and Rissa has some good mental shielding.” Serenity looked at the rest of the group. “Can anyone else see the portal?”

Almost everyone shook their heads; Katya frowned and started digging in her pack.

“I can, I think. It’s not easy to see and it’s only out of the corner of my eye, but it’s there, right?” Ita wasn’t looking at the portal, but she pointed in the correct direction. “I’m not entirely sure why I’m seeing it. I don’t have great Mind Resistance; it almost feels like something is sheltering me.”

Serenity shook his head. The only thing he could think of offhand was Ita’s Connection Affinity and her connection to him, but even if that was the case he wasn’t going to talk about it right now.

“Ah-hah! I can see it now. You’re right, there’s a distortion field over it. Looks like it’s designed to have your brain tell you there’s nothing there. It looks like there’s a key symbol of some sort to get through.” Katya was wearing a helmet-like apparatus that fit over the top of her head and also included glasses and flaps that covered the ears. Serenity had never seen anything quite like it, so he focused on it.

Helm of Detection

This experimental project was created to allow the use of senses the wearer may not have and prevent interference with those senses. Although it successfully counted as his Master Enchanter project, the creator considers it a failure because use for more than a few minutes at a time results in sensory confusion, followed by unconsciousness if the helm is not removed quickly thereafter.

It provides very little actual protection to the head.

Specialized and useful but extremely situational. Serenity supposed that was exactly what you’d end up with if you grew up in a household with many craftsmen; he’d always tried to have a few things that could serve many uses. He’d never been wealthy until the Final Reaper ended up with so much stuff from the people who attacked him that he couldn’t keep track of it all.

Serenity supposed it was entirely likely that Katya was item-rich with cash-flow issues. There was no way she’d ever get anything close to what that helm ought to really be worth, after all; it was the sort of thing that would sit on a shelf for decades until someone who wanted exactly it came by. That might even be why Katya had it; if it wasn’t selling, someone might as well get some use out of it.

Serenity checked the floor. There was a pattern near the portal, but it was easy enough to stand outside it. “I’m going to close the portal. We can look at the avoidance problem afterwards.”

Serenity took a moment to record the portal’s location signals; that made four, plus the second recording at the rockfin portal. Aide would update the map and send it out; Serenity turned his attention to the portal.

It closed smoothly the moment he twisted it to tell it that it had been requested to close from the other side.

With the portal gone, Serenity looked at what was under it; with the part of it that had been blocked from view by the portal no longer obscured, he recognized it immediately. “Yuck. A blood-based ritual. At least it looks like this one was just blood and not death. Willingly given blood, at that. I can’t even really blame them for anything other than being disgusting.”

Helios threw the body of the monkeys’ leader through the portal he’d found the leader in front of. He’d been trying to run when Helios caught up to him.

Foolish monkey.

It was too bad that the portal was inside a building; he’d have liked to call down the Sun’s Wrath on it for making him waste so much time on killing monkeys. Since that wasn’t an option, he’d just have to shoot it with his Sunbeam until it closed.

It would; either he’d destroy something important or he’d manage to start hurting monkeys on the other side of the portal and they’d close it. Helios didn’t care which. The important thing was that he’d close a portal only four days after the challenge started; there was no way the person who challenged him could possibly manage that.

All he had to do was keep up this pace and he’d easily win.

The dreamstone was almost his!