While Russ, Phoebe, Aki, and Janice all talked about how they were going to handle the Child of Time Essence Seeds, Serenity and Rissa headed back to their residence. Serenity was completely uninterested in how they managed the “business” of the Essence Seeds; it had to at least break even or they couldn’t afford to do it and it had to somehow not reveal Aki. He knew they’d handle that, and it was all he needed to know; how they managed it was just details.

He had other details to worry about.

When Rissa closed the door to their residence, Serenity relaxed and shifted. He was tired of maintaining a human form; chimera or dragon was simply more comfortable. Since he was planning to be serious, he went with chimera. His armor-self adjusted without difficulty.

“We should talk about what’s next. That means the Tutorial, and that looks like it’ll take me off planet. But I don’t want to be gone when…” Serenity trailed off, looking at Rissa’s belly. Her surprisingly trim belly. Shouldn’t she be starting to show at five months and a bit?

Rissa followed Serenity’s eyes with her own and laid a hand on her belly, grinning a little. “I’ll just have to catch up with you first. We have time; I don’t know how long dragons normally take, but I doubt it’s shorter than humans. I have an ultrasound scheduled for next week; maybe that will tell us more.”

Serenity was glad Rissa was on top of it; he knew he wasn’t. He tried, but somehow he just hadn’t even considered that their child might take longer than a normal baby.

“I didn’t tell my doctor about my Species, but she knows about yours. That you’re not human, I mean. I went with the half-dragon story.” Rissa looked down. “I wanted to tell her everything, but I don’t know her and I didn’t think it was a good idea. It’s not like she knows what to do for dragons anyway. She wanted me to come in for regular ultrasounds; I couldn’t while we were traveling so much, and anyway I’m not sure if it was for my health or just so she could see…”

Serenity hugged Rissa. “I’m sure our child’s fine. I can check with Blaze the next time I’m in the Tutorial; he’s in charge of most of the Healers, so he probably knows something.”

Rissa nodded and held him tight for a long moment before letting him go and sinking down onto the couch. She took a deep breath before she started talking. “You’re going to be gone. We knew it was coming, and you may not be able to take me with you directly. I talked to Ita while you were with Helios; she’s confident that she can follow you anywhere, especially with my help, even through portals. I didn’t completely understand the explanation but there was something about the Voice helping people who should be together stay together. I think.”

“You don’t want to wait for me to come back?” Serenity wasn’t sure what he thought about that. Despite everything, Earth was relatively safe; the outside world often wasn’t. All he had to do was think about Raz and it was obvious; Tzintkra was a training planet, which meant it was considered relatively safe, yet Raz had definitely not been safe.

Rissa patted the spot next to her, telling Serenity to sit. Once he did, she leaned against him and he put an arm around her. “Depends on how long you’ll be away. A week, fine, maybe even a month. Longer than that? Why would I want to wait that long if Ita and I can find you?” She shook her head. “We’ll come find you if you take too long. Maybe you can send a message when you know how long it’ll be; I can wait a couple weeks and see if a message comes, but much longer than that and I think we should follow you.”

That was probably about the best Serenity was going to get; oh, he could argue with her about the timeframe, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to get her to agree for him to be away indefinitely without following him. A message was a good idea. They weren’t cheap; after all, the Messenger’s Guild made good money by being cheaper than Voice-facilitated messages. Unfortunately, the Messenger’s Guild wasn’t an option for Earth yet. On the other hand, he certainly could afford it.

It would be easy if he ever got around to setting up the tax system. It wouldn’t take much tax to give him a nice Etherium supply.

He wasn’t going to try to do it the same way he had on Tzintkra. Paying some Etherium was far cheaper and less unpleasant than knocking himself out. On top of that, Rissa now had easy access to Aki, who could receive messages. Serenity looked up. “Will it be just the two of you?” He didn’t like that idea.

“I think so, yeah. Raz will stay here with Aki. Katya will be trying to move her family.” Rissa shrugged. “Ita knows the outside world.”

“Not the way a Mercenary does.” Serenity frowned. If it were Katya, he’d probably be okay with it. Ita, though? However much he liked her, her experience was with Sterath communities, not human-dominated ones. Whatever the reason was that people were being stolen, Serenity was willing to lay better than even odds that it was people who were more or less human doing it. All of the instructors were human or very close.

Actually, that gave him an idea. “If I can, I’ll wait until the Tutorial’s over and bring you with me. If I can’t, I’ll try to at least make it towards the end of the Tutorial. The Voice should be willing to wait a couple weeks; there’s probably less than a month left. If you wait until the Tutorial’s over, several of the instructors are planning to come to Earth. I can ask them to travel with you; a larger group will be safer.”

Sillon had accepted the token, but told Serenity he wouldn’t be using it soon; apparently he had a youngster of his own to train at home, and the kid wasn’t ready to leave the planet yet. Honoria had also accepted but said she wouldn’t be coming any time soon. Blaze and Kerr, on the other hand, had both jumped at the chance to travel.

The real surprise was Administrator Ekari. He’d never expected to get close to her; she was prickly. She was also good friends with Blaze, and that had somehow turned into a friendship between her and Serenity. Even more surprising was the fact that she’d broken into tears when he offered her the token and said she’d head his way immediately.

He still hadn’t told Margrethe about the tokens. He was torn about whether or not he should, with her complete commitment to her Guild. The fact that she’d gone from friendly but distant to murderous to almost deferential was uncomfortable at best. He’d forgiven her, but he still didn’t trust her.

“It’ll be Ekari, Blaze, and Kerr. I think you’ll like them, especially Blaze. He’s a true healer, and not at all afraid to tell me to sit down and rest.” Serenity considered for a moment, then shook his head. “I’ll have to ask them how long it’ll take them to get here, but they’ll all come in at Echo’s Settlement.”

Rissa laughed. “You still don’t like calling it Serenity Settlement, do you?”

Serenity grunted. It was simply too egotistical to name a city after himself.

After Rissa fell asleep against him, Serenity relaxed on the couch. He couldn’t move without Rissa waking up, but that made it a good time to talk to the Voice.

Have you found out anything more about the issue in the Tutorial?

[A limited amount. The vast majority of erroneous teleports are still Mages by Path. All have attended classes in the Mage area; however, as 96% of all adult students attend at least one Mage class, this is not likely to be significant]

Can you send me to the location they’re all ending up in? And bring Rissa and Ita and maybe some instructors as well?

[There appear to be several different end points; all are within the same region of the planet Zon. You could be teleported to this region. Others would not be included as they are not quest recipients]

The Voice was being stingy. Well, that wasn’t entirely surprising; at least he could tell them they needed to head to Zon. Serenity vaguely remembered there being a planet with that name sort of close to Earth, but he didn’t remember any details offhand.

Are they all staying near where they teleport to?

[No. Approximately 8% are sent elsewhere on the planet fairly quickly. 53% appear to end up off the planet within two weeks of their arrival. Additional tracking capacity will be required to determine the location for any outside the indicated region]

You mean I need to figure out a way to narrow down where they are so you can search the area instead of trying to search everything.

[Correct]

Serenity wasn’t really surprised by that. It meant that there was probably only one group doing the kidnapping, but they had more than one reason.

Hopefully, the main reason was money.

Are they still alive?

[Of those remaining within the region, 94% are alive]

It was almost certainly money. The fact that someone was kidnapping mages specifically was interesting. Wait, could that be part of it?

Is a non-Mage more likely to be sent outside the region or offplanet?

The Voice took a while to answer the question.

[All of the people of the Human Path have remained within the region. Every single person with a Path that wasn’t a Mage Path or the Human Path has left Zon; they are noted in the standard planetary teleport records. The vast majority went to Lyka]

What percentage of the people sent to Zon have a Mage Path?

[82%]

We should start with finding out how the Tutorial is being messed with. That will keep other people from being kidnapped. Unfortunately, I didn’t see anything suspicious while I was in there looking and neither did any of the other instructors.

[There appears to be a mark of some sort placed on the students who are kidnapped; however, its purpose is to alter my function, and it hides itself from me until it is triggered. After that, it is gone]

Serenity would have sworn the Voice was frustrated if he didn’t know better. Actually, he wasn’t sure he did know better; could the Voice be frustrated? Sure, it seemed to be a very advanced computer program somehow written into reality but did that mean it couldn’t have emotions? He’d seen them before.

Maybe it just tried to avoid them because they made things harder. Serenity couldn’t exactly blame it for that; he’d done the same in the past. Future? Well, hopefully not this future.

If you watch really closely, can you maybe see it while it’s being set? Surely it isn’t perfect.

[It is possible, but watching all of the students in a Tutorial that closely is impractical; the time compression could not be maintained]

Serenity disliked what he was about to propose, but it was the only thing he could think of as an option since he couldn’t find anything out as an instructor: he should go in as a student. As many times as it took.

Could you watch one student? Specifically, could you watch me while I try to attract whatever it is?

[Yes]

Now he just had to find a way to not be immediately outed as Serenity. He could probably dye his hair, and contacts could be worn to disguise his eyes, but that wouldn’t hide his crystalline horns. They weren’t very obvious, but “not very” was still too easily seen.

On top of that, he knew he didn’t look like a mage; he was far too well-muscled. Some mages were, but it wasn’t exactly the norm. He could probably work with that if he could disguise the rest.