First thing in the morning, Andarit and Serenity stripped the house of anything even remotely valuable. Andarit had limited space available in her storage bag, but they could fit as much as they wanted in Serenity’s rift.

Enough went through that Serenity began to feel a bit like a packrat. It was simply floating in the Origin; what would the other Sovereigns think? Could they even see it?

Serenity kept that thought to himself. It was still better to take everything than leave it to whoever might raid the place later. It was unlikely that another set of nice kitchen knives would be worth much as they traveled, but the knives were enchanted. Even if they were only kitchen knives, they were valuable enough to be stolen. Everything went, from the books in Duke Lowpeak’s study to the clothes in Andarit’s closet.

Clothing for Andarit was even more of a problem than Serenity had expected. She had two options for clothing - formal or dungeon. Neither would let her look like an ordinary harmless citizen of Zenith. His clothing was questionable, but would probably pass; hers was simply hopeless.

So Serenity changed his mind on how they’d disguise themselves. They could look like they were guards, trying to get out of the city after either abandoning their post or perhaps after there was no longer a post to abandon. That was probably not a particularly unusual story, either.

The only problem with it, oddly enough, was weaponry. An ax was not going to work. They each needed a sword or at least a long knife, so that’s what Serenity went with; the two longest knives from his duplicating set would look more or less appropriate for “off duty” wear, and that was good enough.

“Don’t use the knife,” Serenity warned Andarit. “It’s more fragile than it seems; I’m not sure it’ll hold up to your strength. If you have to, duplicate it and use the duplicate; it’ll break, but that won’t damage the original knife as long as you don’t immediately duplicate it again.”

“I’m wearing my own knife as well. Don’t be such a worrywart.” Andarit frowned at Serenity. She seemed to be trying to glare, but Serenity could see the edges of her mouth tick up as she forced them back into the frown. “I’m not going to use the knife, you know that.”

Serenity grinned back at her. “Right, then. We can’t both have duplicated knives out, and we shouldn’t get too far apart; I don’t want to strain the enchantment. I’ll try to avoid using the knife as well; we want to get out of the city without fighting.”

Andarit rolled her eyes at him.

Serenity made certain to activate her mental shield before they left the house, immediately after disarming the door’s ward again. He could no longer hear a fire in the distance, but that didn’t mean everything was safe.

Unlike the previous day, the suggestion enchantment seemed to be gone, but Serenity didn’t trust it to not return if they walked into the wrong area or even got unlucky. They still didn’t know why it was there the day before and Serenity was happy to maintain his ignorance. This wasn’t his business and he didn’t want to get involved with it; he had his own task on Zon and getting involved in Zenith politics wasn’t a plus.

Before they even left the nobles’ district, Serenity saw a flash reddish color, almost burgundy, in the distance. He moved into the shadows, followed by Andarit. He wasn’t exactly sneaking, simply moving cautiously while keeping his eyes on the person he’d seen ahead of him.

The person wearing exactly the same shade of red as the followers of the Eternal Church.

Once they were closer, Serenity could see that there were four people wearing the deep burgundy with black trim he recognized; they seemed to be watching the gate at the exit from the Nobles’ Residence Area. Knowing who the aggressor was didn’t change the need to get out of the city; if anything, it made it more urgent. Serenity didn’t trust the Eternal Church at all.

Serenity knew there hadn’t been anyone at the entrance they’d used the previous night, so something had clearly changed since then. If he had to guess, what it meant was that the fighting they’d heard and ran away from at the Palace had ended and the fire was under control, if not extinguished. It was unlikely they’d gotten reinforcements with the City portals disabled; while there might well be a way for a good Portal mage or god to work around it, disabling portals around a Control Node disabled all of them. Even invasion portals.

There wasn’t going to be any way to get through the exit without being seen. At least, it wasn’t possible without better stealth Skills than Serenity and Andarit had. The thought of simply hopping over a wall crossed Serenity’s mind, but he dismissed it; even if the wall wasn’t enchanted to stop that, it would be better to get a feel for how things in the city were going before they reached the actual city gate.

Serenity lifted a hand and waved at the probable guards. There was every reason to at least pretend to be friendly and approachable; he wanted to get through the gate and find out what was going on in the city. “Hello! Is the gate open?”

The one closest to Serenity turned to face him and replied in a near-monotone. “Who are you, and why are you here?”

Serenity grinned. He was certain it looked just as fake as it felt, but that probably wasn’t a terrible thing. “Guard for one of the nobles. Doesn’t seem to be much point in staying here, considering.”

The burgundy-clad acolyte didn’t have a visible reaction. “Both of you?”

“Yes. Can you open the gate, please? I have family outside, and…” Andarit trailed off for a moment, then glanced to the side before looking back at the acolyte. “I want to see if they’re fine after whatever this is.”

Andarit was a far better actor than Serenity. That wasn’t really a surprise; almost everyone was a better actor than he was. Even so, it didn’t escape Serenity’s notice that Andarit didn’t actually lie. She’d simply agreed that she wanted to leave.

“Rejoice! For you are now under the protection of the Lord of Eternity, Lykandeon Himself! Only now you may strive for the Eternal Goal, to meet him in Aeon and reach for Eternity!” One of the other acolytes stepped up beside the first acolyte. He was heavier, but seemed far more energetic and enthusiastic that the first’s monotone reactions. “Do you know Aeon Lykandeon?”

“I’ve heard of Him,” Serenity admitted. “I don’t know much; I’m not a very religious person.”

“You should come to the Church and learn! The Aeon -”

“La Cer, please stop trying to convince the unbeliever.” Serenity couldn’t tell if the first acolyte’s voice showed a little annoyance with “La Cer”, but if it was there, it was smothered almost immediately. “The gate is open; we are not restricting the movement of those who abandon the falseness of nobility. Entering this unredeemed area may be more difficult than leaving it.”

Serenity nodded silently and headed for the gate. They’d completely cleaned the house out, so he doubted anyone would be back until the city was liberated.

His back itched the entire time they were in the view of the four acolytes at the gate; he knew they were enemies, but he had to act like that wasn’t the case. Fortunately, they didn’t know who Andarit was, so there were no issues.

The walk through the city was just as eerie as Serenity expected from a city that was trying to pretend it hadn’t come under new ownership. People moved about on the streets, but there were fewer than usual and they seemed nervous, watching everything that went on around them instead of confidently traveling their normal routes.

Four-person squads of acolytes were stationed periodically throughout the city, clearly watching the travelers. Everyone gave them a wide berth, so Andarit and Serenity did the same. Few of them seemed to want to talk the way La Cer clearly had, but the few that did were always talking about the greatness and wonder of the Eternal Church and its deity, Aeon Lykandeon.

None of them said anything useful or specified why he was great other than “pursuing Eternity” or “Eternal Life!”. Serenity found himself hoping for something different simply to break the tense monotony, but when it came he was distinctly ungrateful.

“Andarit!” a familiar voice called out from a side street. “Over here!”

Serenity turned to look and found that he was looking at the person the voice had sounded like. He wasn’t the least likely person Serenity could have seen, but he was quite possibly the least desired.

Prince Ora.

It wasn’t that he disliked the man; Serenity didn’t have strong feelings one way or the other about him. What he disliked was the likelihood that encountering him would pull Andarit and therefore Serenity into the events happening in Zenith.

Fortunately, he was not dressed as a prince; if Serenity hadn’t known who he was from his face, Serenity wouldn’t have immediately guessed that the man was anything other than an ordinary citizen of Zenith. A carpenter, perhaps; his clothing was clean, but there were a few odd stains that looked more like something that had rubbed off his hands or something he bumped into than the bloodstains Serenity was more used to.

Andarit was already several steps closer to Prince Ora, so Serenity headed towards the man as well. He might have preferred to avoid the problem, but it was too late for that now. At this point, it was better to minimize the damage.

Andarit held her comment until they were close enough to simply speak, but it was still too revealing for Serenity’s taste. “I thought you were dead. How did you get out? What happened?”

“Not out here,” Serenity hissed before he turned to Prince Ora. “Do you have a better place to talk?”

The prince nodded, then led the two of them a few steps down the side street and through a small door into what was clearly a workshop. It wasn’t a woodworker’s shop the way Serenity had originally guessed; instead, he smelled a heavy scent like dirt or mud which reminded him of the earthy smell he’d noticed in some art studios as a child. It competed with the tang of solvents, an oddly chalky smell that Serenity couldn’t identify, and a distinct undertone of hot rock and metal. Strangely, there was no smell of whatever was being burnt; it was more like a stronger version of the smell of rocks on a hot summer’s day than like a fire.

A glance around the workshop seemed to confirm Serenity’s guess. It looked far more like a potter’s studio than anything else. There were spaces set up for working with clay, including a pair of potter’s wheels in different sizes, a large basin with containers that clearly held water next to it, two separate areas that seemed to have tools that reminded Serenity of paintbrushes, even though the selections were different, and several spots that Serenity couldn’t immediately identify because there were no tools set at them.

One corner held something that had to be the oven; even without walking over to it, Serenity could see an increase in heat-related mana in that section of the room. There was shelving along three of the walls; one seemed to have unfinished pieces while another held tools Serenity didn’t recognize and the last seemed to hold completed pieces.

There weren’t very many completed pieces.

Serenity wondered if the prince was actually the potter who’d made the ceramics he could see on the shelves or if it was simply a disguise.