“Who are you?” The first acolyte called out to Serenity from far enough out that he probably thought he was safe from an easy melee attack. Against a normal Tier Three, he’d probably have been right.

Serenity didn’t see any reason to enlighten him about the difference. “My Name is Serenity. Who are you? Do you know why the portal isn’t available?”

Serenity thought he did a pretty good job at acting upset that he couldn’t use the portal. It was probably helped by the fact that he was actually upset that he couldn’t use the portal; it would have made things so much easier.

The acolyte didn’t answer the question. “Why do you want to use the portal?”

The question wasn’t dumb, but it was nonspecific enough that it was easy to deliberately misunderstand. Serenity sighed and rolled his eyes. “To leave the planet! Why else would anyone want to use a portal?”

He could see the frustration in the acolyte’s eyes at the response. “Why do you want to leave the planet?”

Serenity had already decided how to answer that question, so his response was easy. “Why wouldn’t I after what happened yesterday? My family’s elsewhere and my employer isn’t here anymore. It’s always better to leave when turmoil like this happens; I don’t want to be in its path.”

The acolyte would probably take “not here anymore” to mean “dead”, even though it really meant “not in Zenith”, but Serenity didn’t mind that small misdirection. If they had someone checking whether or not his words were true, they’d learn that they were. He did want to see his family, he didn’t want to stay on Zon, and he didn’t like being in places where a massive change was happening if he wasn’t involved; they were more dangerous than they were worth.

The acolyte glanced away; he seemed to be looking at someone else, but Serenity kept his attention on the man in front of him. “Are you a noble?”

Serenity couldn’t keep the surprise off his face; that wasn’t a question he’d expected, so he scrambled for an answer. “Not here? I ah, might be elsewhere which came in convenient for mixing with the nobles here but I’m not a local noble. Is that what you’re wondering?”

Serenity was silently scolding himself for admitting that he was a noble anywhere when the acolyte gave a single barking laugh and stepped back. “Good enough. The portal will open soon, since the city is fully under control. Until then, step carefully. Avoid the former power; they will simply pull you into the conflict.”

Serenity nodded, thinking of Prince Ora. “I just want out of here.”

“Go, then.” The acolyte stepped to one side, out of Serenity’s path away from the portal node.

Serenity hurried away, but didn’t drop the partially-formed teleportation spell. He didn’t think he’d talked himself out of the situation as much as he’d simply made himself seem unimportant. Even so, he didn’t head directly back to the pottery studio. He wanted to know if there was someone following him or not.

He was definitely being followed. Serenity wasn’t certain if he’d given himself away somehow or if it was simply a precaution they were using for everyone who tried to use the portal; he suspected that it was simply that they weren’t certain about him and wanted to see what they could find out.

He’d seen the same person in red and black several times, enough to know that she wasn’t wearing robes; she was instead dressed in something that looked like a generously-cut flowing pantsuit.

He couldn’t go back to the pottery studio without losing the tail and he didn’t want to be obvious about trying to shake her off. What he could do was head directly to the Inn Gate; heading to the city gate to try to leave the city after being unable to leave through a portal was a reasonable choice. It wouldn’t seem odd.

Serenity had already been heading vaguely in that direction, more or less wandering like someone who didn’t know quite where he was going. Now that he was sure, he set out briskly. Even the beginning of a plan was better than no plan.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any way to tell Andarit about the change in plans. He wished he’d thought to set up something before he headed to the portal; he was simply still too used to being able to call someone. With Rissa or Ita, he didn’t even need to use a phone. If he was lucky, she’d guess, but depending on luck was a great way to fail.

There wasn’t even a good way to send her a message. Mental magic wasn’t his strong point and he didn’t really have any good communication options. Worse, while he was certain the city had messengers available, they’d be seen. Sending a messenger would be at least as bad as simply visiting himself.

There was really only one option and it was going to be really annoying. The distance from the pottery shed to the Inn Gate was quite a bit farther than he’d ever created a portal for before; it was more than twice the distance that he’d needed for any of the portals from the hiring and slave district to the Lowpeak residence. Well over double the distance; Serenity wasn’t certain it wasn’t over three times the distance. It was hard to tell, since it wasn’t as direct.

Although there was an easy way to find out.

Aide, how far is it from the Inn Gate to the pottery studio where Andarit is? Straight-line distance, that is, not walking.

2.3 miles

Serenity smiled at the words printed in his vision. Thanks.

He could open a portal for that distance, but it would be difficult.

On second thought, a smaller portal would be much easier. Maybe he could open a portal and pass Andarit a note? He had the keys to the ward he’d set up, so he ought to be able to get a portal inside the building even though the ward would normally prevent one from forming. A note would be exactly what he needed.

The portal wasn’t noticed when it opened. It was approximately round and only about four inches in diameter.

Andarit and Prince Ora were still arguing about exactly what to put in the letters when a small paper airplane smacked into Andarit’s forehead. It wasn’t exactly where Serenity was aiming, but it was still better than he’d expected. She definitely noticed it. After a moment, she seemed to notice the writing on it and opened it.

Serenity grinned. He already knew what it said, so once he knew she was reading it, he closed the portal. The mana drain for the distance was worse than he’d expected. The smaller size helped, but he still didn’t want to leave it open any longer than he had to.

Andarit,

Someone followed me from the portal so I couldn’t return to you. Everything’s fine; this is just a minor change in plans. Please meet me at the Inn once you’re ready; remember that we’re supposed to have dinner here and that’s only another couple hours away.

See you soon,

Serenity

Serenity had done everything he could to protect the room without permanently damaging anything and was debating heading down to dinner without Andarit when he heard muttered swearing coming from the hallway. It sounded like Andarit, so Serenity opened the door.

“Oh good, you’re still here. I’m not late.” Andarit panted as though she’d been running. With as exhausted as she looked, she’d probably run most of the way from the pottery studio and not paced herself properly.

Serenity smiled. “Not too late, at least. Sit down, get your breath back and I’ll key you to the ward on the room. Did you finish everything you needed to?”

Andarit sat on the only bed in the room. “I’d better have it all. I’m not going back, I’d just end up having to wait while Prince Ora rewrote all the letters. Again. Why’d you set up a ward?”

Serenity smiled. “So we can both sleep tonight. We’ll have enough bad nights’ rest on the road, we don’t need to start off that way. It’s only a simple mana-based ward; a tripwire, basically. That’s all I can maintain indefinitely.”

Realistically, he shouldn’t even be able to maintain that much of a mana-based ward at Tier Three. It had to be because of his Arcane Affinity, Concept, and probably also the fact that it had turned into an Aspect. He didn’t even know what his Affinity was, since it didn’t appear on his Status anymore, but he knew that continually-maintained spells of any sort were vanishingly rare before Tier Five, and the ward wasn’t even using all of his natural mana regeneration.

Even at Tier Five, they were almost always Skills which incorporated trigger features to reduce the mana cost. At least, that was how Vengeance’s Shield Skill had worked.

After a couple of minutes, Andarit stood up. She was no longer panting, but Serenity could tell that she was controlling her breathing to slow it down. That was good enough; she had almost recovered.

Serenity stood as well. “Dinner, then? I checked with the bartender, Liraz, earlier; she said to come check with her when we went down. One of the groups she knew of is interested in hiring some guards.”

Liraz pointed them towards a table with two people, a woman and a man. The woman was dressed in leathers, but they seemed to be more to protect her from fire than actual armor; Serenity could see several scorch marks, especially on the gloves sitting on the table next to her plate. The man, on the other hand, was dressed in actual armor. It was mostly leather, with metal reinforcements added around the limbs and upper chest. Unlike most of the armor Serenity had seen on Zon, it was highly functional and was clearly designed with protection in mind rather than style.

As they walked over, the two people stopped talking and turned to look. The woman grinned after a moment and waved them to come closer. “Are you the two mercenaries Liraz mentioned, interested in a guard job outside Zenith?”

Serenity nodded. “We are. We’re both registered offplanet, but it seems like Zon doesn’t have a proper Mercenary Guild presence.”

The woman patted the table next to her. “Come, join us! You may be just what we need. I’m Ceney, the organizer of this little trip; this is Xarx. Xarx will be leading the guards; we’d planned to have a dozen Tier Two guards with a couple Tier Threes, but that doesn’t seem to be possible after yesterday; most of the people we’d signed are missing. You’re a Tier Four and a Tier Three, aren’t you?”

Ceney. Why did that name sound familiar?

Serenity shook his head. It was obvious she’d misidentified him as a Tier Four; that wasn’t really surprising. He was at the maximum for Tier Three, and that was extremely rare while still in a Tier. “Both Tier Three, though we’re both qualified for Four. I’ve been holding off for personal reasons.” Not wanting the pain of being too far over Earth’s Tier was a personal reason, wasn’t it? Not that it really applied at the moment; he really ought to consider Tiering up. “I’m Serenity; this is Andarit. She’s a mage with a Perception focus while I’m a general hybrid; I can probably slot in wherever you need me as long as it’s not healing.”

As he finished the introduction, Serenity paused. There was something really familiar about the name Ceney. He’d heard it since arriving on Zon.

No, wait. He hadn’t heard it; he’d seen it. “Wait. Aren’t you the crafter who made that good, functional gear I found at … what was the shop’s name? The one who signed her work with the planet’s name instead of her own.”