Message from Rissa Latimer to Serenity

Serenity,

High Priestess Karin - you know, Ekari’s mother - has been looking into the missing people who ended up on Lyka. She’s found some, but apparently they are in seclusion following their acceptance of Lykandeon and cannot meet anyone outside the Faith for several months. I’ve asked her to keep looking; the early arrivals should be outside the timeframe she’s given me.

I trust this just as much as you probably do.

There’s something off about Karin. Sometimes she’s the absolutely devoted High Priestess, other times she has emotions that don’t match what she’s saying. I think that’s the real Karin.

On that note, I had a Dream last night.

No, not that sort of dream, silly! The prophetic kind.

It was fuzzy, the way these things have been since you took care of the curse. I can tell it involves Aeon and Lykandeon somehow, but the focus is on Ekari and Karin. There was someone else, but that’s so unclear I’m not sure I’ll know it was connected until it happens.

I’m trying to get the bounds for it and feel out the shape of the possible futures. What I can say for sure now is that it looks likely that we’ve tripped on something a lot bigger than just people being kidnapped. That’s not small, but it shouldn’t be world-changing and some of the visions I’m getting end with a world on fire. One ended up with a world disintegrating, but that felt very unlikely.

The far more likely ones feel like springtime; I don’t know why that is. So frustrating!

Even so, I am going to try to avoid Lykandeon for as long as I can. His pride should help with that; from what I can tell, meeting me instead of you would somehow be … damaging to his dignity?

The worst scenarios seem to be where I meet him without you, but you meeting him without me is also not good. I can’t see why, but that’s the general feel I get.

Outside the world of dreams and back in reality, I suspect that The Eternal Church - note I don’t say Karin - is going to use our search for the kidnapped to pull us to Aeon. I’m debating allowing it, as long as they promise you will be assisted in your trip once you reach Lyka.

Keep sending me messages. I’m pretty sure that the only reason they’re letting me have regular access to a City Node is that we’re trading messages so often. High Priestess Karin has commented on the cost several times. It doesn’t seem that expensive to me. Any idea why they think it is?

Love ya!

Rissa

Serenity chuckled at the end of the message. He knew exactly why others thought the messages were expensive and Rissa didn’t: the Voice’s prices were always in Etherium. The Tutorial was rich in Etherium but even it didn’t award enough for the level of messages he was exchanging with Rissa. There was a reason the Messengers Guild existed: they’d take payment in increments of less than an Etherium.

The miniscule tax on an entire planet, on the other hand, made the messages seem cheap. The early portal costs had seemed outrageous at the time but now they didn’t seem that bad. The only time Serenity had spent significantly more in a day than he received was when he paid for the rescue and future care of the kidnapped Earthlings, and he’d already passed the previous wealth number. Rissa and he were probably poor for Planetary Sovereigns, but they were wealthy for anyone else at their Tier.

The fact that the tax money wasn’t having to be used to buy or maintain infrastructure helped a lot with that; Earth was still used to buying its own. Serenity suspected that might change in the future as people went up in Tier, but on the other hand natural materials would also be stronger. He’d have to wait and see; maybe there would be an equivalent of the extremely prevalent plastic that could stand up to the thoughtless strength of a high-Tier person. Serenity suspected that he was now strong enough to have issues, even though he wasn’t yet Tier Five; fortunately, he still had some of the reflexes of the Final Reaper and was careful with his movements.

The rule was to not hit anything, even by accident, that you didn’t want to kill or destroy. It was something that everyone had to learn eventually unless they completely ignored their physical Attributes and went solely on equipment boosts.

Well, everyone who didn’t get stuck at Tier Three or Tier Four.

Serenity turned his attention back to his surroundings. It was getting close to midday, when Duke Lowpeak would turn back so that he could reach the safety of the River before nightfall. They would apparently still be on Lowpeak land at that point, but Serenity would still need to pay attention; demon incursions weren’t unusual. The Lowpeaks didn’t bother to pursue them as long as they stayed well away from the river; everything beyond the river was an uninhabited buffer zone.

“You’re certain you don’t want me to come all the way to the edge of my land? I can sense anything walking on it, so it would increase your safety.” Kalo clearly hadn’t given up.

Serenity smiled and shook his head. “I’ll be fine. I have to start somewhere and starting where there aren’t many seems like a good idea.”

It would add time since walking was slower than flying, but that was only to be expected. Serenity doubted he would use any form of transportation once he was close enough to be seen; he might even spend a lot of time in his Sovereign form, which was even slower.

They traveled about an hour later than Serenity had expected before Kalo finally accepted that he couldn’t go much farther and still make it back across the river before nightfall. He pushed some food on Serenity, who appreciated the luncheon, then Serenity moved forward and Kalo went back.

It was a long walk across short rocky hills covered in scrubby trees and tall grass. Serenity spent the first couple of hours in his dhampir-heritage human disguise before he decided he was far enough away from Kalo to relax into something more comfortable. The only things or people that would see him here wouldn’t know who he was; if he were lucky, they might even assume he belonged.

Traveling in his chimera form was much easier. His scales completely stopped the bunches of biting insects he’d run into earlier, where his human flesh wasn’t quite durable enough. It healed almost immediately, but that didn’t make getting bitten itch any less. If anything, it itched even more; he seemed to be immune to whatever numbing agent the insects used to stay unnoticed.

Serenity was still in the foothills when it became dark enough that he needed to either plan to move through the night or find a place to rest. He still hadn’t seen any demons, so he decided that a place to rest for the night was the best choice. He started to look for a good place to set up his tent, then realized that he had the perfect opportunity to test out a Skill instead. Instead of searching, his next hour was spent summoning things with Call on the Origin.

It was the first time he’d done any serious construction with the Skill. It took both mana and essence to use and had a maximum amount it could make based on the magical energy he fed it, but it could make anything he adequately visualized as long as he had enough magic to support it.

It couldn’t make an entire well-reinforced house in a single attempt. Serenity tried, but he simply didn’t have the magic for it.

Serenity let the partial structure he had managed to create dissipate back into the Potential it was made from, then waited until he had enough mana and essence to try again. He built on a small portion of the same base but only built a sturdy, reinforced sleeping area.

He included a comfy bed. It didn’t add much to the cost and he knew it would be worth it.

The next morning, Serenity found that the material he’d created, while still present, was far weaker than it should be when he knocked some of the mattress apart while he was trying to get out of bed. The sheets simply ripped as well, though he could probably blame his claws for that one. Baby dragon claws were very sharp.

The created material was clearly fading even though he was still paying some mana and essence to keep it around. He made a note to himself that it would serve as a good early warning, but if something attacked him after he was asleep for a few hours, it might not be as much protection as he’d normally expect.

His trek that day was uneventful other than a couple of small streams, which he crossed without incident; they were both narrow enough that he could jump across. Even the wider one wasn’t all that challenging for someone with his attributes.

It was midafternoon when Serenity realized that not only was it growing more humid but the plant life was definitely more vibrant. Instead of dry land mostly covered by grass, he was seeing rich, green grass. The trees were still scattered and scarce, but the ones that were present were no longer three feet tall and barely hanging on; instead, they were healthy and at least twenty feet tall. They were also a different tree, but Serenity had never really been able to tell trees apart past “evergreen” or “deciduous”.

These were deciduous.

From the descriptions he’d read back at Lowpeak, Serenity knew that meant he should start seeing ruins any time now. If he’d taken the route that followed the ancient road instead of cutting cross-country and depending on Aide’s navigation, he’d probably already have seen some.

Of course, he’d probably also have already seen some demons. His choice to take the direct route was saving him time and hassle so far.

He spent that night camped between a pair of tall trees; it allowed him to save on the amount of material he had to create while also giving a better chance for the construction to be missed if something was looking.

The first building came into sight about an hour after Serenity got moving. It was an old wooden outbuilding of some sort; it seemed strangely intact for how long it must have been sitting unused, but “strangely intact” really just meant that the walls were still there. The ceiling had collapsed at some point in the past and the windows were simply openings. Serenity couldn’t tell if they’d ever had glass or not, but there was no sign of actual shutters.

Serenity didn’t spend much time there; he wanted to get to the Mornmot City Node and leave the planet.

A loud hooting noise was Serenity’s first warning of demons. He’d entered an area that was more heavily covered in trees, though probably not quite dense enough to actually be covered by a forest. He was just far enough in to not be able to exit easily when he heard the noise.

It came from his left. Serenity froze, in case the creature making the noise was sensitive to movement, then slowly looked towards the direction of the noise. He couldn’t see whatever was making it, but another hoot answered it.

At the third hoot, this time from more or less in front of Serenity, he decided to move forward slowly but cautiously. There were definitely several of them, but they didn’t sound like they were hunting him.

They were farther off than they sounded; it took almost half an hour for Serenity’s slow progress towards the hoots to get him close enough to catch a glimpse of one of the creatures making all the noise.