[Challenge Resolved]

[Serenity has ascended to the Rule of Mornmot]

[You may alter your Rule type at the City Node]

Serenity picked himself up from the remains of his meal, the remains of his enemy. He wasn’t certain what to think right now. He hadn’t been thinking; he’d simply been angry and he’d completely lost control.

His actions felt completely justified and vile at the same time.

He felt drained by the sudden lack of anger.

Did he even deserve to see Rissa?

Serenity shook himself, trying to clear his mind. That was a bad path. He knew where it led and it was nowhere he wanted to go. He needed to do what he’d done after he returned through time: accept what he’d done, move forward, and prevent it from ever happening again.

At least this was an enemy he had no problem with killing. It could have been worse; Serenity knew that was really what was bothering him, more than the actions he’d actually taken. What if he’d lost his control with someone he actually cared about, or even someone who didn’t deserve to die?

He turned abruptly and paced up the stairs, into the ruin. He didn’t have a guide, but the City Node shouldn’t be hard to find. His guess was that it was the target of the Greater Obsession Demon’s obsession, which meant it wouldn’t be far and would be either very obvious or be extremely carefully hidden - which would be obvious in a different way.

There was no immediately obvious crystal, but it didn’t take much searching to find a huge pile of rubble in the middle of a large partially-collapsed but clearly recently reinforced room. Serenity could see both old and new trees that had clearly been used to brace the walls in place, while the ceiling had been allowed to partially collapse. The pile of rubble was under a mostly intact section of ceiling, which made its presence only more obviously unnatural.

Digging went quickly in his gigantic demon form. He didn’t have to be all that careful; City Nodes were sturdy things. Even so, he dug an opening rather than clearing it off; he wanted to shift to his human form before he went to Lyka and while he hadn’t seen any other demons since the fight started, he didn’t want to be seen in his human form while he was interacting with the City Node. Once he was through the Portal, it didn’t matter, but until then it would probably cause a fight.

The last thing he wanted to do right now was fight. The very thought set his blood to boiling at the thought that someone would challenge him and that very excitement and anger worried him.

Serenity used the energy to dig faster.

The crystal sheen of a City Node peeked out of the covering of rubble. Serenity cleared enough to safely touch the crystal, then paused.

Where was the portal going to appear? Transportation Nodes generally had a space marked off where the portal would appear; many even had two, one for leaving and one for arriving. Serenity hadn’t found anything like that yet. Of course, he also hadn’t checked the floor.

Serenity cleared the area around the City Node until he’d located the remains of both portal areas. They were etched in the floor, but it was no longer possible to tell which was which so he cleared them both.

That should be good enough.

Serenity shifted to his human form, his armor following the shift and adjusting itself. A glance down showed him that it was still echoing the demon’s fur instead of his dragon scales. Serenity shuddered and shifted it to his usual scales. He wanted nothing to do with the Greater Demon of Rightful Retribution shape right now.

What was he thinking? He ate a sapient being!

Serenity knew he’d have been retching if that were still a possibility for him, but all of his shapes simply converted food to mana and essence, then used that for fuel and to repair damage. There was nothing in his stomach, but he still felt slightly nauseous.

And he’d thought it tasted good, too!

Ugh!

Serenity simply stood there, momentarily overwhelmed by the magnitude of the effect his shape had on himself. It was far more overt with the demonic shape, but how much were his other forms affecting him?

Did he care?

As far as he could tell, the Greater Demon of Rightful Retribution was the only one that was so far from his natural state that it would override his ethics, but how did he know that? Was he overreacting or underreacting to things based on his shape? Was it simply not himself?

Serenity had faced this problem before. A draugr simply wasn’t the same as a human; he knew that. It was completely obvious when he became one. A lich was also different.

This was in some ways the same issue he had with becoming a vampire. Serenity knew it was hypocritical in a lot of ways. He didn’t have any trouble with feeding Desinka and he’d had vampiric friends as Vengeance. One or two, at least.

When it came to himself, though, there was a hard limit. People shouldn’t eat people. Ever. Demons were questionable but that demon was sapient. That made it “people”. Killing it was fine, eating it wasn’t.

Even though it was clearly completely normal for a demon.

So yes, he clearly cared.

Was he going to let that stop him? What was he going to do about it?

He couldn’t do anything about the past. Even if that wasn’t entirely correct, this wasn’t something he was going to try to change. It wasn’t that important. Instead, he’d have to take it as a lesson for the future: he needed to watch what Forms he took.

Which almost certainly meant he needed to think more about his Evolutions as well. They were usually more all-encompassing than his Forms. He didn’t even have a magitech cyborg form; instead, he was a magitech cyborg in all of his forms. At least, all of the ones that could be; he didn’t think his Sovereign of Potential form had any magitech built in, because it was insubstantial. He was confident that Aide was working on changing that.

Serenity reviewed his Evolutions so far. Dragon was fine; he was a dragon and he was comfortable with that. He wasn’t certain if he’d have been so comfortable before he made the choice or not, but who didn’t want to be a dragon, at least a little?

Child of Time seemed to have the least influence, overall. It was another without a Form of its own unless he used the Heritage. The only effects he’d noticed from it were recent, when he’d fallen through Time. Was it also why the Sun curse had affected Rissa less when she was around him? It was possible.

Come to think of it, something had shielded Andarit partially from the tempting Mind magic compulsion pulling her towards the fire in Zenith while he held her. Was it possible that because his Child of Time was Unbound that he had some sort of passive effect on nearby negative bindings? Both a curse and a compulsion were unwanted bindings.

Serenity didn’t have any way to test that, but it was a good thing if it were true.

After that came Dhampir. While it didn’t have a form of its own other than drawing on his Dhampiric Heritage, he knew exactly how it affected all of his other Forms. It had changed his Vital Affinities. It might have also made working with magic a little easier because it was his Vital Affinity now, but it was hard to tell.

Sovereign of Potential was similar, really, even though it was the only Evolution other than Dragon to have its own Form. He’d had the Form before he took the Evolution, too.

It’d changed how he healed. He was a shapeshifter in all of his Forms, now.

That seemed to be the theme. Evolutions were always a basic change to what he was, while Form bleedover seemed to only happen when he took a Form that fought like the Sterath Battlemaster or resonated like the Greater Demon of Wrath, almost like mini Evolutions.

He couldn’t be certain the Greater Demon of Wrath would bleed over, but he was unfortunately confident that he’d find that it had. It was too controlling not to.

Serenity looked up. He’d stood here long enough; Rissa knew he was coming and had promised to try to meet him at the Portal or at least to have someone there to meet him and take him to her.

It was time to go.

Serenity set his hand against the City Node.

[Ruler Type Change required for Mornmot]

[Current Type: Not Set]

[Available Types:

Called

Sovereign

Lord

Dynast

Paramount]

Serenity sighed and started digging to find out what the options meant. He didn’t really want to rule Mornmot; he just needed enough power to allow himself to open a portal that would get him offworld. Direct to Lyka would be best, but a number of other destinations would let him get there eventually. He just had to get off Zon.

Called was clearly the one the Greater Demon of Obsession had been; it seemed to be little more than a caretaker, someone who would guard the City Core without really having much power over it. It couldn’t set up portals and Serenity didn’t want to guard the City Node anyway.

Sovereign, Lord, and Dynast were all similar; in fact, Serenity was fairly confident that the only difference between Sovereign and Lord was the fact that a Sovereign couldn’t belong to a larger setup as a subordinate while a Lord could. Serenity wasn’t certain why they were both options, but perhaps it was simply because he was a Sovereign yet there were places he could have sworn an oath to?

Dynast was a variant that could be either Sovereign or Lord. Its major difference was that it required him to select an heir at the time of gaining the Lordship. It could be changed and there were some complicated ways it could be configured, but essentially it was all about the rules of succession. Serenity suspected that Zenith was a Dynasty.

Paramount was different. It was almost a ruler that didn’t have to rule; it gave the same access to the City Core as any of the others but all it required was that the Paramount be the strongest. It had some defined succession rules but one of them was that it couldn’t simply be hereditary; there had to be more to it. It didn’t require him to choose a successor.

He qualified because he’d beaten the previous ruler in direct combat. In that way it reminded him of Tzintkra; their succession rules were probably a modified form of Paramount.

It was clearly the correct choice.

With that choice made, the City Core let him into the menu to create a Portal. Serenity took a moment to check and make sure that no one other than himself had permission to affect the City Core or create portals; fortunately, that seemed to be the default setting for Paramount.

It wasn’t like talking to a City Core on Earth or Tzintkra; the World Core didn’t greet him or even seem to notice him. It was just the mechanical-seeming City Core he’d always seen as Vengeance and the Final Reaper.

Still, Lyka was available as an option. Serenity selected it and stepped through the portal, which turned out to be the one on the left.

Serenity found himself standing in a place that looked more like a fancy hotel ballroom than the ordinary Travel node he’d expected. There was a man dressed in ornate robes, clearly an acolyte of the Eternal Church, sitting in a chair near the portal Serenity came in through.

“Are you Planetary Sovereign Serenity?” The man in burgundy and black stood in a posture that approached attention.

Serenity’s nostrils flared. He didn’t like that title, but he had to admit that it seemed to be more accurate than he really wanted to admit. “Yes.”

The acolyte bowed shallowly; it seemed to be a formal acknowledgement of some sort. “On behalf of the Church of Aeons and our Eternal Light, I welcome you to Lyka. Do you have an immediate destination, or shall I lead you to your wife’s quarters? We can provide your own quarters to use to freshen yourself first if you would prefer.”

Serenity took a deep breath and felt himself relax. The next step, at least, was easy. “Please take me to Rissa. It’s been too long.”

END OF ARC 7