“Rocks?” Rourke sounded confused. “The glowing ones? What do they have to do with the World Core or that underground facility?”

Serenity was surprised Rourke didn’t know. Weren’t the internal police supposed to eventually find everything out as they watched people? “The underground facility is around the World Core. They’re mining it for green stones; do you remember the ones Ekari recovered from the Infirmary?”

Rourke shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Now that Serenity thought about it, he wasn’t certain anyone had mentioned it to Rourke. Everyone else knew and it might well not have come up. “Ekari can show you after she’s done with the acolyte.”

Serenity was not going to get close to those green stones. They were too attractive and he knew what would happen.

“As for the glowing rock, we found one on Lyka; it was in Djen’s secret office, on a bookshelf. It tried to pretend to be Gaia, Earth’s World Core, so I destroyed it. I thought I mentioned it?” Serenity tried to remember; he’d told the story enough times that they all blurred together.

Rourke frowned in thought. “Now that you mention it, that does seem familiar. I didn’t know about a rock being used here so I didn’t connect them. Wait, didn’t you say the rock glowed for you?”

Serenity nodded.

Rourke’s frown shifted into a cheerless smile. “That may be very useful. Getting in to see Alanaeon is never easy, she’s busy, but I can probably find a way for you to get close enough to trigger a stone.”

“Do we even need to deal with her? The outer areas aren’t well secured; it depends on where my people are.” Serenity simply wanted his people out; he didn’t see any need for a complicated plan or working with a mad scientist if he could get them out another way.

Rourke paused. “It would be faster, but I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? I’ll assign some people to the facility and see what they can find out.”

Serenity nodded. “We have time. We have four thousand people to get out first.”

Rourke frowned. “Arranging that will be painful. Hard to hide, too.”

Serenity shook his head. “Not as hard as a massive facility that’s currently in use. The church in Abiding Six is already cleared out; the priests and acolytes had abandoned it and left my people behind. I think we can handle any other abandoned churches the same way. Can you find that out, at least? If I can take that to High Priestess Karin, I think she’ll be willing to authorize it.”

That was really the only easy part of the plan. As far as he could tell, he’d be taking a liability off the priests’ hands that they didn’t really have time to deal with right now. The fact that that “liability” was the people he wanted to rescue simply made things easier.

Dealing with any who were in churches that were still in use would be trickier, but not as difficult as dealing with the ones sent to Alanaeon. Serenity more than half hoped that the one Ekari found in in the infirmary was one of the ones sent to Alanaeon;

A week later, Serenity had sent three hundred and sixty-four more people back to Earth. It wasn’t enough, but it was a decent start. It usually took two days to fully empty a church, which wasn’t nearly fast enough for a little over a hundred people. They needed to be faster, but the work wasn’t minor; they had to convince everyone they were actually there to help, search the church, split everyone up by final location, and then open the portals.

Serenity was the only one who could open the portals to Earth. That generally took several hours per church, but it wasn’t the real limiter. Instead, the real limiter was language limitations; while many people spoke English, more than half had limited English skills at best. In many places, they also hadn’t been taught the local language, which meant that Rissa was the only person who could understand everyone because she was the only person with a universal translator bracelet.

High Priestess Karin surprised Serenity when she entered the common room without warning. She stopped in the doorway. “Serenity. It’s good that I was able to catch up to you. You have been invited to see Lykandeon. Now.”

“Now?” Serenity was startled. He’d expected some warning or at least the chance to change into some nicer clothes.

“Now,” the High Priestess confirmed. “Lykandeon is available when he chooses to be, not when it is convenient for others.”

Serenity snorted. It was clear that Lykandeon had allowed his power to go to his head; there was no reason not to at least warn someone they would be wanted. What if he’d been on Lyka instead of in his rooms on Aeon?

Powerful people went one of two ways: they were either understanding of others’ limitations because they could afford to be or extremely strict because they didn’t have to allow anyone else room for error. Sometimes they didn’t even allow room for reality. It was clear which type Lykandeon was.

Well, that just meant Lykandeon would see Serenity as he was, wearing armor covered in a large comfortable shirt and pants. The shirt had Serenity’s symbol on it; Rissa seemed to have packed dozens of them.

Serenity stood and started to follow High Priestess Karin. :Rissa? Karin’s taking me to see Lykandeon. Apparently he wants to see me right now.:

A laugh echoed over the mental link. :What do you think the odds are that he’ll make you wait anyway?:

Rissa’s joke was right on the money. Serenity arrived at a bare stone hallway with a simple stone bench. To top it off, the room was cooler than everything else around it; it was so clearly a deliberate statement about petitioners’ importance that Serenity had a hard time taking it seriously.

After the first fifteen minutes, he decided to lie down on the bench and take a nap. Karin would wake him when it was time to enter.

It was more than two hours later when Karin’s hand on Serenity’s shoulder woke him up. Karin was wearing an outfit Serenity couldn’t really believe; it looked like a slutty Halloween costume version of her normal High Priestess robes. The only difference between it and a Halloween costume was that it was clearly made of good materials and was designed to be worn more than once.

Apparently Lykandeon had preferences and didn’t mind imposing them on his priestesses. It wasn’t that unusual in powerful men but it still left Serenity feeling like he ought to stand up for Karin even though he knew he wasn’t going to. Not right now.

Serenity stretched and tried to get the bitter taste of cowardice out of his mouth while he avoided looking at the High Priestess. He knew that being sensible wasn’t really being cowardly but that didn’t make him feel better as he followed her into a very different room.

The center of the room was dominated by a floating chunk of translucent green crystal. It was at least four feet long on its longest side and seemed to have been broken off of a larger crystal at some point. Serenity spent a long moment simply staring at the crystal. Aeon’s core was beautiful and in pain. He could see the mana moving around it and he felt as it reached out to him.

There was nothing he could do for it right now, but he would if he could. He didn’t like leaving something in pain and Aeon’s core felt very much like someone reaching out for help while expecting to be hurt. Serenity reassured it as best he could, but there really wasn’t much he could do.

He could only feel the core because it was so very close; he was essentially standing inside its core room and that was enough. To really talk to it, he’d need to touch it with his horns and Serenity didn’t think that was going to happen any time soon.

Serenity shook off the fascination of the core and looked around the rest of the room. It was overdone and gaudy enough that the furniture was overwhelmed by the room itself. Lykandeon really needed a decorator if he wanted the room to look impressive and imposing; as it was, it simply looked garish.

Lykandeon himself was reclined on a couch near the broken World Core. It was hard to tell, but Lykandeon was probably tall; he was certainly skinny. There was very little muscle visible past the form-fitting robe Lykandeon wore. Serenity couldn’t help but notice that while it was cut tighter than a normal priest’s robe, it didn’t actually reveal anything more.

He didn’t seem to realize that anything odd had happened when Serenity entered. That was convenient and strange at the same time; shouldn’t a Sovereign be able to tell when a World they owned connected to someone else?

Perhaps Serenity was simply unusually sensitive.

“Eternal One, I have brought the foreigner.” High Priestess Karin bowed towards Lykandeon.

Lykandeon didn’t reply immediately. Serenity decided that it was probably another pointless power game when Karin didn’t seem surprised or bothered by the silence. If Lykandeon wanted him to wait, he’d wait. Serenity was good at patience.

He took the time to examine the rest of the room in better detail. Water ran down the wall to Serenity’s left; it then entered a grate and left. It added a little background noise to the room but it wasn’t very loud at all, simply a slight sound of flowing water.

The wall across from Serenity was covered in a mural of a battle. Serenity didn’t spend much time looking at it; without context, there was no reason to. He doubted he had time anyway.

The wall to his right was carpeted in the same thick plush carpet as the floor. The carpet held a geometric pattern in black and burgundy; it was clear that those were Lykandeon’s preferred colors.

Next to Serenity, he could see tapestries or wall hangings of some sort decorating the wall. His first thought was that they were probably banners, but he couldn’t be certain without a better look.

“Why does this petitioner come before me?” Lykandeon must have decided he’d made Serenity wait in silence long enough. He’d certainly decided to take the most insulting tack he possibly could.

“I’m not a petitioner.” The words were out of Serenity’s mouth before he could think about them. Serenity was decidedly not good at this. Why couldn’t it have been one of the others? Rissa was far better at dealing with assholes without making it obvious she was dissing them. Somehow they always figured it out about Serenity.

Not that Serenity wanted Rissa anywhere near Lykandeon. Seeing Karin’s outfit had added a possible reason why she had so many more compulsions than Rourke and Rissa was beautiful. Serenity didn’t want to find out the hard way that Lykandeon was willing to compel a foreign visitor; whether or not she resisted, that didn’t end well.

At that, Lykandeon sat up enough to look at Serenity. “You came here to request something, a petition. That makes you a petitioner. Are you really so stupid you do not know what the word means?”

Serenity stared at the “god” in front of him flatly. He was probably about to screw this up royally. “I had heard you denied it. Are you admitting that your people stole my people under your orders?”