Blaze’s first priority was Evan.

Serenity left him to his task of healing the former priest. He could answer Evan’s questions just as well as Serenity could, maybe better. Blaze knew the plan, or at least he knew it before the surprises of Steadfast Seventeen.

Serenity considered what he could do that no one else could right now, and the only answer he could come up with was that he needed to send a message to Rissa then get some sleep. Everything else could wait until morning. Tomorrow would be a good day; with Evan’s cooperation, they could be out of here in a few hours and Serenity could be on his way back to Rissa. That would be good; they had two more churches to clear out before the eclipse.

Morning sounded better than reality turned out to be. It took hours to straighten out all of the misunderstandings of the previous day and even more hours to really convince people that he wasn’t here to lead them into some sort of trap.

It might not have worked at all without Serenity’s presence. Some time during the night, Denise started a rumor about him, which reassured many of the Earthlings. Of course, the fact that the “newcomers” were convinced was a mark against Serenity among the older residents, as were the black coats. Evan managed to sway them, but it was a near thing.

A near thing that Serenity happily stayed out of after Ekari told him to “go sit down and be quiet unless someone approaches you”. It was better in her hands than his. He’d come if she needed him, but the last thing he wanted to do was to get in her way.

Serenity spent the time trying to figure out where to send the people from the Temple. He didn’t have a great place for them; Earth was unlikely to welcome so many refugees that knew nothing of modern culture and Tzintkra was also not a great option. Zon wasn’t viable since the only place he had access to was Mornmot and there was no way he was going to send them directly into a city owned by demons.

Sending them anywhere else wasn’t a great option, either. They were effectively nearly penniless, since they could only take what they could carry and none had any significant amount of Etherium. The Temple was almost self-sufficient; it traded for the things none of them could make, but it didn’t have a huge surplus after they paid the tithes to the Eternal Church.

Serenity contacted his mother and Stojan Tasi anyway. One of them might have a solution; while he knew his mother had resigned and was traveling the world with his father, she still had contacts. That was more than he had.

Message from Bethany Rothmer to Serenity

Son,

Send all of the repatriates you want home. It’s doing wonders for your image, especially since you’re getting them close enough that others can get them the rest of the way home. There are several aid groups that have collaborated to help people get the rest of the way home; the new portal system is helping.

That’s the funniest thing, lately, too. Did you know that Portal Gates can be set up near a Portal Node, but they don’t always have to be in the same spot? Some clever individual figured that out and sold the method to a few of the major airlines. They’re keeping his (or her!) name quiet but I don’t think it will last for long. Either way, they’re setting up what they’re calling “managed portals” at airports. They open for half an hour at predesignated times; it’s all managed like air travel used to be, even ticketing you just don’t spend the time in the air.

It really crashed air ticket prices for a while, but now it’s actually really helped stabilize the exchange rate for Etherium. Before that, it was plummeting, but now the airlines are buying it up. Dungeons seem to be producing more of it, too, but even with that some airlines are keeping planes in the sky; I think we’re going to have more and more travel shift to portals, but there will probably always be some uses for airplanes.

Boeing and Lockheed are both refusing to comment on the airline situation, but I suspect they’re pretty unhappy. I’ve heard that there are some contracts being directed to them to help them stay in business; we can’t afford for them to go under. Of course, some of the projects that are being talked about in public would have sounded crazy a year ago; who would have considered a ley line powered drone as even a possibility?

You should see the fights that are happening over luggage. Everything’s a carry-on with a portal, after all! There are people arguing that the new portal-centers should be treated more like bus stations than airports. The fact that most travel is still by plane rather than portal has stalled that for now but I really think it’ll pass in the next few years.

The fights about carrying weaponry and the right to bear arms are already legendary. It’s obviously being pushed by all the usual suspects, but there are also a number of others weighing in on the subject. After all, when you’re headed to a dungeon, shouldn’t you be armed? Isn’t a mage always armed?

There was an effort to get everyone who can use Skills for damage without a weapon to register. It was soundly defeated; apparently, when sixty-plus percent of the population sees themselves potentially included on a list of ‘dangerous people’, they don’t like it. Who would have thought?

Your father and I both recommended against even trying, but we weren’t listened to. Maybe next time we will be.

International travel still has to pass through Customs checkpoints. I know you set up some pretty notable controls on that; thank you. I don’t want to think about what would happen if some of the people who truly hate us could just hop in a portal and come over without asking. More tragedies seems like the probable answer and we’ve already had enough of those.

It’s made things a tad more difficult for your father and me; we’re both a little too well known to travel anonymously. Fortunately, most portal systems aren’t set up to require re-identification after you enter the country so we’re making it work. It’s best that your father is out of the limelight right now; the President doesn’t need a thoughtless comment making his job more difficult and we don’t need reporters butting into our business.

On a more personal note, I’ve been keeping up with your fiancee’s family. I don’t know how much Rissa’s told you, but her parents have separated. Russ is still in New York, but Phoebe is staying with a relative in Nevada. They don’t know if it’s permanent or not; all Russ will say is that he’ll have to see “once her therapist thinks she’s ready to see me again”.

I got the full story out of him. I understand why you didn’t share, but I hope you’re watching Rissa. She was hurt too and these things leave scars. I can understand why you didn’t get her a therapist before you left Earth, but you should consider it when you return. Magical issues are becoming more understood.

You should think about one for yourself, and I don’t just mean because of Vengeance. You aren’t used to being in the public view all the time and I don’t think it’ll be natural for you. So consider getting help, even if it’s not formally therapy. Classes would work; we can probably even get you a place in some leadership training if you want.

That’s enough nagging-mother from me.

Oh yes - Jacob! I doubt he’s even told Rissa yet, but he’s resigned from his teaching job as of the end of this school year and will be taking up delving with his fiancee. I can’t tell if it’s a calling or simply a sign of dissatisfaction, but he seems happy with it. They talk my ear off about the various places enacting new weapon-related laws every time I hear from them.

So naturally your father and I have been visiting every time we head through Texas. They’re nice kids and I wanted to get to know Rissa’s family.

I’ve also met Red. You probably would believe just how well she hit it off with your father; she had him out testing something about quasi-differential potentials of ley line - light disturbances on spell actualization last night (yes, we’re in Nevada right now). I probably have some of that phrase wrong, too, but it kept them busy for hours and your father was just as happy as she was. He said something about it providing an alternate tracking method for locating the Well, and he’s laser-focused on the Well these days.

I suppose I can’t really argue with him. If I knew where my ancestors came to Earth, I’d be interested in finding it too.

Speaking of which, if you can avoid sending aliens to Earth, please do. The fights already look like they’re going to be ugly over trade; asylum would be worse. The invasion portals really pissed a lot of people off and naturally they’re arguing that the people who came through and established trade deals are just as bad as the ones that tried to conquer land because they used the same travel method. It’s dumb but that doesn’t mean it’s not working.

It’s a fight I don’t think they’d enjoy being caught up in.

As for the Sterath, well, there’s no choice for them. They’re caught up in it. Azav is proving to be a surprisingly competent public speaker for them; he’s managed to get a lot of people to support them because they were “just grunts who didn’t have a choice” who went on to fight on our side. It’s helping but there’s still a lot of hatred.

Stay safe.

Love,

Mom

Serenity laughed at the letter. It was just like his mother to consider the news about herself and Lex “less personal” than the news about Rissa’s family; she probably still thought of herself as a public figure. She’d always told him that that meant that the personal was public, especially when it affected others.

Most of the news was good, though it absolutely made Serenity want to question his father about this “Well”. What was it and why hadn’t he heard about it before? What did it mean when his mother said it was where his father’s ancestors came to Earth? What sort of “well” would even be a viable means of transportation?

Perhaps it was where the transportation was stuck? Or maybe it was really a portal but an odd one that came out in a pretty inaccessible location? Serenity didn’t know why you’d set one up that way, but he also didn’t know how something from so long ago would still be around.

It probably wasn’t a portal. Portals were ephemeral.

Serenity’s father’s mother had traced their ancestry back to the 1400s, long before they emigrated to the United States. She hadn’t traced everyone; was this one of the people she wasn’t able to find or was it longer ago than that?

Serenity really hadn’t ever paid that much attention to his ancestry. It wasn’t that important to him. Perhaps he’d been wrong about that?

There were all those lines in “Heritage” that he’d never been able to figure out the origin of, after all.