Serenity gaped at Daryl. Why hadn’t he ever thought of pretending to be a follower instead of the leader? The symbol on Ita’s chest wasn’t any different from his own; how had he missed that?

Also, did the fact that there were now three planets and a moon on the symbol on his armor make it less obvious it was a Planetary Sovereign’s mark? Daryl only said it was a Lord’s mark, so he clearly didn’t recognize it for what it was. Serenity didn’t know if that was lack of knowledge on Daryl’s part or simply that it was drifting farther from the well-known Sovereign’s mark.

Serenity pulled his scattered thoughts back together and tried to figure out how to answer. “I wasn’t expecting that question. Uh, I’m from Earth. You wouldn’t know Earth, we’re relatively close but not really accessible, we just had our Tutorial.”

“Then why are you here? There’s nothing in Takinat. Especially now.” Naomi leaned back against the wall of the dome and closed her eyes. “Wish I could leave myself, but family.”

Serenity glanced over at Naomi, glad that she’d focused on why he was here rather than who he was. “The Library’s here. Honoria was one of the teachers in the Tutorial, she said they needed help. I came as quickly as I could.”

“One person isn’t going to be able to fix the attacks on the Library,” Daryl objected. “I’d have already done it if that was possible.”

Serenity grinned. “You’re right, it’s going to take a group of people. I didn’t come alone. I’m the only Tier Eight, but I’m not sure I’m actually the best combatant, I’m definitely not the best healer, and we have some specialists as well.” Blaze was the best healer; Ita and Rissa were specialists. Raz might be a specialist too. Kerr was effectively a bodyguard; Serenity felt a little bad for dragging her around, now, since she didn’t really have her own role. She didn’t seem unhappy about it but he still wished there was a better use for her skills.

Legion was quite possibly a better combatant than Serenity. Every single one of Legion’s bodies had a greenstone beam weapon; most were basically rifles, set up for long range accuracy, but a few were smaller, less powerful, and less accurate. There were also quite a few that were more for area denial than actual damage, sort of like shotguns or maybe flamethrowers. They ran through their power source very quickly, after all.

It was a good thing that Serenity could refill greenstone; it was sturdier than monster cores and didn’t evaporate when it was almost empty, it simply wouldn’t power anything. Legion couldn’t; without Serenity, Legion was limited to the greenstone that had already been mined from Lyka. No one was going to mine more, but there was no way to put it back. Everyone carried some of it, but Serenity had most of it, along with most of the other greenstone items Legion brought out of the underground labs. He had effectively unlimited storage space, after all, even if he kept forgetting about things he’d stored.

“If there’s something we can do, let us know,” Gabriel offered. “Until then, we need to finish the dungeon. It’s time to get into your fire-resistant gear; the ice dome won’t last much longer.”

Serenity was already stripped down to having nothing over his armor; that was about as fire resistant as he got. The Silver Blades, however, clearly had a more extensive set of preparations. They were covered wherever they weren’t in armor in a clearly magical cloth of some sort that shone slightly as though it were wet and had goggles over their eyes.

Gabriel offered a fourth pair of goggles to Serenity. “The Fire Wave is rare enough that we didn’t think to prepare you for it, but I always carry these in case someone breaks a set. Wear them; they’ll keep the embers out of your eyes. I’ll just have to heal you if anything else gets burnt.”

“Embers?” Serenity didn’t like the sound of that. He accepted the goggles and set them over his eyes; he could probably resist the heat but that didn’t make getting things in his eyes any more fun. He’d definitely want to invest in a pair of goggles of his own when he could.

“You’ll see. Let’s get out of the dome before it falls on our heads.” Gabriel walked over to the edge of the dome and pushed on the ice. It gave a little before cracking. “Move! It’s weaker than I thought!”

Daryl put a hand up to support the top of the dome while Gabriel and Naomi pushed their way out. Serenity followed. The moment Daryl stepped out and pulled his hand away from the ice that arched over the dome, it seemed to twist then collapse. “It usually isn’t heavy enough to hurt anyone, but we’ve seen accidents happen a couple of times,” Daryl explained. “The wand didn’t fail early this time, but Gabriel’s always careful.”

Serenity didn’t pay much attention to the explanation; he was far too busy observing the changes around him. Instead of a lightly forested mountain slope, he now saw a wasteland of burnt vegetation and stick-like blackened trees. Wind swept past Serenity down the mountain; it seemed to push the fire along ahead of it.

The ground still glowed red in places where not all of the fuel had burned away yet. It took Serenity a moment to realize that the other red sparks weren’t simply more hot spots on the ground and in some of the trees; they actually floated in the air. They didn’t move with the wind like normal embers and they didn’t wink out; they simply floated everywhere. They swayed gently as if the air was nearly still instead of the raging breeze Serenity felt.

“The fire wave set up a dungeon effect.” None of the dungeons on Earth had a large-scale triggered effect like this yet. Of course, Aki was by far the largest and she only had four levels, the one for crafting plus her overland, Tier One, and Tier Two zones. Only the crafting area had been found so far. Aki seemed surprisingly happy with that; apparently, having people in her overland area was plenty for now.

“This is the first level with a continuous effect like this,” Gabriel agreed. “I don’t know about other dungeons, but this is the only one near Takinat to have one at this low a Tier. The Tier Seven dungeon has one on its last level, but that’s it. The dungeon has one on every floor after this; the rest aren’t from rare events, either.”

Serenity nodded. “I bet the monsters are easier to kill, at least.”

“Only if you can deal with the level’s effect,” Gabriel grumbled. “This floor isn’t bad, fire-protection gear’s easy to get. We don’t have anything like it for the next floor and it’s no fun at all.”

“That was the floor you said was full of storms and lightning, wasn’t it?” Serenity was definitely getting the impression that the Silver Blades hadn’t been as forthcoming as he’d thought in their discussions.

“Yes. Seven can be geared for and eight’s really not bad at all. Nine … well, it really is too bad you aren’t undead.” Gabriel looked into the distance and sighed heavily before he started the trek up the mountain again. “We’d better get moving. There won’t be any more maddened animals, but if we wait too long we’ll start running into fire elementals and they’re always a pain with a worn-out Ice Wall wand.”

Serenity paced Gabriel as he walked up the mountain slope. “What do you mean it’s too bad I’m not undead? That’s not usually the reaction I get.”

Gabriel chuckled. “I can imagine. It’s not usually the reaction Zany got, either.”

“Zany?”

“Zanizizalaru Anizzahaz Hazivizan … or something like that. I may have added too many Zs. He always said to call him Zany. I don’t know his story, he was a Silver Blade before I was. Kept a lot of people from joining, too; most people had issues with a skeleton as Guild leader. He didn’t kill the living or eat them or anything. He didn’t even recruit other undead. He wasn’t interested in any of that. He just ran the Guild and ran it well. Taught everyone how to deal with the various dungeons near Takinat, too. He was a good Guild leader.” Gabriel sounded like he missed Zany.

“What happened?” Something had to have happened. Serenity hoped it was as simple as Tiering up and moving to another city with bigger dungeons, but he had his doubts.

“No one knows,” Daryl interjected. “He disappeared the day the flyers appeared over Takinat. No word, no anything. I can’t believe they killed him, but I don’t know what else to think. He was Tier Nine, there’s no way he should have just vanished unless he wanted to. Left behind a huge problem for the Guild. Didn’t help that half the Guild ran after that.” He sounded disgusted.

Serenity could understand that; Daryl seemed to be one of the people who stayed to pick up the pieces. However abrasive his personality was, being willing to stay and try to hold things together was worth something.

They continued on up the mountain in silence for several minutes. The hot ash swirled around them all and coated everything; Serenity already knew he was going to get out water to rinse himself off as soon as they were out of the ash fields and do a real wash when they took a break that evening. It itched.

Serenity was trying to keep his mind off the itching by thinking about anything he could come up with when he realized that Gabriel hadn’t actually answered the question. Knowing about Zany was interesting but it wasn’t a reason to be sad that Serenity wasn’t undead. “Is there a reason to want an undead in this dungeon? Something Zany always took care of, maybe?”

Serenity was just guessing, but that seemed like a reasonable guess.

Naomi jumped in before either Gabriel or Daryl could speak up. She sounded eager. “There’s supposed to be a shortcut on the ninth level! Zany always led people through it on their first time through the dungeon. I’ve never seen it, he wouldn’t let anyone who wasn’t at least Tier Eight onto the level.” She paused and her excitement dimmed. “I heard all the stories. I always wanted to get there, but I’ve only made it to Tier Seven.”

“You’ll get there. You’re only what, a hundred?” Gabriel sounded reassuring. “You’ve got time.”

“Ninety-six,” Naomi corrected Gabriel. “Doesn’t matter now, though, does it? Zany’s gone.”

Serenity blinked. He’d have guessed Naomi’s age at half that, even for a Tier Seven. She looked to be in her mid to late twenties by pre-Voice Earth standards; if she was ninety-six, she had to have Tiered up early to begin with.

Just like on Earth, however, it wasn’t polite to comment on the age of a woman you didn’t know. Unlike on Earth, the rule didn’t just apply to women; it really wasn’t possible to guess a person’s age by their appearance and many men were sensitive about their age as well. It said something about how good they were at Tiering up, after all.

Come to think of it, that was probably one of the reasons hybrids were so rare. No one wanted to wait to tier up, so they specialized instead of becoming generalists.

“Does the shortcut require an undead or a Death mage?” The look of incomprehension on Naomi’s face was annoying but not really shocking. She might have known one skeleton but she clearly didn’t know much about undead in general. “Most undead aren’t Death mages and you don’t have to be undead to be a Death mage. Unlocking a shortcut on a level filled with a Death-based field sounds like Death magic.” Serenity glanced over at Gabriel. He seemed to be thinking.

Daryl didn’t take the time to consider things before he opened his mouth. “Zany was undead. It’s a Death level. Doesn’t need to be overcomplicated.”

Gabriel shook his head at his friend. “Zany did know some Death magic. He wasn’t a specialist but he said it was how he healed himself. I know where the shortcut was.”