Lillene

Enjoy!

“I should have known you’d get here before me.” Both the smile on Senkovar’s face and the gentle happiness that accompanied the words told Serenity that Senkovar was pleased rather than annoyed at being beaten in the race. If anything, he felt almost proud.

Serenity frowned. He wasn’t an empath; he wasn’t surprised to feel Eitchen’s emotions, since the little World Spirit projected them, but how was he feeling Senkovar’s?

Oh, of course. The World Spirit was an empath and it couldn’t filter out others’ emotions. It was very young, after all. Eitchen would pass them along to anyone it was in contact with, maybe anyone it was communicating with. Rissa had warned Serenity that if Jenna were an empath, she’d do the same thing until she learned better. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to be developing that particular ability.

“Not happy to get here first?” Senkovar floated closer.

Serenity shook his head. “No, I just realized Eitchen doesn’t know to limit the emotions he sends to his own.”

Senkovar’s frown was accompanied by a wave of concern. “A very young World Spirit indeed. I hadn’t realized it was so young. Was Eitchen able to tell you if the World Eaters are here yet?”

Serenity shook his head. “I don’t think it understands anything I say. The only thing I’ve managed to figure out is that it’s not worried or upset about anything; it seems to want to play, if anything, but it doesn’t really know how.”

Senkovar nodded slowly. “I don’t know if that means anything or not. I’ve never been able to get a World Spirit to tell me about anything small; I think they simply don’t notice. We’ll have to do it the hard way, but at least the World Spirit shouldn’t interfere since it’s met us.”

Senkovar floated forward, to near the edge of the yellowish mist, then reached out into the mist. It felt formal and practiced, completely unlike the way Serenity had approached Eitchen. “World Spirit Eitchen, I am World Shaman Senkovar. I greet you and request your aid in my search.”

The World Spirit didn’t react for a moment, then a ripple seemed to pass through the mist that started at Senkovar’s hand. Serenity could tell that Eitchen’s attention shifted from Serenity to Senkovar, then it reached out to the World Shaman with part of the mist and covered his hand for a moment before retreating.

The main emotion it sent to Serenity was confusion. It didn’t seem like it knew why it had just done that, but it also didn’t mind. As it released Senkovar’s hand, it sent Serenity an impression of an old, sturdy building made from stone and reinforced with steel. 

It was such a strong image that Serenity glanced from Senkovar to Eitchen and back to Senkovar, half-expecting to see a building instead of a man. “That’s how you see Senkovar?”

Unsurprisingly, Eitchen didn’t answer.

Senkovar, however, did. He sounded surprised as he asked, “It projected an image at you?”

Serenity nodded. “A stone building, reinforced with steel. I think that’s how it saw you?”

A frown appeared on Senkovar’s face, then disappeared a moment later. “That’s not the usual image, but it’s still more advanced than I expected. I’m simply glad it accepted the introduction; we should be able to work here without interruption. We’ll have to work without the spirit’s help, but it also won’t hinder us. Come on out; we should be close to the nexus.”

Senkovar was wrong on almost every point. 

They weren’t just close to the nexus; they were in it and apparently had been for a solid ten minutes or so. Rissa had asked Lord Cymryn not to wake Senkovar and Serenity immediately after they arrived because they were busy. Shockingly, he’d deferred to her advice.

Far more importantly, they weren’t able to work without interruption. In fact, Senkovar had barely started explaining how to conduct a survey of the planet using the nexus as a sort of combination access point and key when they were interrupted by a knight on horseback emerging from the nearby tree line.

Well, possibly not a literal knight, but that was definitely going to be how Rissa told the story later. The man who rode up to them was indeed wearing chainmail, but it was limited to his vitals and even then it was covered in a cloth shirt. 

There was a metal device pinned to his chest. Unlike the classic sheriff’s star, it wasn’t on the left, nor was it a star; instead, it was an octagon and pinned on the right side. Serenity had no doubt that it served the same purpose of identification; with the right enchantments, it might well also provide communication or other similar utilities.

The local authority slowed to a stop not far from the flyer. “Who are you people?” 

Lord Cymryn moved in front of the others. “We are the escort for the World Shaman, Senkovar Et’Tart.”

“Hmh.” The warrior snorted and looked dubious. “You’re from that spaceship, aren’t you?”

Cymrun nodded. It wasn’t a bow, but it was a little more  inclusive than a simple nod. “We are.”

The local authority shook his head. “Then you need to come with me.” 

Cymryn sighed and ostentatiously gestured towards the flyer. Serenity didn’t move until Senkovar did; he wasn’t looking for a fight but he also didn’t want to take the lead on playing nice with the locals. This was supposed to be quick, check the planet then head to Themrys to see what was there, but it was starting to look like that was a pipe dream.

Serenity hoped he was overreacting.

The warrior led them through the trees for a few minutes to a road, then turned to the right to follow it up the hill. It wasn’t until they rounded a curve that the buildings on top of the hill could be seen. A taller, probably three story, stone building that looked almost like a gothic cathedral dominated the top of the hill while smaller buildings spread around it. There was a berm topped by a wooden palisade around the sides where there was no road, clearly meant to limit the easy entrances to a few that could be easily watched.

It was clearly a small settlement of some sort; without more information, Serenity guessed that it was either a local lord or a religious settlement of some sort. The fact that everything, including all of the visible windows, all of the buildings Serenity could make out, and the berm and palisade seemed to have been laid out more or less as octagons concerned Serenity. He vaguely remembered some very bad experiences with religious settlements.

He hoped Lord Cymryn knew what he was doing. He ought to; he was the one who provided the maps of Eitchen that detailed the ley lines. Surely some information about the local situation came with them?

Lord Cymryn didn’t seem worried, which was hopeful.

At least the road wasn’t nearly as smelly as the one near where they landed. In fact, the entire village smelled far better than Serenity expected. It was clear that whoever ruled the area believed in keeping things clean.

Well, either that or the dung was too valuable to waste. Serenity wouldn’t bet against that as the reason; it was far easier to get people to do nasty jobs if it meant they were making money. 

They were escorted past an open gate and into the walled enclosure. It was just as big as Serenity thought it might be, easily the size of a small village. The roads were winding, like the buildings were placed haphazardly wherever there was room when they were built. There was very little open land; they clearly didn’t farm inside the settlement. 

Other than the near-octagonal shape of everything that would normally be round or square, it didn’t look all that different from many other settlements he’d seen over the years as Vengeance. The one oddity was one that Vengeance wouldn’t have easily noticed but that immediately stood out to Serenity: there was no dungeon nearby. There wasn’t even an obvious ley line. Without a ley line nexus, they couldn’t have a City Node. 

They were led up to the largest building, the octagonal gothic-looking cathedral. As they got closer, Serenity could see that even the high arches were filled in to have an octagonal profile. He couldn’t think of any major culture that put so much emphasis on a particular shape, but there was no particular reason to assume that this was a major culture.

The inside of the building was as open and grand as a cathedral, but instead of ostentatious Christian iconography, everything was octagons. It wasn’t until they were led out of the entry area and down a short hallway that Serenity found a symbol that wasn’t an octagon: there was an eight-pointed star on the door.

The other side of the door was a small, comfortable octagonal room paneled in dark wood. The only furniture was eight chairs, all with octagon-shaped cushions on their seats and octagonal designs carved into the solid backs. The warrior waved at the seats as he moved past them to the only other door in the room, opposite the one they’d entered from. “Wait here.”

Serenity sighed to himself and found a seat. He didn’t know how long it would take for whoever they were supposed to wait for, after all. 

Rissa leaned over to Serenity and whispered, “Do you think all of the rooms are octagonal or just the important ones?”

Serenity wondered why she was speaking out loud, but she had to have a reason. “Probably all of them, I can’t see people this dedicated to the shape not using it everywhere they can.”

“Huh. Seems like that would waste a lot of space.” She bit her lip and frowned. “I guess they could use the corners for storage or something?”

Serenity shrugged. He didn’t see any storage areas like that in this room, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. Of course, it was just as likely that they were simply dead areas between walls; extra insulation could be very useful in some climates and while the temperature was quite pleasant at the moment, Serenity didn’t know what the winter was like.

Rissa didn’t get the chance to say anything more; less than a minute after the warrior left them in the room, he returned, followed by a man dressed in brilliant white clothing. He had a small black stone octagon pinned to his right breast in the same position as the metal one the warrior wore. It was far smaller, but the orientation was identical.

“Thank you for bringing them here.” The man in white must have dismissed the warrior, because he nodded his head and left without saying a word. With the warrior gone, the man in white looked around the group. Just as Lord Cymryn stepped forward and started to say something, the man released his aura, pushing it over everyone in the room.

Serenity growled and pushed back. He could feel Senkovar and Cymryn defending themselves as well, but Rissa’s aura control wasn’t good enough yet, especially not at her Tier disadvantage. It was simple enough to envelop her in his aura and prevent the hostile aura from reaching her after the initial wave.

The man smiled and let his aura recede back to himself as though he hadn’t pushed. He ignored Lord Cymryn and stared directly at Serenity. “The Eight give you greetings and ask why you are here.”

Lillene

The easiest way to have a repeating octagonal pattern results in squares at the joints, but with rooms of different sizes it probably wouldn’t be that simple. Still, bonus storage areas do actually sound kind of nifty. Maybe they’d have octagonal doors to get into them?