There was absolutely no way Serenity was waiting a year and a day to see Rissa, even if a month of that time had already passed. Not only did he simply want to see her, he wanted to be there when their child was born, plus as much of the pregnancy as possible. Rissa hadn’t mentioned how her pregnancy was going, but it was hard to know if that was because it was still extremely slow or she simply didn’t want to hurry him.
Kalo Lichbane’s advice was clearly well meant, but Serenity simply wasn’t going to follow it.
That didn’t mean he had to be an idiot about it and Kalo clearly knew something. “If I do go to Mornmot, how can I get there? What will I have to go through?”
Kalo sighed. “If I tell you, will you at least consider the danger before you go? I don’t want to send the man who pulled my daughter out of Zenith into that danger.”
Was that why Kalo was being so understanding? He’d just done what anyone would do. “I’ll consider it, but I expect I’ll go anyway. I don’t want to be missing when my child is born.”
“You don’t want to be dead, either.” Kalo snapped at Serenity.
Serenity shook his head and smiled. “True. I’m hard to kill, but it would certainly ruin my plans.” He’d probably be undead rather than dead, but that would only complicate things. “Fine, tell me what’s there and I’ll give it some real thought.”
He was pretty sure he’d head to Mornmot, but there were things that would make him change his mind. Something at Tier Eight like the monster he hadn’t seen at the bottom of the Palace Dungeon might well be enough.
Kalo stared at Serenity for a moment before looking down. “That will have to do. How much do you know about demons?”
Serenity blinked. That wasn’t the answer he was expecting; it made him think of the encounters back in the Palace Dungeon. Serenity had only seen a couple of demon-themed dungeons on Earth, and the Palace Dungeon The Nights of Shadows was more recent. The thing was that the word could mean so many different things; all three dungeons had different monsters, even if two of them did have imps. “Demons? I know a lot of things that are called demons.”
“Demons and demon beasts,” Kalo tried to clarify. “Legends say they came out of dungeons originally, but they’re not dungeon creatures now. The stronger ones are smart and they’re always hostile. They overran Asez, including Mornmot; they’re the reason our ancestors fled to Lowpeak.”
That didn’t really help Serenity know what Kalo meant when he said “demons”.
Serenity was still trying to decide how to say that when Kalo chuckled and shook his head. It was clearly dark humor, given the words that followed. “Mornmot was the Lowpeak Ducal Seat, back then; Lowpeak was where our duchy’s name came from, but it was no longer the old fortress at the pass. It was simply a summer house we hadn’t used in years. Lowpeak Duchy was part of Asez, but by the time we fled we were the last survivors of the demons. I have the old records; my grandmother brought everything she could when she evacuated Mornmot to Lowpeak. They’ll tell you what they faced. I can tell you about what we’ve seen since, as well; nothing like the waves attacking Mornmot thankfully, but some of the individual attacks have been bad.”
Kalo shook his head and actually grinned. “That’s what I thought you were when you arrived, a clever demon who made his way through the Dead Swamp instead of attacking head-on. You have too much weight on the land and I couldn’t tell what you were. You clearly weren’t a powerful lich since you were alone or nearly alone, which made you probably a demon.”
“You can feel your land like that?” Serenity never had, even after he’d conquered planets, but then he’d also never chosen Paths that were about conquest. If something like that was common among leaders, it would explain some times in the past (or rather, the future that never was) where he’d been attacked out of nowhere.
Kalo seemed to relax a little. “Yes. You feel really odd. Not like any human I’ve ever felt. I suppose that’s to be expected of a dragon. A dragon should be heavy.”
Serenity grinned and nodded slightly. He was never going to willingly show Kalo his dragonling form. It would dispel too many illusions.
It took days to go through all of the records the Lowpeak Manor held on Mornmot. There was everything from architectural plans of Mornmot Castle and maps of the former Asez Duchy of Lowpeak to descriptions of many different monsters.
Serenity had to agree with Kalo; many of the monsters did seem like demons, imps and their evolutions. The “demonic beasts,” on the other hand, didn’t seem to have any features Serenity would have called demonic other than increased size, intelligence and ferocity; they seemed like ordinary dungeonspawn.
The first attacks on the new Lowpeak Duchy of the Kingdom of Zenith were scattered and disorganized. They seemed to be individual beasts or small bands of similar creatures, often imps.
The demons that had attacked Lowpeak over the past thirty years were sharply different from the ones before them. While there were still some individual beasts or small bands, the primary danger had changed to powerful individual demons. There was one report of something like the one Andarit and Serenity ran into on the Palace Dungeon’s subway and several other individual reports of strange things, but most of the demons followed a more or less humanoid body plan. Many even carried actual weapons and armor.
Duke Lowpeak had them noted as “clever but not smart.” Serenity didn’t comment on that, but he had his doubts. The incursions looked like probing attacks to him, designed to keep an eye on Lowpeak rather than anything else. That meant that even if the particular creatures attacking weren’t very smart, something behind them was.
That conclusion was reinforced by the fact of non-dungeon creatures wearing armor and using weapons. It could happen in dungeons where the dungeon itself or whoever controlled it made it happen; it could also happen outside when something that understood gear put it on something that didn’t. The barding used on a mount was an excellent example of this.
The fact that they were using weapons, however, made Serenity think that Duke Lowpeak was underestimating the demon attackers themselves.
The other thing Serenity looked for in all of the reports was how powerful the attackers were. Sometimes there was a direct Tier estimate, but far more often Serenity had to work backwards from the damage reported.
Some of the reports from the evacuation of Mornmot sounded like Tier Ten attackers, but Serenity couldn’t quite trust those reports. The only reports of that level of damage were from low-tier noncombatants. The fact that they’d gotten out and no one who actually knew how to estimate enemy Tiers had meant that either the reports were wrong or they’d been deliberately let go. Serenity knew which he was more willing to believe, and he didn’t think it was solely because he wanted the monsters at Mornmot to be weaker; the reports simply weren’t credible.
It was far more likely that there was a group of enemies that did the damage instead of one. That assumption was also more in line with the other reports from the invasion and with the fact that Lowpeak still existed. A single Tier Ten would have a good shot at wiping Lowpeak off the map; it would take time, but the defensive ability of a Tier Ten was high enough that an army of Tier Threes would have a very difficult time beating it.
Past that, Tier Ten was not possible to reach on Zon anymore, like the Palace Dungeon that would be unable to replace its Tier Eight. Even surviving as a Tier Ten would be difficult, worse than the issues Serenity had on Earth. It might have been possible at the time of the loss of Mornmot; Serenity wasn’t certain how much the planet had declined since then. Even if there was a Tier Ten, it would be massively weakened.
The far more relevant data was that the highest Tier attacker during Kalo’s time as Duke Lowpeak was Tier Five. Serenity had some confidence that that evaluation was correct; the only thing strange about it was that Kalo had commented that “even that one didn’t have as much weight on the land as you do.”
Serenity was only Tier Three. That meant that whatever Kalo was detecting wasn’t just Tier. It was a worry for the future; Serenity wanted some way to seem normal, but wasn’t sure where to start. There were surely some stealth-type Skills that would work, but even though he’d lived a very long time as the Final Reaper, he’d never actually been offered a stealthy Path. It simply wasn’t something he did.
With luck, it wouldn’t matter in Mornmot.
No, that was a bad way to think about it. Serenity needed to do everything he could to not depend on luck. Luck was all too likely to end up with him facing off against a damaged Big Bad because Tyche thought it was funny.
He was definitely going to at least scout Mornmot and see if getting to the City Core was possible. He needed to do everything he could to enhance his chance of success.
The easiest thing he could do with a huge increase in his survival chance was to push for Tier Four before he left. Tier Five wasn’t easily obtainable, but his Core had been close to Tier Four for a while; there were two ways to push himself over the edge. Either he could change his XP allotment and run a dungeon or he could eat something that would push his Core forward.
He might also be able to take a true Tier Four Path. That would be tougher since he was a long way from the end; if the Tutorial were still available it would be easy, but that was no longer possible. The Path should level through combat or through massive spells, especially damage-dealing spells; that was definitely the Path’s theme.
Huh. Maybe he could ask to run the Lowpeak dungeon? He didn’t know where it was, but he might be able to get a bunch of Path levels if he pushed through it alone with only massive spells. Doing it in a dungeon would also minimize any potential harm to others.
On top of that, planning to hit Tier Four in a dungeon alone would be the perfect way to explain hitting Tier Four with no one else around; he could complete his Core in private. That alone was worth a lot.
The one thing he wouldn’t do was take up Duke Lowpeak’s offer of an escort into Mornmot. Anyone weak enough to be unnecessary in Lowpeak's defense wouldn’t be able to survive; in fact, Serenity wasn’t confident anyone short of the Duke himself would survive without being guarded by Serenity. Certainly anyone he took would restrict Serenity’s options. He wouldn’t be able to simply sneak past things in the shadows with his Sovereign form, for starters. No, taking anyone else with him was out.
Serenity had a plan. Now he just had to do it. It would take time, but not too much time. A little time that made success and survival more likely was worth it.
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