Serenity pulled on his essence pool. It didn’t get used nearly as often as his mana pool, but that didn’t make it more difficult to use; what made it difficult was his lack of practice. He hoped he’d be able to find a Path with an essence manipulation Skill soon; it would help.

It was actually a little odd that a mana manipulation Skill hadn’t already popped up. Sure, they were rare at this Tier, but he had the necessary experience. Perhaps the Voice simply didn’t think he needed one; Serenity wasn’t sure he did, either. Mana didn’t seem much harder to move precisely than he remembered, so it was entirely possible that a mana manipulation Skill wouldn’t be very useful.

Essence flowed sluggishly around the scroll; Serenity shaped it to a thick coating and watched the scroll carefully. Nothing happened for a long moment, so Serenity checked the coating. There were several thin spots, so one of them must be leaking whatever he was blocking out. Hopefully.

Serenity reinforced them and tried to hold the essence in place. It wanted to move and he found that he had to allow it to do so; solid essence started turning into … well, something. He wasn’t directing it, so what it started to become seemed pretty random. There were distinct similarities between essence and his Potential; Serenity filed that thought away to look at later.

It took time to build a stable moving essence-form that didn’t have weak spots. Once he was certain he’d succeeded, Serenity checked the scroll. He didn’t notice anything odd about it until Aide overlaid an image of the original panel; there were faint marks present, but even Aide couldn’t pick them out well enough to read.

He was on the right track, but not good enough.

Serenity was still staring at the inadequate spell when Blaze and Ita returned.

“Is everyone else back yet? Safe?” Blaze seemed tired but energetic, almost fidgety.

Serenity was sure he was asking about either Ekari or the patient, but he wasn’t sure which. “Yes, they came back hours ago; they didn’t have any problems. I’m not sure where everyone’s gone; the last time I saw Ekari, she was talking to Rourke. The patient is in the empty room over there.” Serenity waved in the general direction. Blaze should be able to find the room.

Blaze let out a sigh of relief and seemed to relax. “I hoped, but after they found the hurt man in the back, then those rioters showed up and attacked the front of the building…” Blaze shook his head. “I’m glad the crowd showed up; when they stormed the front of the building, the healers let me assist and that gave me a chance to heal the man Ekari knocked out enough that no one will ever know he wasn’t just hit on the head. It still kept us there for hours; there was no way to get out without getting through the crowd. We had to wait for them to leave, and that didn’t happen until more priests arrived.”

Serenity kept a part of his attention on the essence-based spell, but he knew it was already wavering. “I assume there was fighting and it probably took a lot of people to get through to you?”

Blaze nodded. He looked a little saddened but not surprised. His words made the reason clear. “Sounds like you’ve been through popular revolutions before, too.”

Serenity half-nodded and half-shrugged. “Enough to know that this isn’t going to result in anything on its own. There has to be someone ready to step in and pick up the pieces or it just fizzles out. I don’t see-”

“Karin.” Blaze interrupted Serenity and made him stop with that single word. “She’s the obvious candidate and they have to know she’s still alive.”

Serenity shook his head. “She can’t. You know she can’t. Even if she could, who’s going to deal with the deity? There’s a reason most revolutions fail.”

Blaze’s bright gaze dimmed as he glanced at the floor. “You’re right. And it wouldn’t be Karin anyway; there has to be someone behind this pushing it to happen.”

Serenity smiled. “You really want it to happen, don’t you?”

Blaze flushed, then looked up and met Serenity’s eyes with his own. “You know what I am, and that I don’t use it. Why would I like seeing someone do worse than what I choose not to do?”

Serenity smiled broadly. He knew what Blaze was talking around; it was obvious. It was also obvious that Blaze didn’t want to share his secret with Rourke. “Maybe we can arrange something. I don’t like the abductions, either, and I do think that the responsible parties should be dealt with once we’ve done the best we can to fix things.”

That was as close as Serenity thought he could get to a promise; it was conditional on so many different factors and they couldn’t even start until they had the people who were still being held in churches on Lyka. Serenity definitely wanted to finish getting them out before the eclipse; that seemed like the best time to do whatever needed to be done about Lykandeon. At least, it was if he was the one reserving the Water Garden, and Serenity couldn’t think of anyone more likely to have an entire relaxation complex built on top of a giant ritual circle.

Blaze nodded. “We’ll get them out and sent back to Earth. Then we’ll do something about this.” The venom in Blaze’s final word was impressive.

Blaze looked tired when he shook his head. “I’m going to go find Ekari. Maybe go spoil your daughter a bit; I could use some baby smiles.”

Serenity smiled at that. It was a good thing he had so many people around him who were happy to babysit; he was certain he’d have been a terrible father without all the help. It was pretty likely he was a terrible father anyway, but at least there were people to make up for his shortcomings and little Jenna still seemed happy when he held her. It could have been worse. “Have fun.”

Blaze inclined his head as he turned away, headed towards Serenity’s room. More relevantly, the room was also Rissa’s and Jenna’s.

Serenity turned his attention to the other person present. “Ita?”

Ita hopped slightly so that she was facing Serenity instead of the scroll. “Lord? You are doing something to the scroll. Will you tell me what?”

Serenity still hadn’t managed to convince Ita that she didn’t need to use a title, but at least she was willing to ask questions now. It didn’t just make him more comfortable; instead, Serenity had found that even though she didn’t know nearly as much about magic in general as Serenity did, her knowledge base was different and her different viewpoint often pointed him at things he’d completely missed. Rissa could do the exact same thing, sometimes.

Serenity took a deep breath. He was going to need it. “Ekari recovered the scroll in a bag…”

It took longer than Serenity thought it would to tell the tale. Naturally, most of the time was spent describing what he’d guessed about the scroll and the eclipse; that was what he was having trouble with, after all.

Ita asked a lot of questions, but there was one that stood out to Serenity. “So you think you need to separate the scroll from Lyka’s Sun? It doesn’t need to be on Aeon?”

Ita nodded. “Break the connection, I can see that. It’s unfortunate that you can’t just step through a portal to another world.”

Serenity nodded, then realized he could do that. Well, his Rift didn’t go to another world, exactly, but it might as well. It wasn’t connected to Aeon when it was closed. “Hold that thought.”

Serenity picked up the scroll, opened his Rift, and pulled himself through before he closed it.

He looked down at the scroll. As usual, there was a sort of a nondirectional light source that made everything visible without casting shadows; it was a property of the odd space that was the Origin. “Aide? I could use some help here.”

It is identical to its original appearance.

Serenity waited and watched, but the scroll didn’t change. The guess that it needed to be isolated from Lyka’s star was clearly incorrect or at least incomplete. Perhaps it also needed to be connected to Aeon’s core or at least greenstone? Was “that greenstone spell” about how to decode it, not how it was originally concealed? Or did it take greenstone at both sides?

Serenity reopened his Rift and shifted back into the suite.

Ita perked up when she saw him. “Did it work?”

Serenity shook his head. “It’s not separation, or not just separation.”

“Connection, then? Maybe it needs to be closer to Lyka and Aeon but the sun is too much?” Ita picked herself up and hopped to the scroll. “It does have connections. I can’t see more than that they are there, but they are. One is large.”

“Would you get with Rissa or Ekari and get a large chunk of greenstone?” Ita’s puzzled expression made Serenity flush. This was one time when he almost wished she hadn’t learned that he often preferred to do things himself. “I don’t want to know where it’s hidden. It’s too tempting.”

Ita shook her head. “The pull is so strong, I do not understand why you resist.”

Fortunately, Ita hopped away without saying more. Serenity had tried to explain that he didn’t like something else controlling him and Ita had asked him why he was letting his fear make him avoid what he wanted to do. It was an insightful question but one that Serenity didn’t want to deal with again. After all, he was confident that he needed to have better control of his impulses; eating everything that tasted or smelled good was a very bad choice.

He also didn’t want to eat part of Lyka’s World Core, no matter how good it smelled. It had been torn away from the living core; that would be like eating part of a person. It was simply abhorrent.

Serenity turned to the other person who might be able to help. “Aide, will you stop me if I start to eat some of the greenstone?”

No.

That wasn’t the answer Serenity expected. “Why not? You could get my attention, maybe remind me to think about what I’m doing?”

I will advise; I will not command, but that is not the full reason.

I am curious. That is the truth. I want to know if this is a material that will be useful in the future. Perhaps I could use it to enhance your latticework or some of your various crystalline features.

I do not understand why you have chosen to avoid it, as it is clear your body is telling you it would be useful. You must have a reason, so I will neither stop you nor encourage you.

Sometimes Serenity forgot that Aide was exactly that: an aide who was willing to help him with whatever his goals were. Aide wasn’t biological and he certainly didn’t see the world the same way Serenity did. That was often useful but occasionally it meant that they simply didn’t have common ground; this seemed to be one of those times.

The other possibility is that the greenstone is simply extremely mana and essence rich; that would also explain why it “smells so good”. In that case, even if its structure is not inherently useful for any of your other current crystalline features, it will probably (87.6%) be usable for improved energy storage and transmission.

Serenity barked a short laugh at Aide’s 87.6% likelihood prediction. He had no idea how Aide had arrived at that precise a figure, but it perfectly showed the difference between the two of them. “I’m glad you’re on my side, Aide.”

I am also grateful that Tek found it wise to assign me to help you when I was unformed.

Lillene

Serenity is SO not ready to be a parent. But then, what new parent really is?

Admittedly, most don’t have both a baby and a young AI to raise.