When Serenity came back to himself, his hands were actually on Evan’s new wings. They stretched far to the sides of his body, somehow larger than Serenity had expected even though he knew they were exactly the right size, exactly what Evan’s essence code said he should have.

Everything glowed with essence until Serenity released his Aspect. It was far more comfortable now, which clearly meant he’d pushed it farther in its growth. Serenity pulled up his Status quickly and found that that wasn’t the only change; his Arcane (Mana) Aspect had also advanced, as had his Level. He’d even unlocked his next Skill.

He had no idea where the Core Progression had come from; that usually required specific work and feeding, which he’d deliberately not done. He wasn’t ready to advance a Tier.

It was good, solid progress, which made sense; building wings was a significant step forward for his use of Essence. It was too bad that his Concept hadn’t budged, but it was true that he didn’t really understand anything more; he was simply able to work with it at a finer level.

He was also exhausted and hungry.

“That’s enough for today,” Blaze stated. His eyes were on Serenity. “More than enough. Evan, I know you’re going to need to hide your wings while we’re on Lyka, but for now please move them normally. I’ll meet you in the morning and we can bind them, but as far as I can tell they’re fine. You’ll need to work on the muscles that support them; I’ve done what I can to repair the damage, but that doesn’t replace decades of lack of use.”

Evan nodded eagerly, stood up, and immediately seemed to wince as he moved his wings to help his balance. “This never seemed so hard when I was young.”

“You were young and used to the weight,” Serenity noted with a gentle smile. “It’ll take time until you get that back.” It wasn’t nearly as severe as living again after being undead for centuries, but Evan also didn’t have any experience with that sort of transition while Serenity had done it twice. Three times if you counted coming back in time. “Take it slow. However slow you think you’re taking it, that’s too fast. Remember that it takes years for wings to grow to their full size; you should recover in less time than that, but expect it to be, oh, half as long.”

Blaze turned to Serenity. “Go to bed.”

Serenity chuckled. “I think I’ll have something to eat first, but bed sounds good.” Serenity stretched and checked the time. How long had he spent doing that?

About six hours seemed to be the answer. That seemed awfully short for rebuilding a pair of lost limbs, but it was far longer than it had seemed while he was doing it.

Morning came all too soon.

With the morning came the news that four of the locals, Evan and three others Serenity didn’t know, had decided they were willing to pledge to follow Serenity. Many of the others were wavering; Serenity told them that if they changed their minds, they could pledge to him through the Planetary Manager. Stojan Tasi would know how to handle it; Serenity knew how, and he’d never been a city leader as Vengeance or the Final Reaper.

Serenity napped while the remaining few gathered up their belongings. The trip to the Portal Node was fast and simple.

The oath ceremony was also simple. Serenity didn’t have the resources or desire to make it complex, but that was all theater anyway. Theater was probably helpful for most people to cement the seriousness of the oath in their mind, but it wasn’t necessary for the oath itself. Serenity put some thought into the exact wording; he wanted it to be something that neither they nor anyone else he wanted following him would mind, but he also wanted it to be binding, or at least as binding as he could reasonably manage while being fair to people who hadn’t known him for more than a few days.

He’d absolutely cribbed the contents of the oath from others he’d seen over the years; he tried to think of that as making it feel appropriate rather than plagiarism.

There was more than one way to do a binding oath. They were normally performed with Skills, Skills that any City Manager or Lord should have. The fact that Serenity didn’t was because he’d adamantly avoided any Path that took him in that direction. Maybe he shouldn’t have; he was certainly taking advantage of his position now.

All he’d done to earn it was to fight, then pick someone to deal with all the details; even though he knew that was not unknown, it made him feel like he hadn’t earned it. Earned or not, though, he knew he could do the right thing for these people by getting them off Lyka and help Tzintkra at the same time. These people had skills that he wasn’t certain were common on Tzintkra anymore; he hadn’t seen gardens like theirs anywhere.

Serenity shook off his introspection as he stood in front of the entire group of people he would send to Tzintkra; everyone headed to Earth had already left. His friends stood to his right, while the Portal Node was to his left and the four who planned to swear allegiance stood between him and their compatriots. Serenity started weaving the spell; since it was a direct interaction with the Voice, most of what he needed to do was aura-based instead of mana-based, but he could use a spell to make things easier.

Serenity smiled at the four and hoped it didn’t give away his vague terror at the situation. There was no reason to be afraid; it was simply something he hadn’t done since-

No, he wasn’t going to think about that. He wasn’t Vengeance, and this wasn’t that place. This was completely different.

The spell was ready. Serenity flexed his aura and started. “Repeat after me. I, your name, pledge my service to Serenity as the Planetary Sovereign of Tzintkra, that I will support, aid, and defend the planet of Tzintkra and its people, and that I will faithfully perform the duties of any office to which I am appointed.”

He took it a few words at a time; they’d agreed on it in advance, but that didn’t mean they’d all memorized it. Most people didn’t have the memory of a computer; the fact that Serenity now did meant that he didn’t have any forgetfulness issues as long as he thought to save the words and look them up when he needed them.

Once all four finished their part, Serenity moved his aura as needed, flashing it to show completion, then closed off the accompanying spellform. It was not a particularly draining spell; together, what he’d done simply told the Voice that an Oath had been sworn and made it so that the event would be Noticed. The Voice wouldn’t punish anyone who broke the Oath, but it did provide Skills to some people to be able to tell if there was an active valid Oath. Serenity expected that Tasi had some; that should be enough to make this work.

He was sending them all to the Shining Caverns. From there, the four who’d sworn to him could get an audience with Stojan Tasi, while the others could find a place for themselves.

Before he left, Evan stopped to thank Serenity once more. His wings were still bound where Blaze had carefully tied them a couple of hours earlier, but Serenity could see that they were straining against the cloth that gently covered them. “I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done. Thank you so much!”

Serenity smiled gently. “You’re welcome. Good luck; if you’d like, feel free to message me sometime.”

He’d just done what made sense at the time. He didn’t think everyone would have done the same this time; many people would have left the temple’s inhabitants behind when they left. He wasn’t certain what he’d have done if he didn’t have anywhere to send them, but Tasi’s message was simply too perfect to not send people.

Evan also thanked Blaze before he stepped through the portal to the Shining Caverns ahead of the rest of his people.

Serenity watched them go. He wondered what would happen as a result of this choice, but regardless of the results he was happy with the decisions he’d made.

Now all they had to do was head back to the temple using Ita’s portal and escort her to the portal node so they could leave. Even though she could make a portal that would cover the distance, she couldn’t travel through it and neither she nor Serenity could teleport that far.

The return with Ita was far less bothersome than the trip out. They were only attacked once, by a flood of enlarged insects. The oversized centipedes didn’t like fire at all and scattered after only a few Skills from Serenity and Blaze.

Rourke wasn’t happy when he heard that the people in Steadfast Seventeen had expected to be in trouble; as far as his records showed, Steadfast Seventeen had completely passed the previous inspection. He was even less happy to hear that there were exceptions on file for the church; he didn’t have any, not even the few that usually accumulated over time as a church aged. Someone had clearly sanitized his records.

Rourke was happy to know that the church was empty now. Whatever the person messing with Rourke’s records intended, that church was no longer a problem. Rourke promised that he’d look into it; Serenity completely believed him. No matter how much it affected Serenity, someone deliberately destroying Rourke’s records affected him far more.

There were only two more isolated churches to retrieve Earthlings from. Serenity didn’t expect either of them to be as easy as the one in Steadfast Seventeen.

The next target was a church built as an annex to a large housing complex known as Steadfast Flock Seventy-three. The church and the Portal Node were both situated inside the complex, but for some reason Steadfast Seventy-three was centered on the church instead of the Node. The reason wasn’t obvious from the maps of the housing complex, but it became far clearer when Serenity compared them to a larger map: the Node was only about three hundred feet from a river.

Steadfast Seventy-three was entirely on one side of the river; Steadfast Seventy-eight was on the other side. Much of Seventy-eight was geographically closer to Seventy-three’s Node than its own, but there was no bridge over the river.

Like Steadfast Seventeen, they decided to go in as an Inspection team; also like Steadfast Seventeen, they had a long walk from the Portal Node to the church.

Unlike Steadfast Seventeen, the area wasn’t deserted as they traveled through it. They weren’t attacked; instead, they were watched warily by some people and ignored by others. A few even approached them to ask if they wanted to buy anything or if they had news from outside they could share.

Serenity let Ekari handle those requests. She was the one most of them were directed at, since she was the apparent leader. More than that, she was able to turn most people away with a smile and a sentence or two; Serenity didn’t think he’d have had that much luck.

After the first fifteen minutes, Ekari had them put on their black coats. It gave them a much more intimidating appearance and reduced the number of requests, but it didn’t eliminate them.

Lillene

Two more isolated churches, then Serenity has a decision to make. Does he go after the last few people before the eclipse or does he wait until after? It's getting close.