Serenity ached. The last two days had stressed his system in ways he wasn’t sure would have been even remotely safe as Vengeance. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t have been. Admittedly, he wouldn’t have even been able to do them back then.
Dealing with the spell during the eclipse two days ago without a proper place to dump the mana other than running it through himself was stupid. Yes, he’d known it would work, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t stupid. He’d been a hungry fool.
He was going to have to remember that the prospect of eating a lot of mana made him act like an idiot. Yeah, it sounded good, just like eating too much sugar. Just like sugar, however, it was possible to eat so much that there were consequences afterwards.
Dealing with Lykandeon then the Underground without significant rest was even more foolish. Okay, it was probably a good idea against Lykandeon, but he was pretty sure he’d been successful in the Underground only because he wasn’t the one doing the fighting. At least he was smart enough to rest after that.
Of course, when he woke up he’d made the absolutely brilliant decision that the Tower of Broken Swords needed to be cleaned up. Yes, Ita took care of it, but she couldn’t free the trapped souls. Serenity could.
As it turned out, sending the soul trapped in one broken sword to its reward wasn’t difficult at all. Sending on the thousands that made up the Tower, however, had knocked him on his ass for hours and he still felt like shit.
About the only good thing about it was that the Voice had decided to give him a Title. Strangely enough, he hadn’t gotten [Godkiller] for Lykandeon. Serenity had more than half expected that one; he’d gotten it as Vengeance the first time he killed a god. That was a Sterath god, but Serenity wasn’t sure why that would matter; it wasn’t like the Sterath even called them gods. In many ways, it was for the best; it was entirely possible that some of the issues Vengeance and the Final Reaper had run into were because of gods who knew he had the title.
No, he’d gotten something completely different. It was definitely because of cleaning out the souls trapped in the Tower of Broken Swords. He’d never heard of it before, even though he’d thought he knew everything about Death. To be fair, it wasn’t exactly about Death, it was about what came afterwards, and that wasn’t something the Final Reaper had ever worried about too much.
Reaper of Souls
Death is not the end, at least not for many. You guide those who have died and lost their way on to their next destination.
Your capacity to guide the dead is more likely to be noticed by those in need of guidance and others with related abilities.
Like most of his titles, Serenity didn’t expect [Reaper of Souls] to come up very often.
Title or not, Serenity felt worse this morning than he had yesterday morning, but he couldn’t seem to get back to sleep. Rissa was already gone from the bed; he vaguely remembered her trying to get him to come to breakfast, so it was clearly later than that. He also thought that he might have seen Blaze, but he couldn’t be sure. That might have been just a dream.
However much he just wanted to roll over and go back to sleep again, Serenity could tell he was awake. This was going to be a shitty day, the first sick day he’d really had since the Tutorial. At least he didn’t have anywhere he had to be today.
Serenity? You should see this.
Serenity grumbled at himself. He’d clearly just jinxed his day!
What is it, Aide? He hoped his irritation didn’t show. It wasn’t Aide’s fault that Serenity was having a terrible day because of two days in a row of bad decisions.
A scene appeared in Serenity’s mind’s eye. It took him a moment to realize that he was seeing from the eyes of someone walking past pyramids. He didn’t even realize that the pyramid whoever it was was heading towards was the one with their rooms until he saw the door. He watched as Legion spoke to Kerr. The scene disappeared just in time for a knock on the bedroom door.
Serenity wasn’t dressed, but no one actually expected a wyrmling dragon to wear clothes. That would just be weird. “Come on in!”
It was Kerr, of course.
Serenity met Legion a few minutes later at the big table in the common room. The person in front of him was a tall, scarred, heavily muscled woman with shocking green eyes. Her eyes weren’t the normal green iris of a human’s eye; instead, the entire eye was green. The part of the eye that was normally white was a pale green while the pupil was a green so dark that it was difficult to tell it wasn’t black, but the entire eye was clearly green.
Serenity wasn’t certain if he was surprised at her eye color or if he was surprised that the Legion soldiers in the Underground didn’t have similarly tinted eyes. It seemed somehow right that her eyes matched her blood.
He took a seat across from her; that seemed more comfortable, since they could talk face to face. “Legion? Why did you come here? All you had to do was talk to me, you didn’t have to travel.”
Legion chuckled and grinned. It was a far more human expression than he’d seen on any of the soldiers in the Underground. “Of course I didn’t have to, but it’s polite. Allegiance should be sworn in person; that’s something most of my scattered memories tell me.”
“I’m not asking for any kind of an oath, I’m just here to send anyone who was abducted home.” Serenity frowned. Legion had clearly misunderstood the situation. “I don’t think you were, you look like a local?”
Legion’s smile didn’t fade; if anything, it got wider. “Most of me isn’t, but I suppose you could say I was born here. Before you ask if I want to be separate again, no, I don’t. I am Legion, one person. The idea of being separate is horrifying.” Her grin faded for a moment before she shook her head sharply and continued. “I want to learn from you and I want to help you achieve your goals. I owe you my life in more ways than one and I want to pay that back.”
The last thing Serenity wanted was someone working for him just because he’d saved her life.
Well, maybe not the last thing, but it was definitely pretty far down the list.
Serenity shook his head. “You don’t have to feel obligated. I was just doing the right thing.”
Legion chuckled. “You Americans. So humble. Is it real or is it just another way to get praise?”
Serenity blinked. What?
“I don’t care why. You need me, don’t tell me you don’t. This would have been a lot easier if I were on your side from the beginning, wouldn’t it?” Legion paused, either to give Serenity a chance to respond or just to give him time to think about it. Serenity wasn’t sure which.
He had to admit that Legion’s point was valid; this would have been easier with larger forces. It probably would have ended up pretty similarly, but that was simply because more people wouldn’t really have helped against Lykandeon. He certainly couldn’t have handled the Underground so easily or as well without them.
When he didn’t say anything for several minutes, Legion nodded slowly. “You see. I would be useful. I am not going to work for free, however; I wish to be taught by you and by those around you, to talk to you, learn, and practice. You are unusual. I know that; it is obvious. Ita is a connection mage; you do not have the Affinity but somehow you make connections.” She paused and grinned. “Pay would be good too.”
Serenity tried to gather his scattered thoughts. He still felt terrible which didn’t make it any easier. “I’m done here on Lyka; the only thing left is to help Ekari deal with the fallout. I’m not sure how to do that. After that, I’m not sure.” He didn’t intend to need a mercenary company, which was essentially what he should probably think of Legion as. His next destination was to try to help Honoria. It was possible that he would need troops there, on second thought, but was Legion high enough Tier to make a difference?
“You can leave some of me here to help, perhaps as a bodyguard,” Legion offered. “The rest of me can come with you.”
“Will that work? It’s a long way between planets.” Serenity didn’t want to hurt Legion even if she couldn’t actually help.
Legion shrugged. “I think it will but there’s only one way to be sure. If it doesn’t, I’d rather come with you than stay here.”
Come to think of it, Serenity had one other excellent use for an army: cleaning up the mess Lykandeon had made on Zon. That would also give him the chance to check in on the slave redemption effort and return those Earthlings home. He’d need to travel through Mornmot and Lowpeak on the way anyway, so he’d have a chance to see Andarit and Kalo as well; that would be good. He’d planned to wait until they recovered Zenith, but if he had an army he didn’t have to wait.
Actually, that was a question. Just how many people were part of Legion anyway? Aide had tried to count but ran into bandwidth issues. “How many of you are there?”
“One.” Legion’s answer was immediate. “I am not many. I am one. I’m not a hive mind, I’m a person.” She shook a little as she spoke.
“That’s not what I meant,” Serenity hurried to explain. It was obvious, even to him, that Legion was sensitive on that topic. “I mean, ah, how many bodies do you have?” Was there any way he could reassure her more? Oh, of course. “I have four, but I have trouble managing them all at the same time.”
Legion relaxed a little. “You are like me. You know. Yes. I have two hundred and thirty-two bodies now. Fourteen are on Aeon, the rest are on Lyka.” She tilted her head and seemed to think for a moment. “You wish to know what I bring. This body is Tier Four; I have eight that are Tier Three and one hundred thirteen at Tier Two. The remainder of my bodies are Tier One but should be able to reach Tier Two within the month.”
Serenity hadn’t meant to ask her the Tiers but she was right; it was useful information, especially the fact that, unlike him, they weren’t all the same Tier. “You can take different Paths?”
Legion nodded. “I think so. I have only had three bodies advance in the past two days, but they did not take the same Paths. My Status does not look like a human’s Status; I have some things that are tied to me and some that are tied to each individual body. I do not know how that will affect my Paths.”
Serenity couldn’t think of a species that acted exactly the way Legion seemed to; most species that were similar were either hive minds, where each individual had a Path and one or a small group of individuals had the Paths that made them a hive, or they were an individual where the subcomponents were like cells or maybe organs in a body; they advanced together. “I guess you’ll have to find out.”
Legion nodded. “So when do we leave?”
She seemed to think she’d won her case even though he hadn’t actually said she could come with him. Serenity had to admit that she was probably right; he was going to take her at least to Zon and see how that worked out. “We’ll have to talk to Ekari, but I expect it won’t be much more than a week.”
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“You Americans. So humble. Is it real or is it just another way to get praise?”
it is just another way to get praise.