Gabriel nodded decisively. “I should, especially if Daryl’s question depends on my answer.” He walked confidently over to the throne-like seat and sat on the wooden surface, then closed his eyes.

Serenity took the chance to get a better look at the chair. From a distance, it seemed simple but the more he looked at it, the more “throne” seemed appropriate. First of all, he was now close enough to see that the back extended six feet above the ground; even though there was a pair of steps below the chair, raising the entire thing about a foot above the ground, that was far more of a back than anyone of a height that would be comfortable in the seat would need.

The seat itself was simple, just a flat well-polished piece of wood, but the legs, arms, and back of the chair were all ornately carved. It looked like the chair detailed the various levels of the dungeon, starting from the swamp with its giant toads at the bottom and culminating in the hedge maze at the top. Serenity suspected there were secrets hidden in the carvings, since that seemed like something this dungeon core would do, but he couldn’t really examine most of them since Gabriel was in the way.

Anywhere outside of a dungeon, other than Earth, Serenity would have thought they were beautifully hand-carved; in a dungeon, they were made by the dungeon’s core. That didn’t make them any less beautiful; it also didn’t mean that any less work had gone into them. Simply doing the design work must have taken the dungeon core months, and years wasn’t at all out of the question.

Serenity didn’t really expect using the chair to take all that long, but that didn’t mean he was right; indeed, after the first few minutes passed without any sign of movement from Gabriel, Serenity settled down into a comfortable spot in the grass near the chair. It would take as long as it took.

Serenity let his mind wander. This was a safe place and he needed to relax after the stress of the dungeon. It might not have been a difficult dungeon, but having to be alert at all times was wearing. Somehow, it eluded him; instead of relaxation, Serenity found himself thinking about his daughter.

She was very, very young. He hated that he’d had to leave her behind; he still thought it was the sensible decision to not take an infant into a war zone, but he still hated the separation. The fact that Guildmaster Tirmanak Oathbinder was bringing her to Asihanya and wouldn’t say why or even respond to Serenity’s messages worried him. It’d been what, two weeks since he’d last heard anything? Something like that. It was possible the Guildmaster was simply not in a place to receive messages, since you needed a City Node for that, but it didn’t make Serenity worry any less.

Maybe he should have taken the time to get to Earth and drop her off with her grandparents. It would have taken at least another month, more likely three, to get to Asihanya if he’d stopped by Earth on the way, but at least he’d be able to call her caretaker.

Actually, now that he thought about it, it might not have cost that much time. He could have paid the Etherium cost to open a direct portal to Earth from Ranar; it was expensive, but definitely possible. It would have been one-way, but it probably wouldn’t have been that much longer from Earth to Asihanya than it was from Ranar to Asihanya. It all depended on the available portal connections. As it was, the problem was that he was headed to Takinat; getting to Stallet would have been easier but the connections to Takinat weren’t as convenient from Ranar.

He didn’t know how convenient they were from Earth or Tzintkra. He could have started from either. Now that he thought about it, he could have started from Lyka, too. Any of those planets would allow him to authorize a direct override portal; he just had to pay the Etherium cost. It was expensive, but if he was willing to pay it to get the kidnapped Earthlings home, he ought to be willing to pay it to move around faster and potentially get himself home faster.

Not that it mattered now. He couldn’t change the past.

Well, perhaps he could; he did it every day, in a sense. He wasn’t going to try; he didn’t really understand what the Voice did to pull him back in time, but he was pretty sure it was more than he could manage at this point. As long as Jenna was safe, there was no reason to try. He had no reason to believe Jenna wasn’t safe. All he had was a father’s worry.

He might as well worry that he’d miss her first word or her first few steps. He didn’t think she was old enough for that yet, at a bit over five months old. Rissa would know better than he did. She hadn’t even been crawling yet when they left Ranar.

If Tirmanak took the same route as the one Serenity and Rissa had taken, Jenna was still months away. Serenity more than half hoped that the old daa’il had a faster route that he hadn’t shared when they were planning their trip. If the guildmaster was traveling with only Jenna or even a few more people, that was very different from the logistical challenges of traveling with most of Legion.

Serenity sighed to himself and pulled up his recordings of his daughter. At least there was something he could do to make himself feel a little better while he waited; Aide had quite a bit of footage of Jenna. If Serenity wanted, there were a number of recordings that included all of his senses, but he tended to avoid those. They were simply too tempting for Serenity to let himself use them too often.

A groan from the throne brought Serenity out of his preoccupation with baby pictures.

Gabriel pushed himself to his feet, took the two steps down to ground level, then seemed to collapse on the ground. Serenity hurried over to the collapsed man. There was nothing obviously wrong with him. Gabriel looked up at Serenity. “Thanks for the concern, but I’ll be fine. It just takes a lot out of you. There’s a reason Zany won’t let anyone run the full dungeon more than once a month.”

Serenity shook his head. It might have been nice to know that earlier, but it wasn’t like there was much he could do about it now. This one had the feel of an accidental omission rather than having been deliberately concealed. “Are you sure? You look pretty wiped.”

“Yeah, he’ll be fine,” Daryl walked up to the two of them. He’d headed over about the same time Serenity did, but he’d started further away and hadn’t hurried. “Did you find Zany?”

Gabriel took a deep breath, then let it out. “Yeah. He’s still alive, but all I got was a general direction. A bit north of here and a long ways west. Nothing really helpful; the dungeon couldn’t give me any directions other than a shiny rope. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a river in that direction.”

“Damn. I was hoping for more. Hmm. Maybe if I ask what’s around him?” Daryl shook his head. “Not good enough. Can’t ask what condition he’s in, either; that won’t help us find him. Maybe the better thing to do would be to contact him somehow but I don’t know if the chair can do that.”

Given that Zany was apparently a Dungeon Binder who’d bound this dungeon, Serenity suspected that it probably could contact him, but wouldn’t unless there was a reason. That meant that Daryl probably could talk to him if he tried, or at least send a message. That wasn’t what really caught his attention, though. “A dungeon wouldn’t be interested in a river. The shining lines dungeons care about are ley lines.”

The direction was familiar, too. Aide, isn’t a bit north of here and a long way to the west a decent description of where the planes headed when Legion lost them?

If you assume that they travel a significant distance on the ley line, yes.

Serenity nodded to himself; that is what he assumed. “I think I know which ley line it is, too. There’s one that passes close by Takinat that heads that way; the attacking flyers seem to be using it somehow.”

The three Silver Blades turned to look at Serenity. For a moment, no one said anything, then Naomi put the pieces together. “Do you think he went to try and deal with them after the city was attacked and they captured him? He disappeared a few days after the first attack.”

Serenity shook his head. “There haven’t been any reports of prisoners at all. He’s either working with them or watching them and looking for an opening, if that’s even where he is.”

“He won’t be working with them.” Daryl sounded absolutely certain. “He always said Takinat was his city, even if he wasn’t the City Lord. I don’t know why he’d leave alone, but he has to be waiting for an opening.” He paused, then turned to stare at Serenity. “Hey, you’re planning on dealing with them, right? Need some help?”

Serenity was less certain in the Silver Blades’ Guildmaster, but at the same time he had no difficulty understanding why someone would try to handle something like this alone. It was a bad decision, but if you valued the lives of others more than your own, it was an easy one to make.

Well, whatever the Guildmaster was up to, there was really only one answer to Daryl’s question. They’d have to be carefully watched, but that was one of the things Legion could take care of. Even so, he’d better make sure they didn’t get ahead of themselves. “Sure. I don’t know what we’ll find when we get there, it could be anything from a forward base with only a handful of people and two flyers to a whole huge complex. I’m expecting something in between, but right now all I have is a trail to follow. The ley line. It’s not going to be that easy to follow, either; until I know what we’re looking at, there’s no point in heading that way and every reason to keep clearing dungeons. The last thing we want is another dungeon break.”

Daryl nodded and headed to the chair. “I’ll see what Master Zany knows.”

This time, Serenity decided to distract himself with pictures of his fiancee instead of their daughter. He limited himself to the publicly-acceptable ones; he was in public, after all. They might not be able to see the pictures, but they could definitely see him.

When Daryl woke up again, he seemed just as drained as Gabriel, though probably less dizzy. While he recovered on the ground, he was able to pass along some of what he’d learned. “You were right, Naomi. He’s been captured. He didn’t say that; what he said was that he wanted to come home and couldn’t, yet, but that can only mean he’s a prisoner. He told me to stay here and keep the Silver Blades running while he’s gone, he wouldn’t listen to me at all when I told him we were going to come rescue him. We can’t let him stay there. He wouldn’t give me any details about the area, but he said to -” Daryl stopped and looked at Serenity. He bit his lip and seemed to think about whether or not he wanted to finish the sentence.

Lillene

It's hard to turn down the Silver Blades when they're higher Tier than anyone in Serenity's group, including Serenity himself ... but should he really take people who might end up having divergent goals, depending on what their Guildmaster is really doing?