Serenity was well-rested and cheerful when he showed up at the Mercenaries' Guild the next morning with Rissa, Blaze, Raz, and one of Legion’s bodies in tow. Legion was there to brief them with what she’d found out over the past few days, while Raz insisted on coming because they were going to plan an attack on the people who killed his Clan.

Blaze was there because Serenity had mentioned Gabriel’s cousin Daniel, who needed healing because he was blind but made some very interesting vibration-sensing charms; Blaze wanted to meet Gabriel and take care of the healing Serenity had carefully not quite promised. He didn’t seem bothered by Serenity’s assumption that he wanted to heal Gabriel’s relative; instead, he seemed pleased that Serenity thought of him.

Serenity didn’t understand people sometimes. He’d expected Blaze to be at least a little annoyed that Serenity would volunteer his expertise.

Unlike the others, Rissa didn’t have a specific reason. She simply wanted to spend time with Serenity. It wasn’t a request that Serenity could turn down; he wanted to spend time with Rissa, as well. They’d had a few hours the previous evening, but that was the only time they’d had together in days. This was the longest they’d spent apart since the Tutorial ended and Serenity reunited with Rissa on Lyka; neither of them had enjoyed the break.

The Guild was empty other than the employee, who Serenity didn’t recognize.

The same could not be said for Gabriel when he arrived a half hour later. He looked like he was hung over and three-quarters asleep. He didn’t arrive with Daryl, but he didn’t arrive alone, either.

Gabriel was accompanied by an apparently older man, probably in his late forties if he were lowTier. Like the three Silver Blades, he seemed to have effectively no aura control, so Serenity was fairly confident he was Tier Three. That almost certainly made him younger than Gabriel, even though he appeared older.

Gabriel glanced around the room, then led the way to the table Serenity and his friends waited at. “Serenity? You asked who made those charme. I brought him; he doesn’t have many at the moment, but said he’d be happy to make more. This is Daniel.”

Serenity stood up and grinned. If he remembered correctly, Daniel was blind and made vibration-sensing charms; he’d probably be able to tell Serenity had stood, but he wouldn’t be able to see the smile. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ll happily buy more charms, but first can I introduce you to Blaze?”

“Blaze?” Daniel’s gaze reminded Serenity of some undead; he was looking at Serenity, but he wasn’t focusing on him. It should have been disturbing, but it really wasn’t; it was too familiar. It meant he was using a sense that didn’t require focusing the eyes but that still let him determine Serenity’s location. “Isn’t that the name of the healer you mentioned to Gabriel?”

Serenity nodded unconsciously, but before he could speak, Blaze jumped in.

“Yes, I’m a healer.” Blaze stood and stepped over to the blind enchanter. “If you’d like me to take a look, we can do that while they talk about how they’re going to get themselves hurt enough to need healing.” Blaze paused and took a long look at Gabriel, “Or you could wait while I check on your … Cousin, was it?”

“Uncle,” Daniel corrected. “Is Gabriel hurt? He’s a healer.”

“I’m fine,” Gabriel objected. “It’ll all heal, it just takes time.”

“And there’s nothing a measly Tier Four healer could do for you, am I right?” Blaze’s voice dripped with irony, but he didn’t seem otherwise offended. “Maybe not, but the rule about healers who heal themselves still applies.” He turned back to Daniel. “Come over here, take a seat; this will take a while. It’s not very mana intensive, but it takes a lot of precision.”

Daniel followed Blaze over to a nearby table. Serenity turned his attention back to Gabriel; Blaze could handle that situation without his assistance. He was an excellent healer, far more skilled than his Tier indicated; he simply didn’t have the sheer power a higher Tier healer could use.

“When do you think Daryl will make it here?” Serenity directed the question at Gabriel, but it was more of a way to break the ice than anything else. “He didn’t seem very happy about waking up, yesterday.”

Gabriel chuckled. “Oh, he’ll be along shortly. I expected him to beat me here, actually, since I stopped by my sister’s place to pick up Daniel. I made sure to wake him up this morning before I left.” Gabriel yawned before he continued. “Did you have a good time with Emery? I don’t think I could have stayed awake for a lecture from her.”

Serenity nodded. “It was interesting; she has a completely different method to separate mana and essence from any I’d seen before.” Admittedly, that was only what he’d found in runes on Zon, but it was still completely different. “We didn’t get as far as I hoped before Daryl interrupted us…”

The door to the Guild opened as Serenity spoke and pulled his attention away from Gabriel. Daryl staggered through the door; he looked even more tired than Gabriel did. His expression reminded Serenity of someone who’d found out he was out of coffee and had to get up and get moving in the morning anyway. Serenity wasn’t sure if that was because it showed on his face or simply because he already knew that was almost exactly what was going on, but either way, Daryl looked exhausted.

Daryl stalked over to the table they were at, pulled out a chair, and plopped into it. He glared at Gabriel. “Did you have to tell Emia that I wanted to have her sing me awake this morning?”

“Would you be here if I hadn’t?” Gabriel had a self-satisfied grin on his face.

Daryl just glared at Gabriel. It was fairly obvious, even to Serenity, that the answer was “no” but Daryl didn’t want to admit it.

Gabriel waited a moment, then nodded at Daryl. “So, did you do whatever it was that Guildmaster Zany asked you to do?”

Daryl flushed and looked at Serenity. Serenity couldn’t read his expression; was he asking for Serenity to elaborate or for him to keep his mouth shut? Serenity decided to wait for Daryl to clarify; he could always say something, but he couldn’t take it back if Daryl wanted him to stay silent.

Gabriel looked back and forth between Daryl and Serenity. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Serenity gave Daryl a moment to pull his thoughts together, but when the other man didn’t answer quickly, Serenity stepped in. “Your Guildmaster told him to use an item that would find someone who belongs to a group that the Guilldmaster also belongs to. It turned out that the closest person was me. Daryl didn’t seem very happy about that.” Serenity gave a tight smile. “I think he’s worried that my help won’t be enough.”

“You’re Tier Eight,” Daryl muttered. “And you’d already said you were willing to help, I was expecting more help.” He slouched in his chair and looked miserable.

Serenity shook his head and turned to Gabriel. “Do you have a whole group to bring when we figure out what’s going on, or will it be just the two of you?”

Gabriel glanced at Daryl, then seemed to decide that he needed to answer. “For Tier Nines, it’s just the two of us. We should be able to get three or four Tier Sevens, more as we go down. We’re specialized in delving, so almost everyone has a team they work with. When we did anything as a guild, Zany always handed out the assignments.”

Serenity sighed. That was only to be expected, but it wasn’t the best group for assaulting a presumably defended location. On the other hand, it was more people and that might be very useful. “I’ll coordinate… no, Kerr and I will coordinate. I’ll introduce you to Kerr later. For now, we’re trying to get information about the place we’re headed to, so I need to know what you and Daryl found out.”

It took over an hour to tease the sparse details out of their memories, far longer than they’d spent observing the area. By the time he was done, he had a sketchy mental map of the installation and a fairly solid location for it. The ley line crossed a deep ravine about a hundred miles from Takinat; the base, such as it was, was located in the walls of the ravine in some old tunnels.

They hadn’t seen the biplanes land or take off, but the descriptions made it relatively clear that there were landing strips on the cliffs above the base. There was no clear route from there into the installation, but Serenity knew there had to be one, because there wasn’t even anywhere to keep the planes while they were repaired or not in use, much less a place for the pilots to sleep or eat. Refueling might be simpler than on Earth, but that didn’t eliminate the need for infrastructure; there had to be a way down and that might just be the best way to get into the base.

Neither Daryl nor Gabriel had seen any people other than Guildmaster Zany. Even though Daryl had spoken to Guildmaster Zany, he hadn’t seen him, while Gabriel managed to see only enough to be certain who he saw. They didn’t know how many people were in the base or how powerful they were. Most of what they knew was what the Guildmaster told Daryl, and it was clear he either didn’t have much information or simply hadn’t had the time to pass much along.

All they knew was that there was at least one Tier Ten person present, but almost everyone else was Tier Five or lower, with quite a few at Tier Three. They didn’t know the specialties, preferred fighting style, or even if the Tier Ten person was a combatant. While anyone at that Tier had the potential to be able to fight, many people made it up into higher Tiers in other ways, especially on higher-Tier planets. Admittedly, this didn’t really look like a group from a high Tier planet, but Tier Three and Five were both bottleneck Tiers so it was possible.

The base itself was a maze of tunnels; Daryl and Gabriel were each able to describe pieces of it, but both descriptions were incomplete. Serenity couldn’t even be certain they overlapped. Gabriel’s description of his vision didn’t actually take him through the tunnels; it had simply zoomed through the rock, following the ley line. Daryl was able to see some of the tunnels as the Guildmaster described them, but they simply led from the cliff face into the rock; Serenity suspected they probably terminated at the location where Gabriel saw the Guildmaster, since that was the most likely reason to describe the location.

They didn’t know if this was the main base for the assault on Asihanya, but Serenity doubted it.

What they did know, however, was useful. The base was actually located on the ley line; that meant that Serenity would have nearly unlimited mana for the attack and could certainly open a portal to bring more people in as long as he had enough time. It also meant that he could blanket the base in a spell or ritual if he needed to; again, all he needed was time.

They had two choices. They could go in loud, let everyone know they were coming, and simply blow up anything that got in their way. It was a simple plan and it would almost certainly work, though it had a distinct chance that some enemies might escape. That was the fast and easy option.

The hard, slower option was to go in quietly. A small group of people could probably slip in without being observed, potentially through the access points for the biplanes or their pilots, and look around. It was more dangerous for the advance group, because they wouldn’t have backup if they were caught, but if they were able to secure a good location, they might have all the time they needed for Serenity to cast the rituals he was designing in the back of his head. Even more importantly, if he did it right, the enemy might not have time to destroy their records.

Serenity had a definite preference. Unfortunately, Gabriel and Daryl just wanted to rescue their Guildmaster; the fact that destroying the base would remove the current threat to Takinat was a bonus, as well. They could completely ruin any chance of being sneaky if they attacked openly, which meant he needed to figure out how to convince them his plan was better for Guildmaster Zany. They didn’t really care about the rest of Asihanya.

Lillene

Here's hoping the Silver Blades aren't concealing anything from Serenity to haze him this time.