One ritual followed another over the next two days. Each time, Serenity felt the Guildmaster’s presence; several times, it seemed like he was reaching out towards Serenity, but they never actually touched. The rituals weren’t intended for communication and Serenity didn’t see any need to change that.

He didn’t actually want to talk to the Guildmaster yet; he didn’t entirely trust the man and he wanted to finish gathering all of the information he could before he did anything with a real risk of alerting the base. Talking to Zany might well not cause any problems, but it was an avoidable risk.

Eventually, Serenity had a map that included the layout of the entire facility. The locations of all of the wards and stationary enchanted items were indicated, along with anywhere a person was found. Runescripts that weren’t actively in use couldn’t be found, but the airplanes could be; there were a total of six airplanes that came and went from the facility each day, along with two more that never seemed to move from their hangars well inside the base.

“Rissa, would you stay here and monitor the last ritual? It will show things as they happen, so it may be useful to have someone here to see what’s going on and where people move.” Serenity had explained more to Rissa than he had to everyone else, since he could tell her telepathically, but he’d given everyone a general idea of what he was doing. She already knew that his question was a cover; he’d actually be splitting off one of his own forms to monitor the ritual, but he couldn’t exactly say that in front of the Silver Blades.

“I believe Legion and I should stay here as well,” Blaze offered before Rissa could reply. “Rissa can communicate with you, and a smaller group may find it easier to get in and out. If you truly need healing, you can call me forward, but I’m sure you’ll be fine without me.”

Legion staying behind was a good idea, but Serenity wasn’t as certain about Blaze. “What if Zany needs healing?”

Blaze shrugged. “Carry him out. The point is to get in and out undetected, after all. You’ll do that better without me.”

Serenity didn’t know that much about Blaze’s past, but he did know that Blaze was better at being unseen when he wanted to than anyone else Serenity knew. Something didn’t seem right about Blaze’s insistence.

“I can heal Zany.” Gabriel stated.

Gabriel had a point; Serenity was so used to thinking of Blaze as the only healer that he’d forgotten about Gabriel. That made it a lot harder to justify dragging Blaze along, even though Serenity was sure Blaze would be perfect.

“Gabriel and I don’t need anyone else,” Daryl stated. “Not to get Zany out. We have a map and an idea where people are; that’s more than I expected to have. Two people will be better than four for being unseen.”

“We don’t need to be unseen,” Rissa countered. “We just need to not be noticed. I’ve watched the patterns; I don’t think it’s likely that anyone can get down that last hallway right before the turn without someone seeing them. There are just too many people in the area. We should take that and turn it to our advantage, make it look like we belong so we’re not questioned.” She turned towards Serenity. “I know you got some visuals from one of the rituals; what did it tell you about the people?”

Serenity knew he’d already gone over this once with everyone, but it wasn’t like he could show them pictures other than the few he’d had the ritual draw; he really needed to get his hands on a printer. “They all look human. No uniform; a few were wearing armor, but most weren’t. The armor…” Serenity paused. There was something familiar about the armor. He had to search his memory for a match. “The armor looks Imperial. No names, rank, or insignia on it, but I can see where it was removed.”

Imperial armor was distinctive partly because of its style but mostly because of the materials it was made from. They had large portions of several worlds set aside for farming runeclams, flicker-spiders, stonebulls, and Imperial Wyrms. Serenity was sure there were other creatures used to make the armor, but those were the most famous and most obvious; only officers were allowed to wear armor made with wyrmhide, and the spidersilk and bullhide weren’t obvious without close examination, but the patterns on the hard clamshell pieces were hard to mistake for anything else. They weren’t actually runes, but they were still the reason the clams got their name.

The Empire produced a lot of materials, but it was all reserved for their soldiers and nobility. Serenity took another good look through the images he’d gathered; if there was no one wearing wyrmscale, the odds were that this wasn’t an Empire-sanctioned attack. It seemed pretty strange for the Empire no matter what; as far as he remembered, they didn’t believe in the sort of harassing attack he’d seen used on Takinat. They didn’t attack unless they believed they had enough force to win.

Serenity didn’t find any images of anyone wearing wyrmscale, but deep inside the base there was a set of armor that definitely had wyrmscale as part of its design lying on a chair in a richly-furnished bedroom. It was used as a visible accent rather than actual protection, but it still made the statement that the armor was to be worn only by a noble or an officer.

Serenity described what he’d found. He was careful to pass it off as a new search using the current ritual circle, but he was pretty sure the only people who bought that were Daryl and Gabriel. Of course, they were the only people he cared to deceive right now.

“Imperial?” Blaze sounded surprised. “What would Cavvies be doing here? And why would they have flyers, especially such unusual ones?”

Serenity glanced at his friend, surprised. He knew Blaze didn’t talk about his past much, but he hadn’t realized Blaze had ever fought with (or possibly against) the Imperial ground troops. He’d certainly never mentioned it, but that was the only place Serenity could think of where he’d have picked up that particular piece of slang aimed at Imperial cavalry. Perhaps he’d once been part of a mercenary unit in Imperial space? They did hire mercenaries as irregulars; that was how Serenity knew the term, after all.

“Cavvies?” Rissa clearly had no idea what the term meant.

“The armor style,” Blaze explained. “Heavy clamshell plates that protect the outer portions of the body to the point of giving up some lower body flexibility but not upper body; that’s what Imperial cavalry wears. It’ll be enchanted against both impact and magic; anyone who develops a Shield skill is moved to an elite unit. The lighter armor is support staff; I don’t recognize the one with wyrmscale. Mage, maybe? Imperials don’t train many combat mages.”

That sounded almost more like experience inside the Imperial military than as part of an attached unit of mercenaries. Since this was Blaze, it was entirely possible he knew so much because of healing people instead of working with them. Serenity knew that they usually traveled with their own healers and let mercenaries heal their own people, but he also knew that things happened on the battlefield. Maybe the healers worked together in the back; Vengeance had always been sufficiently healed by the front-line mercenary healers, but he knew that worse injuries were sometimes shipped to the rear.

Serenity shrugged. “Why would Imperials be here? This doesn’t look like a normal attack. We probably need to find whoever’s in charge and ask some questions before we’ll know what’s going on.”

“First, we need to get Zany out of there. He might know what to do,” Gabriel insisted.

Gabriel had a point. If nothing else, Zany should be a significant addition to their combat power. Serenity also wanted to know why Zany was here; it didn’t look like he’d achieved anything in the months since the first attack on Takinat, so what was he actually doing?

“Serenity can’t lead the way,” Rissa stated. “Not if they all look human.”

Serenity felt insulted for a moment before he realized that Rissa was simply being realistic. He could disguise himself as human with an odd bloodline, the way he did in the Tutorial, but he’d still be memorable. It wasn’t like the Imperials were from Earth; they had a small set of common bloodlines that affected their appearance, and Serenity didn’t have any of them.

They tended to favor the common elemental bloodlines, so Blaze could probably pass as having a Fire Elemental bloodline. Rissa might be able to pass as having an Air bloodline; she was delicate enough. It would be a distant bloodline since her hair didn’t continually frizz, but those weren’t unusual. Legion, Gabriel, and Daryl could all pass as people without bloodlines or at least without notable bloodlines. That meant the only people in the group that couldn’t act like they belonged were Serenity and Raz, two of the four people he’d expected to head into the base.

Sure, that could all be hidden by dye and contacts, but Serenity didn’t have that with him. Illusions could also work, but Serenity sucked at illusions. Serenity glanced around the group. “I have a few things I need to try before I know if this will work, but … Blaze, you know a lot about Imperials. Can you take my place and go in with Gabriel and Daryl to get their Guildmaster out?”

Blaze tensed, then closed his eyes for a long blink and sighed. “We’re probably the only two here who speak Radvik, aren’t we?”

Serenity hadn’t even thought about the language issue. Many Imperials spoke Bridge, but it wasn’t the language they usually used with each other. He glanced at the others, especially Gabriel and Daryl. “Unless someone else here speaks it?”

The silence told Serenity that Blaze’s guess was correct. It seemed to tell Blaze as well, because he sighed again and shook his head. “Fine. With luck, they won’t all know each other. Gabriel and I are going to have to change clothing, though; Cavvies never wear robes.”

Serenity wasn’t sure he’d have classified what either Blaze or Gabriel was wearing as robes, but it was certainly true that it didn’t look like the simple clothing the people in the base wore. “Give me a few minutes; I may be able to provide armor. You’ll have to tell me if I got close enough.” There was no point in hiding the fact that he was going to be “making” the armor here; it was probably better that Gabriel and Daryl assumed that than the chance that they might assume he normally carried Imperial armor.

The ritual gathering information on the base would continue to run without Serenity’s input for a while, so it was time to try to make armor. He’d want to be sure to include communication gear in Blaze’s armor since they didn’t have telepathy. On second thought, it didn’t need to be communication gear; it just needed to be a speaker and microphone so that he could listen and talk to Blaze. Serenity would be right there and could just talk to Blaze. True communication gear would only be necessary if he wanted to let Blaze talk to someone else.

No, he probably should include communication gear. That way, Blaze and the two Silver Blades could talk to each other if they needed to; it would also seem more natural. It probably wasn’t necessary, but it was easy enough to pass off as technology from his home planet. Serenity frowned and looked up at the three of them. “So how many sets should I make? I can only manage three sets of armor.”

Lillene

Kerr would also be able to pass as Imperial and speaks the language ... but she's not there.