The feeling that came from the figure made of shadows was familiar. It wasn’t Death, but it was something Serenity felt almost every day.

The figure felt of Potential. There was more than a hint of Essence as well, but Potential was the primary feeling, a feeling that faded slightly as Serenity stared in surprise. The figure didn’t move or react; if anything, it seemed to be content to simply stand in the spot it was summoned to.

When Serenity looked closer, he saw that the shadows that formed the figure looked a lot like the shadows of his Sovereign of Potential form. That made sense, almost too much sense, yet it made no sense at all. This couldn’t be what the ritual was intended to summon; Serenity had never heard of a summon quite like this.

Serenity looked around the ritual. He’d gotten something of a feel for it while he shut it down, but he hadn’t actually had the time to fully investigate it yet. One part of this, the fact that the being was formed from Potential, should not have been such a surprise; Serenity knew that was one of the ways summons were made. He’d seen it from the other side, where they were pulled out of the Origin. The fact that it stayed Potential in the shape of a man, however, made no sense at all. That wasn’t how summons worked.

At least, Serenity thought it wasn’t. He’d never been a summoner and never really been interested in the field. Summoners had a reputation for being strange, and what little interaction with them that Vengeance had over the years didn’t contradict that reputation.

Not that Vengeance had been exactly normal, either. Serenity didn’t have any trouble admitting that ”strange” would have fit him then; these days, it probably fit him even better. It was little more than an errant thought that perhaps he should look into learning proper summoning at some point; if it reached into the Origin and used shaped Potential, well, he had an advantage there, didn’t he?

Serenity skimmed over the portions of the ritual that he thought probably controlled the results of the summoning. It looked like it was intended to create a horde, then release them; Serenity couldn’t see any actual mechanism to retain control once the summoned creatures left the ritual area. This wasn’t the tool of a commander, it was a weapon to deny the area to an enemy.

Fortunately, like most summons Serenity had heard of, it did seem to come with a time limit, or more accurately an energy limit. Unless the summoned creature had a secondary way to gain the energy to hold itself together, it would disappear after a while. There were stories about summoned creatures with just such secondary ways, but Serenity didn’t think this was one of them.

He was pretty sure that had to be built into either the summoning ritual, which distinctly lacked an ongoing component once the summoning was complete, or the creature. A man made of Potential didn’t fit that, at least not immediately. It could probably become something that had that capability if it had the time and a reason, but Serenity wasn’t sure how much Potential that would cost and he could feel it fading as it stood there.

The shadowy man stood there without moving, which gave Serenity the time he needed to examine more of the ritual. The way it summoned multiple creatures was actually one at a time, with each creature capped at a certain amount of power; if he read it correctly, that limit wasn’t much over the amount required to solidify the creature. If he’d managed to kill the ritual just a little earlier, it would have fizzled out without summoning anything.

Serenity kept searching, but he couldn’t find any sign of what the ritual was supposed to summon in the ritual setup. That meant it was probably in the invisible part of the ritual, in the Intent of the ritualist casting the ritual. To an extent, that made sense; you might want to summon something different depending on what you wanted to kill.

Summoning a man with wings made of shadows didn’t make sense for the Viper. It would make a lot more sense to summon something that could track when he knew he was under attack from people he couldn’t find. A snake, maybe; if he’d used the trick before, it might explain the nickname. Unless there was a need to fly, there was no reason to summon a person with wings; even then, a bird would probably make more sense.

There was someone it did make sense for, though. Someone who took over the ritual and didn’t direct it to summon something specific. It could have been a shadowy impression of Serenity himself, in his chimera form and holding his crystal hilt.

He still didn’t have a way to control it once they left the ritual circle, but perhaps he wouldn’t have to?

“Are you going to help us once we leave here?” The summoned creature reacted to Serenity’s words by turning around to face Serenity and giving a deep nod, almost a shallow bow. Serenity blinked at that. “Does that mean you can’t talk?”

This time, the nod was shallower, but still crisp and clear.

For a moment, Serenity doubted whether or not he should trust the summoned shadow, for all that it resembled himself. Then he told himself he was being unnecessarily paranoid; this was summoned in his own image, after all. He sucked at lying and deception, so it was probably telling the truth. He also liked to help when there wasn’t anything better to do, so that made sense. As far as summoned creatures he could have gotten, a shadow of himself that could hear and understand was probably more safe than almost anything else.

It wasn’t enough to make him wish he’d kept the summoning ritual in place, much less enough to restart it. Serenity was still not confident in his evaluation of the summoning ritual; while this particular one seemed fairly safe and even useful, for as long as it lasted, Serenity couldn’t be confident of what any others would be like. He hadn’t deliberately intended the summons to be anything in particular, which meant that they could be anything. It depended on what he was thinking about, and that could vary highly from moment to moment with poorly-formed Intent. He was simply lucky that this time, he’d apparently had his mind wander to the Origin.

Serenity nodded. He’d have this one help until it dissipated and look into learning more about summoning in the future. It might even be worthwhile to steal the ritual’s parts; Serenity doubted he’d ever use them but they might contain useful information that would let him make a better ritual, one more in line with his own preferences.

They needed to disrupt it anyway, picking it up to take with them shouldn’t take much longer than what they’d already planned. “If you can, stack the metra pieces on each other, I’ll take care of the stacks.”

It wasn’t quite that simple, but fortunately this ritual, unlike the other two, wasn’t bonded to the ground in any way. Once his friends and summoned minion had stacked the pieces, Serenity shoved them into his Rift. They’d be safe there until he had the time to do something about them.

If nothing else, metra was valuable and this was quite a bit of metra. It might not be useful for weapons and armor, but Serenity was pretty sure it was used in many enchantments within its Tier range.

They were almost done when Legion screamed.

Serenity took a step in Legion’s direction, then heard the clatter as Blaze dropped the metra tile he carried and ran to her. A glance towards the entrance told Serenity that Rissa had also heard; her face appeared in the doorway. That meant there was no outside attack; Blaze could handle anything else at least as well as Serenity could.

Serenity scooped up the tile Blaze dropped, then picked up the last couple stacks of ritual tiles followed by the few tiles that hadn’t yet made it into stacks before he headed over to Legion and Blaze. Legion didn’t say anything when he arrived, but Blaze had a frown on his face. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure.” Blaze didn’t sound happy about it, either. “Legion doesn’t seem to be able to speak but there’s nothing physically wrong with her. Not with this body, at least; I can’t sense the others. If anything, it feels like she’s being flooded with Life Affinity mana. It doesn’t feel harmful, but I don’t know where it’s coming from.”

Life Affinity mana? That was dangerous if it wasn’t properly controlled, possibly even more dangerous to the living than uncontrolled Death Affinity mana. The usual consequences were things like cancer, but that wasn’t what Serenity was the most afraid of here.

The Viper warned Amily about a ritual to turn people in the base into Hollow Ones. He gave the warning while they were in the room Serenity and his friends had just finished disassembling, but the room wasn’t a Hollow One ritual at all, it was a summoning ritual. Serenity had assumed that meant they were safe from Hollow Ones, but he now doubted that conclusion. If one of the other rooms were the Hollow One ritual, it would explain everything. After all, the Viper didn’t have to be in the room for the ritual he was worried about.

Legion had a body at each of the other two rituals; Raz was with one of them. Serenity hoped he hadn’t just gotten the youngster killed; Raz was coming along nicely and growing up well.

He didn’t spare a thought for Daryl, Gabriel, or Zanzital. They were also in danger, and he’d try to get them out, but they weren’t important to Serenity in the way Raz was.

Serenity needed to know what was going on and to remind Raz of the Viper’s method to be safe from the ritual. It was a terrible method, but turning a future Hollow One into your shield against the ritual that wanted to make you a puppet was still worth doing. Serenity wished he’d thought about that in advance; they’d planned to stop the ritual’s activation, not withstand it. He could have had them bring animal hearts -

Wait. Ita! She was supposed to be the emergency way out; maybe he could have her act! Legion clearly couldn’t act as the communication hub, but Serenity knew Raz had a communication token from Ita. It wasn’t as good as Legion’s method because Ita had to initiate the link, but it was better than nothing. :Ita, contact Raz. Something’s gone wrong, be prepared to pull him and the others out.:

:I’ll need time,: Ita reminded Serenity. :I don’t have a portal prepared.:

:I know!: Serenity snapped at Ita, then tried to calm himself down. It didn’t really work. :At least find out what’s going on. Legion is silent and can’t tell us.: He could run across the base if he had to, but it would take longer than one of Ita’s portals. The base wasn’t small.

:Legion says something is trying to control her,: Ita replied almost instantly. :I thought she’d tell you as well, didn’t realize she couldn’t.:

Serenity tried not to growl at Ita for wasting time. It was probably valuable to know that Legion wasn’t completely out of it and could still talk on the surface, even if the one he had with him was incapacitated.

:She says the Silver Blades are still fighting the Viper; she can’t go out and look. I will contact Raz.: Ita’s mindvoice stopped and Serenity knew he had to decide where to go from here. He definitely couldn’t go up the hangar’s exit to the surface, but he could go back out the way he’d entered. It would be easy enough to get Rissa, Blaze, and this body of Legion’s out that way.

He didn’t want to leave the others behind, though. If they were still actively fighting a Tier Ten, having Ita set up a portal might not help all that much; they wouldn’t have time to get through it without the risk of something or someone else traveling through it as well.

Lillene

According to Viper’s plan, he’s supposed to already be through the escape hatch ritual. Things are running a little behind schedule for him.