Armand was not having a good week. Realistically, it hadn’t been a good month. Or month and a half; however long it had been since the Instrument of the Heathen Devils rose from the sea. The Voice of God even warned of its coming!

[A’Atla has Risen!]

[Lost to the Sea in Ages Past, the Floating Island floats once more. Many mysteries are hidden on A’Atla]

[World Quest: The Ruins of the Past]

[A’Atla’s Descent was no accident, nor was its Rise. Two forces have made A’Atla their battlefield and their effects ripple through Earth to this day. All Residents of Earth must choose: Do you strive as those who made A’Atla did or do you join hands with those who sent it to the sea floor?]

[Success Condition: Preserve A’Atla and stop those who would destroy it. The hand behind A’Atla’s Descent must be stopped]

[Reward: Control of A’Atla shall be offered based on contribution to the Success Condition. A’Atla is currently Owned]

[Success Condition: Destroy A’Atla]

[Reward: Prevent the ancient knowledge of A’Atla from falling into the hands of those who would use it. Additional rewards are offered by others interested in A’Atla’s destruction]

[Many hazards exist on A’Atla yet the most hazardous is other people. Be careful regardless of the side you choose]

It was the most obvious warning he’d ever seen! Yes, the Voice of God had to be careful; God enshrined Free Will, which meant Man was allowed to do Evil. Yet it was obvious which side was evil: the side that wished to bring back the long-buried evils of the past, lost when God cleansed the world in his Great Flood. There was a reason the island did not emerge from the depths then! If there was ancient knowledge there, it was knowledge of sin. That was what came from the ancient world; they were famous for their idolatry and excess.

Armand was proud to be one of the men chosen to travel to the forbidden island and act to bring it back to the depths where it belonged.

If only he hadn’t been chosen to “work from the inside”. Infiltration sounded great, and the Hollywood movies about daring spies and assassins showed off the glamor. Sure, there was danger, but what was danger to a Warrior of God? Nothing!

Honestly, Armand would welcome some danger right now. Yes, he was on a “secret” mission to a mysterious, hidden, evil island. Yes, he was there with his enemies instead of his allies, as a spy to send knowledge home.

No, there hadn’t been anything worth sending home. The closest he’d come to “danger” was when he tripped and landed in the harbor instead of stepping across to land. That was embarrassing, not valorous. And as for an exciting job in a foreign location … he had mud with a side of mud and occasionally more mud. He was told it had been worse a few weeks earlier, but he couldn’t see how.

Surely his job made up for it? He had to be exploring or maybe watching other groups, ready to steal what they found? That was what people did on trips like this, right?

Apparently not. They were holed up inside a mud-filled building, searching it for any clues or (more likely) for the “lost ancient knowledge” God’s Voice promised the heathens.

Well, at least he had a gun, right?

Nope. He had a shovel. He also had a trowel, a little hand-scraper thing he hadn’t figured out a purpose for, and an entire collection of brushes and toothbrushes. Technically, he was the Supply Manager or some stupid thing like that, but realistically the only supplies he had to manage were the foodstuffs. Everything else had been handed out. Sure, he had to keep track of where it was, but that was easy. He’d done more complex things for years.

In practice, he was the assistant, handyman, gofer, and anything else someone needed. Oh, and assistant cook; the real cook was whoever put the rations together, but he was supposed to somehow make them taste decent with the three spices he had available: salt, pepper, and sriracha. It was not a possible task.

Today, however, he finally had an important task. One of the other searchers, a graduate student, claimed he had found something. Armand had gotten a look at it; it looked like a weirdly shaped stick. No one had been able to figure out anything about it, but that didn’t mean Armand wasn’t interested. He finally had something to report back about! He could live up to his job as a spy!

He had no idea how this would relate to getting the demon isle back under the ocean where it belonged, but surely it would. That was how it worked in the movies, right?

Yeah. He was the righteous soldier out to fix things, wasn’t he?

Armand knew but tried not to remember just how many righteous soldiers often died during the movies he was thinking about so that the heroes could save the day. He also knew about what probably happened afterwards in some of the movies; it was never as clean as it looked. That didn’t make him feel brave, though, and he needed his bravery for this.

Sure, he’d probably be fine even if they caught him - inventory WAS his job - but if they happened to catch him at the right time he’d be in trouble. There was no excuse for him to take pictures of the thing. With luck, they’d just take his phone away.

No, with luck they’d laugh at him and not care. That … was as likely as not, now that he thought about it. HE was here to save Humanity and follow God. They were here for a paycheck. Well, maybe also because they were curious, but didn’t they know that curiosity was what got Adam and Eve sent out of the Garden of Eden?

Well, curiosity and temptation. Close enough.

Armand checked around himself; there was no one there. He unlocked the safe and pulled out the weird thing that looked like a pagan religious symbol. Who needed a moon on a stick?

Perhaps he should break it.

No, too obvious, at least for now. He needed to document it as he’d been told to do. He pulled out his phone and took pictures from all angles, then pulled the satellite thingy out of his pocket. He didn’t want to wait any longer than he had to with the pictures on his phone, so he set it up to send immediately.

Just before he set the idolatrous icon back in the safe, he felt something cold on his cheek. “Hand it over.”

Armand hadn’t even realized anyone else was there until he heard the voice. He shook a little; this wasn’t like the movies. That cold thing was probably a gun and the man next to him was definitely wearing a mask. All Armand could tell was that he was male and spoke English.

Armand had no idea which side the other man was on, but it wasn’t like he could be worse than the group Armand was with. They were definitely on the wrong side.

So Armand handed the heathen symbol over. His hand shook badly enough that he almost dropped it in the mud, but it landed in the gloved hand of the man holding a gun to his head instead.

“Now look away and stay that way for five minutes,” the man said. “Don’t make any noise until after that or you’ll regret it.”

Armand followed the instructions as best he could. He had no way to know if the man was watching or not. He also had no way to know how long five minutes was. He waited a time that had to be more than long enough, then closed up the safe and gathered up his phone and satellite thingy. It looked like everything had been sent, so he added a quick update about the theft then deleted the pictures from his phone.

He’d let someone else find out that the pagan idol was missing. That might give the man who was probably on the right side more time to get away. It also meant no one would ask why Armand was in the safe.

Serenity felt no particular hurry to get into the secured room; while it was important, it was not urgent. At a guess, he had years before the situation would become critical. He could take the time to build the ritual properly.

Sure, there was probably a technological solution, but there was no need to try that when he had options as long as he was willing to take the time. Doing it himself would mean he wouldn’t have to bring anyone else in on it.

Getting the ritual to work was likely to be a tricky proposition. He was going to have to cleanse the poison from the room and lower its pressure without being able to actually push the ritual’s spell effects into the room. If he did, the ritual would be disrupted and not in a controlled manner. It was a good thing he always built in failsafes for ritual failures, but they’d have to be especially good this time.

Or.

Or he could take a shortcut. Serenity didn’t accept Blaze’s contention that he didn’t have to breathe; he still had lungs and he did feel it when he held his breath for too long. It was longer than it should have been, but he did eventually feel it. He simply had incredible resistances.

There was one case where Blaze was correct, though: Serenity’s Sovereign of Potential shape. It technically applied to his armor and sword shapes as well, but they couldn’t move so they weren’t relevant.

Sovereign of Potential, on the other hand, could move. Even better, Serenity knew a teleport spell and could apply it to getting into the room. He could definitely get in and he’d definitely be able to move around; the dense toxic atmosphere shouldn’t bother him at all.

Getting out might be a bit more difficult. That limitation was the one that had so far prevented him from trying; well, that and the potential risk that he faced that no one else did.

If this was something that ate mana, what would happen to Serenity if all of his mana was eaten? It was definitely taking more mana than he had and doing it continuously. As far as Serenity could tell, it had been doing it for millenia.

Unlike a human, Serenity was fairly confident he required a certain level of mana. That was the only reason he could come up with for why he had trouble when his mana got too low while a human didn’t have the same problem. It kind of made sense; dragons weren’t low Tier creatures.

The locked room was unsafe for Serenity for a completely different reason than why it was unsafe for everyone else, but he still had to get in there.

Over the course of the next month, Serenity tried multiple rituals to either gain more information or relieve the pressure and toxicity of the environment in the room. Every single one of them failed. Some gave interesting results, like the one that seemed to show hundreds of different Affinities present in the toxic soup, but none of them was truly useful.

Even worse was the fact that Serenity was unable to go an entire day concentrating on the problem; some days he was interrupted three or four times by Liam and Samantha needing his help with another item. They had quite a collection now. More than a few were remotes like the first one, but that was the only repeated item in the bunch.

It was also the only item that seemed to have anything to do with A’Atla itself.

Every single one of the items did have something else in common, however: a use restriction. Of course, even the remote had that. It could only be used by someone who was acknowledged by A’Atla. None of the others had that particular restriction.

Lillene

There are people who believe just as fervently as Armand does that the Quest offering was God’s Voice telling them to protect A’Atla. They aren’t as interesting to see since they’re on Serenity’s side, so we’re going to focus on Armand instead.

Also, please don’t take Armand’s thoughts as actual religious doctrine or as how I think about followers of his faith. He’s way out there.