Lillene

Enjoy!

Russ needed a vacation. Most years, that wasn’t an issue; he worked when he was needed and was on call the rest of the time. Where possible, the other Guardians took his cases; he was mostly retired, after all. Despite the sheer size of the territory he covered, that usually meant he only had two or three big cases a year; everything else was petty stuff that just took a day or two.

Admittedly, he handled a lot of other peoples’ petty stuff too. It was work he was good at, better than most. Most of his counterparts didn’t know he was a telepath; they thought of him as a human lie detector. It was close enough and made people far less uncomfortable. It still made him perfectly suited for tasks like dealing with the witch they thought had been cursing people but who wouldn’t admit it. He’d know.

It didn’t usually get him called in for stuff like this.

Russ looked around the warehouse that had been converted into some kind of illegal prison. The three bodies were gone, as were the people who were in the cells when the local police followed up on the anonymous tip about abduction victims. The fact that they weren’t all human was a bit of a problem; fortunately, it wasn’t Russ’s to solve.

No, he had to figure out what happened here. He had the testimony of the humans, since they were the only ones who could tell their stories until they managed to get a translator. The stories generally matched up; apparently, a new pair of humans was kidnapped, then the three dead people came in to talk to them and there was an argument. People gave different tales about what happened after that; some said that the building fell apart and crushed the three kidnappers while others said the kidnappers collapsed before the walls fell over.

Russ was definitely looking forward to hearing what the coroner’s report said, but he already knew it wouldn’t be as simple as shoddy construction. No one would call him in for that.

He examined the room as he walked through it. It was roughly assembled but sturdy. He wouldn’t have had any trouble escaping, but he’d probably have needed his soul blade to cut his way out. Anyone without something like that might well be trapped.

There were several smaller cages, as well. From the reports, Russ knew only two of them had been occupied; one held a talking lizard while another held a fish that could swim through the ground. The destroyed patch of concrete was apparently where the fish had escaped the moment it was out of its cage.

Most of the cells had their doors busted open; it had been easier to do that than pick the locks. There were two cages that were completely missing the metal bars that formed their front; those were the cages Russ was interested in.

The moment he got within fifteen feet of the nearer cage, Russ froze. There was someone strong here.

No, there had been someone strong here. Whoever broke the cage was strong enough to leave an echo in the stone when they did it. 

No, that wasn’t quite right; the echo wasn’t in the stone. It was in the grit and gravel that lay right below where the cage walls had been. Whatever technique was used to break out, it clearly broke up the stone in a powerful way. Whoever it was hadn’t bothered to clean up after himself or herself. That was not entirely wise but also not unusual in the powerful. It wasn’t like the ability to actually use power residue was common, and attempting it against someone this powerful would be signing your own death warrant.

Russ wondered if he’d feel the same residue on the bodies, but it almost didn’t matter. He knew what had happened here and what he was going to recommend.

The dead were clearly killed in self defense, by people they’d kidnapped who were trying to escape. It wasn’t worth chasing the killers; they’d only done what was reasonable during an escape. Russ wasn’t about to get into a discussion about appropriate levels of force; some magicians couldn’t disable without killing. 

Russ also wasn’t going to mention that the last thing anyone wanted to do was piss off a god, and most of the magicians powerful enough to leave that sort of residue considered themselves gods. Russ hoped that changed as more people from Earth became powerful. At least they’d have peers; that was probably the reason the “gods” were so out there.

It might be worth looking into why people were being kidnapped. That was definitely illegal no matter what the reason was. Russ hoped that there was evidence to find. He doubted that the three dead people were the only ones involved.

Russ left the warehouse without further investigation. Other than a quick stop by the morgue to confirm that the bodies were indeed killed by the same person who broke out of the cells, his job was done. There was no magical malfeasance involved, just people who were dumb enough to abduct someone far more powerful than themselves.

Mapping all of the ley lines over several hundred square miles was not a fast task, especially not with only fifteen pairs performing the mapping. The distance was simple enough to cover in a straight line; Serenity had nailed down the major ley lines with only a few days’ worth of travel. 

The thing was, he’d only looked for a few points on each line rather than fully mapping each one out and he hadn’t actually tried to map any of the smaller lines. He’d also had a map to work from and was just looking to confirm his assumptions. None of that applied to Legion’s task; Serenity needed Legion to map all the small lines so that he had a chance to figure them out. That meant driving all sorts of back roads in the areas that even had back roads. In areas where there weren’t roads, it meant hiking. In some places, especially in the mountains, that didn’t cover much ground in a day.

The task he’d originally thought would take a few weeks at the most stretched well into the second month before he started muttering about how much he wanted Legion to have flyers. Even the simple ground flyers most planets used would be a huge improvement; they didn’t require roads. They couldn’t climb cliffs or even go up really steep inclines - automobiles could actually handle steeper slopes - but they could manage a lot of places cars couldn’t go. Personal flight devices could potentially cover most of the rest, though small ones tended to be extremely inefficient.

It took him a few days, but Serenity eventually realized he was missing the forest for the trees. So what if the devices he needed weren’t made on Earth? He could leave the planet to go shopping. He wasn’t poor anymore, the way Vengeance often had been; he also wasn’t persecuted the way the Final Reaper had been. Earth’s portals were open, even if they were limited for everyone other than himself; he could easily visit a market and buy what he needed.

The fact that he could also use the time offworld to find out if he had a problem with all dungeons or not was a nice bonus but not the real reason he wanted to go. It might have been if he’d thought of that first, but he hadn’t.

Not that he actually got to do the simple shopping trip he wanted. The moment he mentioned it to Rissa, she declared it an extended vacation. She wanted to visit Berinath again; the moon over the broken planet was beautiful. Serenity  tried to remind her that the point was to speed up Legion’s travel and Berinath was at least a couple weeks’ travel each way, but Rissa did something completely unfair and underhanded.

She got together with Legion and worked out a plan that handled as much as possible of the accessible areas and left the inaccessible ones for last. They figured out how long it was before Legion would actually need the improved mobility; it was more than a month. 

Serenity didn’t have a leg to stand on after that. He didn’t have a day job anymore; there really was no reason for him to have one. Rissa was wealthy; even if she wasn’t, all he had to do was sell some Etherium and he had enough money to do essentially whatever he wanted. His living expenses were very low in any case, since Aki handled most of them. His parents were doing fine on A’Atla; they’d both risen to the challenge of their new roles and were clearly loving it. 

Even Russ seemed to be in on the conspiracy to send Serenity on vacation with Rissa; he said there was no hurry. Figuring out the land purchases was what he wanted from Serenity in any case, and he doubted he’d have much more information to follow up on before then anyway. Even if he did, it could keep.

Rissa put together a larger group than Serenity would have. Jenna was traveling with them, of course; they weren’t headed into anything dangerous. Rissa had three nurses to handle her; Serenity had no idea why it would take so many for one child. Maybe Rissa wanted her to always have someone watching her?

In addition to the nurses, two of Legion’s bodies would come with them. Officially, they were Jenna’s guards; Rissa insisted that it was necessary for prestige as well as actual protection. Apparently no one powerful would bring an unguarded child, so not having guards meant they were poor, weak, or didn’t care about Jenna. Serenity didn’t argue the point; she’d picked Legion, after all, and Legion would be good to have while they were gone. Legion could easily pass messages to them if necessary. Serenity could get back to earth from almost any portal node by paying the cost of a direct portal, so communication was the most important way he could protect his planet and his family.

Rissa also invited Ita, Blaze, Raz and her parents. Serenity wasn’t certain if she’d invited his parents or not; if she had, they must have declined, just like her parents did. Serenity would probably have invited at least Ita and Blaze if Rissa hadn’t, and he was happy when they accepted. 

Raz was conflicted about going. He didn’t want to leave Aki or his mother’s ghost, now that she’d settled into Aki’s dungeon. Serenity still hadn’t really met her, but he’d heard about her from Raz. From what he heard, Serenity was glad he didn’t have to deal with her. Raz complained sometimes. Serenity couldn’t blame him; Raz’s mother sounded like she still hadn’t completely adjusted to either being dead or not being the Clan Chief. 

Serenity didn’t actually know if Raz was going on the trip with them until it was nearly time to take the first portal out. Raz was already there waiting when Serenity arrived. It was interesting to see a small dragon carrying a pack in his teeth, but leaving from Aki’s portal node made the most sense and Raz still didn’t have the level of control over his one shapeshifting ability that Serenity did.

Their first stop was one of the three worlds Serenity had picked out as marketplaces to connect Earth to. He was considering opening more, but wasn’t sure yet; in any case, it didn’t matter for now. It wasn’t the route to Berinath Rissa had taken in the past, but traveling through the marketplace of Tsallin should be interesting. The next portal from there was several days’ travel away, but Serenity expected to spend the night in Tsallin. Rissa had already planned it.

Lillene

Thomas knew how to take a vacation. Serenity isn’t so sure about it.