Lillene

Enjoy!

The house where Legion hadn’t found a ley line connection even though Serenity expected one was in a nexus.

Normally, Serenity would have assumed that meant Legion simply missed it, but he’d just been thinking that Apollyon might want to reestablish ley line nexuses at broken nodes. It looked like this one had already been fixed. At least, if his assumptions were correct. 

It was an assumption he could check. If he found both a broken crystal like the one he’d found at Rissa’s house and an intact crystal, Serenity could be certain his guess was correct. Not finding a broken quartz crystal would tell him a lot less; he couldn’t be certain Apollyon (or someone else) hadn’t removed it; Serenity knew he might well simply miss it, as well. Not finding an intact crystal anchoring the nexus would mean that he needed to completely reexamine his assumptions.

The house was unoccupied.. Under the current circumstances, Serenity couldn’t really call that fortunate; that would be disrespectful of the two children who now had to get by without their grandfather as their primary caregiver. It was, however, convenient right now.

It took time to search the yard. Janice disappeared for a bit to fetch lunch for the two of them; when she got back, Serenity wolfed down the food without really noticing what it was. He didn’t technically have to eat, at least he didn’t think he had to, but Blaze seemed to disapprove when he tried to get by on just mana. More importantly, Janice needed to eat and Serenity thought it felt appropriate to have her get him something as well.

Serenity actually found the broken crystal first; the odd reflections and wavering in the mana was even more obvious in a nexus than it had been at Rissa’s. It was around the side of the house, instead of the back, but this time it was very close to the house. The different placement made sense if the ley line setup was created before the house lots were determined; they weren’t related at all. Serenity was grateful it wasn’t under the house; that would have made it difficult to retrieve.

With the clue to the desired location of the broken crystal, finding the intact crystal was easy. It was less than a foot away, under some leaves that had collected against the side of the house. Once Serenity moved them out of the way and saw that there was loosened dirt there like a filled-in hole, he realized he should have started there; other than the flower beds, there were no obvious locations with disturbed ground. This was one of the few places where that could be hidden without being obvious.

Serenity dug up both crystals. Even with the broken one in front of him, Serenity couldn’t tell how it was broken; there didn’t seem to be any wires that ran past it, it wasn’t under the house’s foundation, and it wasn’t even below the walkway that went along part of the side of the house. It seemed to have simply broken on its own. Maybe a dog tried to dig in the area or maybe a human had a garden plot nearby; either way, it wasn’t recent and Serenity couldn’t find any obvious signs of whatever the reason was.

Serenity turned to the intact crystal next. With the soil already loose, it was easy to dig out of the ground. As he’d expected, it was another quartz crystal. This one wasn’t nearly as clear as the two broken crystals; it seemed to be a pale pink hue instead. When he moved it, Serenity could feel the nexus wobble around himself. 

Did he want to destroy the nexus? He could almost certainly do that by breaking the crystal. Moving it too far might break the crystal, too, or it might just move the nexus; Serenity wasn’t certain what the limits were. They probably varied depending on the nexus and the crystal used.

Either one would let Apollyon know someone was looking into the ritual. That wasn’t a good idea unless he wanted to scare Apollyon off, in which case he could simply destroy all of the crystals he could find and see what happened to the local area’s ley lines. It wouldn’t restore things to a pristine condition, especially not with dungeons already on quite a few of the nexuses and City Nodes on many of the others, but it would probably remove the risk of Apollyon triggering the ritual.

It would also give Apollyon the chance to escape. If Serenity thought that would end Apollyon’s plans he might be tempted, but he’d just found out about the alilus. That seemed like some sort of plan of Apollyon’s to plant demons in the ordinary population, probably demons he could control. Serenity was certain that he’d be a problem if he wasn’t taken care of.

On the other hand, Serenity also knew exactly what deciding to take care of your problems before they were problems could get you. The Final Reaper would have been perfectly happy to do his thing if other people had left him alone. In fact, without the push of his opponents, he might well have stopped gaining Tiers, or at least gained them more slowly. He certainly wouldn’t have developed the ritual that eventually killed everyone else. That was entirely too similar to the current situation for Serenity’s comfort, only with the participants reversed.

For all Serenity knew, the area could have been essentially uninhabited when Apollyon first set up his ritual. It was far enough back that the archaeological records were at best poor, so Serenity couldn’t be certain. It was absolutely possible that there had been people here, but it was also possible there hadn’t. 

Sinking A’Atla was the result of a war. Serenity knew better than to apply peacetime logic to a war; however much he might dislike it, Apollyon’s former seat of power probably was a valid target. 

Really, the only thing he had to hold against Apollyon was the curse on Rissa’s family line. That would have to be an element in any agreement they came to; Serenity wasn’t certain what Apollyon could do about it, but he meant to find out. Rissa was free of it, but Phoebe was still partly under its influence and Serenity wasn’t certain about the many others who’d been affected in one way or another. Apollyon had a lot to answer for.

If he gave Apollyon the benefit of the doubt, he might even be able to get someone who would work with him instead of against him. It seemed unlikely; the likely outcome was still a fight, which Serenity would need to be prepared for and do what it took to win. The chance was worth it, though, both from the prospect of removing a potential threat and from the chance of gaining some assistance.

Serenity didn’t really want to rule the world; he did, however, want to control some things. Having that sort of control meant that he had to be prepared to defend it and in many ways meant that he would rule the world as far as outsiders were concerned; after all, who could conceive of a Lord ceding that level of authority? 

Serenity didn’t think that Apollyon working for him was a realistic idea. Serenity didn’t know what happened on A’Atla, not really, but it was clear that it was a fight over authority Serenity wasn’t going to allow Apollyon to have. Of course, he’d only heard about it from Apollyon’s opponents; Serenity was certain that if he’d heard about the Final Reaper only from his opponents, they wouldn’t have mentioned how they hounded him until he struck back each time; instead, they’d have justified it somehow, possibly even cast him as the aggressor. It didn’t take much.

If Serenity could reach an understanding with Apollyon, wouldn’t that be better? It would have to be an acceptable resolution, but Serenity didn’t think his requirements were unreasonable. He wouldn’t allow Apollyon to either destroy or take over large parts of the world; killing and controlling people would also have to be restricted or disallowed. Beyond that, Serenity was willing to negotiate his position; he’d even let Apollyon leave Earth if that was the best solution.

Yes, that definitely sounded like the right path. It wasn’t a comfortable one and there would probably be some bumps along the way, but it seemed far less hypocritical than simply killing him because of the threat he could cause. 

Serenity set the crystal on the ground in front of him and tried to capture everything about it that he could. The mana signature was interesting, mostly because it was almost nonexistent; Serenity couldn’t feel the mana of whoever set the crystal in place, even though it had to have been recently. What he could feel was an interference pattern formed by the two ley lines.

He’d have to check the older nexuses to see if they were similar, but at this point he didn’t think he even needed to dig up the crystal; he wasn’t sensing anything about it that he wasn’t also sensing from the nexus other than the interference pattern, and he’d be able to feel that through the dirt as long as he was close enough. That would make things a lot easier; digging things up was essentially impossible in his Sovereign form, but it was also his best way to be sneaky.

When he finished he pushed the pink crystal back into the ground then filled in the hole before heading back to Janice at the SUV. It was time to head home, since he’d be looking at the other houses after dark. 

He spent the entire trip back to Aki’s dungeon worrying at the issue of how to actually meet Apollyon for a conversation instead of a fight. Perhaps he should take Blaze? Or maybe not taking Blaze was better; Serenity didn’t know if Apollyon had some way to influence Blaze since he was diehar. If Apollyon attacked or tried to take control of Blaze, Serenity knew he’d try to kill Apollyon. That simply wasn’t something he’d permit. 

Serenity wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to test Apollyon on that without warning or not. Maybe he should ask Blaze; he certainly wasn’t going to take his friend to meet Apollyon without full disclosure.

The only things Serenity knew Apollyon wanted were the weapons in the Vault and this ritual, but the alilu implied there was something else. The weapons were an invitation to a fight; he could strike that option off the list if he wanted a talk. Interrupting the ritual was a power play and might well lead to a fight, but it was certainly an option. 

Maybe he should wait a few days and try to figure out the alilus to see if there was something there that could lead to a more peaceful discussion? They could stall Apollyon by pretending to think about renting Rissa’s house; that would give Russ some time to look. That would also give Serenity time to set up his countermeasures to the ritual; he should definitely do that no matter what else happened. 

A thought occurred to Serenity; he was already out and about, why shouldn’t he take care of one more thing before he got home? “Janice, please take me by a pet store, preferably one that has exotic pets. I want to talk to someone about an alilu.”

Lillene

How many alilus do you think Serenity will be bringing home? He’s not sure he’s going to get any, but he does want to talk to someone who knows more…