Lillene

Enjoy!

Serenity knew something was up when Blaze shooed him out of the house to go work with Minu. He was happy to play along with his friend’s scheme, whatever it was; he could use the distraction. Jenna was napping and Rissa was talking to her lawyer again; getting out of the house sounded wonderful.

It turned into a long run that day. Minu seemed excited and wanted to play. They even had a short mock fight in a secluded portion of the dungeon.

Well, it was mock on Serenity’s side. Minu didn’t have to pull her punches; Serenity finally had his shielding ability and Shield of Death was more than enough to handle her attacks. It required a little more attention and mana than Serenity was used to in a shield Skill, but it was at least as effective as any of the Skills he’d had in the past. The extra mana was worth it, because it didn’t just stop the attack in place; it also robbed the attack of everything that supported it. 

Losing her momentum every time she hit him made Minu have to work a lot harder. She’d probably eventually figure out how to incorporate it into her attacks, but Serenity didn’t mind; it would keep him on his toes. The sheer surprise aspect of having a shield Skill that worked differently from other Skills was huge and would apply to nearly everyone he fought.

Of his friends, Rissa was the least bothered by it; it hadn’t seemed to affect her at all when they sparred. Serenity knew that was probably because she fought, even in a spar, with some notion of what was about to happen informing her actions. She wasn’t particularly good in a fight, but she could hold her own.

After Rissa, the next least affected was Blaze. The reason was simple: he usually fought like a pure mage build, even though he did have some physical training. He also had far more experience than Raz and adapted more quickly.

At the far end of the spectrum was Kerr, who didn’t like fighting him with the shield going at all. She claimed it gave her bad habits, which Serenity had to admit was a fair complaint. The first time Minu and Kerr sparred, Kerr was easily able to take advantage of the bad habits Minu had formed by learning to expect that her momentum would be killed each time she hit her opponent’s shield. The fact that Kerr didn’t even have a shield meant that it was a good thing that Minu was clumsy at first; she had time to learn when to pull her attacks to not harm Kerr.

Serenity was back on Minu’s back, enjoying the run, when Blaze called him. It was a good thing Aki had integrated cellular support into the dungeon. “Blaze? What do you need?”

“Our visitors from the Empire have arrived.” Blaze sounded amused, but Serenity didn’t pay that much attention. He was absolutely not ready for visitors. 

“Can you stall them for a bit? I’m not dressed for this.” He was a little sweaty after the workout and long ride, but more importantly he was pretty sure that his clothes were covered in leaf bits. Minu might not be able to attack through Serenity’s shield but she was definitely getting more creative about how to work around it. Serenity still wouldn’t have had to work hard to beat her, but she was doing a lot better than she had at first.

Blaze chuckled. “That’s exactly the impression you need to make. You weren’t waiting for them and you came to greet them without cleaning up first. It’s a balancing act but they’ll know exactly what signals you’re sending.”

At least that explained why Blaze was so amused when he told Serenity to go for a run that afternoon. “I’m glad they will, because I have no idea what signals it sends. Fine, I can be there in a couple minutes. We’re not that far away.”

“A couple minutes is good. See you soon.” Blaze still sounded amused when he hung up.

Serenity shook his head and turned Minu towards the portal location outside the Adventurer’s Guild building. 

Senkovar was the third through the portal, followed only by his honor guard, Triact Lestvi. The World Shaman already didn’t like the guard; the man was only a Triact, but he acted like he was the Emperor’s gift to Humanity. He seemed to think that Senkovar should treat him like a superior, which Senkovar wasn’t about to do. The idiot would eventually learn humility, even if Senkovar had to rub his nose in the fact that he was a quarter of Senkovar’s Tier. Simply being in the Empire’s Army didn’t mean he could ignore the Power Protocols, never mind common sense.

The space on the other side of the portal was clearly improved. The ground was covered with some sort of fused rock, the sort that was used on Suratiz in market areas. This didn’t have any stalls set out on it, but there were spaces painted on the rock that could potentially hold small merchants’ wares; larger merchants would probably take up several spaces. 

Oddly, some of the stall areas were occupied by enclosed carts of some sort. Perhaps rather than a merchant’s area, this was a space for non-flying carts? Wheels were efficient on worlds that didn’t have the extreme elevation changes common on Suratiz, especially if you built across instead of up. It meant there would be no places to fly from, but humans weren’t normally flying creatures. Maybe that would make sense for them. The Empire preferred flyers, but the Empire had some odd blind spots; perhaps this was one of them.

On the other side of the portal was a large building. It was made of stone, with wide expanses of flat glass outside. The stone implied wealth, but the glass absolutely screamed it. It took magic ro create panels that large, magic that wasn’t the province of an ordinary craftsman. There was clearly a glassmancer in the area, and that was an expensive thing to have. There were only two glassmancers in Senkovar’s Clan, after all, and the Et’Tarts were the premiere mages of Suratiz. 

Admittedly, there were also glassmancers in a couple of the crafting Clans. Even so, they tended to focus more on Skills where the Et’Tarts used spells. At the highest level, both methods were good enough to create glass like this, but it was the work of a Master Glassmancer.

Wealth like that was only to be expected of a World Sovereign.

A human with bright red hair dressed in a formal set of robes walked up to the group. They were healer’s robes if Senkovar remembered his symbology correctly; that was an odd choice for a greeter. He seemed to pick out Lord Cymryn as the leader without any trouble, though his eyes definitely spent longer on World Shaman Senkovar than either of the guards.

“Welcome to Earth! I assume you’re Lord Cymryn?” The Healer waited for Cymryn’s agreement before he continued. “I’m Blaze. If you follow me, there’s a nice bench area where we can wait for Serenity…” 

Senkovar followed Blaze a few dozen feet to a set of chairs and benches set up around tables. They were made of metal and sturdy, but it was clear that no effort had been made to fix them in place or protect them beyond some paint. That was interesting; it implied that either the seating was cheap enough that no one cared about it or there were always people here to watch it. Senkovar wasn’t certain which; this was the reception area for the World Sovereign, so it was entirely possible that both were true.

Senkovar wondered how long it would be before the Sovereign arrived. He hadn’t yet reached out to the World Spirit, and he’d prefer to do that when there was time. At the same time, knowing something about a World Spirit could be extremely helpful in dealing with a World Sovereign. 

A quick glance at Blaze told him that the healer was using a communication artifact of some sort; a weak one, given that he couldn’t see the mana leaking from it as it was used. That meant the Sovereign was likely nearby.

Senkovar shrugged to himself. He wanted to reach out to the World Spirit, so he would. He just wouldn’t spend long talking to it. The initial contact usually didn’t take very long; if it took long enough that the World Sovereign arrived, he was certain that the Triact would be rude enough to interrupt him.

Senkovar closed his eyes and reached out to the World around him. He was in a ley line nexus; it should be easy enough to find his bearings.

“And who are you?” A woman’s voice spoke to Senkovar’s mind moments after he pushed his awareness into the nexus. “You’re one of the new ones aren’t you, the ones who came from outside?”

The voice didn’t sound like any World Spirit Senkovar had ever heard. It was literally a voice, which was hugely different. He tried to push the concept of who he was to the World Spirit.

He was met with a laugh. “I’m not who you think I am. You haven’t even left my domain, much less entered Gaia’s. Now go open your eyes and watch; Blaze worked hard on this and I wouldn’t want you to miss the impact because you’re talking to me instead of watching. We can talk later.”

Senkovar found that whoever the Spirit was, she’d moved him back to his body. It was easy to open his eyes and recenter himself, but he still felt completely baffled. There was a Location Spirit here that could speak? Simply being able to distinguish between people was unusual for Spirits, which made the behavior of this one completely baffling. It must be a powerful Spirit; no wonder the Sovereign’s chosen reception area was here if there was a location Spirit that recognized and would help the Sovereign’s people.

He still couldn’t quite believe in a Location Spirit that could talk to people, but at the same time it had spoken to him. It spoke fluently and confidently in Bridge; that meant it used the language. He couldn’t discount the idea that there was a Location Spirit here that could watch and converse.

No wonder there were no efforts made to secure the chairs. Anyone who defaced the location would face the Location Spirit; there was no need for security beyond that, at least not for anyone who didn’t surpass the Location Spirit’s Tier fairly notably.

Senkovar was still trying to wrap his head around the revelation when he saw motion in the distance. He drew himself to his feet, which caught the attention of Lord Cymryn and the two guards. It took a moment for the motion to become clear, but when it did World Shaman Senkovar wanted to disbelieve his eyes.

In the distance, there was a man riding a talmis. Senkovar knew of talmis; they’d once been fairly common among his people, back in his childhood. Back before the proud Suras blood faded so much that talmis saw most of the Clan as snacks instead of companions.

The shine from the horns on the man’s head and the feathers that trailed back behind the talmis only made the impression more obvious: the man in front of him had the blood of Senkovar’s ancestors in his veins. It wasn’t even just the Suras blood; he clearly had the blood of the Asuras, the Winged Ones whose racial memory still drove the Suras desire to fly. 

Senkovar had to harden his heart. What could this foreigner, even if he was of the ancient blood, know of the plight of the Suras who fled?

Lillene

It's obvious who spoke to Senkovar, isn't it?