Showing the Imperials around Earth was easier said than done. Serenity wasn’t sure how to show them what he needed to in order to get them to abandon their likely conquest plans, and Blaze didn’t seem to be certain either. Serenity needed to somehow balance showing them the value of the planet while also showing them its teeth. Earth would not just roll over and play nice like a tame dog if someone tried to conquer the planet.
The first stop was the same as what he’d shown Katya first: a local mall. It wasn’t really the best place to show off everything the planet had to offer, but Serenity wasn’t certain what that place was. Whatever it was, it was probably online, and he wasn’t ready to explain that yet.
Not after how hard it was to explain television.
Serenity wasn’t really interested in anything that was in the mall, which made it hard to show them around. The Imperials didn’t seem to really care until they arrived at the food court. Even then, what surprised them wasn’t the food itself; instead, it was how expensive the food was. It took Serenity a while to figure that one out, but the problem was the exchange rate. Etherium wasn’t worth as much on Earth as it was on other planets, at least relative to the cost of food.
When he thought about it, that made sense. On Earth, Etherium was really only used for things like portals; when it was traded between people for services, it wasn’t used up. That meant that the price of Etherium was essentially tied to the price of airline tickets, since they were the major competitor to portals.
Oddly enough, the airlines were still doing well. Serenity suspected that was because Etherium seemed to have stabilized at a price where portals were more expensive than airline tickets. They saved time but unless you were a delver and earned them yourself, it was cheaper to fly for an individual. The math was different for groups, but unless the group was very large, airplanes were still cheaper.
Portals were faster, which did matter; Serenity had heard that there were a number of portal nexuses where the nearby parking was suddenly significantly more expensive, because you could travel somewhere for a meeting and come back the same day. No one had good numbers for the amount of travel that was happening, but everyone believed that there was more of it.
Other planets were different from Earth. There was no good alternative to portal travel for truly long distances, so what travel there was tended to move through portals when that was allowed. Far more often than on Earth, travel through portals simply wasn’t an option. That was particularly obvious on Tzintkra, where the two major cities had been effectively in a cold war for centuries, but it was true on many planets. You couldn’t simply hop from one city to another, even if you had the money; you had to travel.
Serenity suspected that there was less because it was impossible than because of local political realities, but it was true even on most planets in the Empire. A city would link to a handful of other places, most of which were nearby, plus one or two offworld locations, and you’d have to physically travel between them to get anywhere. It was a mess.
Instead of portals, Etherium was consumed for other things. Serenity was fairly confident that Etherium, rather than monster cores, were consumed during crafting; he wasn’t certain why, but his first guess was leftover Affinities. Etherium was clean, monster cores weren’t.
They could also be used to replenish mana during a delve, but they were far more expensive than mana potions so almost no one used them that way. Serenity wasn’t sure most Earthlings even knew about it; he didn’t think he’d included it in the Earthling’s Guide, and he didn’t remember it being mentioned during the Tutorial. It was solely an emergency measure, especially since it was painful and potentially immediately harmful if you couldn’t adequately control the mana outflow; definitely not something he’d have wanted to try to teach to people who didn’t really understand what mana control was.
In short, Etherium was cheap on Earth, which meant food bought using money exchanged from Etherium was expensive.
The thought that America was expensive compared to the Empire the same way it was expensive compared to a lot of the rest of the world amused Serenity a bit. The Empire wasn’t a third world country, but it certainly wasn’t the same as a developed nation on Earth either. It was simply different and hard to classify.
Serenity was explaining what a movie theater was when he felt Death approach. He always knew when she was near. It didn’t take much of a turn to see that she was coming out of the movie theater. As he spotted her, she seemed to find him as well. Death waved and Serenity waved back.
“Someone you know?” Lord Cymryn asked. His eyes followed Death as she turned and headed out to her car. Serenity didn’t know where she’d gotten it and he didn’t intend to ask.
Serenity nodded, glad that he had an answer other than the literal one. “Amaia Black. She’s a local delver and a close friend of mine.”
He hadn’t meant to say the last part, but it slipped out. He meant it, however; not only was Death as a concept comfortable, Death herself turned out to be a wonderful woman and a good friend. He wasn’t certain why she was so intent on being a delver; he’d asked, but she wasn’t able to explain it better than saying that she wanted to experience what it was like. He only asked out of curiosity; he wasn’t about to tell her what to do. It made as much sense as anything else the literal spirit of Death might do.
Serenity turned back and noticed that World Shaman Senkovar Et’Tart seemed a little pale. He’d kept quiet during the entire trip and now Serenity had to wonder if that wasn’t just out of politeness. Perhaps he wasn’t feeling well? “Do you want to head home … I mean, to the rooms we set aside for you? We can come back later or I can show you something else. There’s a lot more to see.”
“We can see the rest of this building, the shops,” Lord Cymryn declared. “Then, yes, an evening meal and some sleep would be good.”
The World Shaman didn’t say anything, so Serenity didn’t probe farther.
The next day, Serenity was sparring with Carl in the open field outside the Adventurer’s Guild building when the Imperials decided it was time to appear. It was good for Serenity as it let him keep his skills fresh, but it was mostly for Carl’s benefit. He was part of Legion, but he’d chosen to separate himself as much as any part of Legion ever did and live as more or less the man he’d been before he was abducted. Things had changed, however, and while he had a greenstone rifle, he wanted to learn more about knife fighting. He wasn’t interested in swords; knives were Carl’s preference.
Aki had warned Serenity they were on their way, but he’d decided to keep the session going; it wouldn’t hurt to let them see him train Carl. If he was lucky, he might even have the chance to spar with one of the Imperials. He couldn’t remember if there was anything important about their fighting styles or not; if Vengeance ever knew, he’d forgotten.
The Imperials watched for a while before Lord Cymryn decided it was time to speak up. “You are not evenly matched.”
Serenity nodded. “It’s hard to find people that match me. I never realized it before the Tutorial, but I actually really like teaching.” He was pretty sure he should have figured that out a lot sooner than he did, but it wasn’t until the Tutorial was over and he wasn’t regularly spending most of his time teaching that he realized how much he missed it. “You learn a lot when you teach, even when it’s simple things.”
“What Tier are you?” Lord Cymryn’s question was blunt and possibly a little rude, but not by Earth standards. Tiers were still new enough on Earth that people were more open with their Tier than many places Serenity had been to. Oddly enough, that made it more like the Empire; Blaze had warned Serenity that rank in the Empire was partly determined by Tier, so the question wasn’t that unusual. To be a Lord, Cymryn had to be at least Tier Four and Tier Five was more likely. It was unlikely that he was over Tier Ten, but not impossible; Blaze had started to explain before he realized that Serenity simply didn’t care.
As with everything else, there was no reason to lie. Aki had already revealed the only secret Serenity had intended to keep. He still hadn’t talked to the World Shaman about it, but he was certain that was coming. “Tier Eight.”
“And I’m Tier Three,” Carl supplied. “It doesn’t really matter, not for training. Serenity’s stronger and faster than I am, but he’d win in a real fight because he’s more skilled. I’ll get there eventually. There’s no hurry on that.” He paused for just long enough for Serenity to realize that he was checking something, probably using one of Legion’s other bodies. “With that said, I do need to hurry if I’m going to be ready for my next delve slot.”
Lord Cymryn waited until Carl was in the Adventurers’ Guild building before he asked about him. “I thought the green ones were Legion, but you called him Carl?”
Serenity wondered where he’d heard about Legion. Perhaps he’d figured out the television well enough to find the documentary Legion recorded; it was fairly widely put together.
No, on second thought, it was much more likely he’d found one of the several documentaries about the coming (some said return) of magic. Some of them were much better than others, but as far as Serenity knew none of them went deeply into detail about Legion. That would explain why he didn’t already know the answer even though he knew about Legion.
“He is Legion,” Serenity admitted. “He’s also Carl, and that’s the name he prefers to use. Legion is one person, yet at the same time each body is somewhat independent. I don’t fully understand it, but it works for Carl.”
Lord Cymryn looked uncomfortable. “That’s awful, to share your memories with other people…”
Serenity shook his head. “That’s the point, Legion is one person. I don’t think anyone who isn’t in Legion’s place can really understand.”
Lord Cymryn still didn’t look comfortable.
Serenity decided to change the topic. “Would you like to spar, or would you rather see more of Earth?”
Lord Cymryn opened his mouth as if to say something, then stopped and turned to the World Shaman. “Shaman Et’Tart?”
The World Shaman had a slight smile on his face. “I’d like to see that someday, but for today I think it would be better if we saw something more of your world. Something a bit more abstract than the day to day life; you said that your world has an incredible number of people on it; how do you handle that?”
Was Serenity imagining it, or was the World Shaman emphasizing the word “your”? Why would he do that?
I have no idea if this is ever going to come up in the plot, so I’ll say it here: Death got her car from Tek. It has some Very Interesting features that aren’t obvious from the outside. Human has one too.
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