Lillene

Enjoy!

The next morning, Serenity was awakened entirely too early when his wards were broken. Fortunately for everyone involved, the person who broke them was immediately identifiable as staff from the exceedingly fancy hotel they’d ended up at the previous night. It was also fortunate that she’d entered only the suite’s foyer by the time Serenity made it to where he saw her.

Serenity watched the hotel maid lay out a breakfast spread far too elaborate for two people in the entry room to their suite. He hadn’t really thought about what the tables that lined one side of the entrance were for; he’d assumed they were simply there to make the place seem fancier. That was probably partly true, but they were clearly also there to hold the hotel-provided breakfast spread. 

Serenity suspected it was all arranged by Elder Omprek. They hadn’t stayed at any hotels or inns that were so over the top as they traveled; in fact, they’d mostly stayed at temporary places that were better compared to a motel or even a hostel on Earth. Unlike those places, this suite was definitely not affordable for an ordinary delver of roughly the planet’s Tier. This place was clearly set up for visitors with both status and wealth, even if the wealth part was being covered by the dryads for the two of them.

Serenity wasn’t willing to head back to bed with someone inside the suite, but after a few minutes of watching he was relatively confident that she had no intention of trying to kill either him or Senkovar. That made it safe for him to go get ready for the day.

Breakfast was edible, but Serenity didn’t think it was any better than the food they’d eaten elsewhere. Yes, it was made of Tier Two and Three ingredients, but that only made it the equal of other Tier Two and Three food they’d had as they traveled to Berinath.

Senkovar clearly didn’t agree. He spent a lot longer over breakfast than Serenity had ever seen him spend on a meal and seemed to enjoy every moment of it. By the time he finished, he was clearly picking at his food like he wanted to eat more but wasn’t sure he had room for it.

There were guards outside the suite in the hallway. They were dressed differently from the ones that escorted them down the root originally; these guards wore plain unadorned armor instead of a uniform and carried swords that had clearly seen quite a bit of use rather than spears. They were all dryads, but other than that Serenity’s first guess would have been mercenaries instead of guardsmen. 

Their presence probably said something about the local political situation, but Serenity couldn’t tell what. He only half hoped he’d figure it out; the best situation would be if it didn’t matter to anyone off Berinath; then he wouldn’t have to care. He’d have to ask Senkovar once they were alone.

When they headed out, it seemed that Serenity’s expectations were not to be. He’d expected to head back down to the chamber where he’d created the ley line anchor and proto-dungeon so that he could connect it to other ley lines to form a proper nexus, then do whatever else was needed to prepare the area to become a dome. He was interested in both stages.

Instead, they were led to an ornately furnished meeting room one floor lower than the suite. It held several small couches and overstuffed chairs grouped around a short table that reminded Serenity more of an end table than anything else; it was too short to work at while seated on any of the furniture. 

The seats were all upholstered in a deep green that was darker than the similar light green of the walls; all of the doors, the floor, and the single window’s frame were dark wood, while the ceiling was painted in an abstract blue, green, and white pattern. It was clearly intended to symbolize the Forest; even Serenity could see that, since he knew how important the Forest was to these dryads.

Less than a minute after they reached the room, Foremost Elder Omprek arrived. He didn’t have any visible guards, but Serenity knew he and Senkovar didn’t either; they were outside the room. Serenity wasn’t certain who they’d guard if things came down to a fight, anyway.

Not that he expected a fight.

“Holy Serenity.” Elder Omprek bowed deeply. “I must apologize for the actions of Elder Inchabe. She is not rational about Death magic; I had not realized how irrational she has grown.”

Serenity tried to control his expression. They were going to blame everything on Elder Inchabe, weren’t they? He very well knew that while she was the one who actually attacked, she wasn’t the only one who treated him badly. He’d effectively been put on trial for the “crime” of existing and maybe being undead. He wasn’t very happy about that.

“How can we make this right?” Elder Omprek’s worry was clear. 

Serenity wasn’t entirely certain why he was so concerned, but it probably had something to do with Serenity’s new status as Holy. He didn’t intend to use that against the dryads; truthfully, he mostly just wanted to leave and not have to deal with them any more.

No, that wasn’t quite true. He did want to leave and avoid the issue, but he also wanted to rub their noses in their mistake. The more uncomfortable he could make it without being blatantly unreasonable, the better. If nothing else, he wanted to be certain no one else would go through the same thing he did.

That was the perfect solution, wasn’t it?

“Offer your ritual as a paid service. Make it known it’s something you can do. Something that costs, yes, but something you’ll do for people who come willingly and pay for it.” That would be valued; it would also make the point that if they’d been trying to “save” the undead, they’d been doing a very poor job of it. While many didn’t want to return to being living if they’d ever been alive, others would pay almost anything for it. 

It was an option Vengeance hadn’t had, and there had definitely been times in his life where he’d have been happy to be able to just pay for it instead of figuring it out himself. It would almost certainly have been less painful than the mistakes he’d made on the way by, if nothing else, and that wasn’t the only benefit. It would have saved him centuries of effort.

“A paid service?” Elder Omprek sounded confused. “Returning the undead to life? Why would that help pay for Elder Inchabe’s attack?”

Serenity shook his head. “It’s not to pay for her attack but Elder Lizven’s.”

“Elder Lizven’s?” Elder Omprek seemed completely lost. “She was on your side.”

“This time,” Serenity agreed. “Though I suspect she believed I was undead up to the point where I proved otherwise and she certainly didn’t want to take my word for it the first time I visited Berinath. You can charge people what it costs to return them to life, even make a little Etherium at it, but you may only perform the ritual for those who seek it out, which means you have to let people know it’s a service you provide.”

The thought that it would draw quite a few undead to Berinath yet they’d be undead that the dryads had to treat with respect was the part of the cost Serenity wasn’t about to mention. Elder Lizven claimed it was to help Serenity; well, they could help the people who actually needed it. 

“You can bar people from Berinath, but if I ever hear about you trying to force that sort of massive change on people who don’t want it…” Serenity deliberately left the threat open. He didn’t know what he’d do; it probably depended on exactly what had happened. “That’s much more important to me than a coup attempt, even one I ended up in the middle of. It was a coup attempt, wasn’t it?”

“I can’t be certain, but it seems likely,” Elder Omprek admitted. “If it was, I’m very lucky she decided to attack you instead of me. My Paths are not well suited to fighting the Spears she suborned.”

Serenity nodded. That wasn’t that unusual in rulers; the Skills that made a good fighter and the Skills that made a good ruler had some overlap, but it wasn’t all that large. Some rulers managed with pure combat Paths, but Serenity suspected that most used at least half their Paths on other things. He wasn’t certain what the right Paths were, but ones that helped them gather information or deal with people seemed reasonable.Of course, they could also have people for that, just like they could have soldiers.

Serenity was on the other end of the spectrum, essentially a strongman. He’d chosen to stay out of politics because he didn’t know what to do with it, but he’d defend his people if it was needed. The Emperor of the Human Empire was supposed to be more like Serenity than like Elder Omprek; his reputation was that he was powerful, old, and possibly slightly unhinged, even if no one in the Empire would admit it. He’d been chosen by the previous Emperor for his power; that was how the Human Empire worked.

They’d been one of the Final Reaper’s foes for a while, until he extinguished a few of their stars and killed three Emperors in a row. The third one hadn’t picked a successor and that developed into a war that led to the end of the Human Empire as a cohesive entity. He’d still had to fight humans again later.

“Is there nothing else you want from us to make things right?” Elder Omprek didn’t seem to think that forcing them to publicly offer a service they’d already provided in low numbers was enough. 

It probably wouldn’t have been enough for anyone else, but there weren’t many other things they had that Serenity wanted.

“Etherium,” World Shaman Senkovar Et’Tart suggested. “Etherium, an apology, consequences for Elder Inchabe, and an overhaul of your undead detection system.”

Serenity nodded. Those were all reasonable. The mention of the undead detection system brought one other thing to mind. “Do the runes of Echa still work?”

“I don’t know,” Elder Omprek stated. “We won’t know until they either do or don’t work on an undead.”

Serenity nodded. He wasn’t about to offer to raise an undead creature just to test the rune. “Then yes, everything World Shaman Senkovar Et’Tart said, plus one other thing. I’ll design you a runescript that doesn’t depend on the presence of a god. You’ll have to power it with mana or monster cores, but it will work regardless of the faith of the people using it. You’ll have to get other runemasters to make them for you, but I’ll give you the diagrams and a couple of examples; it should be fairly easy to duplicate once the design is done. Now, what exactly did Echa’s rune do? Clearly it can detect undead and freeze them for a bit; did it do anything else? I think you said something about draining Death mana?”

Serenity felt a small tinge of glee at the thought that they’d be replacing something they depended on with something he designed. In practical terms, he was helping them, but he was deliberately doing so in a way that would make the right people uncomfortable. It would likely bother the more rigid Elders that they used something made by a Death mage to protect themselves. That was the perfect punishment for their rigidity. 

Lillene

Yes, Serenity just outed himself as a runemaster without thinking about it. Of course, what he’s offering - designing a small group of related runescripts in a few days to replace Echa’s rune - is something that only a runemaster could do, but that’s a little less revealing than his mention of “other runemasters” to those who don’t know the difficulty.