Lillene

Enjoy!

Despite the voices speaking, the ship wasn’t visible. Instead, Serenity could see the stars. 

He could also see as a large shape moved between him and those stars. He couldn’t tell what it was; all he could see was that it blocked out some stars.

With very little warning, the viewpoint shifted and the stars began to race by. When everything stabilized again, a star lit everything from the right, while a blue-white marble floated in space directly ahead: a planet, clearly mostly covered with water. If anything, it looked like it had more water and less land than Earth did. 

Serenity had no idea what planet it was. It definitely wasn’t Tzintkra; that planet was the opposite of this one. It wasn’t Lyka, either; he’d seen Lyka from Aeon. Technically, it could have been Zon; he hadn’t seen enough of the planet to know. He didn’t think it was Zon, though. He didn’t think it was a planet he’d ever been to as Serenity. 

“Themrys is a young world by the standards of the Empire; it went through the Tutorial only a couple hundred years ago and joined the Empire shortly thereafter. There was very little opposition; what structure they had was gone by the time the Empire arrived. Compared to Earth, Themrys faced very few invasions; most were fought off in good order, but the inhabitants ignored the dungeons. When the Empire arrived, they came as saviors.” Lord Cymryn slowly appeared as he spoke, reading from a short stack of papers. He looked up with a grin. “That means I can get us access to wherever we need to go.”

Tha papers in Lord Cymryn’s hand shifted and turned, becoming a map. No, not a map; they were a star chart. Lord Cymryn kept talking as though he hadn’t completely changed topics when the vision shifted. “Themrys is here; Eitchen is over here. As you can see, they’re not very far apart physically, though there are a dozen worlds between them through the fastest portal connection. Berinath is all the way over here, almost directly between Eitchen and Earth…”

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Between one blink and the next, Serenity was standing back in the sun-dappled space that served as the Dreaming Tree’s gateway to the Timestream. Rissa swayed on her feet and Serenity reached out to steady her. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Rissa answered. “I will be soon, at least. I shouldn’t have pushed the skim so hard. I didn’t realize directions would be that hard; it’s usually one of the easier questions to answer. I don’t know what the mother is, but she doesn’t think about directions the way we do; the only one of those that was from her perspective was the first one. The answer is also uncertain in time; she’s moving around a lot.”

Serenity frowned but it wasn’t like he could really scold her for doing the same thing he’d have done. Anything connected to the Origin was dangerous; they needed to move more. “Is she from the Origin?”

Rissa shook her head. “I don’t know where she’s from. That’s how she sees long distance travel. I didn’t get the impression that she spends long there.”

“I need to ask you to leave.” Elder Jinsa’s voice was flat. “You can come back tomorrow, maybe, or the day after. The Dreaming Tree must rest. We will heal together.”

Serenity turned towards the Elder. She hadn’t come out unscathed; there were dark green mottled bruises showing on much of her face and dried green blood seemed to have run from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. He hoped that was only a representation of her experience, because if it was present in the real world it would mean a serious medical condition.

Rissa nodded. “We can come back another time. Make sure you see a healer; if you don’t have one, I know Blaze can-”

Elder Jinsa held up a hand to stop Rissa. “I know what to do, this isn’t my first time here. Please leave.”

Rissa nodded. 

The next thing Serenity knew, he was opening his eyes in the cozy room Elder Jinsa had greeted them in; he felt a little stiff from not moving for hours but other than that he was fine. Elder Jinsa was asleep. Fortunately, there was no sign of either the bruising or the blood and her breathing seemed even.

Rissa stretched next to him. She had her eyes on Elder Jinsa as she moved. When Serenity turned to her, she nodded. “As far as I can tell, she just needs rest. I’m going to get Blaze to come visit, though; I don’t like the way that damage looked in the Timestream.

Serenity nodded. “Let’s go talk to Senkovar. I don’t understand why Lord Cymryn would be involved in something threatening Berinath.”

Kaasi-of-Haunted-Glen carefully slid the enchanted spell-sheet in front of the camera. They weren’t a tool she used often yet they were very important, even vital, on Earth. The same spell sheet that would confuse a ward would confuse a camera system as well. Even if it was regularly monitored, it would just look glitchy. 

It was one of only three she’d been able to get; the only people on Earth who knew how to make them were two of the Kyrikas who’d relocated to Earth from whatever small city they’d been stuck in. As the only offworld-trained enchanters and craftsmen on Earth, the Kyrikas were busy. If Emas Kyrika hadn’t been willing to make them for twice the normal Etherium, she wouldn’t even have the three she had. She’d already used up the few she’d brought with her. 

She’d remove it when she left. It wasn’t reusable, but that wasn’t important. The less evidence she left behind, the better. She didn’t think Landon Carter had any allies who cared enough to avenge him, but even assholes usually had family and sometimes that family would care enough to deal with a murderer if the deed was obvious. Kaasi didn’t want to be driven off Earth; that would ruin her plans to sell information to the Empire and would likely mean that she lost Amaia. She didn’t think Amaia wanted to leave Earth.

There was another camera in the pinhole into the house, but she couldn’t disable that one; Landon would use it before he let her in. She’d fry it on the way out instead; she’d already cut his internet line, so she didn’t have to worry about pictures of her being saved anywhere. That one was a pain, since she’d had to trace it back to where it went through the ground and carefully sever it underground so that the break wouldn’t be obviously artificial.

She wasn’t really very good at using Earth technology, but the basic idea wasn’t too hard. She’d penetrated a lot of wards over the years; most people on Earth were far less paranoid than some of the ward systems she’d seen. If she couldn’t make her way through then, she’d have died a long time ago.

She knocked on the door. When Landon didn’t answer, she knocked again. He was the one who’d called her and told her to meet him at his home and his car was in the driveway; he was definitely here. He was probably just not listening for the door. 

After a third knock, Kaasi finally heard a shout from inside the house. Soon after that, the door opened and revealed a scowling Landon Carter. 

“Finally!” Landon waved her inside, then slammed the door. “What’s taking you so long?”

“Taking me so long?” Kaasi deliberately affected a puzzled tone of voice. “I came right after you called; it takes time to get here from the Adventurers’ Guild Hall.”

Landon growled. “No, not that! Why haven’t you found Colorful yet? You’ve been playing with Miss Black for months. I know she’s met with Colorful in that time; hells, you reported it! Why do you always send the report after the meeting?”

Kaasi rolled her eyes. It always amazed her just how much of an entitled idiot Landon was. “I don’t report it ahead of time because I don’t know about it then! She never mentions a get-together until after it’s happened. I think she just drops her plans whenever Colorful comes into town and they have a meal or watch a movie.”

What Kaasi didn’t mention also hadn’t been in her reports: she’d met Colorful and now knew that her name was Xanthe Crystal. At least, that was the name she’d given Kaasi when they met. Kaasi also knew that Xanthe Crystal didn’t exist, at least not in any way Kaasi could confirm. If it was a fake name, it was a blatant one. It was more likely that it was her delving name; Kaasi knew a lot of delvers had taken obviously false names as their delving names. 

The other thing Kaasi knew was that, like Amaia, Xanthe could control her aura to the point where Kaasi couldn’t tell what Tier she was. That, along with the clues Amaia had dropped inadvertently, made Kaasi think that both of them were offworlders like Kaasi. Unlike Kaasi, they didn’t seem to be on Earth to gather information; instead, she suspected they were hiding. 

That was enough of a reason not to share the fact that she was also from another world. Kaasi knew she’d take any excuse not to talk about her past, but this was actually a good one.

Landon grunted. “Well, you’re spending far too much time on it for no results. I need you to figure out a way to split your time; I can’t be doing your job as well as mine.”

Kaasi was pretty sure that that was because she’d been doing about three quarters of his job before she was sent to meet Amaia. The fact that she’d decided that she really liked Amaia and really didn’t like Landon was only the beginning.

The fact that she could delve with Amaia, live at the Adventurers’ Guild Hall, and still have Etherium left over without having to watch every scrap or sell information was great. The fact that it counted as infiltration for her Path was even better. She was about to give that bonus up. “Is that why you’ve started sending assassins after Amaia?”

Landon frowned. “How did she stop them, anyway? She’s just a minor Earth mage.”

And Landon was just an idiot. Kaasi didn’t see any reason to tell him that Amaia hadn’t stopped them; Kaasi had. She thought she’d done it without Amaia ever knowing they were there, too; she wasn’t sure how Amaia would feel about their deaths, so she hadn’t mentioned them. She wasn’t going to mention this, either.

Kaasi used a Skill she’d gained a weak form of at Tier Three, improved at Tier Four, and improved again at Tier Five. Against a Tier Five opponent, it really only worked if you caught them by surprise; it worked great against sleeping enemies. If they were awake, it was easy to break; even a minor shield, consciously controlled, would work. Most spellcasters also had some way to break Skills by then and it was easily broken. 

A Tier Two like Landon Carter didn’t have a chance. All of the air near his face suddenly stilled, held in place by Kaasi’s Skill. Her mana drained like water, but not quickly enough to save him; it would last several minutes. 

When he was unable to take a breath, Landon tried to gasp, but no air moved past his lips. He couldn’t make any sound, either; that required air movement. 

The Skill didn’t prevent other movement, which meant it didn’t stop Landon’s hands from going first to his throat then to his mouth. His eyes bulged and his skin reddened in some places and grayed in others. Kaasi didn’t react; she’d seen it before. She didn’t like the Skill; it was slow and awful to watch as well as being essentially useless for anything but assassination. That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to use it.

Landon seemed to try to accuse her of causing it; he was right, of course, but that didn’t mean Kaasi was going to let him reach her. When he lunged for her, she nimbly dodged out of the way. 

It didn’t take all that long for Landon to pass out, especially not when he tried to get at her several more times. Kaasi carefully waited for him to actually die after he became unconscious; that could take a while. 

Before Kaasi left the house, she carefully searched it. The only thing of interest was Landon’s computer. She left it behind after copying the files she was interested in; there was no point in arousing suspicion by stealing something people would expect him to have. If she did it right, no one would ever suspect this was anything other than an accidental death.

The Human Defense Force that Landon had founded might still be a useful tool. Kaasi didn’t plan to give it up that easily. She would have to hire someone to run it, but she now had the access codes she needed to access the funds. For once, it was a good thing that Landon had been so paranoid he didn’t have anything tied to his real identity; his death shouldn’t cause any ripples on the money side and Kaasi could handle the people side.

Lillene

Yes, Kaasi is worried about what Amaia would think if she knew her good friend was occasionally an assassin. This is what you get for keeping secrets … and they both are still keeping secrets.