After the End: Serenity

There were all sorts of questions Serenity could have asked, and he knew it. How the requirements were set for the Trial, what the Trial was, or even why Senkovar cared about opening the Trial to his people. Unlocking bloodlines was good for an individual but generally wasn’t that impactful on a larger scale. Senkovar was too secretive for Serenity to believe that everyone would welcome Senkovar’s choices.

Serenity didn’t care that much about any of it. It was probably foolish but he simply didn’t care. To some extent, he cared about Senkovar; other than that, no one belonging to the Et’Tart clan was important to him. He was here because Senkovar maneuvered him into saying something that Senkovar then took as a promise to visit. Realistically, he’d likely have visited anyway if Senkovar asked him to after they dealt with the World Eaters, so Serenity wasn’t too bothered by the maneuvering. It didn’t make him want to rule Suratiz, but then he didn’t really want to rule any world.

“Is protection from the Empire all you’re looking for?” Serenity made sure to keep an eye on Rissa as well as Senkovar as he asked the question.

The worried look that flashed across Senkovar’s face before he even responded was all Serenity needed to know the answer to his question. It wasn’t, and Senkovar wasn’t sure how Serenity would take it if he was completely honest.

“No,” Senkovar admitted. “You are an Et’Tart, whether or not you choose to belong to the clan. We are primary on Suratiz, but we have always been denied Sovereignty despite the fact that no one could live here without our work. I also hope that having an Asura lord, especially one who can speak to the World, would make the task of preserving Suratiz’s habitability easier. And I want more World Shamans; Et’Tart or not, speaking to a World means that you understand it and are more likely to respect it.”

Senkovar stopped. Just as Serenity was about to decide that he was done, he whispered something that Serenity suspected was the real reason he wanted the Trial opened. “And I want to fly. I don’t really believe it’s possible, but it’s still worth the chance. You’re willing to let a planet you rule govern itself; that’s all I need.”

Serenity could understand that desire. He, too, wanted to fly under his own power, not through a machine. He could, now, but it still required spellcasting; someday, he’d probably get a support Skill that would make it possible without a spell. He’d tried using his shield Skill for it, but while it worked it was very draining and required enough concentration on the Skill that it sucked the joy out of flight. He’d keep practicing since it made gaining a Skill more likely.

“So that’s the deal you want,” Serenity nodded as he spoke. It made a lot more sense now. “You want me to become Sovereign and do what I did with Earth and Lyka and Tzintkra. You want me to let you do the actual planetary management, the actual rule, while I take a good fraction of the Etherium and provide protection and allow access to the Asura’s Trial for anyone who is willing to accept that rule. Did I get it right?”

It wasn’t that different of a deal from those Serenity had made with Stojan Tasi and Ekari. He’d implicitly made the same deal with the various governments of Earth, even if he hadn’t told them about it. He suspected that a lot of people on Earth would be far less happy about it than either Stojan Tasi or Ekari; on the other hand, he hadn’t removed the previous power and replaced them with his own manager, either. “Are you going to tell me that no one will be angry at having their power taken away?”

Senkovar shrugged. “If you reveal that you’re an Asura, they won’t have the right to complain. Some will, of course, but only the Asura stand above the Clans. With the support of the Et’Tart Clan, the complaining will be quiet. We are the strongest Clan.”

“Even after whatever housecleaning you need to do?” Serenity waved a hand at Senkovar’s quickly healed side. “Won’t that weaken your Clan?”

“Allowing it to fester would be far worse.” Senkovar took a deep breath, then let it out. “We need to get started. I’ll take you to the center of the nexus first; that is the traditional place to reach for the World.”

Serenity shook his head. He had a better idea, especially since he could tap into the World’s network from anywhere on its surface. “Where is the Asura’s Trial? Before I agree to something that will make people challenge it, I want to see it.”

He had suspicions about the Trial. It was possible that it was an enchanted item of some sort, a spell or perhaps even a ritual designed to awaken a bloodline, but it didn’t sound like that to Serenity. It sounded more like an event with a reward. That sounded a lot more like a dungeon than it did like a normal item.

It probably wasn’t a natural dungeon on Suratiz, especially not if they’d brought it with them from their previous home, but Serenity had seen enough dungeons to know that “probably” didn’t guarantee anything. It could be like Aki, after all; Raz moved her from Asihanya to Earth to save her and he was barely even qualified to work with dungeons at the time.

Serenity had also seen artificial dungeon cores. The most notable one he’d seen was A’Atla’s core, but it wasn’t the only one. Most of the others were simply less advanced, even more like predefined programs than the semi-intelligent core A’Atla had. It was almost like a computer, in a way; simple functions could be managed with enchantments. Stringing enough of them together in a complex enchantment or a ritual or a rune could create powerful and flexible abilities.

Past a certain point, though, it was clear that a crystalline core was a better choice for handling enough power and complex enough interactions. The analogy in a computer was the step up to a programmable chip of some sort, like a processor. Serenity had seen that in his previous life, too; extremely complex or powerful enchantments would have valuable stones set in them as part of the enchantment. He simply hadn’t known that was what he was looking at. He hadn’t even tried to think about how enchantments worked.

“It’s at the edge of the nexus,” Senkovar admitted. “On the third floor, the public floor where anyone can come or go. It’s where outsiders come if they have business with the Clan.”

“The third floor?” That surprised Serenity. “Not the ground floor?”

Senkovar shook his head. “The ground floor is never used for reception. It would be an insult, saying the visitors cannot fly. The third floor is normal; high enough to launch from yet low enough that the best points are reserved for the Clan.”

Serenity remembered Cymryn’s description of his trip to Suratiz. “You never told Cymryn that, did you?”

“It is much easier to insult outsiders when they don’t know it’s an insult,” Senkovar agreed with a grin. “Not that it would bother Lord Cymryn; like most Imperials, if it’s not his custom he doesn’t care. In this case, however, it’s convenient; the nexus doesn’t reach the ground. We’ll have to pass the center before we get to the Trial.”

Senkovar paused, then looked over the side of the building in the direction the flyer that brought them to the Clan Hall left in. “We should get moving. I expect it will take some time for the Clan Leader and Clan Heir to be located and to arrive; that’s how long we have to check out the Trial. Most won’t know what it means, but if they see us using it, they will know one of us is an Asura.”

Serenity wasn’t certain that was a bad thing, but he also wasn’t planning to argue with the closest thing he had to a local expert.

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An unlabeled door hid the entranceway to the Trial. From the outside, the Trial itself looked like a pair of white doors set into the white wall, bland other than the design on them. The doors didn’t even have a visible lock, just a handle on each door.

The design was even white. Serenity could see it only because it was shiny where the doors themselves were dull. Other than the lack of color, it looked a lot like the symbol on the vellum Senkovar still carried, a circle with a pair of horns and a pair of feathered wings. The circle was completely blank instead of displaying Serenity’s Sovereign mark.

Serenity didn’t wait for directions; this much was obvious. He reached out towards the doors and touched the circle in the middle. Nothing happened immediately, so Serenity pushed a little mana at the door. It didn’t take much.

Color spread across the symbol. It started at his hand and looked like a wave as it flowed across the symbol set into the door. The entire thing was filled with color when words appeared in front of Serenity.

[Asura’s Trial]

[Asura: Serenity Rothmer]

[Qualified Participants: Acknowledged Citizens of Earth, Tzintkra, Lyka, or Aeon]

[Adjust Participant Qualifications?]

[Adjust Trial?]

[Adjust Rewards?]

[Close Trial?]

The one thing Serenity could say with certainty was that it wasn’t a dungeon core. It was similar, but it was less present than even A’Atla’s core. It might have been created using a dungeon core or world core fragment, but Serenity couldn’t tell. All he could say was that it was similar but distinctly lesser.

Serenity glanced at the others in the room. They were all watching him, clearly waiting for him to tell them if they needed to know anything. He had time to figure out if there was anything.

The menu was surprisingly intuitive once he got into it, completely unlike the Wizard of A’Atla’s menu. That might have been because it was far simpler or it might have been because whoever designed the system thought in a way Serenity recognized; it was hard to be certain. Either way, everything was where he expected it to be.

Participant Qualifications was fine-grained enough that he could leave it as broad as it started, narrow it down to only those who were actually loyal to the planets’ governments, or even narrow it down to only those with a specific tie to him. If he wanted to, he could allow only Ita (as his only priest) or only his parents (as the only blood relatives who were present who also belonged to an organization he controlled). He could also limit “Citizens of Earth” to specific countries, or allow only acknowledged family (which allowed Rissa to enter, as well as his parents).

He could even let Blaze in; apparently he counted as a citizen of both Earth and Aeon as well as being a loyal follower of Serenity (though not of any of the governments). The fact that Serenity could tell all of this with the Trial door was actually kind of creepy.

The one thing he couldn’t do was find a setting that would let Senkovar in; no matter what he tried, Senkovar didn’t owe him loyalty in a way the Trial recognized. The fact that he was a blood relative didn’t seem to matter, probably because he was an ancestor rather than a descendant. Serenity was fairly confident that it was his parents’ loyalty to Earth that made them eligible; his genetic tie was simple something else he could limit it by once they otherwise qualified, not a qualification on its own.

It explained why Senkovar wanted him to rule the planet. A blood tie wasn’t enough.