After the End: Serenity

The one level of granularity Serenity didn’t see in Participant Qualifications was anything to do with species or bloodline. In a way, Serenity approved of that; it wasn’t fair to prohibit people on the basis of species. At the same time, if the reward was enhancing a bloodline, what would that do if you didn’t have it?

Maybe the answer was in the Rewards section.

Serenity set the qualifications as broad as possible and moved on to adjusting the Trial with the hope that it might tell him what the Trial was.

There were four choices when it came to the Trials he could set: Combat, Thought, Magic, or Choice. The default was Combat, which had only the short, inadequate description of combat against an appropriate enemy or group at Tier Three or lower. The win condition was to defeat the enemies and survive; Serenity noticed that it didn’t mention healing afterwards.

Thought was described as a series of problems to be solved. It didn’t specify what sort of problem or how they could be solved. All Serenity could see was the win condition, which was to solve “enough” of the problems. He didn’t seem to be able to set what “enough” meant, either.

Magic was described as a basic test of both knowledge and skill. Serenity could think of a wide range of options for what that could mean, unfortunately; it was nearly as broad as the “problem solving” of Thought. The win condition was defined as demonstrating competence, which didn’t help. In fact, between the three categories, the only one that definitely didn’t require completion of everything was Thought.

Choice was Serenity’s preference from the moment he saw it. It only listed a win condition, but since that was to complete one or more of the other options, it was clear that it was indeed a choice. With no further options, Serenity selected it and moved on.

The only real option left was Rewards, and it was just as interesting as Serenity hoped. Words appeared the moment he selected the option; what they told him wasn’t what he expected. They were a warning.

[Be careful what you offer, for what is given cannot be stripped.]

That didn’t match what Senkovar said at all; he’d said that it was removed if the person no longer followed the Asura who granted the gift. It wasn’t hard to see how that might happen; if the Trial didn’t tell the participants anything, all it would take was a rumor. As far as Serenity could tell, Senkovar had never even met anyone who went through the Trial and gained something from it.

Serenity acknowledged the warning and found that there were several options for rewards. The default reward was for passing any one of the three Trials, and it was an enhancement of the trial-taker’s bloodline “to closer align with their Asura.” The really interesting thing was that it gave him a feel for how it would affect everyone waiting outside the Trial.

For Serenity’s parents, it would bring out their heritage. Bethany might gain wings, since her heritage was particularly strong, but the primary changes were internal. Asura were humanoid but they weren’t human. Serenity was far less like a human than an Asura was, based on what he saw, but then he was primarily an Essence Dragon. For his parents, the changes were mostly minor; some organs would move and others would work differently, but the overall effect was similar.

There was, however, one big difference. The enhancement would fully heal them and bring their bodies up to what the Trial considered “normal.” For Serenity’s parents, that would effectively mean that they would become younger. It probably wouldn’t be immediately obvious, not when they were already in excellent shape for their age because of Blaze’s healing, but it could well add twenty years or more to their lifespans.

Rissa didn’t have an Asura heritage, but Serenity was also a dragon. The Trial whispered that it would change the balance of her heritage, pulling her closer to the draconic heritage he’d accidentally given her and pulling her away from her parents’ shape. There was no doubt that her wings would grow to equal his in his chimera form; beyond that, Serenity thought the most likely thing was that she would develop the capability to eat mana. It would only supplement her normal nutrition, but that was the most likely reason for the changes the Trial predicted. It was one of the common draconic abilities, so it made sense.

Blaze was interesting because it highlighted the difference between his human variant and Serenity’s. As far as Serenity could tell, all Blaze would gain would be some additional poison and disease tolerance, especially a significantly increased tolerance for World Core dust.

The Trial didn’t seem to know what to do with Ita. She didn’t have a bloodline Serenity could enhance; the default wouldn’t work for her.

Legion’s results seemed to depend on which body he selected. One seemed to be fully human and all the Trial could do was minor changes to make him more like Serenity. In his case, Serenity couldn’t even quite tell what the change was, but he could tell that it was genetic, which told him something about the other changes: they’d be passed along to children conceived after the Trial was completed. This particular change didn’t seem to be worth much, but Serenity could see the Trial’s reward being quite useful to someone with a heritable condition as long as it wasn’t one Serenity shared and the other person was fully human.

The other of Legion’s bodies that was present had the potential for a larger change. It seemed that she had some vampire or more likely dhampir heritage. The primary bloodline enhancement effect the Trial predicted was conversion of her Vital Affinity into a paired Affinity. Serenity couldn’t tell if it would be the most common Life/Death pair or something else; all he could see was that it would depend on her.

When Serenity examined Senkovar, he was surprised. Even though he couldn’t allow Senkovar in with the permissions he had, the Trial still told him what the results of Senkovar passing the Trial would be. As Senkovar hoped, it would include wings, but there was more: he would grow taller and at the same time grow lighter and stronger. Unlike the other shifts, this one actually had a title: demi-Asura (Flight).

Serenity backed out of the default and checked the other options. He expected to see items as rewards but that wasn’t what he found; the other options were physical changes or Affinity enhancements. He could grant any of his Affinities, to an extent, or warp people to gain one of his physical features. The higher his Affinity was, the more likely it was to be able to help someone with it; the Trial warned him that anyone with an Affinity higher than his wouldn’t gain anything if their reward was Affinity enhancement.

The only physical enhancement he checked was dragonhide, because of how useful it was to have armor, and it seemed the Trial couldn’t manage that. It could manage something that looked like scales, but it would be no more protective than fingernails. That wasn’t nothing but it also wasn’t even close to dragonhide.

Serenity backed out of the change and set it to give the choice of bloodline or Affinity enhancement. The only Affinity he allowed was Arcane. It was one of his best Affinities, useful for almost anyone, and far less problematic than something like Death.

Serenity gave another look over the listing. It seemed like the one thing he couldn’t do that he’d like to was enter the Trial himself. While that made some sense if it couldn’t reward him, he still wanted to go through it and see what the trial’s options were. Apparently that wasn’t something the designers thought about.

Serenity let go and looked at the people standing around him. Rissa was playing on her phone, or maybe communicating with Jenna’s nurses on the Death’s Wings; it wasn’t far enough to be out of range with her Tek-enhanced phone. Blaze was doing something with a pattern of fire magic while Ita watched, entranced. Serenity’s parents were talking quietly. Senkovar was pacing. “Senkovar? Do you need to head back to see the Clan Leader and Clan Heir?”

Senkovar stopped and turned to Serenity. “You’re done, then? Does it still work?”

Serenity thought he knew what Senkovar was asking. “It can probably give you flight, but only if I’m able to let you enter, which I can’t right now.” He wasn’t sure if he should mention that the rumor about losing abilities was wrong or not; it was probably something Senkovar should know.

Before Serenity could reach a decision, Senkovar nodded sharply. “Good, that’s good. Can you at least try to talk to Suratiz while I’m dealing with Clan matters? It’s usually calm and helpful, so you shouldn’t need my assistance.”

Serenity had the feeling Senkovar had half-forgotten that Serenity never needed Senkovar’s assistance to talk to a World Spirit. He was quick enough that there wasn’t much help Senkovar could give. “I can talk. I won’t guarantee that it will like me.”

Ann stepped forward just far enough to fully skewer the grymakkh’s heart, then dipped her left shoulder just far enough to avoid the one trying to hit her from the side. A step forward and a quick rotation meant that her sword was in exactly the right position to slice the nose of the second grymakkh as it tried to recover from its failed strike. It gave a barking yelp and moved away from the pain just long enough for her to bury the tip of her sword in its heart as well.

This was what she was good at. In many ways, this was what she loved: living on the edge, fighting with her sword and her visions telling her exactly what to do and when to do it. It was a dance and she could see every dancer’s choreography.

Including Ida-the-idiot, who wasn’t nearly as good a fighter as Ann was. She wasn’t bad, not really; even Ann couldn’t claim she was bad. She simply wasn’t great the way Ann was. No one was.

Ann skewered her fifth grymakkh, then stepped back. She didn’t feel any others coming at her, which gave her time to look around the battlefield.

There were a dozen dead grymakkh, Ida, and Ida’s guards. Nothing else moved on the ancient dirt path. Ann couldn’t see into the trees, but she could hear, and the birds were still quiet. It was possible there was still a threat, even if she didn’t think so. Ann relaxed her hold on the state of mind that let her see a few seconds into the future and know how to deal with it; she didn’t need it at the moment and keeping it active was already wearing on her.

Ann quickly cleaned and sheathed her sword. She’d know if she needed it out; even when her sense wasn’t active, it still warned of danger. Well, physical danger; it didn’t warn about all the little insults she’d had to swallow ever since she was betrayed by that Vala on Earth.

Ann wanted to kill her, but completing Vala Morgan’s mission was going to have to be enough. It would show that Ann was better than the faithless woman.

Ann looked up at Ida-the-idiot. The name somehow made it easier to pretend the other woman was important. In her head, she tried to remember that even if Ida-the-idiot was just a jumped-up Vala, she was still a better Vala than Morgan ever was. “I think that’s all of them. You said that this would be the last traveling band we’d see on this route?”

Ida nodded with a smile. Ann didn’t understand why the woman kept trying to ingratiate herself with Ann; if she really wanted to do that, she’d need to treat Ann with the respect she deserved. Smiles weren’t enough. “We should arrive at Franson in a few hours. From there, we can find a position as caravan guards all the way to Imison, then take the portal to Imperius. That will give us time to settle in before we’re needed.”