After the End: Serenity

Serenity watched as Dinav thought. He was about to add more when Dinav suddenly nodded.

“Oh, of course. The Death-world in Font, the one with dungeons that run past Tier Fifteen.” Dinav tilted his head slightly and seemed to squint a little. “I wouldn’t have expected you to qualify to rule a world at that Tier. Unless you’re a higher Tier than I think you are?”

Serenity shook his head. “It’s not by Tier on Tzintkra, at least not primarily. There are Affinity requirements as well. The previous Lord made certain there weren’t any competitors.” Serenity paused then shook his head and admitted the rest of it. “I don’t think Tzintkra would accept anyone else at this point anyway.”

Dinav seemed to nod his head to the side. “Fair enough. It’s not a world we have much interest in. The majority of the population may be human, but the land they can live on without an extreme Affinity or significant support is simply too limited. So. You are not trying to expand, despite Suratiz, I hope?”

Serenity shook his head. “That’s Senkovar’s fault.”

Dinav seemed amused at Serenity’s response. He looked over at Senkovar. “He is of your Clan, I take it? How did a dragon join your Clan?”

Senkovar actually looked a little embarrassed at the question. “His great-grandfather was Et’Tart.”

“That sounds like a story, but perhaps not one for today.” Dinav looked between them then focused on Serenity again. “Suratiz was a problem, too small to be worth the effort to conquer yet rich enough to tempt the foolish. I’ll let you have that headache, but do not assume that you can take anything more without consideration of the Empire.”

Serenity half shrugged. “I didn’t plan to take any of them. Well, maybe Lyka, but I thought she’d be Ekari’s, not mine.”

Dinav shook his head. “If your Ekari were Sovereign, Lyka would be part of the Empire in twenty years. It would not be difficult; we might even allow Ekari to continue to rule as a Governor. Lykandeon was a power; Princess Ekari is not. You might be. That is likely why you became Sovereign; you are suited for it.”

Serenity shook his head. That didn’t make sense to him. He wasn’t sure if that was because it didn’t make sense or because he didn’t want it to make sense.

Dinav watched Serenity for a moment with a half-smile on his face, then turned to his grandson. “Cymryn, do you still want to enter the priesthood? I’m willing to sponsor you, but you have to remember what it means.”

“Sponsor me?” Cymryn sputtered. “I expected I’d have to find a sponsor! Thank you!”

“Heh. As if I’d let anyone else sponsor my family. We’ll hold a celebration in two weeks; that will be enough time for you to go through the purification rites.” Dinav turned to look at Serenity and Senkovar. “As for you two, you’re welcome to stay for the celebration. I know neither of you follow the Imperial Faith and I can feel your Faith on you, so I can’t permit you into the rites themselves, but that’s no reason not to attend the elevation ceremony.”

Serenity’s first inclination was to decline. He didn’t like big parties and he wasn’t particularly close to Cymryn, even if they’d spent a lot of time together.

Senkovar spoke first. “Of course we’ll stay. I’m certain Serenity will want to visit a dungeon; he loves delving. Do you happen to know if there are two dungeons close to each other that might be good for a Tier Four group and a Tier Eight solo?”

Dinav shook his head. “I don’t track the low-Tier dungeons. The Holy Guard will know.” His hand dipped into his sleeve and came out with a pair of tokens, which he handed to Senkovar. “These will grant you the same priority for dungeon access as a Holy Seeker; do not allow the Holy Guard to take them from you. They are a reward for watching over my grandson.”

“Grandfather!” Cymryn sounded offended.

Dinav chuckled. “I was young and low Tier once, too, Cymryn. I remember how much it took to keep me out of trouble. You may not be on the Volcanic Path, but that doesn’t make you safe. Go with your friends; find them their dungeons. I’ll expect you back here by sunset.”

With that, Dinav tipped his mug back and emptied it, then set it on the table, stood, and left.

Cymryn stared after him, clearly still upset.

Senkovar’s chuckle broke the silence. “I guess we’d better get going, hadn’t we? We wouldn’t want to disappoint the Emperor.”

“He wasn’t here as the Emperor,” Cymryn countered, his attention still on the door. “He’s always very careful to make that distinction. He’s never casual and never, ever talks about family as the Emperor.”

Senkovar let out a long sigh. “He’s changed from what I remember, then. Calmed down a lot; I was sure I could get him to torch something. I’m not sure that much restraint is good for him.”

Serenity stared at Senkovar. He was deliberately baiting a man who had a reputation for melting the area around him when he got upset? He was quite certain he did not understand Senkovar. “Why did you accept staying for the celebration?”

Senkovar frowned at Serenity. “It wasn’t an invitation, it was an expectation. Couldn’t you tell?”

Serenity shook his head. He had no idea how Senkovar turned “you’re welcome to stay” into “you’re expected to stay,” but he was sure Senkovar would enlighten him. He probably still wouldn’t understand. “It was the plan, wasn’t it? We can stay a couple of weeks.”

The announcement of a city-wide celebration in two weeks didn’t change things much for Ann.

Ida’s vision of a particular dungeon with parties entering and leaving, however, did. It was a dungeon Ann hadn’t visited yet, because it was close to the Palace and none of them had expected their target to want to be close to authority. What fugitive liked authority?

Well, this one, apparently.

Ida seemed less surprised than Ann, which made Ann suspect that Ida knew something Ann didn’t. It was clear favoritism, since Ann was the original Valkyrie sent to deal with the fugitive. The Mimir must have wanted her to fail.

No, that couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be the Memory of Light; the Memory of Light wanted Ann to succeed. That meant this was all because of the Memory of Blood. He must have hidden something from the Memory of Light until it was too late, then told Ida secretly. Yes, that made sense; she’d have to watch out for the Memory of Light after Ida failed and Ann succeeded and she returned to Eadsyt.

Ida led them through the dungeon. She made Ann fight in the lead against the disgusting spiders. Ida said it was because Ann could tell when the spider was about to spit venom or cover them in webbing, but Ann knew the truth.

It was clearly because Ida wanted Ann to be covered in spider guts all the time. If it were anything else, she wouldn’t have stationed several of the guards farther back with bows; they’d be up there with Ann. It was purely nasty. It was even worse when one of the men was dumb enough to shoot a venom sack; it was nearly impossible to dodge that if they hit it at the wrong angle while she was dodging an actual threat. Why couldn’t they aim better?

Worse, it took days for their target to actually show up at the dungeon. They were days when Ann could have been doing anything else. Anything other than being the spider-gut-covered point person in a pointless dungeon. Ida said it was to pay the bills, that the dungeon rewards weren’t very good, but Ann knew what that meant.

It meant Ida was keeping her part of the rewards, the same as she was keeping most of the guards’ rewards. The rewards being low was just an excuse; spider silk kept turning up and spider silk was valuable. Ann knew that, even if she was never the one to deal with the outsiders to actually sell things. She could see how much spider silk clothing cost to buy and they supposedly weren’t even getting a fifth of that! Outsiders were greedy and would never give her anything close to actual value for anything.

When the target did actually show her face, Ann wanted to go for her then and there. They knew where she was; why did Ida say it was a bad idea? The only people with her were a redheaded Fire mage, a man with silver horns that carried an ax, probably the person with the same role Ann was forced into, and a pet of some sort, probably the mage’s familiar since it followed him around.

All they had to do was catch them by surprise; it would be easy. The man with the ax would be easy to avoid if they caught him by surprise and mages were rarely ever fast. They could kill the target and get out without any trouble, but Ida said they had to wait until the group wasn’t at the dungeon entrance. She didn’t want to act in front of the guards.

Ann could only grumble and wait, but at least they didn’t have to wait long. With only three people plus a familiar, all they had to do was schedule a delve at the same time, then take the rest of the slots. The dungeon was relatively expansive and would accept up to seven people; that meant they could have one more than the number of enemies. If they scheduled a full delve slot, they could even split up and hide the fact that they’d infiltrated another group’s slot. That would make it easier to deceive the guards and escape once they killed their enemies.

That evening, Ida insisted that the four people she selected each drink a potion she’d carried from Eadsyt that would temporarily disconnect them from the Timestream and make them extremely difficult to divine with any oracular ability.

Ann didn’t mind that; it made sense to block an enemy’s warning, and they were chasing a fugitive oracle. It bothered Ann that Ida clearly thought she was less powerful than the fugitive, but she didn’t bother to argue. They kept getting changes of plan from the Mimir. If the fugitive could confuse even the most powerful of oracles, maybe disabling her foresight really was worth disabling both Ida and Ann’s.

No, what bothered Ann was that they were doing it so long before the assault. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to drink your potion right before we enter the dungeon, when we know we’re ready? That way, we can glimpse the right future to get everything scheduled.”

Ida grinned at Ann when she asked. “Oh no, that wouldn’t do at all. I’ve already foreseen when we need to schedule to be the group behind theirs and we really need to take the potion the night before. Drink it and you’ll see why.”

Ida then chugged her potion and made a face like it was disgusting. That made it impossible for Ann not to do the same. With the warning of Ida’s expression, Ann managed to not react to the horrible taste, like rotten sewage infused with salt and hot sauce. It was sweetened, as well, which only made it even more vile.

Well, she managed to mostly not react. She definitely wasn’t the one on her hands and knees feeling like she was going to vomit. No, that definitely wasn’t her.

At least neither of the guards who also had to drink it were laughing after Ida told them to drink. Ann almost thought Ida picked the two who laughed the hardest, but that was probably her imagination. Either that or she picked the ones who hated Ann the most, Ann wasn’t certain which.

Ann thought the horrible taste was the reason they needed to take it in advance, because drinking it might make them make too much noise if they did it inside the dungeon or alert the guards if they were outside. It was about an hour later that she found out that no, Ida didn’t want them to take it inside the dungeon in case it took an hour to eliminate their enemies.

The potion was just as nasty when it came out the other end all too quickly. If anything, it was even nastier, because it smelled at least as bad as it tasted. At least Ida and the two guards had to suffer along with Ann.