After the End: Serenity

Serenity opened his Status and glanced at his Path section wistfully. It moved quickly when it moved, but he hadn’t found a reliable way to slowly advance his Incarnate of Death Path.

Path: None Selected

Level: 0

Tier: 7

Wait. When did that happen?

There was only one time it could have happened: when he killed the four assassins in the spider dungeon. He must not have checked since then.

Serenity sighed to himself and pulled up his list of possible Paths. If he was lucky, the Voice would have something for him and he wouldn’t have to get Death to edit a custom Path again.

The list did have something on it, but only one thing. He’d never seen a Path like it.

-Error- SERENITY

It was the same as his Core was at this Tier, but he had no idea what it meant.

“Voice? What is that Path?”

[The origin of that Path is unknown. That is why it is marked as an error. It is also unknown what Skills it will grant, if any. If this were anyone other than you, I would recommend against taking it]

“Anyone other than me? So you think I should take it, then?”

The Voice didn’t immediately respond. When it finally did speak, there was an undertone of frustration in its normally emotionless tone. [Yes. Your history indicates that this is something you made and it will therefore be well suited to you even if it does not follow the normal rules of Path construction]

That was enough for Serenity. He accepted the Path.

As usual, nothing happened immediately. He’d have to level the Path to find out what it did. With only the clue of its name, the best way to level it was probably to be himself. All he could say about that was that at least it wasn’t something he’d have to think about specifically.

Even a ship as advanced as the Death’s Wings shouldn’t go directly from Suratiz to Eadsyt; they were simply too far apart. The direct travel time was a little over a month, which was possible but not desirable; it was far more comfortable for everyone if they took a handful of stops when the route happened to pass near another world.

Serenity knew that a trip that would take a month in the Death’s Wings would take far longer than that through portals unless there happened to be a direct route between the two planets. The portal system almost seemed to have been designed to be inconvenient; after all, why shouldn’t a portal open to every place that was close enough if the local Lords permitted it to?

Serenity didn’t have a good answer, but he’d never seen a world or a portal that did. Every portal selected a few destinations and that was it; you had to physically travel between portals to get anywhere that wasn’t on the list. He hadn’t opened that mch up on Earth yet to prevent unexpected dangers; perhaps that was the real reason?

Either way, he knew there was no way for them to beat the speed of a message sent from Imperius to Eadsyt, but they ought to reach Eadsyt well before the few people who didn’t participate in the assault on Rissa. Since the leader of the group, Ida, was among the dead, there was even a chance no one would send a message. Serenity wasn’t certain the “guards” had the appropriate contact information.

He couldn’t count on that, unfortunately, any more than he could count on the information he’d gotten from Ida’s zombie that the Mimir, or Memories as she called them, didn’t know about the Death’s Wings. Ida hadn’t known, but she’d been repeatedly directed to a new target. They’d even managed to arrive at Imperius ahead of Serenity, though that was probably mostly due to the time they’d taken to deal with the White Tiger and her cubs.

The one thing he could count on was that they clearly had no idea who he was or what he could do. His Unbound trait had to be responsible for that, since the Mimir clearly depended on oracles. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to cover everything, especially not when others were involved.

If he wanted to, Serenity could kill everything on Eadsyt, or at least everything on the apparent capitol, what Ida called the Mound. He had more than one way to do it; the simplest would be to use the full power of the Death’s Wings. Unless there were defenses Ida didn’t know about, it would easily level the Mound and kill almost everyone nearby. The Death’s Wings wasn’t a true combat ship, but even an armed yacht could do some serious damage.

The problem with the plan was twofold. First, Serenity would almost bet that there were some defenses Ida didn’t know about on the Mound. They might well be enough to stop the Death’s Wings’ attack entirely. Even if they weren’t that strong, the exact people Serenity wanted to deal with were the ones the most likely to escape and the people the most likely to die were the people Serenity would prefer to leave alive. It simply wouldn’t work.

There were similar problems with the next easiest plan, a large ritual to kill everyone involved. Serenity had no way to separate the people who were responsible from the people who weren’t. He almost certainly could kill the Memories, but he’d have to kill everyone on the Mound, possibly everyone on Eadsyt.

There was another reason to dislike the plan as well: it was far too much like what the Final Reaper would have done. In fact, in many ways it was exactly what the Final Reaper had done more than once. There were reasons Serenity knew it would work and also knew that it wasn’t a good solution.

Things were different this time. He could leverage Ita’s connection Affinity or Rissa’s time magic and foresight. Neither of those seemed likely to be enough to solve the problem.

Serenity was a hammer, but he’d learned that not all problems were nails. Sometimes you needed a screwdriver.

He’d spent many hours during the journey going over options with his companions. Senkovar had even contributed before they left him at Suratiz. His contribution made Serenity feel a bit closer to Senkovar. His suggestion that Serenity should simply visit Eadsyt and call out the Memories, especially the Memories of Light and Blood, before killing whichever one or ones was responsible sounded foolish but also like something Serenity might suggest. Senkovar phrased it better than that, but as far as Serenity could tell what he meant was really that simple.

In the end, it was Blaze’s suggestion that won. Serenity didn’t like it, but Blaze’s point that they could always revert to another plan if Blaze’s failed was well taken. Blaze was also fairly confident that if he structured the plan so that it was solely Serenity that acted, the Mimir would be unable to foresee anything about the plan. Rissa backed up the notion.

Blaze’s plan meant that the Death’s Wings stopped her mad dash towards Eadsyt several star systems away from the world and bought some trade goods. As it turned out, Blaze was able to make contact with a merchant who was thrilled to be able to obtain affordable fast transportation to Eadsyt; the fact that the Death’s Wings had unusually large cargo holds was better and the fact that they were configurable apparently made the merchant overjoyed.

Serenity, Rissa, and Ita were all carefully kept away from the merchants, so Serenity only had Blaze’s reports to go on. None of them knew what the Mimir truly knew, but while Blaze was somewhat recognizable he wasn’t nearly as obvious as the actual target, a Sterath far from their territory, or a man who looked like a half-dragon.

The next two and a half months were simultaneously boring and stressful.

The boring part was what they actually had to do. All they had to do was act the part of an armed merchant ship bouncing around the area accepting both passengers and goods. All too often, they had to accept prices that were a little too low to really pay their costs; the Death’s Wings was not cheap to operate. That didn’t matter since Serenity was happy to subsidize the time; in many ways, the Etherium they were paid was a bonus. Serenity would have been paying almost the same costs either way.

The stressful part was waiting for Blaze and a few people he’d picked to travel with him to reach the Mound and infiltrate it. If they were discovered, Serenity might well not be able to save them; he was all too likely to be on a different planet or even in transit between worlds. No matter what Blaze said about always having a way out, Serenity knew that Blaze would absolutely hate to use his diehar abilities. He also knew that the people accompanying Blaze didn’t have those abilities, even if Serenity didn’t know any of them.

Despite the ship’s high level of technology, the tsarualk hadn’t figured out how to connect to the Voice’s network at all. They couldn’t create nodes. Serenity didn’t think they’d really tried since they had other methods. Unfortunately, an indefinite-point repeater, the technology the tsarualk used to communicate across space quickly, was not exactly something an individual could carry, so Blaze was stuck using the Voice’s system.

Serenity didn’t get Blaze’s message with the time, date, and location until he landed on another planet. Blaze had clearly allowed for the delay; there was plenty of time to find passengers who wanted to pay for travel to Eadsyt and still make it there in time.

The capitol city’s name was Thot. To most of the population, that was probably no more than a sound, but to Serenity it meant something more, especially when combined with the fact that the leaders of the Mimir were called Memories. The city definitely had ravens.

The location turned out to be a bakery a little distance from the Mound, in the larger city that serviced the walled compound. Serenity spent his time on the way there getting a good feel for the city. It wasn’t nearly as hopeless as he’d gathered from the Valkyries he’d questioned. In fact, instead of a depressing heap of stone filled by people who were one step above being useless, Serenity saw a thriving city.

The streets were filled with people, most of them either busy or trying to get others’ attention to buy things. More than once, Serenity felt hands touch his belt and come away stymied since he carried his small valuables in his Rift rather than on his person. Neither of those things said anything about the condition of the city.

The fact that the city smelled of fresh manure was unpleasant but Serenity had been in enough cities to know that it was actually a sign of prosperity. A poor city couldn’t afford enough horses for the manure to be a problem. It was clear Thot’s government tried to handle it and didn’t seem to be quite keeping up.

Even more than that, though, the best sign of the city’s health was its people. Almost everyone, including the thieves, were well fed and few showed the signs of long-term illness or injury. That meant Thot was prosperous and relatively safe. It wasn’t perfect; there was a long way up from “almost everyone usually gets enough food.” It was still better than many places Serenity had seen in his travels.

Serenity's Status

General

Name: Serenity

Species: Chimera

Base Form: Essence Dragon (Wyrmling)

Core: Unique

Progression: 100%

Tier: 8

Features: 6/11

True

Crystal

Link

Death

Origin

Holy (Dungeons)

Path: -Error- Serenity

Level: 0

Tier: 7

Path History:

6: Incarnate of Death

5: Dungeon Deity

4: Magitech Abomination

3: Origin’s Potential, Zonal Evocation Mage

2: Magic Dhampir of the Origin

1: Unbound, Steadfast, Evoker

0: Death-Eater, Battle Adept

Core History:

8: (Not Selected)

7: -Error- SERENITY

6: Incarnate of Death

5: Dungeon Deity

4: Magitech Cyborg

3: Sovereign of Potential

2: Dhampir (Mana/Essence)

1: Child of Time

0: Essence Dragon

Mana: 19000/19000

Essence: 19000/19000

Power: 9100/9100

Might: 900

Agility: 900

Phys: 900

Understanding: 900

Will: 900

Mind: 900

Perception: 900

Ambit: 900

Essence

Pure (Innate)

Ev: -Error-

Why am I bothering? You have enough.

Titles

Aspect Pathfinder

DeathLord

First of A Kind

Ghost in the System

Incarnate

Lord

Named

Previous Supreme Existence

Tyche’s Curse

Worlds’ Friend

Reaper of Souls

Lord Wizard of A’Atla

Magic

Affinities

Energy: 45%

Liquid: 6%

Liminal: 90%

Magitech: 86%

Mind: 42%

Nihility: 50%

Plasma: 56%

Solar: 25%

Solid: 17%

SpaceTime: 73%

Vapor: 16%

Concepts

Arcane: 92%

Energy: 54%

Essence: 56%

Liminal: 41%

Magitech: 72%

Mind: 18%

Nihility: 36%

Plasma: 26%

SpaceTime: 58%

Topology: 13%

Aspects

Arcane (Mana): Adept Art (Vital)

Essence: Adept Skill (Vital)

SpaceTime: Nascent

Incarnate of Death

Resistances

Chemical: 137

Cold: 303

Curse: 265

Darkness: 177

Debasement: 13

Death: Immune

Heat: 533

Life: 417

Light: 298

Mind: 278

Pain: 641

Poison (Neurotoxin): 486

Pleasure: 32

Shock: 334

Sleep: 57

Space: 250

Time: 1000

Unknown

Heritages

Chimeric

Pure (Innate)

Essence Dragon (Primary)

Asura

Child of Time, Unbound

Dhampir, Essence/Mana

Draugr, Sage

Elemental, Essence

Elemental, Mana

Godling

Human, Earth

Lich, Paramount (Primary)

Vampire, Daywalker

Potential, Sovereign

Wraith, Nightmare

Other Known Heritages

Azata, Lightning

Curse Witch

Healing Light

Hexen

Heavens’ Fire

Jiang-Shi

Knight of Blood

Malevolent Spark

Mote of Decay

Mote of Stasis

Mummy

Remnant Wisp of Life

Revenant, Star

Sea Lion, Earth

Abilities

Monster Biology

Eyeless Sight

Colorless vision that does not require light; no visual effect

Vital Sight

Shows the primary animating Affinity, usually Life, for creatures. Makes the eyes glow with blue-white fire

Blossoms’ Sleep

Can induce sleep on self with a defined wakeup time

Runic Shielding Tattoos

Resists one attack of any sort. Does not require preactivation if the attack will kill or disable. Fully drains current MP to establish, drains SP to maintain, ends when hit. MP drained determines strength of blow that can be resisted, will fail if strength is exceeded but may reduce the power of the attack even if it fails. Effect is better with automatic activation

Crystal Seed Remote Link

Allows Serenity to access the World Core features as though he were at a Node, even when he isn’t on a ley line. Functionality may be limited inside dungeons.

Dhampir’s Default

When a Dhampir is casually examined, he or she appears to be a normal member of the living population.

Down to the River

When you physically envelop a being with a soul, you may choose to send their soul to the River of Souls. The soulless body will remain if applicable. Success rate depends on Ambit. When you do this, you will gain some of their knowledge but not personality. Decreased chance of success in any form other than Sovereign of Potential.

Link Core

While touching an Essence Core, you can attempt to create a Sovereign Link. Enhanced by Ambit.

Multiform

You may assume the shape of any Form you know. All Forms reflect yourself and all Forms are reflected in some manner in your Chimera Form. Detailed control of Forms increases with familiarity. Any Forms above the minimum require a continual maintenance cost of both Mana and Essence. Minimum number of Forms: 1. Maximum number of Forms: 4. Forms may be repeated.

Forms passively return to their normal condition.

Current known forms: Chimera, Wyrmling Essence Dragon, Sovereign of Potential (Kernel), Human(?), Crystal Hilt, Armor, Sterath(?), Arcane Asura

Rift of Potential

You can manifest a small rift between your location and the Origin Point.

Path Abilities

Loot Core

Teleports a monster core from touched monster body to the user. Usable on any dead monster with a core. Costs mana

Resilience of the Dead

Slightly increased resistance to certain status alterations

Basic Analyze

Analyze a being for basic information. The being may be animal, Pathed, or monster. Other beings may be analyzed if they have any appropriate features. Items may not be analyzed

Intermediate Unarmed Combat (Claw Variant)

Losing your weapons is not a disaster when you have weapons attached to your hands. Your expertise with claws is nearly nonexistent, but your general training with unarmed combat is transferable

Basic Sense Raw Magic

Detect background, non-attuned energy. This sense is always active

Linked Sight

You may share your vision and vision-based abilities with your Seer or anyone whom you share a similar Link with. They may also share their vision and vision-based abilities with you. Consumes Stamina per vision or vision-based ability shared in either direction. Vision ability costs are paid by the user instead of the originator of the ability, if applicable

Moment of Prescience

Know a moment ahead of time when something will kill or disable you or someone you wish to protect. Activation is automatic. Cannot be activated more than once a minute. Consumes stamina in inverse proportion to the threat

Time’s Eye

Your eyes see the motions of Time as it stretches and changes. The hidden is easier to see and the false easier to see through. Consumes Stamina

(Note: the Stamina cost is low enough that it can be maintained for hours at a time, though that will significantly reduce Serenity’s available Stamina for other uses)

Unbound

Time does not quite have the same hold on you as it does on others, and Fate does not rule you. You can slip between the lines of the future and past or even blur them if you have the desire and the strength. That which will be has no power over you, and you can break the strands of Destiny for others if you dare. This ability is always active and has always applied to you

Basic Identify

Identify an object to gain basic information on it, such as its name, basic properties, materials, and/or minor enchantments

Scale Hardening

Use Essence or Mana to reinforce your scales, making them harder to damage and more protective. Costs Stamina to maintain

Wait for an Opening

Study an opponent’s actions in combat to gain an intuitive understanding of the right time to strike

Second Wind

Convert some of a more filled resource pool (Mana, Stamina, or Essence) into an empty one. Consumes some of the converted resource

Stand Tall

Whether you are the last wall between your loved ones and your enemies or you simply love to fight, your ability to take a beating is exceptional. Blood loss, bruises, injuries, and even broken bones will not stop you. You can fight at the full effectiveness your body is capable of despite your injuries

Essence Sight

You can already sense Essence with your Aura. Sight adds precision and distance to your detection capability. This may be enabled or disabled at will. A visual effect may be present

Physical Storage

You can store spells inside your own body to be evoked later. Stored spells may be evoked only by you and may be triggered at any time. All variable effects must be determined prior to casting. Stored spells will degrade with time and use of mana or essence in the area the spell is stored.

Spell Conversion

You can convert the power of any spell you can Evoke into a ranged mana or essence strike. The power of the strike depends on the stored spell power.

Store Spell

You may temporarily store spells in items to be evoked later. The item must be strong enough to hold the spell, and synergy with the spell will slow spell degradation. Stored spells will degrade with time and nearby mana or essence use. Storage of spells can damage items used.

Designate Evocation Conditions

You may designate conditions on when a stored spell can be evoked. You can bypass any conditions you set, but you cannot bypass conditions set by other Evokers. This allows you to set conditions that will allow non-Evokers to Evoke stored spells, but spells Evoked by the untrained will be significantly degraded during the evocation.

Entwined Magic

You can mix Mana and Essence magic freely, to achieve effects not possible with Mana or Essence alone. Passive.

Gaze of the Origin

When you choose, you can infuse your gaze with the power of your connection to the Origin. Effects vary. Power depends on Ambit.

Aura of Magic

When you choose, you can reveal your Mana and Essence pools with your aura. Passively increases the maximum size and regeneration of your Mana and Essence. Increases the regeneration of others’ mana and essence at a slight cost to your regeneration rate. Easily sensed. Power depends on size and regeneration rate of mana and essence pools.

Mold Magic

You can alter magic that has been given a steady form. Passive.

Potential of the Rift

Your Rift to the Origin will allow you to move items or creatures to the Origin and retrieve them later. Items or creatures stored in the Origin will be exposed to it. You may travel to the Origin using the Rift.

Rift Control

You may control the Potential that leaks from your Rift to the Origin as long as it is within your aura, including increasing or decreasing the amount that leaks.

Call on the Origin

The Origin is just that: the beginning of all things. Bring something temporarily into the real world, limited only by your imagination and power. Variable Cost.

Revivify

Potential can become warped in many ways. Restore something to its original Potential. Quality of repair affected by the level of understanding of what the repair requires, the amount of damage being repaired, the time since the damage occurred, and the Time Affinity, Concept, and Aspect of the user.

Realize Potential

Use Potential drawn through the Rift to temporarily gain something from your Heritage. Variable Cost.

Magesight

Advanced Sight Skill that combines Mana Sight, Basic Sense Raw Mana, Essence Sight, and Vital Sight into a single improved Skill. Passively view all forms of magic. Observe how they affect each other and can transform from one to another. When used actively, additional details can be observed such as Affinities and faint traces of spell residue.

Fireball

Place a ball of Plasma where you want it within your sight range. Maximum expansion size varies with mana used.

Cone of Lightning

Emit Energy starting from your hands in a cone shape. Spread in height and width may be controlled by hand position; maximum length depends on mana used and height and width selected.

Spot Nullification

Use Nihility to destroy what you can see. Roughly shapeable. Potentially explosive.

Synaesthesia

You have gained many new senses that do not quite fit the ones you are accustomed to. You must choose: do you represent them as another form of a familiar sense or do you learn to meet them on their own terms?

Subconscious Synchronization

You have been growing closer and closer to Aide. Allow Aide to take over for your autonomic functions, consuming a fraction of its processing power to free the space for additional cyberware and expansions for Aide.

Skill Integration

Senses require attention; so do many Skills. Attention is a limited resource for most, but you have the ability to use the next best thing: processing power. Figure out how to integrate your Skills with either your own additional processing or hand them over to Aide.

Quickrune

As an Evoker, you can store a spell to be cast later. As a creature of Magitech and (former) Runemaster, you can now build a rune of your own flesh to be triggered when needed.

Abominable Absorption

One of your basic abilities is the absorption of technology, changing it to fit within your body. As a magitech abomination, you may absorb magic or technologic items, altering your body to fit its new needs.

Gather Faith

Energy, even magic, has to come from somewhere. Those who follow you can send you some of theirs. This faith naturally adds to your available power, allowing you to advance more easily, but it may be directed into specific tasks or simply accumulated with practice.

Value and amount received depends on level of faith, willingness to sacrifice, power of the believer, and distance from origin. Other factors may apply depending on the specific beliefs and actions taken to show faith.

This ability is a prerequisite for the Deity Path and is simply recorded here.

Detect Believer

Gods and those who believe in them are linked. While this link is the most active during prayer, it can be felt at other times.

Appoint Intercessors

Priest, Shaman, or Shameless, almost all deities have mortals who act as the interface between the God and the Believer.

Wrath of Dungeons

Those who follow the Dungeons’ Way are supported in their efforts against those who would act against it by their Faith in the Dungeon Deity.

Applies to both direct action and attempted persuasion of nonbelievers.

Cursebreaker

Faith energy may be used to assist when breaking a curse.

Miracle

Broad, powerful, and rare.

There is no one Miracle. All miracles must align with the deity whose Faith they use.

Shield of Death

A modification of the standard Shield Skill, this Skill does not create a force bubble. Instead, it kills anything that tries to pass through it and should not, including momentum.

Death Absorption

Death empowers the Incarnate of Death, whether that is Death-attuned mana or the loss of existence. Each empowerment is related to the Death that causes it. The ability replaces Eat Death and Adept Aspect Form.

Death Magebolt

Throw a mass of Death-attuned magic at your enemy. May cause lingering effects. This ability replaces the Tutorial award of the same name.

Shieldbreaker

All things die; that includes spells and Skills. This Skill is designed to end the most annoying of Skills: those that protect your enemies.

That is Not Dead Which Can Eternal Lie

Exhibit the Death that you are and break Eternity. This ability replaces Death Field.

-Error- SERENITY -

-Error-

Unknown