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Serenity felt a little dazed as he pulled back from his consultation with Death.
He’d never had Death reach out to him with a question before. He hadn’t even realized she could. He was grateful that she’d given him the option to turn her down even though it seemed fairly urgent.
He’d accepted, of course. He would have needed to be somewhere a lot more dangerous to not help when Death asked for advice.
A glance at Senkovar told Serenit...
2023-12-29 10:23:47 +0000 UTC
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“You really mean that?” Kaasi frowned. She seemed to have made a connection that Death didn’t quite understand. Or maybe she was reacting to the implication that Death wanted to help her friend? Death couldn’t be sure which.
Death nodded decisively, cutting off whatever response Serenity would have had. “I do. You’re my friend, I want to help you. If you don’t like your Path, we should fix that. If you do like your Path but don’t like who...
2023-12-28 09:41:56 +0000 UTC
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Kaasi brushed right past the incomplete sentence; Death suspected she thought it wasn’t incomplete. “Who’s Tek? I don’t think I’ve met her.”
Death grinned. “I’ll have to introduce you some time; she’s nice. Very fond of Serenity. She loves building things and likes to give them out as gifts. Oh, be careful what you take from her; she doesn’t always get everything quite right.”
This was Death’s second car from Tek, after all...
2023-12-27 08:40:30 +0000 UTC
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Death dodged to the side, trying to evade the ogre’s swing. Unfortunately, she was used to the ogres on the level above; these were faster. She didn’t quite move fast enough. The tip of the club smacked her side and sent her spinning back, away from the ogre.
It hurt. It hurt a lot. Death had never felt anything like it. Each breath she took felt like another stab; worse, it triggered a wet cough that hurt even worse than the stab of breathing.
2023-12-26 09:42:09 +0000 UTC
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Serenity heard the door click as he stepped into the store. He’d been back to talk to Klari a few times, but this time was special. He had something he wanted to show her and see if she knew anything about it.
It wasn’t long before Klari emerged from the back. “Serenity? I wasn’t expecting you today. I thought you’d finished the project. Did you start a new one?”
Serenity shook his head. “Same project. It is done, but I decided to put ...
2023-12-25 01:23:04 +0000 UTC
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Ann waited indignantly at the entrance to the High Court. It was the highest area on the Mound other than the Four Homes; more importantly, it was overseen by the Four Memories. Ann had only ever met one of them, the Memory of Light, when she was accepted as a Valkyrie.
The Memory of Light was the Memory who sponsored warrior Valkyries. As a child, Ann had expected the warriors’ sponsor to be the Memory of Blood, but no. Warriors were sponsored by th...
2023-12-24 09:03:44 +0000 UTC
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Serenity knocked on Lord Cymryn’s door.
One of the two guards opened it and let the group in. “He’s in the back.”
Serenity nodded and headed that way. When he got to the room, he saw that Lord Cymryn was writing in a bound notebook. Serenity tapped on the door. “Do you have any star charts that show inhabited worlds?”
Lord Cymryn jumped, glanced towards them, and set the notebook on a side table face down. “Star charts? What ...
2023-12-23 08:01:45 +0000 UTC
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“...under the bridge. I still don’t know what made Dalmoti decide to -” Senkovar stopped short when he saw Serenity enter the room. “Serenity. Welcome back; you were gone longer than I expected. How’s the project coming along?”
Senkovar’s hands were empty, but Lex held a mug. It looked like it was full of something warm. There were a lot of options for what it could be, but the fact that there was a plate with what looked like cookies on it i...
2023-12-22 10:29:38 +0000 UTC
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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 directl...
2023-12-21 07:51:21 +0000 UTC
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“Then that dream is because of you? That makes some sense, though I don’t know why the Dreaming Tree reached for that one.” Elder Jinsa sounded puzzled but contemplative. “Its visions are always relevant to the present situation though how isn’t always obvious. Perhaps simply because the Mimir are involved, but why did it look into a future that isn’t going to happen?”
“That’s probably the future Serenity prevented when he saved my li...
2023-12-20 09:16:46 +0000 UTC
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“It’s almost here.” A tired-looking old man leaned back in a chair that was covered in gold and jewels that “throne” would have seemed a better word if there weren’t three other similar chairs grouped in a tight circle. His clothing was similarly overdone, clearly stitched together with gold thread and covered in enough jewels that it was probably thoroughly uncomfortable to wear. He and his throne were both covered in many different stones, but ...
2023-12-19 09:10:38 +0000 UTC
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Rissa knelt down so that she could touch the false ground. This was someone else’s visualization of the Timestream, yet it was clearly incomplete and uncontrolled. It was almost amazing that the Dreaming Tree and Elder Jinsa could make out anything at all from the flashes; surely it had to be at least slightly controllable or they wouldn’t get anything.
She was certain hers had been as incoherent as a young child, before her mother taught her how t...
2023-12-18 08:23:47 +0000 UTC
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Elder Jinsa shook her head. “That wouldn’t matter, even if it were true. We won’t ally ourselves with Tzintkra. I … many of the dryads might, but others will not and none of the elders will agree. That is less important, though, than the simple fact that you’re implying we would beg for help from someone from Tzintkra who works for Death. That is impossible. Completely impossible. We’d rather die first.”
That was irrational, but Serenity co...
2023-12-17 09:28:33 +0000 UTC
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“I don’t know anything about the Lord of Dungeons,” Elder Jinsa continued. “Not directly, at least. Which is very odd; or so it seems to me. Well, there is one thing that I know; the Lord of Dungeons favors dungeons. Every Dungeon Master I know has been given a choice about how to manage their dungeons and most of them aren’t happy about it. Well, Liiric is thrilled, but he would be. He always let his dungeons run free as much as possible. Now he has...
2023-12-16 07:33:07 +0000 UTC
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The Dreaming Tree didn’t seem any different from any of the trees around it to Serenity, but he probably wasn’t the best person to ask. Admittedly, that was like saying one person didn’t seem any different from the next; it was true enough if you didn’t know what to look for but not particularly polite to say out loud.
More than that, it completely ignored anything that couldn’t be seen, and that was probably everything important about the Dream...
2023-12-15 08:09:36 +0000 UTC
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Lex shook his head slightly. “Are you going to go?”
“I’m not sure.” Serenity shrugged. “I guess it won’t hurt, so I might. I’ll decide if it comes up. That’s not really why I wanted to mention it, though. You didn’t have a chance to meet Senkovar when he visited A’Atla; would you like to meet him now?”
Lex poured some more coffee into his mug then brought it up and sipped, clearly stalling for time while he thought. Serenit...
2023-12-14 05:22:04 +0000 UTC
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The birthday party lasted well into the night. It was surprisingly fun, too; he hadn’t seen some of the people for years, while he’d seen others far more recently, but they were all friends of his. Like everything else, though, it eventually came to an end and Serenity fell asleep with Rissa snuggled up against him in their bedroom on the Death’s Wings.
Jenna was long asleep by then; she’d been allowed to stay up a little later than normal, but ha...
2023-12-13 05:06:28 +0000 UTC
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With Blaze’s statement ringing in the air, the moment was broken and Rissa hopped down to the ground. She gave Serenity another tight hug. “Happy Birthday,Serenity.”
Serenity blinked in surprise. It wasn’t his birthday, was it?
A quick check of the calendar with Aide’s assistance told him that it was indeed his birthday. Well, Thomas Rothmer’s birthday, but that was close enough. He didn’t really need to celebrate the day he chose h...
2023-12-12 04:02:50 +0000 UTC
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Baron Restali,
I have informed World Shaman Senkovar Et’Tart of the situation on Themrys. He said that he had expected another one in that region by now and asked if there were any signs of damage to Dilmak or Injii. When I told him that I had no word of such, he said that we need to monitor them but that they are likely not impacted given the stellar configuration and the deflection on the route traveled by the World Eaters.
<...
2023-12-11 10:13:13 +0000 UTC
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Serenity watched Klari examine the tile. She started with simple things, like hitting it lightly and touching it with a monster core. It wasn’t long before she tried to remove some of the metal so she could work with a smaller chunk.
It didn’t separate.
“That’s odd,” Klari muttered. “That should have worked. Must be a strange alloy; that would explain the higher than normal mana flow. Hmm. Melting point next … wait.”
She turne...
2023-12-10 07:25:24 +0000 UTC
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Serenity nodded at the shopkeeper. “The smith at the shop at the edge of the market, the one with a collection of spears with spearheads made from unusual metals. I didn’t get his name, but he said that if I was looking for specialized materials, this was the place to go.”
None of the shops on Berinath seemed to be named. Serenity suspected that was because there were only a few of any particular type of shop in each dome; there wasn’t really a ne...
2023-12-09 09:18:21 +0000 UTC
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Over the next several days, Serenity found out that the work of connecting it to other ley lines was straightforward. It was also slow, mana-intensive, headache-inducing, and massively frustrating, but at least it was straightforward. It would have been far faster if he still had the extra mana that he’d used up to create the anchor and the dungeon, but that was all gone. He had to do it the normal slow way, repeatedly half-emptying his mana pool. Senkovar fu...
2023-12-08 10:32:52 +0000 UTC
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The next morning, Serenity was awakened entirely too early when his wards were broken. Fortunately for everyone involved, the person who broke them was immediately identifiable as staff from the exceedingly fancy hotel they’d ended up at the previous night. It was also fortunate that she’d entered only the suite’s foyer by the time Serenity made it to where he saw her.
Serenity watched the hotel maid lay out a breakfast spread far too elaborate fo...
2023-12-07 08:54:55 +0000 UTC
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Ita ena a’Serenity,
Your merchandise has arrived at Sallet’s Storage. Maintenance fees are paid for the next four days; please claim your merchandise within that time period or provide additional funds.
Ita hopped with joy at the short message. She hadn’t expected her plan to actually work. There were still some complications to get through, but the most uncertain part was handled.
Two hours after she received the me...
2023-12-06 10:11:44 +0000 UTC
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With the thread established, Serenity assumed he’d be able to withdraw to the surface and talk to Senkovar about the next step, but when he tried he didn’t move. It was like Berinath’s World Core had a firm hold on him.
Confusion radiated from Berinath. “What’s happening? Anchors are supposed to be slow, working my way to the surface, not this outpouring of magic.”
Serenity had a sudden suspicion. Gaia thought in terms of years and cent...
2023-12-05 07:40:08 +0000 UTC
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The more Serenity thought about it, the more he liked the idea of inconveniently fulfilling the deal they’d made with the dryads. It had all the best elements: it let both him and Senkovar do what they said they’d do while rubbing the dryads’ collective nose in the results of their actions.
Was it petty? Yeah, Serenity was pretty sure it was. He didn’t mind and Senkovar was clearly in favor of it.
He could probably have gotten away with cla...
2023-12-04 07:27:17 +0000 UTC
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It took over an hour to clean up the aftermath of the battle. Even then, “clean up” really meant only removing the captives and the dead. The destruction of the fight was still there.
It seemed like an odd battle site to Serenity. There was no blood and the only lingering smell was from the lightning. Yes, he’d killed two guards, but they hadn’t left any of the usual smells of death behind. There were a few small smears of blood from the g...
2023-12-03 07:11:13 +0000 UTC
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“Surrender or die,” Serenity repeated for the third time as he almost effortlessly disintegrated another projectile while he blocked a spell. He didn’t want to kill but he knew when he didn’t have a choice and this was that time. So far he’d only had to kill two of the guards; he didn’t expect the number to stay that low.
They were clearly expecting him to run out of energy soon. They had no idea that he was so flush with both mana and essence...
2023-12-02 07:51:32 +0000 UTC
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When Serenity touched the Rune of Echa, light spilled from it and lit the underground chamber brighter than the light on the surface. Foremost Elder Omprek closed his eyes and turned away, but the light was still blinding.
“Thank you for finding me a proper successor,” a whisper that was somehow everywhere and nowhere at the same time told Omprek. “I have spent far too long waiting for the cycle to turn, holding on with what little I had left. It is a...
2023-12-01 07:38:32 +0000 UTC
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Serenity didn’t know anything about the Vrak. He didn’t think he’d ever heard of them. That seemed odd, since he’d spent quite a bit on Tzintkra. Most of that time was in his previous life as Vengeance, and he’d have thought he’d have noticed an obvious nonhuman species that was present in significant numbers. He knew of quite a few, several of which had some presence on Tzintkra, but none were called the Vrak. Either they were hiding or they were...
2023-11-30 08:24:44 +0000 UTC
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