After the End: Serenity

Serenity patted Curio as the kitten squirmed in his lap and mewed at him, annoyed at the lack of attention. “It’s fine, boy. I’m just a little distracted.”

He made sure to give Curio some under-the-chin scritches and the kitten settled back down.

[Tutorial Instruction Complete]

[All Mandatory Goals Completed]

[Tutorial Results]

[Survival Rate: 99%]

[Average Level: 82]

Tutorial Results: Excellent

[World Results]

[Invasions closed prior to completion of Tutorial]

[Survival Rate: 99%]

[Evaluation concluded early due to early closure of Invasion portals]

[World Results: Excellent]

[Standard Instructor Reward not appropriate.]

[Personal Reward merged with Instructor Reward.]

[Rewards tailored.]

[First Reward:

The Ruins of A’Atla hold the Key to the Past. They shall rise as the World once again becomes herself; beware those who would seek to hide the Past once again.

A World Quest will be issued to those who seek when A’Atla rises]

Information? From what Serenity had heard, that was an unusual reward from Tutorial Instruction, even though it was a fairly common Quest reward. Serenity had no idea how this would help, but he was certain that the Voice thought it was important to him. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have bothered.

[Second Reward: Reinforcement of Earth’s World Core prior to Tier Two Advancement]

Serenity guessed that was a good thing, but it made him worry about future advancements. Was it possible that Earth’s death wasn’t from outside influences after all? Was it possible that the World Core was simply too fragile to grow?

Serenity had no idea where to begin on dealing with something like that. Was there someone out there that studied World Cores?

There had to be.

[Third Reward:

World Quest Access Unlocked.

Quest Visibility Enabled for Planetary Access]

Information about something that was happening on Earth, help for the planet, and an improvement to his management tools; those all seemed to have something to do with the planet, rather than Serenity. They were probably because of everything he’d done in the Tutorial that wasn’t for himself.

It was a very different set of rewards than he’d expected; from what he’d seen of the students’ Group rewards, they were very similar to the normal Instructor rewards. This wasn’t.

[Fourth Reward: Crystal Seed Remote Link Established]

Serenity felt a shock emanate from his belly. He was frozen in place, but Curio didn’t seem bothered at all.

What was going on? Crystal Seed?

He’d completely forgotten about that in the rush to deal with all of the portals on Earth. He still didn’t know what it was supposed to do.

The shock released him. Serenity collapsed against the back of the chair. For a moment, he simply sat there, then a fuzzy feeling and an annoying sound started to make themselves known. They only lasted a few seconds before they vanished and a different set of words appeared in Serenity’s vision.

Additional inputs sequestered.

I’ll figure it out, Serenity. Once I manage to turn that noise into data, I’ll integrate it with the other data sources.

It will be nice to have something to work with. This planet is much less interesting than Earth.

Aide’s complaint made Serenity smile. He thought it was the first time he’d ever actually seen Aide complain. It made him seem more human.

Thanks, Aide.

I am happy to take care of it.

If you could by some chance load a map, it would make things much easier than manually mapping your travels.

That made two. Or maybe one and a half? It was a request for something that would make things easier, while the first had simply been a complaint.

I’ll see what I can find. It’ll probably be paper and may not be well-surveyed; accuracy can vary highly. Some planets have exceptional maps while others do not.

I’ll take what I can get.

Yes, Aide was definitely becoming more human.

With a smile, Serenity returned to the Voice’s messages.

[Fifth reward: Customized Item: Tent of Comfort]

Serenity blinked. That was definitely his personal reward, and it was a tent? What the heck? Why did the Voice think he needed a tent?

Tent of Comfort

While this tent can be easily set up by a single person, requires little outside support, and appears to be a small, single-person pup tent, looks are deceiving. The interior is protected from outside environmental conditions, remaining comfortable even in poor weather.

In addition to comfortable sleeping materials and locations for eight people, the Tent of Comfort includes areas for personal care and food preparation (consumable supplies are not included).

It was a portable apartment for eight people, wasn’t it?

Was it because there would be friends headed his way soon, and the Voice knew that they’d be traveling across the planet together to find and free the enslaved Earthlings? That made sense; having something like this would save them time on each day of travel if no one had a flyer that could reach the next settlement within a day.

It still seemed like an odd personal reward for being an instructor in the Tutorial, but he really didn’t have much room to complain. He’d already gotten the big reward.

Rissa and his parents were alive.

Serenity focused on petting Curio. It was more pleasant than thinking about the past or digging into records of slave sales.

The Ruins of A’Atla hold the Key to the Past. They shall rise as the World once again becomes herself; beware those who would seek to hide the Past once again.

Rissa stared at the words in the message Serenity had sent. His letter was very Serenity, but she couldn’t get the two sentences from the Voice to leave her mind.

She was fixing some tea to take her mind off it when everything began to shake, even though nothing was moving. It was the same as the last time, the event Serenity had called “the World becoming Tier One”.

This time was far worse.

Rissa set the tea mug down, worried she’d drop it if she held it during the shaking. “Aki? Why is it so bad this time?”

Aki didn’t reply.

Lex Rothmer was packing his carryon when everything started to shake. There wasn’t much to add this time, but he was glad Baxter would be the one flying them.

The shaking grew worse, and Lex stumbled, steadying himself with the kitchen table.

“Lex?”

Lex turned towards his wife, only to realize that he saw two Bethanys. One was the woman he’d known for most of his adult life; the other overlapped her, but he could still see both. The strange version was serene; a little thinner than the Bethany he knew with broad shoulders and a pair of white and gold feathered wings behind her.

“Bethany?” He was certain his didn’t sound quite right; apparently he was seeing things now. Maybe that was an unfortunate side effect of his new Path?

No, from what Thomas - er, Serenity - had said, there shouldn’t be bad side effects. If he was seeing something because of his Path, there was a reason and it probably meant something.

Bethany stepped forward, concern obvious on her face. The winged vision vanished as she moved. “Are you hurt? You sound upset.”

Lex shook his head, trying to shake some sense back into himself. “For a moment, I saw you with wings. No idea what that was about.”

Bethany froze, then looked down. “White with the occasional gold feather?”

Lex pulled out a chair and sat down. This sounded like something he didn’t want to be standing for. Especially not with the world still shaking even though nothing was moving. “Yes.”

Bethany sighed heavily. “I’ve told you about my grandfather, but I didn’t say everything…”

D’nehr watched as his old friend Gaia shook. He’d told her not to hold off on the Tier advancement, but her argument had made all too much sense. People without magic had a hard time adapting to high-magic areas, and advancing a Tier was going to make some new ones. He’d helped her pick out where they would run, but she only had a limited amount of control because of the fractured ley line network.

Six of them ran through cities while three others ran through some of her healthier land areas; the water areas were if anything worse. Giving everything as long as possible to acclimatize was helpful, and the new high-mana zones wouldn’t be.

It felt like it took forever, but it was actually only a few minutes before the magic stopped sloshing around the giant room surrounding the World Core. There was new crystal growth, but D’nehr could also see some crystal shards that had fallen off Gaia’s crystalline form and floated around her. “How did it go?”

“Poorly,” Gaia admitted. “There will be some severe weather for the next few days, worldwide. Worse, one of my currents is now carrying a major ley line; it pulled the high magic zone I’d planned to put in the middle of the Pacific into a longer, narrower shape. On top of that, I have an itch where A’Atla was.”

“An itch?” Any mention of A’Atla was enough to completely distract D’nehr from everything else. “What sort of itch?”

“The old enchantments seem to be reactivating. Only the island isn’t on the old ley river; it’s not even on a stream. At least, that’s what I think is happening; you know I can’t see enchantments. What I can see is that the island is pulling magic from its surrounding area to itself. Which itches.”

Gaia sounded puzzled more than worried, and D’nehr found himself relaxing. If it was minor enough that she didn’t think it was urgent, they had time. It wasn’t like he had an excess of Guardians to flood the area anymore anyway; there were not many left.

Russ felt the world shake and turned to his wife at the other end of the couch in concern. She’d predicted that the world would shake several days before, but that was all she’d been able to tell him. They were still getting used to the changes to her oracular ability; it was somehow both more expansive and yet less detailed than before. She’d get random flashes that might or might not be important, but without the details to do anything.

Phoebe nodded. “Yes, this is what I Saw. I was hoping I’d See why, but there’s nothing.”

Phoebe suddenly froze in place and Russ was glad she was already seated; he recognized that posture. A vision of some sort was filling her mind, and it seemed to last longer than most since Serenity had broken her curse.

“The Island Beneath the Sea shall rise, and with it shall come the Ones Lost to Time. He who Laughs in Darkness scrambles to find his pieces; rest safe in the Wings of the Dragon.” Phoebe spoke, then seemed to relax. “I hate prophecies.”

It was a new sentiment for her. Until recently, she’d always seemed excited when she got one. Russ wasn’t certain why it had changed; had she always hated them and simply had it suppressed by the curse, or was she reacting to the prophecy reminding her of the curse’s control over her?

Even Phoebe didn’t know.

“At least it doesn’t seem particularly obscure,” Russ observed. “I bet we both know what it means when it says Wings of the Dragon.”

Phoebe was already shaking her head. “He’s far too young. It has to mean a different dragon, or even something that’s only symbolically like a dragon.”

Russ was happy to have his sparring partner back, even if they were only verbal spars. “He may be young for a dragon, but…”

General