The trio had Raz lead them to where Garrett’s group left the two floating discs. Only one was there, which told them that Greyvine had almost certainly escaped. They’d expected that, and it didn’t seem to bother the trio; they hadn’t ever met Greyvine, so even though he’d worked with Garrett, they didn’t have a particular problem with him.
“Do either of you know how to fly one of these?” Hale looked at the disc, then back at Serenity and Raz.
“I haven’t flown one of these, but I’ve flown other stuff. I can probably figure it out,” Serenity admitted.
“I’ve only ever flown a carpet.” Raz didn’t seem to want to get close to the disc. “I hate these things. You always feel like you’re going to fall off.”
“Sounds like you get to try, Serenity.” Hale nodded at him, then turned to Zan. Zan held out what looked like a bundle of sticks, he’d pulled from his backpack. Hale and Katya each took a bundle, while Zan kept one for himself. They each shook their bundle out and it turned into a floating chair. Serenity could see the sticks form the outline, then it filled in. They were clearly individual flying devices designed for portability rather than speed or carrying capacity, while the disc was designed to carry more.
Serenity hauled himself onto the disc, then pushed a little magic out through his mana channels and into the disc. It was similar to others he’d used; flying was concentration-based, and it responded to intent.
He’d rather drive a car. It was easier, and modern cars had all sorts of safety features and assistance that this thing wouldn’t have. Fortunately, it was also slower than a car, even if it wasn’t restricted to roads.
Serenity moved it around a bit to be sure he had control, then brought it in front of Raz. “Hop on. I’m going to see if this thing has - ah, there they are.” Serenity felt a set of restraints snap into place around him. “I assume you’d like a seat belt?”
“A what?” Raz had made it onto the disc and sat next to Serenity, but he sounded clueless.
“Something to hold you in place on the disc?”
“Yes please!”
He snapped a set of restraints into place over Raz, as well. They felt like they hadn’t been used much; Serenity suspected the previous owner of the disc hadn’t even known they existed.
----------------------------------------
Serenity led the way down the ridge and into the half-dead forest. Even at a small distance, it was obvious where he’d exited the forest; a twenty-foot-wide swathe was far greener than the surrounding forest. Serenity headed towards it, but stopped and went back when he noticed the others had stopped.
“What happened there?” Hale looked at Serenity while gesturing at the forest. “I haven’t seen anything that normal since I got to this dead planet.”
“It’s temporary,” Serenity replied. He didn’t want to go into details. None of the trio seemed to be a necromancer, which meant there was a good chance they were here to fight against the remnants of Death. Serenity seemed to remember two major factions on Tzintkra, and one of them was very distinctly anti-Death magic. “There’s a good chance it’s actually bad for the forest, especially the trees; that level of growth isn’t sustainable long term, and many of the trees were partially outside the effect. They’re already having issues.”
Serenity had had effectively no control over his aura while walking out of the forest. He remembered the feeling of eating all of that Death, and it made him smile a little.
Right now, he was controlling his aura, keeping the intensity down and the radius much smaller - enough to cover Raz and make sure his hand didn’t get worse, but that was all.
Zan’s voice came from Serenity’s other side. “That’s fine, but what did you do? I’ve seen that effect before, but it wouldn’t have partially affected plants. Is it the same thing you did in the dungeon fight to the shadow-creatures?”
Serenity tried to come up with a truthful explanation that didn’t scream that he was a Death mage.He couldn’t come up with an explanation that would hide that from someone looking for it, but most people - even most mages - just used Path Skills and prepackaged spells and didn’t really pay much attention to the underlying mechanics. “They weren’t really made of shadow, and yes. That is, I stripped the Death mana out of them. That let the Life mana in the plants take over. It’s also not good for the undead.”
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Everyone stared at him, so he decided to take a risk. It would probably work well; no one was likely to call him a Death mage for making an area feel less like Death, after all. The only real concern was whether or not Zan would trust him less if he used the same effect the dungeon did. “Would you like me to show you?”
“Is it safe?” Zan sounded almost paranoid.
Is anything ever safe?
“As long as you don’t need Death magic, it should be. That’s all it affects.” As far as I know. I wonder if being in my aura is like being in a dungeon? Not that that actually seems to be a threat.
Zan looked to Katya instead of Hale. Serenity could tell he was missing something about their group dynamics - Hale had seemed to be in charge until now - but he didn’t know what it was. When she nodded, Zan told him to go ahead.
Serenity relaxed his hold on his aura and let it spread as far as it could - about ten feet in any direction from him. Zan and Hale were close enough to be within it, but Katya was not. He then slowly increased the draw of Eat Death from minimum to maximum.
It felt good to be flooded with Death mana. Serenity started to relax, but then he saw a little piece of the energy disappear, then another. It was far less than he was pulling in, but it was still something he hadn’t seen before. After a moment, he figured out that the Heart of the Deathless was pulling the Death energy in and using it to convert his body. It was slow.
The remaining Path Choices suddenly made a lot more sense. For Keeping your Options Open, he needed to prevent the Heart from stealing Death mana. He’d have to fight with it and win. For A Lich Again, he should deliberately feed the Heart the Death mana. That would lead to a conversion into an undead and a fight with the Heart for control.
Either of those would be doing something, but what he needed to do was nothing. That would be difficult; he’d have to accept the Heart stealing from him without response and allow it to do as it pleased for an extended period of time. Based on how slowly the Death was expanding, it could be quite a while. It would definitely be more than a few days, and might be weeks, even with allowing it to steal.
Well, he did need to put in some more time in the Tutorial. He’d do that this evening and see what happened. He had the feeling that it would be better to finish this on Tzintkra. It seemed symmetrical to get his Death evolution out of the way on a planet of Death.
Serenity felt the Heart pulse as it stole more Death energy, but did nothing.
[Path Rejected: Keep your Options Open]
Serenity hoped he hadn’t been distracted for too long when he paid attention to the outside world again.
“-that?” Zan seemed to be sputtering a little.
“What was that? I wasn’t paying attention,” Serenity admitted.
“How do you do that?” Zan repeated. He seemed a little more controlled this time. “It’s like that dungeon. It’s like...”
Serenity wanted to cut off that line of thought as quickly as he could. “I think the new dungeon has it because of me. I used it to deal with the dungeon; without it, I wouldn’t have had a chance. It’s a Path skill, one of my capstones.” Every bit of that was true, and none of it said he was using Death magic.
“What Path? If you don’t mind?” It was clear Zan knew he was asking a somewhat rude question. Generally, people would share capabilities with people they intended to work with, and some Paths were very well known, but obscure Paths were often kept as trade secrets. It wasn’t good manners to push.
Serenity shook his head. “It’s a dangerous Path, and not suited for most. I don’t share the details.”
Zan nodded.
As they headed into the forest, the three on flying chairs gathered around the disc and tried to stay within Serenity’s aura. Serenity decided he needed to get the conversation going in a different direction. “I noticed all three of you have the same symbol on your gear. I didn’t see one on Garrett’s group. What is it?”
Hale answered proudly. “Rising Phoenix Company. We’re from the Tzintkra branch, of course. Rising Phoenix was actually founded here. We’re the only company that can say that.” He paused and frowned a little. “Well, the only company operating out of the Shining Caverns.” He perked back up as he continued. “Still, we’re the best merc company on Tzintkra! That’s why we were able to win the right to explore this sector. It was a competition, the Council-”
Katya made a buzzing noise and Hale stopped. He seemed a bit embarrassed. “Got a bit carried away. I’m just really proud of what we did in the competition.”
Despite having to keep the disc down to the maximum speed of the flying chairs, they were still much, much faster in the forest than walking, and as Hale talked, they reached the fallen forest giant. With it and everything else it had taken down with it out of the way, the stone building Serenity arrived in was visible in the distance.
It hadn’t changed since he dug himself out. It was still early in the day, so the group spent the rest of the day exploring the building. There wasn’t much there that Serenity hadn’t found.
The body was still just a body; it hadn’t risen yet. Serenity was sure it wouldn’t as long as he kept the Death mana level low in the area. The trio insisted on burning it so that it wouldn’t rise.
It was more likely than not that the person had come from the Shining Caverns, at least in passing, so Serenity saw no reason to interfere in their preferred way of handling death.