Blaze checked Serenity in the morning and complimented his self-healing. He was still going to monitor Serenity, but - in his words - “If I didn’t know you had a brain injury yesterday, I wouldn't be able to see where it was.”

The Trials themselves were not that bad. It was predominantly goblins, and mostly people who just didn’t want to do more than the minimum number of dungeons. Almost everyone had weapons - Serenity found out during the second group that Doyle and Nightwitch had gathered everyone they could find at breakfast who hadn’t done a Trial since the last Trial Day and marched them down to the Armory to get weapons.

A few of the groups were problems, but most of them were so glad to have Serenity with them they just did what he said. His bigger problem was trying to get them to think for themselves. Almost any plan would work against the boss - it was not difficult - but they needed to do something.

“Charge in there and git ‘em” was proposed more than once, and it actually did as well as any of the more complex plans Serenity saw that day. Most people just weren’t good enough for the more complex plans to be reliable.

Lunchtime was marked by Echo bringing food and a message that the others were taking a break from running dungeons. Apparently the instructors weren’t being called for mandatory Trials, so they’d opened the dungeons up for optional Trials, and people were going. She also told him that if her count was correct, even though he was handling all of the mandatory Trials that day, he’d likely be done midafternoon - there just weren’t that many people left to go.

That was how it worked out.

When the last Trial ended, there was a small group of instructors waiting for him with a cake. Kerr introduced the ones he didn’t know - mostly other magic instructors - and they each had a slice of cake “to welcome him to the team”.

Ekari apologized that they still didn’t know who’d attacked him. She told him she was going to set guards around him at the training grounds and graveyard, and suggested that he keep friends nearby the rest of the time.

Serenity tried to argue, but the best he could manage was a reluctant agreement that the guards would immediately chase the attacker if another attack came, even if he was injured; Serenity maintained that he could heal well enough.

He carefully avoided mentioning that actually killing him would probably only result in Serenity rising as an undead. If they didn’t already know that was common with high Death affinity, he didn’t need to tell them. Death affinity already had a bad enough reputation.

Once the argument was over, Serenity headed back to his room - to be greeted by his “posse”. He still wasn’t sure what to think about that. They had a party - without beer, this time - ending in dinner.

The one thing that hadn’t come up the previous night was how they were going to deal with existing governments. Serenity didn’t want to talk about it, but naturally it was the first thing Lancaster brought up.

“It depends on who we can get to trust us. That’s one of the reasons we need someone with a big presence, and Serenity being in multiple Tutorials should be perfect for that. We need the attention. I’m thinking - once we’re out, let news spread for a bit, then Serenity’s going to get to go on the news shows, catch people who weren’t in Tutorials. Give advice, that kind of thing.” Doyle cut some more of his it-tastes-like-chicken and shook his head. “Not that anyone’s going to be real happy about people running around who can dodge bullets and throw lightning. I’m betting there’ll be some sort of plan to register everyone’s abilities. We should probably go along with it if -”

Serenity spoke over Doyle. “It won’t matter. You know how long that sort of thing takes to set up. There may be some local stuff but they’ll realize pretty quickly that they need to register everyone, and they won’t have time. DC only has about six months, after all.”

Everyone stopped eating to look at Serenity. Nightwitch was the first to find her voice. “What?”

“The Sterath invasion - I - I hadn’t mentioned it? I thought I had. I don’t know where it started, but in about six months - “ Serenity stopped talking. It wasn’t a good memory.

His parents had been in DC when the Sterath invaded. He knew his father had tried to get his mother to go to safety, but she’d waited on him. Vengeance had never known what the last few hours of their lives were like, but it was the reason he’d gone after the Sterath hard enough to earn a Title, decades later.

“Earth to Serenity! Six months?” Nightwitch broke into Serenity’s musings.

“My parents live in DC. I don’t talk about them, but - that’s where they are. Sorry. Dad has a job that he isn’t going to abandon and - Mom won’t leave Dad. If I tell them - maybe - “ Serenity broke off for a moment. “-No, Dad would still leave it to the last moment. We’re just going to have to stop it. Somehow.”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Did they know DC was the capitol?” Nightwitch was completely serious now.

“I think so. Can’t be sure, I wasn’t there. But - that’s how the Sterath do things. Information first, then strike for the head.” Serenity felt like he was pulling himself together from pieces. His parents weren’t dead. That hadn’t happened yet.

“Then we can plan on it still being a goal, but six months may change if they know we’re preparing, so we can’t count on that - “

The discussion moved on to ways to find the Sterath before they attacked. It didn’t seem very productive to Serenity, but it was something to talk about and feel like they were accomplishing something.

Serenity had just said more about his parents than Thomas had in years. Thomas just didn’t talk about his parents - it was the only way he’d ever found to keep a secret, and most people were perfectly happy to avoid what sounded like a difficult topic. Which meant he’d left out an important fact, one he hadn’t even told Rissa: exactly what job his father held.

Everyone was tired, so they headed to bed early.

Everyone except Serenity. For all that he’d spent most of the day on his feet, it really hadn’t been difficult, and he’d had the attention of a healer several times an hour. He still didn’t have the book back from Lancaster, so he didn’t have anything to do.

He’d need to remember to bring something to do for the next Tutorial, if he could.

He simply sat there, thinking about nothing in particular for a while. In function, it was very similar to meditation, though Serenity had never formally learned how to meditate. This was something the Final Reaper had worked out on his own that let him see what he was missing.

The only thing that came to him was that he still hadn’t figured out how he could see without eyes. He knew it wasn’t related to his Affinities, Concepts, or Aspect - those didn’t replicate normal sight at all, and he was seeing outside their reach in any case, at least with his Aspect locked and unreachable.

He knew it wasn’t his aura. That would have made the most sense, except that he was seeing a more normal cone, which went much farther than his aura could reach. He should have been seeing all around him - and not so far - if it were his aura. It was also cut off by intervening objects, which was less true of this.

He checked his body, and found absolutely nothing that could explain it.

It reminded him of how he’d seen as the Final Reaper - he’d called it Life-Sight, though it didn’t appear on his Status. The only difference was that the Final Reaper could see the animating force of a creature as well as its shell. Life energy would be the most common - and the brightest, usually - but any energy could sustain a creature, and the Final Reaper could see them all, even if he couldn’t always tell them apart at a glance. He could always tell the difference between an animated object and a creature.

Serenity looked down and realized that his arm was glowing with Life energy. He could pick out the small details around the room, especially the spider that was attempting to set up a web in one of the corners.

Apparently it was simply an ability he’d carried over from previously that worked because he expected it to. Serenity wondered if he’d carried anything else over. He hoped not. As useful as it might be, he didn’t want to be the person he had been, and the more abilities he’d kept, the more he was afraid he wouldn’t change.

All that was left to do that night was to see if there were any more stats he could place.

And eat a spike-pear. He didn’t have many left, but they wouldn’t last much longer anyway.

Name: Serenity

Species: Human (Altered Template)

Path: Paths Available

Level: 69 (98/700)

Tier: 0, 0/69 Spent

Path History: None

Condition: Healthy

Healing Available: Good

Mana: 280/280

Stamina: 340/340

Might: 22

Agility: 25

Phys: 24

Understanding: 15

Will: 23

Mind: 18

Perception: 25

Luck: 16 - 121%

Ev: 5070

Resistances

Pain: 1032 (32 active)

Sleep: 1

Pleasure: 2

Unknown

Affinities

Death: 100.01%

Life: 9%

Mind: 30%

Arcane: 50%

Plasma: 40%

Liquid: 5%

Vapor: 10%

Solid: 15%

Energy: 40%

Void: 60%

Time: 15%

Space: 5%

Concepts

Death

Mind 15%

Time: 5%

Unknown

Aspects: Unknown

Titles

Previous Supreme Existence

Altered Template

Named

Ghost in the System