The next morning, after discussing the night’s dream over breakfast, Serenity and Rissa went to the edge of Aki’s territory to see if her reaction to sunlight was simply her reaction to backlash or if there was something more. A temporary backlash reaction wasn’t unusual.
Unfortunately, when she stepped out from Aki’s zone of influence, the sunlight changed from gently warming her skin to attacking it. She started to visibly redden and stepped immediately back into the sheltered area. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” Serenity frowned. He didn’t really have any good tools for finding out information when he didn’t have a starting point. He didn’t even know if it was related to the curse. On the other hand, Rissa did have some of the right tools; that was what Oracles - Seers of all sorts - did. “Do you think you can try to find out something about it? I don’t think we should ask your mother.”
Rissa gave a hiccuping laugh. “That seems like a terrible idea. You think it’s related to the curse, don’t you?”
Serenity nodded. “Unless you’ve suddenly become undead, and I can tell you haven’t. There just aren’t that many reasons to have a sun sensitivity. I don’t know why the curse would do it, but the fact that Aki’s sun doesn’t when she has the Sun Affinity makes me think it’s something about outside and not something about the Sun specifically. More than that, Phoebe interrupted you and couldn’t remember it afterwards; all I can think is that she was trying to stop you from seeing something important. Maybe you should try again?”
Rissa nodded. “While you’re at the museum with Dad. I think I’ll be trapped here ‘til we solve this.
I’ll call Jacob, too. See if he’s having the same issue.”
Serenity vaguely wished he could get her off the planet so he could find out if it was specifically something about Earth or if it was sunlight in general, but not Aki’s. That required a portal, though, and general portals weren’t available until the invasions were handled. Wait, she could use an invasion portal, and there was one that would work well if she could get in.
“Do you think you can travel to Serenity Settlement? That would let us see if it’s Aki blocking a problem or if it’s more general. The rockfin portal’s also nearby, if you can get permission to go through, you can see if it’s a problem limited to Earth. You should be able to protect yourself with heavy clothing.” Serenity’s mind raced as he tried to think of a solution. “I’ll also see if I can contact Gaia. If the problem’s here, maybe she has a solution.”
Rissa frowned in thought. “Wait on that until we know more. Maybe I can combine it with your trip to the Traa portal? I’ll try to figure things out while you’re looking into the vases. This is my problem.”
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art was everything Serenity expected when Janice dropped him off. The building’s exterior was grand, and so was the entrance. Serenity didn’t head for the ticket line; instead, he looked for Russ. They were supposed to meet someone here at 10AM; Serenity was a few minutes early, but he was certain Russ would already be waiting for him.
He was. Serenity walked over to where he was talking to one of the museum guards.
The guard was shaking his head as Serenity walked up. “...like that. Not recently, at least. I know there was an attempted theft a couple of years ago, but the thief didn’t make it out of the building. I wasn’t here yet, but Charlie always tells that story.”
Russ smiled. “I’m betting Charlie’s the one that stopped the thief.”
The guard broke into a wide grin. “Won’t let anyone forget.”
“Mr. Latimer?” Serenity had heard her heels click on the floor, but until she spoke he wasn’t certain she was the person they were meeting. She was tall, taller than Serenity, at least in his human form. Her clothing was markedly conservative, but other than that she didn’t fit the stereotype. She didn’t wear glasses, and her red hair was long and pulled back with a simple tie at the back of her neck.
“Director Collins.” Russ turned smoothly to greet her. “Thank you for meeting me here on such short notice.”
“Under the circumstances, I wasn’t going to make you wait.” Director Collins turned towards a nearby door labeled Employees Only. She didn’t say anything, but Russ followed her, and Serenity followed Russ.
Director Collins led them down a short hallway and to an elevator. After she pressed the elevator button, she looked up and noticed Serenity. “Who are you?”
“Mr. Rothmer is my assistant in this matter,” Russ stated. “He can be trusted to not say anything that would harm the museum’s reputation, and he will be vital for the recovery effort.”
“I’m not sure I want them recovered,” the Director stated. “I found the entry for the Solomon vases this morning, and if they’re what I think they are, it may be best if they stay lost. They’re not very impressive and all attempts to accurately date them have failed. We know they’re at least a thousand years old because of where they were found, but the provenance is shaky, especially since there’s nothing backing it up. They’ve only been on display as part of two special exhibitions in the fifty years the museum has had them, and in both cases the exhibitions were unexpected failures. My predecessor tried to sell them more than once, but was never able to find a buyer.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
It was good to hear that some people could tell danger when they saw it. The problem was that the vases were only the tip of the iceberg; if the Met had something like the vases, what else did they have? “They’re dangerous. It’s possible to neutralize them, but not easy. I think you’ll find that they’re worth more than you think once you get the right specialists involved, especially if we can neutralize the danger. They’re just the beginning, unfortunately. If they were stolen, what else was taken? I can imagine far worse things than them.”
Director Collins paled a little, but looked back at Serenity “What exactly is your specialty? That sounds like you’re thinking more of weapons than art.”
The elevator arrived with a ding! as she spoke, but she didn’t step into it.
“Magic.” Serenity stopped there. He could have given a more complete answer, but when you got right down to it, he doubted it would make her feel any better. “And weapons aren’t the only thing I’m worried about.”
Knowledge was dangerous. Yes, most of it could be weaponized, but sometimes the accidents were more dangerous than the deliberate weapons. The ritual Liam had tried was a good example of that; he wasn’t trying for a weapon, but if the mentirk had been aimed at a less friendly area than the Origin, he could easily have ended up turning the victims into cthuloid monstrosities that drove anyone who saw them mad.
When he thought about it, the actual result wasn’t as far off that one as Serenity would have preferred. He suspected that the main reason he didn’t drive people who saw him loopy was that he reflexively constrained his Sovereign form to obeying Euclidean geometry. He was moderately confident that the Origin didn’t.
Come to think of it, he still hadn’t discovered how his chimera form echoed his latest evolution. It had echoed everything else, and the description he’d seen implied it should echo them all. It was definitely something to look into, but not here.
Director Collins seemed doubtful, but she led the way into the elevator. “If you’d said that two years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you.”
Two months ago would have made sense, but two years seemed like an odd period of time. Serenity couldn’t help himself from asking as he joined her on the elevator. “What happened two years ago?”
“The last time I visited New York City for work reasons,” Russ stated. “Let’s leave it at that. No need to speak ill of the dead.”
Serenity did vaguely remember an unexpected visit by Rissa’s parents a couple of years ago. He didn’t really remember if they’d given a reason or not. It didn’t really answer what had happened, but it also didn’t really sound relevant.
Director Collins took advantage of the elevator reaching floor B4 to step off without saying more and led the way down a short fluorescent-lit hallway to a large door. When she opened it, Serenity saw a concrete floor and rows of shelving full of boxes. Each case was lettered, and there were numbers and letters on each shelf - clearly a location matrix of some sort. It was the only way anyone would be able to find anything in the warehouse this obviously was.
Serenity had paused long enough to take in the sight that he had to hurry after the director and his future father-in-law. Not long after he caught up, Serenity heard the director muttering. “M .. no, N. 46Q … Ah, here we are.”
She turned to Serenity and Russ. “This is where the Solomon vases are supposed to be, N 46 Q though U.”
Serenity stared at the shelving and blinked, then blinked again. The boxes were both there and not there at the same time. Q and R were there but S, T, and U were flickering. The boxes above and below were doing the same thing.
“Let’s take the boxes down and check them, just in case.” Director Collins reached up to pick up the box sitting in N 46 Q.
“Not that one.” What was happening suddenly clicked in Serenity’s mind. “That box is there. Try to pick up N 46 S. It’s an illusion.”
Director Collins pulled the box out anyway and carried it down the row to a table. “We should check them all, make sure they are what they say they are.”
Serenity exchanged a glance with Russ, who shrugged. “She’s not wrong. Can you break the illusion?”
While Russ picked up the next box and carried it to the table, Serenity took a good look at the illusion. It was well-built, definitely fooling his vision, but it didn’t fool his Eyeless Sight. He reached out to touch the illusion and was startled; he could feel the box, even though he could see that his hand was actually going a little bit into where the box “was” to his sight. Visually, it looked like his hand stopped moving when it “hit the box”, but Eyeless Sight said it wasn’t perfect.
Serenity pulled his hand back and tried again. When it “touched” the “surface” of the illusory box, he could see with Eyeless Sight that it continued just far enough into the box to look like he was pressing on the outside of the box. The illusion showed his hand compressing the way it would and it felt just like it should. Looking at it with his magic-sight showed a structure of mana with nearly no essence.
He hadn’t seen a physical illusion this good in … well, actually, he wasn’t certain how long. How long had the Final Reaper spent alone? He’d stopped tracking at some point. It wasn’t good to dwell on that. Instead, he should be looking at how to break it.
There were a number of different ways to break illusion spells. The simplest was to overpower it, like any other spell. The problem with that was that there was nothing there to catch the overflow of magic, and that could have strange effects if it interacted with anything else. This place was large enough and filled with enough stuff that if something else happened to be magical, he didn’t know what it could do.
Before he could start looking for the other options, he saw Director Collins walking towards him carrying one of the boxes. “Is that all you needed?”
“Yes, it looks like they’re all there. It must have come from somewhere else.” Russ was right behind her with the second box.