Serenity finished mixing up the hot cocoa with multicolored marshmallows and handed the hot drink to Ekari. He found it somewhat amusing how many of the people he’d invited to Earth had fallen in love with the mass-produced drink mix. He had several cases in his Rift storage, along with multiple canisters of the no-marshmallow mix for the people who weren’t quite as fond of color.

Serenity grinned to himself as he handed Rissa hers, then finished his own. He really couldn’t say anything bad about the habit; after all, he and Rissa were the reason the others had run into hot cocoa in the first place.

After Serenity joined the others - minus the acolytes - at the table in the common room, he turned his attention to Ekari. She was staring at her hot cocoa; it didn’t look like she’d even taken a sip. “Drink up before it gets cold.”

Ekari started and looked up at Serenity. “I’m sorry, I was just…”

Serenity smiled gently. “You should stop apologizing.” This Ekari was nothing like the hard-driving Administrator Ekari Serenity remembered from the Tutorial. There, she’d been in her element. This clearly took her back to her childhood. “I know it’s tough, but whenever you’re ready.”

Ekari took a sip of her hot cocoa. “Where do I even begin? You can say the beginning, but that’s often not the right place. The beginning is boring. You should start with why the other person should care. Set the hook then fill in the details.” Ekari paused and looked up at Serenity. “I guess that means I should start with the Tutorial. I knew it was Margrethe that shot you, but I wasn’t allowed to tell you or do anything other than clean it up. I asked for permission and was denied.”

Kerr slammed her fist into the table. “Why?”

Ekari shook her head. “I was raised on Aeon. Born there, as well. I don’t remember the first time I met the Lord of Aeon. What I do remember is that every time, I hurt after I left. It got worse as I got older; he paid more attention to me.” Ekari took another long sip of her cocoa. “I have the training of a Priest, but I’m not qualified because I never took the Path. I knew better. But that didn’t mean I was going to be allowed to vanish. Not with my mother.”

Kerr seemed to be vibrating in her seat. Sillon set a hand on her shoulder and whispered something in her ear that seemed to calm her down; Serenity wondered what it was. It was interesting that she was far more upset on Serenity’s behalf than he was.

Of course, he knew something Kerr apparently didn’t know. “You told … no, you hinted at Echo, gave her a clue that sent her in the right direction. You didn’t do nothing; it sounds like you did everything you could.”

“More than I was supposed to,” Ekari agreed with a nod. “But that’s getting ahead of where we are. I saw what happened when people gave in to the temptation of his power and control and I didn’t want that. I didn’t see a way out. I’d been an instructor before; I knew that a good enough result could get you new Paths. I even used a few of the ones I got at Tier Three. Unfortunately, going as an Administrator was too interesting. Aeon’s Lord wanted reports and restricted what I could do. I couldn’t fight it. I barely even wanted to by then.”

Ekari glanced around the now silent group gathered around the table. “The time leading up to the beginning of the Tutorial was unpleasant; I spent a great deal of it basking in …” Ekari trailed off. “Blaze says I shouldn’t think about that yet. More than once I almost chose the only Tier Four Path I had available, but I still had enough left to know I didn’t want to be anyone’s slave.”

Serenity frowned. It said a lot about her past that slave was even an option. A Path didn’t appear just because you tried something new or had your situation change. To have a slave Path appear in a place that technically outlawed slavery meant that she was free only in name, and had probably been stuck for years.

“Once I was in the Tutorial, I was supposed to report anything or anyone that was sufficiently unusual. You were, but not until I knew a good bit about you. I couldn’t report in very many times, the feather wasn’t strong enough. It - that was the only time I did during the entire Tutorial. More than that, he prohibited me from acting without permission for anything that wasn’t required by my position as an Administrator. Permission to help you was specifically denied when I asked.” Ekari bit her lip and looked down. “I don’t entirely understand myself then, it feels like I was a different person. Maybe I was; I got a new Path that day. A Path that showed me a way out.”

Serenity nodded. He knew that feeling. “You’d finally pushed yourself far enough for the Voice to give you the Path you wanted.”

Ekari shrugged. “Maybe. I thought perhaps it was your fault. You seem to create Paths.”

Serenity started to say he doubted it, but Rissa’s Path came to mind. “Maybe I’ve just been in the center of a lot of things, getting attention?”

Rissa broke the uncomfortable pause that followed Serenity’s question. “Is that what’s affecting your mother?”

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Ekari’s mouth fell open and she stared at Rissa.

Serenity reached over and caught Ekari’s hot cocoa before she dropped it. He didn’t say anything; he knew what it was like to need a moment to process something.

It took Ekari more than a moment. When she finally spoke, it wasn’t the words Serenity expected. “Blaze says you’re right, and that he’s seen it in more than one Priest. He’s not sure about Acolytes, but he thinks the difference might be the Path I refused.” Ekari shook her head; Serenity could see tears forming in her eyes. “He thinks he can fix it for some people, but only the ones who are still fighting. He thinks Mother is possible but it would probably take weeks.” Ekari frowned. “He says there’s a way to speed it up but he doesn’t want to? Do any of you know what harad is?”

The word almost sounded familiar, but Serenity couldn’t place it. He was pretty sure he’d remember when he was trying to get to sleep at night or in the shower or something. Some time when it was no longer important. Not that it was all that important right now, really.

Rissa shook her head. “It didn’t translate.”

Everyone else seemed lost, as well.

Serenity could at least answer the translation issue. “That’s because Ekari doesn’t know what it means. The spell doesn’t translate names, either, usually. Anything where the meaning is in the sound is left alone.” It could be pretty inconvenient sometimes, but it was still a good general spell for most languages.

“Blaze says he’d rather wait until he can talk to you about it himself instead of trying to talk through me, and that will be a few days.”

Serenity handed Ekari her no-longer-very-hot cocoa. She seemed to have calmed down quite a bit but sugar wouldn’t hurt. “One last question. Is he willing to check the Earthlings we recover?”

Ekari answered after a shorter pause than before. “He says yes but healing them will depend on what he finds.”

Serenity nodded. “Can’t ask for more than that. In that case, what do we do next? I’m pretty sure the plans I made with Rourke are no longer possible. I don’t even know how to contact him.”

Ekari flushed. “I forgot to tell you. I already did that while I was out. At least, I left a message that I’m pretty sure will reach him. I just don’t know when. There wasn’t anyone at the safe house, so I don’t know when they’ll get it. I also found out that the church is recalling people to Abiding One.”

“That’s also where most of the mercenaries are,” Sillon added. “I think they’ve got a real problem and are just throwing people at it.”

Serenity nodded. “We can’t wait on Rourke, then. We probably should wait on Blaze, but we can prepare between now and then. Sillon, you said something about an agreement with the Mercenaries’ Guild?”

Sillon nodded. “I’m not sure we should take them up on it. They want to use us to destroy infrastructure and make it harder to respond to the dungeon breaks, to spread chaos. Juka asked if there was any way to destroy a City Core.”

Serenity shook his head. Destroying a City Core was possible but not a good idea unless you wanted to kill a lot of civilians. “Not going to happen. The loss of everything the City Core does is bad enough; the wave of destruction it emits … at this Tier, it’ll kill anyone nearby.”

Sillon blinked. “I don’t want to know how you know that.”

Serenity shrugged. A big enough kinetic strike could destroy anything, and not all asteroids broke apart when they entered the atmosphere. “The first time I saw it happen was actually just bad luck. There wasn’t even a war happening.”

“The first time?” Sillon shook his head. “Now I know I don’t want to know more. Do we help them? I don’t really like the idea, but they’ve had more time to make plans than we have.”

Serenity sighed. “That’s the advantage of working with Rourke, too. I really don’t like just going along with a plan someone else made but I’m no good at politics.” Vengeance had always preferred the “beat them up until they leave you alone” plan. Of course, that was probably part of how Vengeance ended up becoming the Final Reaper.

“Send a message to High Priestess Karin, ask her to come visit.” Rissa offered. “Offer to keep her safe while she’s here. We can even go get her in Abiding One if that’s where she is.”

Serenity frowned and turned to Rissa. “How will that help?”

“It can’t hurt, but more than that, I’ve been thinking. I noticed something off about her, Blaze noticed something off about her. I think she may be even less the loyal servant than she seems. She’s the one who arranged everything since we got here, so she’s responsible for you finding Helen. She’s possibly also the reason you were able to meet Rourke.” Rissa grinned at Serenity. “If nothing else, it gives Blaze a chance to see if she wants to be healed. On the other hand, she might be exactly who we need to talk to.”

“Talking’s not going to be enough, but I like the idea more than I like our other option.” Serenity nodded over at Sillon. “Destroying cities to cause chaos sounds good when you don’t have any better options to deal with an enemy, but I don’t like jumping there as the first option.”

Even Sillon looked relieved at Serenity’s decision.

Serenity looked around the table. “Anything else?”

Rissa put her hand on her belly. “Well, the baby just kicked me, but that’s all I have.”

A wave of chuckles swept around the room; Serenity wasn’t sure who started it, but it spread quickly. It was probably mostly from the tension; they were all worried about the current situation and used to being far more active than they could be right now.

Even though he knew why he was amused, he still felt better.