At first, it wasn’t a surprise when Lex didn’t write to Serenity. He’d mentioned that he might be out of contact for a couple of weeks while he searched for the Well of Souls. Serenity was completely willing to give his father the time he’d asked for, so he wasn’t worried when two weeks passed.

During that time, they packed up and left Asihanya. It would be a long trip to Earth, but they weren’t in any particular hurry. Serenity picked a route that took them a little out of the way - it would add about a week - but it went through Tzintkra.

There were some people he wanted to talk to while he was there. Desinka and Hale were at the top of his list, though he was certain he’d end up talking to Stojan Tasi as well and probably see Guildmaster Hollis. There was no way the Guildmaster of the Healer’s Hall (and close friend of the Planetary Manager of Tzintkra) wouldn’t hear about Serenity’s visit, even if Serenity didn’t otherwise go to see Hollis. Serenity had no doubt that Hollis was helping Stojan Tasi manage the planet.

After three weeks without news from his parents, he wondered and sent a message asking Lex what happened on the trip. There was no response, but Serenity still didn’t think too much of it. An extra week when you were exploring wasn’t unusual.

They were in the middle of a week-long trek between portal nodes on a mountainous stretch of a low-Tier planet that deliberately didn’t allow Portal-hopping. Serenity suspected the Planetary Sovereign wanted higher-Tier people to spend some time on the planet and slowly upgrade it; it would be very slow, but it could work if there was enough traffic and the planet’s portals put it as the fastest way to several different planets, including Tzintkra.

Serenity found it uncomfortable; he wasn’t certain what the planet’s Tier cap was, but he was probably over it. The planet was Tier Five and it suppressed him almost as much as Earth had when he’d last been there; it worried Serenity, since Earth was only Tier Three. A normal Tier Eight would have issues on a Tier Three world, and Serenity wasn’t normal.

Admittedly, Earth reaching Tier Three in less than two years was incredibly impressive; that was as high as the planet had reached in the ten years Vengeance spent there before the planet died. Serenity had taken the time at the Great Library to look into the details and the normal minimum for people under about Tier Fifteen was half the person’s Tier; things got weird at the bottom but it was a useful rule of thumb. Even then, anyone higher than the planet’s Tier would be limited; it simply wasn’t debilitating. With luck, Earth would continue to Tier up quickly. Serenity didn’t really have an option other than to deal with whatever happened until the planet was high enough.

After four weeks, Serenity knew something was wrong and reached out to both Russ and Baxter, the most likely people to have heard from his father. Neither had; Russ hadn’t even realized it had been so long, since he was still dealing with mundane fallout from the Solomon vase hunt. He mentioned that there was something he wanted to talk to Serenity about “when you’re back on Earth and have some time, I understand if you need to search for your parents first”.

Baxter, on the other hand, pointed Serenity at a pilot named Oliver Davis. He’d delivered Lex and Bethany Rothmer to the island and was willing to do the same for their son. The fact that the formal message Baxter sent about it used those exact words made Serenity suspect that Baxter hadn’t told Oliver exactly who the son was, which left the decision of how much to reveal up to Serenity.

That was also the week Raz came to Serenity, puzzled. “Did you give my name out as a possible teacher for dungeon-based Paths?”

Serenity shook his head. “Did someone approach you?” He couldn’t think of any reason someone would ask a traveler to teach them unless they were traveling with them. “One of Legion’s bodies, maybe?”

Raz shook his head. “No, someone on Earth. Aki sent me a message about it. She got a message that - here, let me read it to you.”

Aki,

I’m told you can help me reach out to Raz Sunshine and that he is the best person to teach me about dungeons. What do I need to do?

Thanks,

Nadia Davis

The last name caught Serenity’s attention. What were the odds that Raz would get a message from a Davis right after Serenity learned that a pilot named Davis flew his parents to the island the Well of Souls sat on?

Apparently pretty good. It wasn’t like Davis was a rare last name; still, Serenity had to wonder if there was a connection.

“I don’t know where that came from. Do you want to teach?” Serenity didn’t remember Raz having an opinion either way, but they hadn’t really talked about it. “It would be useful; maybe you can teach proper dungeon management? Earth doesn’t have a tradition of Dungeon Binders yet.”

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“I’m not sure,” Raz admitted. “I’ll think about it.”

Four days after that, they reached Tzintkra. At this point, the fastest way to Earth was through the Death-touched planet; they’d arrive in the Necropolis and leave from the Shining Caverns.

Stojan Tasi was waiting for Serenity when he arrived. He wasn’t one of the people Serenity wanted to talk to, but Serenity still made time for him. They toured the Necropolis and the Shining Caverns, but Serenity managed to avoid the larger tours Tasi had planned by mentioning his need to get home. Instead, they spent a lot of time in meetings, going over what was happening in the two cities and making plans for the future.

A couple of days into the meetings, Stojan Tasi called in Ynsarac Hale to discuss the reclamation of the Necropolis. It was going well, but they’d run into a few bumps along the way. Most of them would simply take time and enough people, but there was one that Hale didn’t think he could manage with the resources he had available. He wanted permission to hire a specialist extermination team, permission that Stojan Tasi had repeatedly denied.

When Serenity saw the price tag, he understood why; four thousand Etherium was a huge cost to deal with a single problem. Tasi was holding out for getting one of the groups that routinely delved into the Necropolis to handle it, but they hadn’t yet found a group that was willing to take it on. Most Necropolis delves were into explored dungeons and this creature didn’t fit any of them.

It was a gigantic spirit or elemental that seemed to have escaped from a dungeon in the western part of the Necropolis, but it was strange other than that. No one could identify what dungeon it came from, because there while there were three dungeons with insubstantial creatures, none were like the “Region of Death”.

It actively sought out any undead that entered its range, Pathed or monster and they disappeared, probably killed. The area was relatively safe for non-undead as long as you didn’t get too close to the creature. If you did, it was dangerous or even deadly even though the creature ignored the living unless they attacked it. No one was certain what it did, but people would sicken and die near it. It wouldn’t communicate with anyone, either.

The description wasn’t enough for Serenity to completely narrow down what it was, but it gave him an idea. It sounded like it had a Death-based aura, the same way he did, and that was enough of a reason to look into it. He might learn something useful.

He headed that way the following evening; he wanted to see the so-called “Region of Death” for himself. It wasn’t hard to find; the area felt like it had been smothered in even more rich Death than most of the Necropolis, but there were no undead at all. Simply being in the area might be dangerous for the living, but it was comfortable for Serenity. The spirit wasn’t easy to find, so after an hour, Serenity decided to see if he could attract it. It would be safe; he wasn’t affected by Death, after all, and he also wasn’t undead.

Serenity first tried consuming the Death-attuned energy around himself. It was delicious, but even stripping a large amount of it didn’t attract anything that could have caused the layers of Death attunement. It clearly wasn’t finding undead because they used up some of the Death mana in the area; perhaps it was the opposite, then.

Serenity relaxed Eat Death but extended his aura as far as it would go and allowed his Incarnate to settle around himself. This was also comfortable, especially since he was already full from his recent meal. The Death energy around him quickly slipped into alignment with his Incarnate, making the area even more friendly to Serenity.

Less than a minute later, a nearly invisible wisp of Death arrived just inside Serenity’s range, then quickly darted back outside. A larger version of it could have accomplished what Serenity saw around him, so he waited for the big one to arrive.

Another small one arrived, then another. Serenity just watched; it was interesting to see them dart inside his aura then immediately retreat outside. It was even more interesting to see just how many there were. At first, there were a few, then there were dozens. After fifteen minutes, when it started to slow down, Serenity had long since lost track and had to get the exact count from Aide.

He’d seen 2,538 individual wisps if each incursion was unique. It seemed fairly likely; there were definitely hundreds out there. Some were smaller and some were larger; they ranged from roughly golf ball sized to beach ball sized. None were large enough to do what he’d seen individually, but the area around the edge of his aura was visibly hazy from the presence of so many spirits.

That was enough that Serenity now had a good idea what was going on, and it explained why no one had been able to deal with the area. There was no giant monster here; that was a crowd of smaller creatures, probably gathered around an undead. Since they left Death energy behind, they probably took something else from undead; they wouldn’t have to be particularly strong to do it as long as they attacked in sufficient numbers. Individually, they might be easy to dispel, but a crowd this large would punch well above their Tier.

The only remaining question was if they were technically “individuals” or “a swarm” as far as the Voice was concerned. “A swarm” could Tier up as a group; it was harder, but it could happen. The fact that there were multiple sizes of wisp made that less likely, but Serenity couldn’t rule it out.

Then a group of them rushed towards Serenity all at once. They were all the same size, which made Serenity decide that the answer was probably in between the two extremes; he was looking at a group of swarms working together. He didn’t feel any threat from them; instead, what he felt was a pair of paws leaving his shoulder as Curio attempted to pounce the wisps.

Serenity wasn’t sure when Curio had climbed onto his shoulder; the shadowcat could be nearly weightless when he wanted to, and Serenity often forgot he was there. Then he’d do something like this.

Curio went right through the wisps. He landed on the ground with an annoyed yowl right before the wisps slammed into Serenity.

Serenity looked down at the wisps as they bounced off him with a smile. They were aggressively cute.