Yes.

Nothing happened. There wasn’t a Yes/No, either, just the question.

“Yes, open the door.” Serenity felt a little silly saying the words out loud when you could always interact with the Voice by thought, but it was worth a try.

The door shifted a little towards Serenity and there was a clear click. That was odd; Serenity had expected it to slide out of the way. He took a step back to get a better look at the door and saw that there was a piece of metal that had flipped back to form a handhold.

Before he could reach it, the door started to open towards him. Serenity took another step back; his hand went to his ax, just in case he needed it. The door paused for a moment and Serenity heard a soft exhalation of air. A moment later, the door swung open a little wider, just wide enough to see short brown hair, then a single eye peeked around the door.

Serenity relaxed a bit; he still didn’t know how someone had gotten into the “Viewing Area,” but whoever it was seemed cautious, which meant they were likely not looking for a fight.

The door swung open the rest of the way and revealed a young-looking woman, probably in her late twenties or early thirties. She was dressed in odd-looking clothes; from the stains at her wrists and knees, she spent more than a little time around oil. More importantly, the clothes were streaked with soot; she even had some on her forehead.

Serenity was still trying to figure out who she was and how she got there when she said something he didn’t understand. He didn’t even recognize the language. He shook his head. “I didn’t get that?”

She said something again, but once again it was completely unrecognizable.

That was likely to be a problem. On the other hand, Serenity did have an idea of how to fix it. He started with Ita; he was unfortunately well outside the range covered by the base network, which meant that calling his mother would have an Etherium cost. :Ita? Can you talk to my mother and get her to send me one of the translation bracelets she has? One that can do any language.:

Ita’s response was a laugh. :You need it now, do you not? I will send you mine, then find her to give me a replacement.:

That was actually a really good idea; Serenity was glad Ita thought of it. He’d totally forgotten she still had one because her English was now good enough to get by without it most of the time. She’d be fine until she could catch up with Bethany, even if it was a few hours.

:Are you ready? I do not sense a token,: Ita prompted Serenity.

Serenity pulled out one of her broken totems and tossed it a little ways away from himself. Moments later, a portal spun up, flickered as a bracelet flew through it, then disappeared. Ita hadn’t even waited for Serenity to say he was ready.

Serenity chuckled and shook his head as he picked up the bracelet. It was clearly the type his mother had started with, the kind that required a monster core. Ita must have used the last one up, because it was empty. That wasn’t a problem; Serenity still had piles of monster cores from the Tutorial and the dungeons he’d delved since, but he also didn’t need them. It was easy enough to pull out some mana and some essence from his respective pools and twine them together before he inserted them in the bracelet and secured it around his wrist.

“...just do?” The last few words of the woman’s statement were understandable.

“Can you understand me now?” Serenity figured he’d start with the obvious question.

She jumped, then seemed to relax a little. “Why didn’t you - oh! That’s what you were doing! Is that a translation device of some kind? I didn’t know translation was possible as a magical effect! How does it work?”

Serenity smiled. “Slow down, we can talk about items later. I’m Serenity; what is your name?”

“Peaceful Rest?” The woman tilted her head to the side. “I’d heard some Kin use descriptive names. I’m Amani Valles, inventor, Technocrat of A’Atla.” She made a small bow as she finished speaking.

The bracelet must have translated his name. It was interesting that it hadn’t translated it back quite correctly, though at least it had gotten close. The woman’s name wasn’t translated, but it was very obvious that her titles were. Serenity wasn’t certain what to think of her being called a “Technocrat of A’Atla.” That wasn’t the next question, though.

“How long has it been?” Amani asked her own question before Serenity managed to ask his own. “I can see that the area is damaged, but surely it hasn’t been that long?”

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“How long since what?” From the woman’s title, Serenity guessed she mean “since A’Atla sank,” but he wanted to be certain.

“Since the attack,” Amani said and waved at the obvious damage in front of them. “I mean, I’m glad I hid in the vault, but surely it can’t have been that long, this would all have healed if it had been, A’Atla heals herself. Wouldn’t it?”

Amani looked at Serenity hopefully. He was fairly certain she already knew the answer to that question and simply didn’t want to be correct.

Serenity shook his head. “Entirely too long,” he temporized while he tried to decide if he should ease her into it or if he should just hit her with all of it at once. She already knew, but she didn’t want to know.

He should ask his questions before he confirmed her fears. That way, if she couldn’t handle things for a while, he could deal with whatever this place was while she figured out how to put herself back together. “Before that, what was this place? It looks like it stood up to something pretty cataclysmic.”

Amani’s face fell for a moment; Serenity was certain that she knew his delay meant bad news, but she couldn’t know just how bad it was. “That’s why I hid there, it’s made of A’Atla’s own impermate, gathered from elsewhere and fused with A’Atla herself. It can stand up to almost anything, as long as it’s connected to A’Atla.”

That didn’t quite sound like a real material; as far as Serenity knew, magical materials kept their properties in a lower-magic area for a long time. They’d eventually decay into something more appropriate, but it took a long time. They certainly didn’t have to be connected to a power source; that sounded more like an enchanted material than simply one that was magical.

Not that he was an enchanter or material specialist; perhaps there was some sort of strong material that held up to almost anything as long as it was charged regularly. Serenity doubted it, but he couldn’t rule it out.

“They named it Znidan’s Vault; he was the Consul who pushed through the effort to pay for it. I think of it as mine; I designed it. No one’s going to call it Valles’ Vault, though. I’m not important enough.” She chuckled and shook her head, apparently completely forgetting her situation. “It’s a prison, really, not that anyone will call it that. The- wait. If you don’t know what it is, how did you open it?” The smile fell off of Amani Valles’s face as she swung back around to look at Serenity.

He shrugged; this seemed like the right time to just tell her what happened. “It recognized me and asked if I wanted to open the Viewing Room. I said yes.”

“Recognized you?” Amani sounded floored. “How? I built the … based on the … but if…” Amani’s words devolved into mumbles for a moment before she turned and set her hand against the inside of the door, muttering something.

Serenity couldn’t see whatever she saw when she touched the door, of course, but he couldn’t help but smile at the sight. Her enthusiasm was fun to watch and reminded Serenity of a number of people he’d seen over the years. Most recently, that person was Tek; he might not have seen much of the erratic deity of technology, but the level of distraction and focus was definitely similar.

“No, she’s not one of mine.” The soft, amused voice sounded like it came from right behind Serenity, but when he turned around, no one was there. “I’ll happily take her if she’s available, though; you’re right, she’s definitely my kind of person. I have some doubts about anyone who uses the word Technocrat, but she’s definitely focused on the Tech part. It may be magitech, but I’m fine with that.”

As she spoke, a figure seemed to shimmer into view. “Don’t worry, she can’t see me. I’m only allowed to show myself on Earth to believers; annoying but not really that big of a restriction. There are a lot of people who believe in me here, after all.”

“Tek?” Serenity could barely believe his eyes; he hadn’t seen Tek in months, maybe over a year. She looked the same, of course, but he certainly hadn’t expected her to just show up. “Why are you here?”

Tek gave a large, expressive shrug. “Where else would I be? A’Atla’s a huge treasure trove and I think you may have just hit the jackpot. Not that I can take any of it, but I still want to see it. Plus you gave me an opening when you compared her to me; without that, I wouldn’t be able to be even this present. Not that I can be for much longer, but this seems like the perfect chance to tell you that I owe your parents a very nice gift.”

Tek winked at Serenity as she faded out of view.

He still remembered what the gift she’d given him was. Or perhaps she’d given him two … but even at the time, Tek said Aide was to compensate for the trouble her first gift gave him. He was going to have to figure out how to warn his parents about gods bearing gifts, wasn’t he?

Serenity was still staring at the spot Tek disappeared from when Amani Valles turned to stare at him and demanded, “How did you manage to get recognized by A’Atla herself?”

Serenity started and realized that he was staring at nothing, then turned back to Amani. He probably did have to explain it, but he certainly wasn’t going to admit that he had the token of a (probably) long-dead Councilor of Order’s Guild or that A’Atla had (probably) been commissioned by Order’s Guild back in the day. He’d just sort of gloss over that.

“I had the right authorization. Without it, A’Atla doesn't want to give out much information.” How did she even know his authorization came from A’Atla? “Are you saying you broke in?”

“Ah,” Amani didn’t seem to have a good answer to that.

Serenity chuckled. He couldn’t really be mad at her about it; if she was from the time period he was guessing she was from, there probably wasn’t anyone who actually had any kind of authorization to use A’Atla left. Breaking in was the only option.

That did lead to the next question. “The Vault stops time, doesn’t it?”

Amani looked even more nervous at the question. “No, not stops. Chronos - I won’t break the dictates of the Lord of Time. It slows down the perception of the passage of time. By, ah, a lot.”