Monsters weren’t that scary, were they? Liam left the safety of the camps regularly; there was a risk of combat out there. Monsters weren’t any worse than that, especially not if you were prepared.

It caught Serenity by surprise when Liam suddenly turned and fled from the room. Even so, Serenity wasn’t about to let Liam run away. This didn’t seem like his normal behavior, so it was all too likely that there was something about the Night Fire that was affecting him.

Serenity was off his stool and running after Liam seconds after Liam was out the door. He lost a few seconds figuring out which way Liam went down the hall, but made up for it as his long strides covered the distance faster than Liam could. He caught up with the scientist two turns later, shortly after Liam reached the large room that was the original interior camp.

Rather than slow down and risk Liam getting away, Serenity simply grabbed Liam and picked him up as he went by. He then triggered his Footwraps to push himself up in the air a little yet slow to a stop quickly. “Liam! Talk to me, what’s the problem?”

Liam pushed Serenity away, but he wasn’t able to overcome Serenity’s greater strength, especially not without any leverage. It was clear he’d never had any formal training in grappling; he tried to twist free but didn’t actually achieve much.

Several people poked their heads out of various tents and rooms down the hallway. For a long minute, no one spoke, then Samantha poked her head out of one of the tents. “What’s going on here?”

“I’m not sure,” Serenity said with a frown. “We were talking, then Liam just ran. I think he’s afraid, but I’m not sure why.”

Liam didn’t say anything, but he also didn’t stop struggling.

“Why don’t you let him go?” Samantha walked up to the two of them but stopped just outside Liam’s reach. “Liam? Are you ok?”

Liam still didn’t say anything.

Serenity shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” He was fairly confident it wasn’t. He wasn’t certain what had happened to Liam, but none of the options were good. He couldn’t even be certain that the collapsing building story was at all correct.

“Hm. Right. So.” Samantha turned to one of the gawkers. “You. Go to the surface or call up there, we need Blaze. Someone else…” Her eyes wandered over the onlookers until she found someone she wanted to send. “You. Get Ms. Rothmer. Everyone else, let us through; we’re headed to the chaplain’s office.”

There was a chaplain? Serenity had completely missed that. Admittedly, he wasn’t exactly particularly religious.

As it turned out, the chaplain’s office was little more than a bare stone room with a door; the only furniture was a set of padded chairs set up in two rows facing each other. It looked like a comfortable place to talk but not what Serenity expected of a chaplain’s office.

Once the door was closed, Serenity set his back against it, then released Liam. The reaction he hoped for happened: instead of attempting to fight to get out the door, Liam ran to the opposite end of the small room. As long as Liam stayed there, Serenity could relax a little. He could even step away from the door far enough that it wouldn’t smack him when his mother or Blaze arrived.

Samantha stared at Liam. “What? Liam, what’s going on?”

Liam stood there shaking for a long moment before he said anything. “Monsters…”

There was one person who might be very relevant for this discussion that hadn’t been called yet. Blaze was a healer, not a mentalist. :Rissa? Can you come to the chaplain’s office? Liam is acting weird.:

:I still think it’s weird everyone’s calling that the chaplain’s office,: Rissa complained. :We don’t have a chaplain! Not in the inner camp, at least. There’s one in the outer camp.:

Serenity could only shake his head at that. Rissa was always more in tune with what the people around them were doing. :I didn’t know we had a chaplain at all, much less that he had an office in the inner camp. He’s not here, but I’d like you to check Liam for outside influences.:

His seriousness must have gotten through, because the humor in Rissa’s mental voice disappeared. :It’ll be a few minutes, I’m in the outer camp right now.:

:So is Blaze,: Serenity told Rissa. :You can head down here with him if you want to.:

Samantha still hadn’t gotten anything more than the word “monsters” out of Liam when Bethany Rothmer arrived. She took one look at the situation and settled down into one of the chairs.

“I see we’re going to be here for a while. Who else have you sent for?” Bethany’s attention was on Serenity, not Samantha.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“Blaze and Rissa,” Serenity answered. “I’m not sure who else to get.”

“They’ll work,” Serenity’s mother told him. “Glad you sent for Blaze; that’ll calm the rumor mill down a bit.”

“Samantha actually sent for him.” Serenity didn’t want to steal Samantha’s credit. He wasn’t certain he’d have been able to talk his way out of the situation if she hadn’t shown up and taken charge.

“Still a good idea,” Bethany stated before she turned to Liam. “Liam, calm down. What’s the problem?”

Liam didn’t say anything, but Samantha turned around to look at Bethany, a troubled look on her face. “All he’s said is monsters. I think he thinks he’s being chased and is trapped, but I don’t know why.”

“Try to calm him down,” Bethany suggested. “You know him the best of anyone here. We’ll get the story from Tom when the others arrive; no point in making him tell it twice.” Serenity took that as instructions to be quiet until everyone was there, but it became obvious that wasn’t what his mother meant when she turned to him with a question. “How are things going downstairs? Any luck on your project?”

How exactly was he supposed to talk about that here? Cautiously, apparently? “The first test was a partial success. I don’t know how long the setup for the next one will take, probably at least another week. The method is good, at least.”

Bethany nodded. “Good to hear. Lex is busy with a project near the center of the city. Lidar suggests there’s a large building there, but it’s completely buried. Digging it out is proving difficult because there seems to be a lot of other stuff in the mud. The stuff that seems salvageable is being brought here; it’s the richest source we’ve found, even though we’re quite a ways from the building itself.”

“Better than inside the protected buildings?” Serenity was surprised by that; he’d thought that the buildings that weren’t filled with mud were the best source.

“Recently, yes.” Bethany seemed to be about to say more, but stopped talking as the door opened behind Serenity. She tapped something quickly and Serenity saw that she’d sent him a map of the surface through A’Atla’s systems. He pushed it to the side for now; he’d look at it later.

Rissa followed Blaze through the door, then closed it behind herself.

Blaze didn’t hesitate; he strode past Serenity, Bethany, and Samantha until he stood next to Liam. Serenity expected him to say something, but he put a hand on Liam’s head, then caught the man when he slumped. Blaze carried him over to one of the chairs and set him in it carefully. “There. He’ll be out while we talk about what’s going on.”

Healers could be terrifying when they decided it was time to do something. Serenity knew that Blaze’s spell probably worked so easily because Liam accepted it, but Blaze was good enough he could probably manage a similar spell on someone who didn’t accept it.

“You know the magic I found on the man who attacked with the snakes, the Night Fire?” Serenity tried to watch everyone, but most of his attention was on Blaze. Blaze seemed to frown at that. Both Rissa and Bethany nodded, but Samantha seemed puzzled.

“Liam’s absolutely covered in it. I don’t think it’s the same situation as the summoner, but I need to know where it came from and preferably get it off him. I’d just offered to remove it when he ran. I, ah, may have mentioned that the fast method creates monsters, but I said we were going to use the slow method.” Serenity flushed a little at the mistake he’d made, but he still had to share the information. Not mentioning it when the one word Liam had said to Samantha was “monsters” seemed like leaving something important out. “I didn’t think he’d run; I said we’d use the safer method!”

Blaze laughed at Serenity’s indignation. “Anyone who’s worked with you knows you don’t always think ahead or consider safety.”

That wasn’t entirely fair. Serenity could see Blaze’s point, especially after the experimentation after the summoner’s death, but it definitely wasn’t fair. He’d offered the known, safe method.

“It does seem a bit of an overreaction, though. Rissa?” Blaze turned to Serenity’s fiancee and waved her from the doorway to Liam’s sleeping body.

Serenity held his breath while Rissa checked over Liam. It wasn’t until Blaze quietly leaned over and told Serenity to “Breathe before the girl notices” that he realized he hadn’t taken a breath in over a minute. Maybe Blaze was right about the whole breathing thing?

It was surprisingly difficult to breathe normally while thinking about it.

Rissa stepped back from Liam a few minutes later and shook her head. “No sign of any use of direct mental influence, at least not any I can see. I didn’t see any on Emery, either, so that’s probably just not what the Night Fire does.”

Blaze nodded. “The physical signs of fear were there, so if it wasn’t pushed into his mind that way, it was probably done physically. That would explain why he can’t say what’s terrifying him; there isn’t anything that he knows of. He’s just afraid, which means he’s picked something to justify it.”

“That sounds like you’ve seen it before,” Betany stated. She hadn’t moved since she sat down, but she was watching with clear interest.

Blaze shrugged. “I’m a healer. Of course I’ve seen it; fear and sleep are the two easiest defenses a healer has. Fear often works when sleep doesn’t, but it can be unpredictable; some enemies run while others attack their fears. It’s also common for the fear to be misattributed, which doesn’t help. I prefer sleep. Or my fire, of course, but most healers are less willing to burn things than I am.”

“Night Fire?” Samantha looked puzzled.

Blaze glanced at Serenity. “She’s clear, I assume?”

Serenity flushed again; it hadn’t occurred to him to check. She’d been clear the last time he looked, which made him assume she was still clear, but Liam had already proven that assumption incorrect. He took a long moment to stare at Samantha with Magesight, then gave a quick look over everyone else in the room, including himself. “Yes, she’s clear. Everyone in the room is, other than Liam.”

Blaze nodded. “Good. Then I’ll explain while you deal with the Night Fire on Liam. That’s the first step. Oh, and use the slow way.”

Serenity rolled his eyes at Blaze. Of course he was going to use the slow way!