It seemed like an odd battle site to Serenity. There was no blood and the only lingering smell was from the lightning. Yes, he’d killed two guards, but they hadn’t left any of the usual smells of death behind. There were a few small smears of blood from the guards’ capture, but they were small enough that the stink of rotting copper was barely even a thread compared to the harsh ozone left from Elder Inchabe’s attacks. Serenity had smelled worse in locker rooms.
The guards seemed to try to ignore Serenity and Senkovar, at least as much as “watching like scared rabbits” could be categorized as “ignoring.” They didn’t approach the duo or try to speak to them, but they always had an eye out in case something changed. Serenity didn’t blame them for that; they didn’t belong in a battle between Tier Eights. The only way they’d contribute was if there were enough of them to overcome his defenses and Serenity had clearly shown that wasn’t likely.
When he tired of chatting with Senkovar and lapsed into silence, Serenity noticed he was still glowing. It had changed from the simple whitish-yellow glow it started as to a multicolored shimmer that changed as he watched it, but he couldn’t get it to stop. At this point, he suspected it was the excess mana and essence he’d gained from Echa’s death as it slowly dissipated.
Serenity tried not to get too close to anyone; mana at a high enough density that it was visible to the naked eye was dangerous. It was normally very difficult to achieve, but Serenity had seen it before, usually when a strong spell failed in a low-mana environment. It could be grabbed by an accidental Intent and do almost anything.
The lower the mana in the area, the less mana it took to reach the point where it was visible and would react to almost anything, sort of like it was overcoming external pressure from the Tier of the world. It was supposed to be one of the major reasons that failed spaceships never reached port. Serenity suspected that the other hazards of space probably also had something to do with it, but he couldn’t discount mana oversaturation as a possible reason.
It was a lot of mana. He hadn’t come close to glowing from mana leakage when he returned to Earth at Tier Eight and lost so much mana it was debilitating; to be leaking enough mana to actually glow in the relatively dense Tier Five environment of Berinath meant he had to be ridiculously far over his normal maximum.
The fact that it was coming from him and therefore continually next to him yet it was not reacting to his every passing thought meant that it wasn’t just mana oversaturation. It had to be something more. Maybe he hadn’t actually released control of the mana to the world?
Serenity reached out with it and tried to use it as if it was his own internal mana to cast a simple spell, without all the extra control using natural mana required.
It shouldn’t have worked, but it did.
Was he developing some sort of external mana pool to handle the excess? As convenient as that sounded, he really shouldn’t have that sort of excess very often. More importantly, he didn’t want to glow all the time. It was embarrassing.
At least he didn’t really feel like he hurt anymore. That was probably a point in favor of the “external mana pool” theory, but it definitely meant he needed to figure out a way to drain the excess.
“What is the absolute most mana-expensive thing I can do other than kill things?” Serenity muttered to himself as he thought through his options. Maybe he could make a long-distance portal? That would use up a lot of mana.
“Make a ley line,” Senkovar suggested. “It’s hard to use more mana than that.”
Serenity glanced up at Senkovar, surprised the World Shaman answered his train of thought. He blinked as he realized exactly what Senkovar suggested. “You can do that?”
It made him wish he’d had Senkovar around when he was trying to figure out Apollyon’s ley line ritual and what to do about it. Serenity still wasn’t sure how to move a ley line, much less split it. Creating one from nothing was something he’d assumed couldn’t be done; planets did that, not people.
“Not here,” Senkovar admitted. “On a Tier Zero or One world, however, yes. It takes a lot of stored mana, far more than I have prepared right now, but I can manage to gather and channel enough for an extremely low grade ley line on a low-Tier world. Those are the worlds most likely to need the help, anyway; higher Tier worlds usually have other ways of handling pooled stagnant mana, like dungeons.”
Serenity frowned at that assertion. “Dungeons require ley lines to stay healthy. They circulate the mana of the world as well as connect the dungeon to the World Core.”
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Senkovar inclined his head towards Serenity. “Make a dungeon, then. A dungeon on a ley line has to take more mana than a ley line and a ley line is the most I’ve ever managed, even with supplemental sources of mana.”
That was a stupid idea.
It was also brilliant.
The stupid part was that Serenity had no idea where to begin or if it was even possible. He didn’t really understand how dungeons were made, even if the Voice did call him the “Lord of Dungeons.” He also had no idea if he had enough mana to actually succeed or what would happen if he failed.
The brilliant part was that it should indeed use up a lot of mana. With the addition of a dungeon, it should also use up the excess essence he was carrying from Echa. Of course, that assumed he could succeed.
Which meant that he first had to figure out where to start. The obvious place was with a ley line, both because it was necessary for a dungeon and because it gave a convenient place to stop if it happened to be able to sink the energy Serenity needed to get rid of. There was a decent chance it might.
It also helped that he could get guidance on making a ley line; he’d have to figure out making a dungeon on his own. Serenity looked up at Senkovar. “Where do I begin?”
“With talking to Berinath,” Senkovar answered like it was obvious. “Ask her if this is an acceptable location for a ley line. If it isn’t, we’ll move; I’m pretty sure the dryads haven’t figured out what to do about you yet and are leaving us alone until they do, but that should get us the ability to go wherever we need to.”
Okay, maybe that step should have been obvious.
Serenity reached out to Berinath. Without a ley line, he didn’t have a convenient route to get to her, but he also didn’t have the interference that made contacting Gaia while on A’Atla difficult. He just had to attract her attention and she could reach him. Serenity concentrated on his personal node and used it to reach the ley line network.
The cost was normally pretty noticeable when he wasn’t in a ley line, but this time he couldn’t even tell. It was far less than destroying a spear, he could tell that much, but its exact cost was simply lost.
“Lord Serenity.” Berinath sounded cheerful. “Congratulations on your ascension.”
For some reason, the well wishes threw Serenity for a loop. He’d been so focused on the downsides that it hadn’t even occurred to him that it was an occasion most gods celebrated. He still didn’t like thinking of himself as a god, which made it more embarrassing than encouraging. “Thanks?”
Berinath seemed to wait for Serenity to say something more for a long moment. She sent a feeling of wordless confusion across the link that jolted Serenity out of his introspection.
“Oh, right.” Serenity mentally shook himself then turned his attention to the reason he’d contacted Berinath in the first place. “Would you like a ley line here? Senkovar says the first step is to ask you for permission.”
“Senkovar?” Berinath sounded puzzled until Serenity pushed an image of the World Shaman through the link to the planet. “Oh! The Worldshaper. Yes, he’s polite. More polite than the others. As for a ley line … you are at the tip of the Long Root, aren’t you? That’s a long way from any other lines; it would be a good place. Can you truly create one? I haven’t had the energy to spare for places that far from a dome, but farther lines should allow for dome expansion.”
Serenity definitely had to ask what a Worldshaper was. This was the first time he’d heard the title applied to anyone other than Senkovar and Berinath definitely didn’t sound happy about the others.
“Dome expansion is a good thing, then?” Serenity knew it was good for the dryads, but he had assumed the world wouldn’t care.
“Definitely. Larger domes means more plants and animals and people. Especially animals; small domes only have trees and people. As they grow, they add a few small animals and other plants; the larger the dome is, the more it can support itself. It helps solidify my mana structure and eventually expand again. Someday it may let me Tier up, but that’s a long way off.” Berinath spoke quickly, almost breathlessly. Serenity was always amazed at how much emotion could come through in a mental voice. Perhaps it was his brain translating the emotional input into a way of speaking that he understood?
Serenity shoved the speculation to the side and focused on his real goal. “What’s the next step in making a ley line, then?”
“Reach out to me with your mana. Touch my Core; we need to make a link. If you’re making a dome, it needs a fully anchored ley line and that means a link to my Core.” Berinath’s answer clarified some things for Serenity but confused others. Apollyon’s ritual clearly wasn’t fully anchored. Was that why Gaia wasn’t able to affect it without dungeons to help? How many of Earth’s ley lines were fully anchored?
“I’ll try.” Serenity knew he couldn’t reach Berinath’s Core with his mana through the link he used to talk to Berinath. It wasn’t directional; really, he didn’t understand how it worked. He thought it was like the links between nodes on different planets when he wasn’t in a ley line; that was why it cost so much mana.
He let the link go and looked over at Senkovar. “Berinath thinks we’re building a dome here and that’s why you want the ley line. I thought we were going to prepare the ground for a dome in a place the dryads selected?”
Senkovar gave Serenity a wide toothy smile. “We were going to, before they made things difficult. We had to, really, if for no other reason than because neither you nor I had the power to draw a ley line to the surface, which meant we needed to use one that Berinath split off one of her main leys and anchored firmly. She has several ready; we were going to use one of them. I doubt they’ll be fully happy with one here, but it is a good spot, far enough from other domes yet close enough to be useful. It just isn’t where they wanted it. I didn’t promise a location, just a dome.”
It was clear Senkovar wasn’t happy with their hosts. Serenity couldn’t blame him, even if he thought that only Elder Inchabe was truly the cause. Serenity did not like being used as a scapegoat.