As Serenity walked down the hill in the fading light followed by a line of skeletons, he could feel his Death Concept flickering around him. He suspected it was a fairly spectacular show. It certainly got the attention of the few people who hadn’t already headed in to dinner, as he surrounded the dining hall with skeletons - but left the exits and walkways clear as he’d planned. Once he was done, he walked into the dining hall to actually get himself some food.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t dismiss his Concept and still keep the undead both active and controlled, so he was very obvious as he got food and sat down with Lancaster and Echo. Rissa wasn’t at their table, which he took as a pointed hint that she wanted him to stay away for a while.

“Serenity? You are Serenity … right?” Lancaster sounded dubious again.

“Yes.” Serenity just wanted to sit down. It had taken a lot of energy to raise the undead. His Concept let him reserve mana to keep them “alive”, but there was still a constant drain when he had them do anything, and it was wearying. He didn’t have a good way to recover mana other than natural regeneration at this point, and that had barely let him reach his goal. He’d need to rest and recover a bit before he could bring the skeletons back to the graveyard, much less lay them to rest again.

He was looking forward to being a higher Tier and having the energy reserves to do things!

“You - don’t quite sound like - “ Lancaster sounded positively uncertain.

“Oh, that. Yeah. Uh. Rissa.” Serenity paused and made sure he was speaking in his normal voice. “Is that better?”

“She said she broke up with you, but - “ Lancaster seemed to have accepted that he was indeed Serenity, at least.

Serenity looked at the food. He was still hungry, but thinking about Rissa was doing a good job of killing his appetite. Maybe he should use the steak method again. No, he couldn’t do that tonight. Tonight he was on display. Dammit.

“As breakups go, it was pretty good. She basically said that I wasn’t the man she’d fallen in love with, she felt like I’d killed him and stolen his body, and she never wants to see or hear me as long as I look and sound like him.”

“Ouch. That’s extreme.”

“She’s not entirely wrong,” Serenity admitted. “But that’s just because I’ve lived longer, and we all change as we age. It might have worked out if we hadn’t ended up in the tutorial. I’ve been busy, and she’s been busy, and we’ve been doing different things. It hasn’t helped.”

Echo looked up at that. “You sound almost like you were expecting it.“

Serenity took a moment to think about that. Had he been expecting it? “I … guess I was.” He thought about it for a moment. “I care about her, but - there’s a lot I have to do to succeed now, and a lot riding on it -” He wasn’t quite sure how that tied into expecting her to break up with him, but it did.

Echo pointed her fork at him. “That’s it, right there. She’s not your top priority. I bet she was before, wasn’t she?”

Serenity had to think about that one, but it was clear in Thomas’s memory. Rissa had been his everything. That was why he’d fallen apart when she died.

There was a smile in Echo’s voice when she continued. He hadn't even said anything! “And I bet you told her you still wanted to be friends or something, didn’t you?”

“Uh … I asked her if she could think of me as Thomas’s brother?”

“Close enough.” Echo stabbed the air with her fork. “Give her time to think. You’ve moved on. She hasn’t yet.”

“She’s the one who broke up with me!” When had he started taking relationship advice from sixteen-year-old girls, anyway?

“Yup. Doesn’t change the situation. She needs space. You’ve got other stuff to do anyway, right? Give her the space. Is the brother thing why you look and sound different?”

When had sixteen-year-old girls started actually having decent relationship advice? Maybe it was just Echo?

“I’m not sure about the voice. It’s not hard, but I kind of like my own voice, y’know? As for the looks, all I did was make it look like I’ve spent more time in the sun. I figure that’s pretty likely in the future, so I don’t think I’ll do anything about that from here.”

“The sun gives you black patches floating around you?” Lancaster hadn’t said anything, but he’d clearly been following along.

Serenity decided that he really did have to eat, and took a bite before replying. “That’s unrelated - nothing to do with Rissa.” He’d gotten quite a bit of steak, and he was hungry enough that he was having to remind himself to chew each bite to at least make it look good. “I mentioned a demonstration tonight, didn’t I?”

Both Echo and Lancaster nodded.

“The black stuff is part of how I’m controlling the undead outside.” It had to be Serenity’s Luck that made the end of the sentence fall exactly when all of the other conversations had a pause.

Serenity kept eating as all of the students turned to look at him. He heard a few whispered conversations, but most of the people in the dining hall seemed to be listening rather than talking. He wasn’t sure how much more of his dinner he’d actually get to eat.

Lancaster seemed to have decided to play along with it. “What are you planning to do with the undead?”

That really was the perfect question. “I thought I’d have them escort me back to the graveyard after dinner.”

Serenity once again had to credit his - or maybe one of the other instructors? - Luck, because right at that moment a door was pushed open by a man who shouted “There are skeletons surrounding the building!”

It had to be one of the other instructors’ Luck. 10 wasn’t that much of a stat, unless Luck worked differently than other stats. He wasn’t sure how it worked, since he’d never had any.

Serenity kept eating as the room dissolved into chaos. It was mostly talking and a few people who seemed to be frozen in fear, but after a few minutes passed, a couple of groups started grabbing weapons and seemed to be trying to figure out how to leave. That was enough. He’d finished most of the food on his plate, anyway. It wasn’t enough, but it would have to do.

He had an idea that he thought might work well. If he lowered his voice’s pitch - James Earl Jones deep would be good - and made it very loud … he was pretty sure he could do that and it would get everyone’s attention.

So he stood up and stated, “QUIET.”

It worked better than he had imagined. Everyone was looking at him. “If you want to leave dinner, simply leave. The undead will not bother you.”

Someone at the back of the room yelled into the quiet. “But what if you lose control?”

Serenity smiled. He knew just how to answer that question. “Necromancy is about control. Simply raising mindless undead is pointless if you cannot control them. I will not lose control.” He paused and looked at the people in the room. “Some of you have a Death affinity. It’s nothing to be afraid of. It can be used to raise the undead - or to lay them to rest. It can even be used to heal. Death affinity is one of the best for curing diseases and cancer. Like any affinity, it’s all about how you use it. If you want to learn about it - come see me after you’ve done your first Trial.”

That was the right note to end on. Serenity walked out the door, gathered his undead, and headed back up the hill with them.

[Willingness to alter self to make the desired impact on others has been Noticed. Additional Paths are opened]

For crying out loud, it wasn’t exactly hard! And it’s easy to fix!

[It doesn’t have to be difficult]

He then spent the next hour laying all of the undead to rest and thinking about voice tricks. He was pretty sure that he could manage a truly sepulchral voice by adding a little reverb to the one he’d used in the dining hall, and there were several other possible uses for the ability. It was too bad he didn’t have a recording device to tell him if he was achieving his goal, but practicing at a low volume was still useful.

He hadn’t gotten a full meal, and his healing energy reserve was still close to empty. Serenity wasn’t in the best of moods when Kerr came up the hill. “Serenity?”

He had to remind himself to use his own voice before he spoke. “Over here.”

“You … you look like death warmed over.” Kerr was holding a lantern, and held it up so that she could see him.

“I promise I have heard that joke before.” Serenity had just finished laying the undead to rest, but it had taken longer than he’d hoped. “I assume it’s too late for dinner now?”

“For the students, but we staff have our own area. It’s always possible to get food there, at least if you’re willing to cook it.”

“Oh good. Can you show me the way? I could eat half a cow.” Serenity was mostly joking. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t need even close to that much food to recover his reserves. Which didn’t mean he’d turn it down if it was a real option. Despite the pain and fear, it had been a rush - especially now that he knew it wasn't a problem.

It turned out that the kitchen was in the same building as the room he’d been given. He sadly decided that steak would take too long - he wasn’t going to eat it raw in front of someone else - but he could manage a very large sandwich without alarming Kerr. The fixings were all available, even a long roll he could use as a base. He put it together, then forced himself to eat it slowly. Well, quickly really, but it felt slow compared to just swallowing it the way he wanted to.

He was starting to get a real preference for eating alone.

“I had no idea you could do that with undead - direct so many I mean. That anyone could.” Kerr had barely started eating, even though Serenity had already finished.

“That’s mostly the Concept. If I look worn out, that’s why. Using a Concept tires you out mentally, and that’s not as easy to recover as mana. I’ll be fine after I get some sleep. You’re unlikely to see it again until you tier up; People generally start initiating Concepts around Tier 4 or Tier 5, though someone who’s completely focused can manage Tier 3 or even late Tier 2. Maintaining one at lower Tier is … difficult.” Serenity knew that from personal experience. He’d gotten his Death Concept the first time at late Tier 2, which was ridiculously early, and it had nearly killed him more than once. Serenity wondered if that might not be part of why he was so much sturdier than a normal Tier 0. He HAD to be or he wouldn’t be able to survive having his Affinities, Concepts and Aspect, even locked away.

It was a better guess than any he’d had before. It still didn’t answer why he was half-monster, though.

Kerr was only picking at her food. Serenity was beginning to think she wasn’t actually here to eat. “Why did you come get me? I admit I’m glad you did, since I had to abandon dinner for the demonstration, but -”

Kerr looked down at her plate. “Well - we’re putting together a welcoming celebration. I wanted to see if you were up for it tonight. But I think it needs to be tomorrow.” She pushed her plate away from herself. “I should let you get some sleep.”

“I have a busy day planned tomorrow,” Serenity agreed. “I’m planning to help a bunch of the people who haven’t done Trials yet get through their first Trial. Then probably deal with people wanting to learn Death magic.”

“Trials? As a student or an instructor?” Kerr sounded interested.

“Student … I don’t think I’m cut out to be a Trial instructor. I don’t think I can stand back and let them die.” Serenity suddenly realized there might be a problem with his plan. “You know … CAN I help them through the Trial as a student? I was planning to do the same thing I did with my group, show them what needs to be done, help them figure out how to do it, then let them do it unless they need my help. But … can I even do that as a student? That kinda sounds like an instructor thing.”

“I don’t know. That sounds like something Heaven’s Order would decide. I’ve never seen anyone who was both before. You might be able to get away with it, since it’s certainly allowable for a student.”

Serenity yawned. He was exhausted. “I’ll think about it in the morning. Maybe see if the Voice will tell me. Sometimes it will.”

As he headed off to his room, he didn’t see Kerr staring at the man who had sleepily admitted that the Voice of Heaven’s Order talked to him in something more than the usual automated Notices.