Modify the spell’s chant using the location coordinates, the table below, and the calculations in the last chapter, then …

Not helpful.

A ring must surround both locations when the portal is to be established; the ring is the purest shape, so it forms the connection and the bridge …

No, the circle was usually there to tell people where not to step when the portal wasn’t open. The author was straying into that mysticism he claimed to dislike.

The most basic affinity that can be used to make portals is the Space Affinity, but there are a number of different possible Affinities that can do it. The second most common Affility is Void; it functions similarly to the Space Affinity requirements that have been described so far. The most interesting Affinity I ever saw used to make a portal was the Congruence Affinity. The woman who used it had a completely different method; she could open a portal without being there, but there HAD to be a token present - specifically, there had to be the other half of a broken token. She’d hold one half and channel her Path Skill into it, and it would create a portal at the site of the other half of the token.

Okay, that was interesting. It was probably the most useful day-to-day method he’d heard yet. Serenity bet it was possible to replicate that method with the SpaceTime Affinity; he simply needed to find a way to make the tokens resonate together.

Serenity closed the book and sighed. Nothing in it told him anything about closing portals, and it had only a few hints of things he could use to locate them.

He let himself surface back to reality.

What time was-

11:13 AM

He ought to be used to that by now, but he wasn’t.

It suddenly struck Serenity as funny that he was having more trouble adjusting to always knowing what time it was than he’d had to suddenly being able to shapeshift, or to being sort-of-blind. Being able to see again hadn’t taken much adjustment, either. Serenity started laughing.

Several minutes later, he took a deep breath, picked himself up off the floor, and shifted from his dragon form to chimera form. It was getting close to lunchtime; he should head over to the - what did Echo call it? Oh, yeah. “The Dungeon Tree Diner”. For now, it was really more of a communal kitchen, but Echo had dreams of making it a restaurant someday. She’d even had a sign added in front of the tree.

Serenity was still laughing at himself as he walked into the “diner”. No one was cooking yet, so it was probably his turn.

The kitchen wasn’t nearly as extensive as his kitchen at home; the stove had only two burners, and the “oven” was a toaster oven. There was a microwave and a mini-fridge, as well. That was enough to cook food for the ten people here, as long as they were willing to take the time to do it in batches.

Hmm. The meat options were goat or chicken, but there were some lemons from yesterday. Yes, he could do something with that. Still no grains, but he could make potato work for that. And for a vegetable … no. A fruit. He’d do pan-seared goat in lemon juice with some crushed peppers - not many, he didn’t want it to be too spicy. Just a touch of salt, probably; he’d have to taste test but he could add that at the end. It was too bad they didn’t have any garlic, but there wasn’t any.

Maybe he’d get the dungeon to add some, or maybe it’d be better to have Doyle pick it up in town. Serenity wasn’t certain if spices would be worth having the dungeon grow. It seemed likely, but that was a good question for Missy.

Some orange pieces cooked with the goat would help, as well; they were probably better for straight eating than lemon pieces, and there weren’t enough lemons anyway. Once that was done, he could either attempt fries or simply do a bed of hash browns.

Serenity looked at the kitchen again. Definitely hash browns; there wasn’t anywhere to deep fry anything, and baked fries simply weren’t as good.

Missy walked in just as he was plating the first round of goat. “You’re cooking?”

“Yeah. It’s nice, sometimes. Figured it was my turn anyway.” Serenity finished putting the fourth plate together and turned back to setting up for the next round of cooking. The hash browns had taken longer than he expected, so he was going to start them first this time. “Want to get a few of the kids in here? It’ll be a bit before the next batch is ready.”

“This is more elaborate than I’d planned, but … sure.” Missy poked her head outside and called out something. Serenity was sure it was some of the kids’ names. “I was going to cook, but … is that goat? Doyle’s the one that usually does it; mine always turns into leather.”

“You’re used to cooking beef, aren’t you?” Serenity smiled. Beef and goat were very different meats to cook; he knew how to cook beef from Thomas’s experience, but most monsters tended to be more like goat. “Goat’s a low-fat meat. There are several ways to deal with that…”

After lunch, there wasn’t anything else Serenity could do to put off heading back underground. He certainly wasn’t going to put it off until the following day; he was scared, and he didn’t need to make it worse than it was.

He hadn’t told Echo or Doyle what had happened. He’d tell Rissa when he saw her again, but no one else needed to know.

Rissa did, in case he ended up in a similar situation. She’d need to know what to do to help him.

He was overthinking it again.

Serenity walked to the same entrance he’d used the previous day. He’d considered starting at the hole he’d made, but he still had a bit of the same deep ache left, and thought it was possible that some pieces of himself might be between the two holes. He felt better than before, but better wasn’t the same as well, and finding any missing pieces could only help.

He’d have to stop sooner and make a spot to rest. He could probably make it to the exit he’d created, but he didn’t want to stress himself. He’d go about halfway and make a resting spot, rest, then head to the exit and rest there. After that, he’d know how well it worked and if he needed to stop even more frequently.

He’d also know if he’d managed to find any missing pieces.

Serenity shifted and dove into the ground. He wanted to move quickly; the less time he had to spend moving through holes that weren’t really big enough, the better.

The plan worked. He found bits of himself on his way to the hole and farther down the path he’d been following. He felt whole before he found the last few lost bits; after reincorporating them, he felt slightly uncomfortable, almost overstuffed. Clearly some loss was acceptable and he’d been healing.

It took longer than he’d hoped, but he eventually reached the portal. It was in a small cave; Serenity could see three passageways out of the chamber that were large enough for a person to fit, though only one was suitable for anyone other than an experienced caver.

A single shaft of light streamed down from above. It was far too small a hole to fit a person, but it told him he was closer to the surface than he’d expected.

That was clearly the Voice’s influence. Serenity was certain there had to be another way in - a way for the locals to reach the portal. Locals who didn’t have Serenity’s advantages. The Voice didn’t weigh in on most things, including most invasions, but the Waves a new planet would face were well-known to be carefully controlled. Most invaders “lost”, in that they didn’t conquer where they landed - but most invaders took away enough for it to be worthwhile anyway.

The passages definitely weren’t for the rockfin’s benefit; it had simply gone through a wall. It wasn’t even a dirt wall; it was rock, though the area the rockfin went through was more “poorly cemented crushed rock” than “a rock wall” now. It still wasn’t simply loose gravel, though; whatever the rockfin did put it sort of back in place and seemed to partially tie it back together. It almost looked slightly melted?

It seemed different from the earth on the other end that had simply been allowed to more or less fall back into place.

Serenity wished he knew how it was done, but he was confident that a good bit of the answer was “a higher Affinity than you have and probably a good Concept as well”. Maybe he could ask the rockfin some time, but he doubted it would answer him.

Serenity shifted to his chimera shape. It was fine in the cave, and it was far more comfortable than his Void Sovereign form at the moment, which felt almost like it had a stomachache or something.

It wasn’t just that he didn’t really want to spend time in the shape right now. Really!

Serenity turned his attention to the portal. It was the reason he was here.

With both Mana Sight and Essence Sight active, it was easy to see that the portal was almost entirely mana-powered. Serenity decided to try to take it apart like he would a malfunctioning spell; he’d need to be careful about power blowback, but this wasn’t the first time for that, either.

Slow and careful, that was the ticket. Maybe he’d even manage to get enough information to detect it technologically. He had no way to know what he’d need, unfortunately; he didn’t think his Technology affinity would be enough to tell him, but maybe Tex’s device could help? There was that interface.

Serenity pulled up the “Aide” tab again. It had changed since he’d last checked it.

Required upgrades: Limited functionality available for abstract computing mode. Options will be determined after signal booster options.

Recommended upgrade: Signal booster for low-signal areas. Searching for options.

Optional upgrades: Upgrade requirements will be determined based on request(s)

Request: ___________

Aide Status/Request: Indexing Complete. Hard Reboot required recently; comparing index to current status.

Current results: Minor errors are self-resolving. Excess ‘void’ material gathered due to production as part of error resolution followed by collection of shed material remains in a condensed form despite remaining void material being used for ‘shapeshift’.

Serenity blinked and rippled his Essence and Mana Affinities across himself. It was an old trick, used to find unexpected injuries or foreign material.

Nothing turned up. He’d have to check himself over in more detail. First was putting in that request.

Request: Method to detect portal from a distance. Prefer using currently available technology.

Almost immediately, a line on the tab changed.

Optional upgrades: Insufficient information available to determine method. Locating simple tunable devices to cover maximum possible range.

Authorize purchase?

As Serenity wondered how much it was going to cost, the line updated.

Current cost, delivered to nearby (53 miles) storage locker: $2137

Lower cost options cannot be obtained within the desired time frame.

Ouch. But … yeah, that was reasonable if it let him find a way to detect portals at a distance.

Initial delivery will occur tomorrow. Latest delivery is three days.

Good enough. Serenity would simply have to refrain from taking the portal down until he had a way to detect it. He could still investigate it.

The first step with an unknown spell was always to try to find out what it was. Serenity was confident it was SpaceTime, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t try all the options. He walked up to the portal and started feeling it with each of his Affinities.

He wasn’t at all surprised when Mana and SpaceTime resonated strongly. Solid had a very weak resonance; that was a little surprising, but it was probably because the portal was from wherever rockfins normally lived. Underground somewhere?

Energy also had an extremely weak resonance, as did Vapor. Vapor was probably air moving through the portal, while Energy … well, almost everything had a weak Energy resonance. Temperature, if nothing else.

The surprising resonance was Liminality. It was easily as strong as SpaceTime; Serenity wasn’t certain if that was because it was more liminal than space-related or if it was because he had a higher Liminal Affinity. He hadn’t thought about it before, but in a way it made sense; liminality was about thresholds, and what was a portal but a pair of thresholds carved into the fabric of reality and connected?

It made sense when he thought of it that way.

….why was it pulsing? It seemed to be pulsing far more in Liminality than SpaceTime, as though whatever was happening affected SpaceTime less.

Serenity stepped back just in time to be out of the way when a giant fish waddled through the portal on its lower fins.