Freeing the eight people was, in fact, as easy as breaking the tokens. They weren’t fragile until the person who owned them deliberately intended to break them, at which point they shattered into powder with only a little force.

It was clearly by design, and that irritated Serenity because it showed how much thought had been put into making the slave tokens as user-friendly for their owner as possible, while making it hard for slaves to escape. It wasn’t a surprise, but it also wasn’t fun to see.

The next problem was finding a way to talk to the former slaves. Fortunately, all of the people from Earth spoke enough English (though for two of them it was very, very poor). Their stories were all very similar; they’d gone to the Tutorial, finished the first Phase, then landed in a cell or simply woken up in chains. The story was almost exactly like what had happened to Serenity, except that he’d been able to stay awake and been allowed to leave and they hadn’t.

Serenity was eventually able to communicate with one of the others; he turned out to be from T’cherna, and Serenity ended up simply translating between him and the others. His story was probably not at all unusual; Peki’na had traveled to Dhareth, one of the large cities on T’cherna, and found that it was far more expensive than he’d expected, with fewer prospects for making money. He’d fallen into debt and ended up with the choice of selling himself into slavery or being killed for not paying back the money he owed.

From the story, it seemed likely that he’d been helped into his debt problem by the man who eventually gave him the ultimatum, but Peki’na seemed convinced it was entirely his own fault. It wasn’t worth trying to convince him otherwise. The Duke offered to take Peki’na on as a servant for room and board while he learned Bridge, with no requirement that Peki’na stay with them. If he wanted to leave, he could.

The last of the people they rescued snorted at that point, then (in Bridge) told Peki’na he was an idiot. He wasn’t willing to share his name or his story, and insisted on leaving as soon as he was mostly healed.

Serenity was fairly confident Peki’na wasn’t the only idiot.

Dealing with the people from Earth was a little more difficult, mostly because Serenity gave them one more option: he could try to send them back to Earth, but he didn’t know what cities would be available, or even if any would be until the full Tutorial was over. One of the women decided she’d take the Duke up on his offer, while the other five decided that they’d prefer to take their chances back on Earth. Even if they landed somewhere strange, at least it would be their home planet, and they each had a reason to want to return.

The following morning, Andarit loaded up Serenity and three of the Earthlings into the flyer. It was a tight fit, since the flyer was only intended to carry four, but they could manage and it was better than making an extra trip.

Zon wasn’t like Tzintkra; portals weren’t common or accessed mostly through dungeons. Instead, there were three locations set up for off-planet portals in Zenith. That was it. Officially, two of them were “commercial” and off limits to the general populace, while one was available, but expensive.

Well, it was expensive by the standards of Zenith. The price to even get to the portal was a hundred and fifty kopeks per person who entered. The portal fee was on top of that and the kopeks weren’t refunded if you didn’t leave the planet. It wasn’t a big deal for Andarit and it certainly wasn’t a big deal for Serenity, even with several additional people to pay for.

It turned out that there were a lot of cities listed, because Serenity could override the limitations he’d set on portals to Earth. He could send people to any city where the City Crystal had been properly acknowledged, and that turned out to be most of the cities on the planet. Each of the three people with him had a place to go, as did the two they sent home on the second trip.

The portal fee was expensive, more than a hundred Etherium per person. That was far more than a normal portal fee, and it told Serenity that he was in some sense paying to bypass the usual rules. He could do it, but he’d pay for it. Fortunately, there was plenty of Etherium in Earth’s account. There wasn’t enough to cover getting everyone who’d been kidnapped home, but Serenity suspected that there would be by the time he managed to find them all. If he managed to find them all; some were already dead, and others would be difficult to locate.

On the second trip, Serenity checked the portal routing. It turned out that even though Zon was relatively close to Earth, it wasn’t a possible destination from Earth. A good bit of the fee he was paying was for a special portal to be formed directly to Earth. That was worth it; sending people to make their own way home through a complex portal system when they didn’t have the authority to portal to their home planet was a recipe for failure. He’d have to think about it for the future; perhaps he could hire someone to escort people if he got enough together? Once Earth’s portals were open, it would be cheaper.

He’d still have to figure out how to get them access, though. No, perhaps paying the price was the way to go.

Serenity pulled together the portal map information. The network on Zon was just as limited as Andarit had indicated, with only three “open” locations in Zenith and a handful scattered across the rest of the world. It was the sign of a world that wasn’t really open to the rest of the universe; Serenity fully expected that Earth would have more open portals than Zon the moment the restrictions he’d put in place came down. In fact, there would probably be more open portals the moment the Tutorial ended, if “open” included ones that “only people from Earth” could use.

He wasn’t going to head home, not when there were still things he needed to do on Zon, but the information and routes would be helpful for Rissa. Any experienced traveler should be able to find them, but Rissa wasn’t an experienced traveler and Serenity wasn’t sure about the people he was sending to help her. Oh, they’d certainly traveled, but he seemed to remember that Vengeance hadn’t started digging into the portal routing information until … huh. Tier seven? Ten? He wasn’t sure. A few centuries in, probably.

Hey, Rissa -

I’m on a planet named Zon. I’m currently in the capitol, Zenith. It looks like there are only a handful of portals onto the planet, this is definitely a dead-end planet. At least half of them seem to be locked to Aeon, which isn’t a good sign.

At a guess, people who Tier up enough on Zon leave for Aeon and don’t come back. This matches up with some of what my hosts have told me.

Speaking of my hosts, I’m currently working for / with the Duke of Lowpeak, Kalo Lichbane (yeah, I’m not that thrilled about that name. I really should ask about it), and his Daughter-Heir Andarit. They’re in Zenith for a “birthday celebration” that apparently lasts for two months. It’s nuts, but it’s for the Prince.

Apparently, it’s for the Prince I met yesterday. I’m not sure what to think about him. I’m not sure he knows what to think about me, either, but that’s pretty common. I will say that it’s very clear that the society used to have more skilled craftsmen than it does today; I keep coming across damaged and destroyed remnants of skilled work, but none of it’s maintained and none of it’s new.

Speaking of Zon’s problems, would you believe they kill dungeons here if there isn’t an available noble to give the dungeon to? I can’t help but think this is part of the problem they have. No dungeons, no knowledge of monster cores, and a serious shortage of Etherium all add up to a population that is making Tier Three simply on the power of the planet and nothing else.

Most aren’t combat-focused, either; the Duke clearly is, but I can feel how he’s restraining himself around almost everyone, including his daughter, to seem less dangerous. It’s the same thing I have to do on Earth. I didn’t have to restrain myself as much on Tzintkra. But then, Tzintkra was a dangerous place where people traveled to fight. A training planet.

As to why the birthday celebration is two months long? That’s apparently the limit because it’s how long they expect dungeons to be able to be left alone without overflowing. That seems absolutely bonkers to me. They don’t have enough dungeons and they aren’t regularly delving the ones they have? Not only that, but fewer dungeons means that the ones they have are carrying a heavier load; working with Gaia has made that VERY clear.

There’s no way most of their dungeons make it two months. Which means that that’s not the real reason.

I should have interacted with more people at the dance, but really. How do you ask “did you leave someone at home to take care of your dungeon while you’re gone even though that’s illegal”? I can’t come up with a good way.

Well, apparently they could have left a family member home to authorize the dungeon entries. That would be legal according to Andarit, so it’s probably what most of them do - leave a grandpa or child home as the “authority” while the young folks and rulers kiss up to the Prince. The Lowpeaks could have done that, I guess, but Kalo wanted his son to see the capitol. I’m not sure what they did about the dungeon; Kalo just grinned and winked when I asked so I’m pretty sure he has people running it.

Speaking of the dance, the Palace is terrible. Don’t go there. I don’t know if you’ll be able to sense it or not, but it’s full of twisted sharp bits of magic. The common wisdom seems to be that it’s an enchantment to improve the magic density, but I’m pretty sure it’s actually leakage from some very old, degrading runes. I don’t know what it does to people who spend a lot of time there; the Lowpeaks weren’t bothered, but I was definitely injured. So either they’re especially resilient or I have a weakness. I don’t want to think about what it would do to you or our child.

You know, I really shouldn’t write letters freeform. They’re always really short or just a dump of everything I’m thinking about, aren’t they?

Did I even mention that I found six kidnapped Earthlings and sent the five who wanted to go back to Earth home? I don’t think I did. There’s a lot more to do here. I have no idea why this is happening; monster cores are crazy valuable, so the people they kidnapped are nothing compared to the cores that could have been gotten for a lower investment out of the Tutorial. There’s something else there, I just don’t know what.

Here’s the important part: I love you. I miss you. I’m looking forward to when you get here.

Also, I’ve attached the current portal routing information so you can pick a route to get here. It looks like there should be three good routes from Earth; you’ll want to ask Blaze or Kerr which one they know best.

Love,

Serenity

The rest of the week was a combination of escorting Andarit to events where Serenity stood on the sidelines and watched for danger (all smaller and none at the Palace) and visiting more slave merchants. They found thirty-six more slaves who “didn’t know Aeon or Bridge”. Thirty of them were from Earth, and all but four went back to Earth.

Of the six who weren’t from Earth, one did actually know Bridge; two of the others had picked up a few words. Four of them, including one of the two with a few words of Bridge, seemed to be from a planet that went through the Tutorial shortly before Earth’s; their lack of language skills had kept them from being permanently placed.

Serenity was somewhat grateful they hadn’t simply been killed. That was illegal, according to Duke Lowpeak, but neither of them thought that it couldn’t have happened. More likely was simply releasing them somewhere; without knowledge of the language, that was probably a death sentence but releasing a debt slave wasn’t illegal. There was supposed to be a minimum amount of equipment provided as well, but clothing and a poor knife weren’t going to fix a lack of language.