Serenity levered himself to his feet. He was worrying about Rissa for no reason, simply because he couldn’t talk to her and tell her what was going on. That wasn’t helpful.

He needed to do something to distract himself. His usual choice was exercise of some sort, but it wasn’t like he could just hop over to the Armory and spar with Sillon and Kerr. There also wasn’t any sort of exercise apparatus here.

He wanted to be moving. Specifically, he wanted to check out the portals and see if they were actually down the way the Voice’s message said. He was sure they were, but he still wanted to check for himself. Putting eyes on the portal and finding it impassable would be useful for the story he was going to tell the merchants to get them to hire him, but mostly he just wanted to make certain he couldn’t leave and meet Rissa the easy way.

Serenity looked over at Andarit and the prince. They were still talking about what should be in the letters to nobles.

Serenity sighed to himself. He’d left Andarit alone at her family home, but it was warded and secured, plus he hadn’t known there were people deliberately aiming to kill her. The pottery studio, on the other hand, had the benefit of being unknown but it had no defenses. He wasn’t quite willing to leave Andarit alone under those circumstances. If there were a strong ward over the premises, things might be different.

Well, he could cast a pretty decent ward. It would only be temporary and it would take time to cast, but at least it would be a useful way to spend the time. All it had to do was alert him and then hold off attackers long enough for him to get back.

Warning Andarit and the prince would be a plus, too.

Now that he was thinking of it, he should add a way for others to give it additional mana. That would let it hold off attackers longer if they actually came under attack. It would also let it be recharged for a while after Serenity left Zenith; the spell would fall apart after a couple weeks even with enough mana, but a couple weeks might well help the prince.

Yes. A ward was the place to start.

Half an hour later, Serenity called over to the two nobles. “Andarit? Prince Ora? Would you come over here for a moment?”

There was a slight startled pause before Andarit stood up and headed over towards Serenity. “Good time to stretch anyway. What do you need?”

“I’m going to key you two into this ward; that way, it’ll recognize you and warn you when someone who isn’t keyed tries to enter. It’ll keep them out unless someone keyed to the ward lets them in, but that’ll cost mana. You can recharge the mana by feeding it in here.” Serenity pointed at a hexagonal open spot in the runic ward near the entrance. “The ward won’t last forever, but as long as it’s charged it should last for a few weeks. Less time if it’s tested, of course; that will accelerate the decay.”

The prince stood up and headed over towards Serenity almost immediately at the word “ward”. By the time Serenity finished the explanation, he was staring at the translucent raised lines on the floor that held the ward’s magic. “How did you set one up so fast?”

Serenity shrugged. It really wasn’t all that fast, but a faster ward would have required him to trace around the outside of the building. It would have been a bit more durable but would have cost more mana cores. The extra cost wasn’t significant, but it would also have been more noticeable and that was not acceptable. “Practice? Wards really aren’t that hard when you just do a fast and dirty one like this. A better one would take a full ritual setup, and we don’t have time for that. I’m holding it open for you right now; please push a little mana into the mana input. That’ll key it to you.”

Serenity waited while both Andarit and Prince Ora followed his instructions before activating the ward. It shimmered into place, but was properly translucent even to Mana Sight. It couldn’t completely hide from someone looking for it with Mana Sight and the Arcane Affinity, but without them it would be effectively invisible as long as it wasn’t triggered. “You can cover the runes with a rug or something, they’ll still work. It’ll be strongest on this wall, especially at the door, but it will protect the entire building to some extent. It’s a threshold effect, so don’t let someone you don’t trust come in at all; once they’re past the ward, it can’t do anything.”

Andarit frowned. “You’re talking like you won’t be here.”

Serenity grinned. “I definitely won’t be, after we leave the city. Before that, we should talk. I’d like to check out the offworld portal, but you’re busy working on the letters, aren’t you?”

Andarit glanced at the floor then back up at Serenity. “Yeah. I think we should write something simple and to the point, but Prince Ora isn’t sure it would be all that convincing; he thinks we need-”

Serenity held up a hand to stop the explanation. He didn’t care. “We have a few hours before we need to head back to the inn to meet the merchants over dinner. I’m assuming you’d prefer to spend them here instead of heading over to check out the portal? With the ward up, that should be safe enough.”

“I want her to stay.” The prince butted into the conversation.

The prince’s interjection annoyed Serenity, but it wasn’t enough of an annoyance to make Serenity override Andarit’s preference. He ignored it and kept his attention on his protectee. “It’s your choice.”

Andarit’s gaze darted to Prince Ora and a slight frown crossed her face before it faded as she looked back at Serenity. “I’ll stay and get these letters written. We’ll have something by the time you’re back.”

Serenity nodded. “At that point, we’ll head to the inn and stay there until we leave Zenith. It’s better not to come in and out of here too much.”

“Then why are you leaving?”

Serenity wasn’t certain if the prince was just used to always getting his way or if he was irritable because of the loss of his family and the control that came with his position, but he was definitely acting like something was going on. Serenity took a deep breath and let it out. He was older than the prince; he should act like it. “If the merchants ask why I didn’t leave Zon, it’s better to have at least looked at the portal. If it’s apparently open, I’ll trigger it as well to confirm everything. The less you have to lie, the better a story is. I’d like to tell the truth, simply not all of it.”

It wasn’t the full reason, but it was a good enough reason to take the small risk of leaving the hideaway.

The city was already starting to return to normal as Serenity traveled to the offworld portal. There were still periodic acolyte patrols and Serenity passed several individual acolytes preaching, but this part of the city seemed largely untouched. The people moving around were a bit more alert than usual, but other than that it seemed like an ordinary day.

The offworld portal node was deserted. That wasn’t what Serenity had expected, and he slowed, looking around. There were several buildings nearby overlooking the node; was this really as unattended as it seemed or was it a trap?

Serenity grumbled to himself as he hesitated within sight of the portal node. It felt like a trap, but Serenity couldn’t be certain about that and he did want to check out the portal node, just in case. If possible, he wanted to avoid a fight as well; there was no reason to alert the invaders that there was someone left who would fight them if he could avoid it.

Wherever they were watching from, it wasn’t obvious.

Serenity was glad he hadn’t brought Andarit. It was exceedingly unlikely that he was actually the person they wanted to trap, but Andarit might be. Assuming that it was indeed a trap, at least.

Serenity sighed and wished he were any good at illusion magic. Unfortunately, his brain simply seemed to not work that way; the closest he could get was actually making light and sound, and even that wasn’t his strongest skill. He was better with Mind magic, and he didn’t really like using it that way. He’d seen people do actual illusions, but it had never made sense to him.

It was the middle of the day … well, early afternoon, but close enough that everything was well lit. His Sovereign form would be very visible.

There just wasn’t a way around it in the time he had. He was going to have to walk in. He was as prepared as he was going to be; he had several spells infused and he was well armored. Carrying his ax was probably too threatening, but he did have the full knife set, at least.

Serenity couldn't help but be very aware as he walked up to the portal node, but when nothing obvious happened, he relaxed a little. If anything was going to happen, it would be on the way out.

[Node functionality is restricted due to the contested situation in the Zenith Control Zone]

[Node Restrictions: Messaging and portal functions are limited. City Owner functionality is disabled. City Features are available only under manual control. Other functions are unaffected; settings may not be changed until a new City Owner is established]

[Messaging restrictions: Messaging may not cross geographic boundaries. Messages will be retained for future delivery]

[Portal restrictions: All portal features are diasabled within the Zenith Control Zone until City Ownership is determined]

Serenity lifted his hand from the portal node. There was a lot to unpack there, but nothing that would help him get off Zon or warn Rissa. The good news was that it really looked like she wouldn’t be able to enter Zenith while the situation was going on; it didn’t just say that outgoing portals were restricted.

There were people approaching the portal node from some of the nearby buildings. Even before he turned around, Serenity could tell they were in robes, probably acolytes rather than Court but he couldn’t be certain until he saw the colors.

They were spreading out as though they expected him to run and wanted to stop it. He could probably still get away, but doing the expected wasn’t usually the best idea. He started building a teleportation spell; one he could build quickly would only get him a short distance, not back to the pottery studio, but that was fine. Three buildings away was plenty; it was well beyond the range they were covering. He could either hide or run from there.

With luck, he wouldn’t need it. Serenity wasn’t certain how much he could count on his luck, but he was certain that counting on his ability to talk himself out of trouble was hit or miss at best.

Serenity finished his turn and confirmed that yes, he was looking at Eternal Church acolytes. There certainly were a lot of them. He walked over to the entrance to the shelter covering the portal node to wait; if he could avoid a conflict, that would be preferable. Teleporting away would only cement himself in their minds and make them hunt him for no other reason than the fact that he ran.

He knew he wasn’t someone they were after; the question was if he could convince them of it.