Serenity was puzzled by the message requesting to align Pyongyang’s City Core structure with the existing political structure. He hadn’t seen anything like it before and it took some time to get the Voice to clarify what was going on.

Apparently, the option to “align with existing political structure” was only available if all city cores in the political structure were owned by someone who was appropriately aligned, and even then it would only be offered at the ‘central node’. Other “City Core Coalition” options would become available in time but only once people were trying to form multi-city coalitions that weren’t aligned with the previous structure.

Knowing that it made sense that a relatively small totalitarian country might be first: they were small enough that there were only so many cities and they were firmly structured enough that the people who ended up in power were in similar roles already.

Even so, it amused Serenity that North Korea was first. He’d have to let his mother in on the joke as soon as he could. In fact, there was no reason to wait; if he wrote it up now, it would go out as soon as he was back in contact.

Serenity wrote up the letter to his mother then approved the North Korean request.

Serenity wasn’t certain why planetary management decisions were getting through when messages wouldn’t. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any way to use that system to get messages out. Serenity asked Aide to look for for loopholes but he didn’t expect much more than the ability for others to know he was still alive.

Saying the remainder of the trip through the Dead Swamp was uneventful would be overstating it significantly, but there certainly wasn’t anything as threatening as the lich’s attack.

It seemed like the lich had been keeping other undead away from the two of them and the periodic undead he’d felt at the edge of his aura were tests from the lich; the undead they met afterwards weren’t deterred by it. Instead, they had to kill them. They came individually or in small groups; none were over Tier Three and the largest group was a group of four Tier One zombies.

Serenity was confident Andarit could have handled the undead other than the lighting lich on her own, but since crossing the Dead Swamp was a matter of multiple days’ travel it wouldn’t have been a good idea to go alone. There was also the possibility that there was something worse in there they’d missed.

They came out of the Dead Swamp facing another mountain. It seemed that Lowpeak was at the other end of a series of high passes that ran from Iron Mountain’s Mountain Crest Enclave to Lowpeak itself, more or less parallel to the Dead Swamp.

There were fields on the mountainside. Fields that weren’t there on Iron Mountain. “Do your people farm the mountain?” Serenity turned to Andarit.

Andarit grinned. She’d been grinning ever since they saw the mountain through the trees of the swamp. “Yes. Food has to come from somewhere. Mountain’s Crest can keep it smaller and higher on the mountain because Iron Mountain doesn’t have that many people, but Lowpeak is large. We’re not as fertile as Heavenfall, but we still do well. We have to be careful of undead from the Swamp, but they don’t eat crops so they’re not that threatening here. The river gets more, but even that’s usually handled without any need for Father to intervene.”

If all that came out of the Dead Swamp at a time was the small groups they’d seen since the lightning lich, Serenity could believe that. A few guards wherever people went near the swamp would probably be enough; if the farmers had a way to call for help or were trained and Pathed to fight, even less would be necessary. A warning system for when someone came out of the Dead Swamp would have been optimal, but Serenity could tell there wasn’t a ward. If there was a warning system, it depended on Path Skills instead of magitech.

“Which way?” Straight ahead led into a field. While they could climb the mountain and cross fields, it seemed rude.

Andarit pointed to the right, away from the mountains. “Around the edge of the swamp, downhill. We should be able to catch the river road.”

“River road?” Serenity was fairly confident Andarit hadn’t mentioned that before.

Andarit nodded. “It’s another main route onto the mountain. The road to Mountain’s Crest, the River Road, and the Old Road. The River Road is used the most.”

You have new messages

There was a slight pause, then Aide continued.

Did I do that properly?

Yes, yes you did.

A grin spread across Serenity’s face at the news that he was now outside the Zenith Control Zone and messages could be sent and received.

Have the messages I sent left?

Yes.

Good. That meant everything was going as expected. “Andarit, can you take over flying for a moment? I need to check something.”

“More undead?” Andarit tapped on the flyer’s control point to tell it to change over; it worked even though Serenity was still supplying the mana and essence because he let it work. Serenity tried not to flush when he remembered how he had reflexively not handed over control the first time they tried it.

Serenity shook his head. “No, good news this time. We’ve made it outside the Zenith Control Zone, so I have some messages to read.”

Andarit muttered something Serenity couldn’t quite make out. He thought he caught the word “weird”, so he didn’t ask her to clarify. It clearly wasn’t meant to be understood.

Serenity,

The route to Zon through Asihanya from Akert, Katya’s hometown, isn’t going to work. Kerr looked into it while we stayed with Katya’s family then caught up and there’s something like a war going on there. I think it’s the same thing Raz saw the beginning of but it’s not just affecting his hometown. Apparently two major trading hubs - Stallet and Takinat - were reduced to rubble. They’re also the major locations for portals and the route we were planning to take goes through both of them! I can find a route that skips one or the other but not one that skips both.

Well, technically I can find several that don’t use portals in either but each of them requires traveling through one of the two hubs to get between the portals so it doesn’t help.

Did I tell you about Berinath yet? Would you believe it’s a moon and that all of the cities are in giant domes? It’s wonderfully futuristic but they somehow kept the fantasy theme going; everything is controlled by the plants! Have you been there?

Serenity read through the rest of the letter and grinned at Rissa’s gushing about all of the strange things she’d seen. As he finished it, there was something niggling at the back of his head, something he wasn’t thinking of.

Aide, why does Takinat sound familiar?

It was mentioned in another letter, the one from Honoria. Here is the reference:

If you happen to get the chance before I let you know I’m on my way, feel free to drop by the Library in Takinat on Asihanya. I’ll either be there or someone will know how to find me.

That did explain it, though Serenity wasn’t certain why Takinat stuck in his head enough to seem familiar after a single reference. Things did that sometimes.

Have we gotten another letter from Honoria since that one?

No.

That wasn’t a good sign. Serenity went ahead and drafted and sent a quick note.

Honoria,

I’ve heard that Takinat was devastated by an attack but I don’t have any details. Are you OK? If you need help, let me know and I’ll head that way as soon as I can.

I have things mostly wrapped up on Zon and will be heading to Lyka next so if you do get free, let me know so I can get you a better meeting place. Zon’s capital Zenith is currently inaccessible due to an invasion (sounds all too familiar doesn’t it?) so we can’t meet there anyway.

Serenity

It was short but it got the point across.

Serenity returned to reading Rissa’s letters. It looked like she’d sent one every day or two after the first one where she told him about their detour. That one must have arrived while he was in the dungeon with Andarit.

How many days had it been since then? Four in the dungeon, then two in the city, the travel to Celestials’ Rest, finding the people to handle freeing the slaves, travel to Iron Mountain, then the trip through the swamp. Had it really been about a month since they entered the Palace Dungeon?

No wonder there were twenty messages from Rissa alone. Serenity bet she was worried.

He worked his way through all of the messages; there were a number from other people as well, and Serenity was able to get a good picture of the situation from what they did and didn’t say.

Rissa,

I’m finally somewhere I can send and receive messages. It sounds like you may be in deeper trouble than I am; please let me know what you find. I haven’t located a portal out yet but I’m hopeful I will get to one soon.

Love,

Serenity

When Serenity looked up from checking his email, or whatever you called messages sent through the Voice’s network, the countryside hadn’t changed much. They were still traveling over low brush with fields to their left and trees to their right, closer to the fields than the trees. “How long do you think it will be before we reach the river?”

Andarit jumped a little before she turned to face him. “A while. There are miles where the fields meet the swamp.”

Duke Lowpeak stirred, pulled out of his fitful nap by a tug on his land-sense where his land butted up against the barrier of the Dead Swamp. A powerful signature had entered the Lowpeak land from the Dead Swamp. The last time he’d felt anything like that, it was the lich that he’d killed to gain the title Lichbane, at the head of its army.

It felt both less and more than that.

Duke Lowpeak reached out and tried to gather more information on it from his land-sense, but it refused. All the land would tell him was that there was a weight that hadn’t been there before. There was a second presence with the weight that the land seemed inclined to welcome, but it was so confused by the weighty presence that wasn’t really there that the Duke couldn’t even tell if the second presence was a mirage. He wanted to assume that the strangeness meant it was safe, but he couldn’t. It came from the Dead Swamp.

Few good things came from the Dead Swamp; most of those were harvested during one of the Great Expeditions into the Swamp. The Great Expeditions were always planned well in advance; anything else would be foolhardy.

He needed to alert the guards that something was coming. He’d have to be careful to warn them that he didn’t feel the taint of the undead; it was more like something coming from the Old Lands.

He very much hoped it wasn’t a demon that came through the Dead Swamp. Demons were worse than the undead.

This was a bad time for an attack, with all contact to Zenith gone and no news on why. Of course, that would make it the perfect time as far as the other side was concerned. He wouldn’t be able to call on any outside support if an attack did happen, and the smarter demons were often wise to that.