Chapter 195: Chapter 186 – The Dragon and the Hegemon

Serenity felt a deep anger rising as he watched the worms writhe their way out of Made and he thought about the possibility of that happening to Rissa. There was one still sunk in her wrist; he grabbed it and pulled it away from her. It resisted for a moment, then what seemed like several inches of worm slid out of her flesh, leaving a small, bleeding wound.

The worm squirmed in his grasp, flailing as it tried to find something else to bite. Like the wasp earlier, it skidded off his tough skin and Serenity threw it away from him. He didn’t care about the worm; what he cared about was Rissa. She hadn’t made a sound or even moved since he picked her up; that wasn’t like her at all.

This was his Rissa. His friend, his love, his fiancee. The one who held the key to his heart. And yet it was not her; the worm had somehow taken her from him.

It was hard to say which was stronger, the anguish of the man who had lost the love of his life once before or the anger of a dragon against those who would steal from it.

In the end, the man won.

He didn’t recognize it at the time, but in that moment, without even considering the other option, Serenity made the choice he’d been working towards since he chose his name. He chose protecting Rissa over killing his enemy. It was not the choice the Final Reaper had made, but he was not the Final Reaper. He was Serenity, and his choice was to protect.

More than that, he wanted to protect his friends by strengthening them. The last thing he wanted to be was alone, and he knew the loneliness of power unshared far too well. Raise them up - bring them with him-

Bring Rissa with him-

Serenity’s magic flooded out of him - both mana and essence - fueled by his singular Intent. His skill and understanding might shape it normally, but magic always had a basis of Intent. Serenity didn’t put any of his hard-earned skill behind this; it was too incoherent and primal for that.

Russ, Lancaster, and Raz were all close enough to be caught in the sudden explosion of magic. Nat was too far away, filming the scene. Made should have been within the area - she was closer physically than Lancaster or Raz - yet she was completely untouched, unaffected by Serenity’s Intent.

The worms were also unaffected.

Rissa suddenly started and stood on her own, rather than being supported by Serenity’s arms. “Serenity, what-”

Rissa’s worried face was the last thing he saw as his vision faded to black.

She’s safe. Rissa is safe.

It worked. Whatever it did. The important thing is that Rissa is safe.

“-before. You’ve seen him do it too?”

That was Raz’s voice. What was going on? Why was his vision so blurry?

Serenity felt weak, tired, and ill. Feverish, maybe?

But why was Raz there?

Serenity felt something push into his mouth. Jerky?

He hadn’t realized he was hungry, but he definitely was. Serenity ate the jerky as fast as whoever was giving it to him could put it in his mouth.

“-ays deliberately. The worst time I saw was after someone tried to kill him. Do you know what he did?”

That had to be referring to when Moira tried to kill him. Why did Lancaster say “someone”? Lancaster knew it was Moira. Maybe he didn’t want to prejudice Raz against her? Or maybe Nat was recording and he didn’t want to say it on camera?

Nat had been recording. Serenity remembered that. How much of what he’d done was caught on camera? Would it even show up?

At the thought of the camera in his weakened state, Serenity could suddenly feel it. There were only a few electronic signals nearby, and they drowned out the non-electronic technology signals. The camera wasn’t transmitting, but suddenly Serenity could see himself laying on the ground, his head and shoulders on Rissa’s lap as she fed him jerky.

He recognized the jerky. It was one of the snacks he’d packed before they left for the dungeon. Russ and Raz were kneeling next to him, each with a hand on a shoulder. Russ had his head down, concentrating; Raz was looking up at Lancaster, who stood nearby. Serenity guessed they were probably trying to refill his mana, or at least get it off rock bottom; it was like the time he’d tried to send a message to Rissa in the Ancient Temple dungeon. Draining his mana had knocked him out then, too.

Serenity didn’t think he looked that bad; he looked like he’d passed out, but he wasn’t as thin as he’d been after the stabbing.

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He didn’t see Made or any of the Hegemon Worms.

The link broke unexpectedly in a wash of static. Serenity wasn’t sure what ended it, but then again he wasn’t sure how he’d initiated it either. What he was sure of is that his head hurt.

When he stirred and went to sit up, Rissa handed him the remainder of the bag of jerky. “You doing okay?”

“Uh. Not really, terrible headache.” He was feeling a little worse, if anything, now that Raz and Russ weren’t sending mana into him. Wait, didn’t Russ use essence instead of mana? It’d felt similar, so he’d assumed it was the same, but what if he’d drained his essence as well as his mana? That would explain why he felt so wretched.

Serenity pushed himself to a sitting position. He didn’t want to try moving around immediately.

“What did you do?” Nat spoke from behind the camera. “Is that something that happens a lot?”

Serenity laughed ruefully. It did seem to happen to him a lot lately. “I think I just demonstrated why you don’t throw all of your mana into a spell you’re holding together with pure Intent. It’s a bad idea all around, we’re lucky nothing worse happened than just me passing out.” He paused and looked around. “Nothing worse did happen, right? Where’s Made?”

“She’s over there. I think she’s still alive, but we haven’t dared to get close to her. It looks like all of the worms near her are dead, but-” Lancaster stopped and swallowed. “I Analyzed them after you collapsed, and none of us want to get close to a parasite that can control us.”

“We need to get her out of here. And as many of the worms as we can, alive or dead. It’ll reduce the chances of the dungeon deciding to pick them up as a possible encounter.” Serenity could see Made, now that he knew where to look.

He reflexively started drawing a spell that would levitate her a little so that she could be moved without touching her, but the moment he started pulling on his mana to draw the spell, he felt a terrible emptiness and pain. “Uff. I can’t cast a spell to carry her safely. I don’t think I’m going to be able to spellcast for a couple days, at least.”

“I don’t think we really have to worry about any worms escaping into the dungeon,” Russ noted. “Look out there.”

Serenity looked away from the others and saw that the group was completely surrounded by the “small” hand-sized wasps, hovering about a foot off the ground. He could even hear a buzzing noise; he’d assumed it was more of the technology-static, but now that he saw the wasps he realized it was actual noise.

“They’ve been attacking something on the ground. I think it’s the worms. The dungeon doesn’t seem to like them any more than we do, and the wasps seem to take them out easily. The wasps haven’t been at all aggressive to us, just to the worms.” Russ shrugged. “They haven’t come over to Made, but any worms that get more than ten feet from her are stabbed. We moved you a couple times while you were out when worms started getting close, and once we were away from the area, the wasps moved in and killed the worms.”

Serenity looked at Made. “Is this a dungeon you can exit and reenter, as long as others from your group are inside?”

There was a long silence before Lancaster spoke. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone’s tried.”

Serenity looked at Lancaster in disbelief. No one had checked? It’d been open for weeks, hadn’t it?

He shook himself. “I guess we’ll be the ones to find out, then. Most dungeons will allow it if you’re not gone too long. Can you try to get a rolling stretcher and some plastic - tarps or something? An ambulance is probably best. We can probably get her on the stretcher with the plastic if we’re careful, then … uh. You’ll have to tell them the situation. I’m not sure what sort of biohazard this is but I’m pretty sure it is one.”

Lancaster glanced around the group, as though he were looking for something. “Fair point. I probably am the best to go.” He started to leave, then turned back. “What am I going to do about the mud and the water trap?”

“It’s probably disabled since we beat the Goldenjacket. That sort of trap often is. If you see water coming out of the spigots, run? I think that’s what it’s really designed for. It’s pretty slow.” Serenity paused his instructions to look at Lancaster. Lancaster seemed more nervous than he remembered the man being before. “You can leave the stretcher on the other side in that case, we can probably get her that far on plastic.”

Serenity watched Lancaster march across the muddy area. The spigots didn’t open, and he simply kept going. Serenity’s gaze followed him until he was out of sight.

It was too bad there wasn’t an exit on this side of the room. The one from the walkway around the waterhole was still the only exit to the room Serenity had seen. It probably led to the next level; as difficult as the fight with the Goldenjacket was, it was probably an optional special area. It might not even always have monsters.

Serenity suddenly realized that the monster corpses were missing. “What happened to the Goldenjacket? Did it dissolve?”

“Yep.” Raz held up a hardback-sized book. “This was left behind when it dissolved. It looks really nice; there are a lot of detailed pictures of wasps. I can’t read it, unfortunately, but the art’s impressive.”

“The title is Mundane and Magical Biology of the Wasps of North America. I suspect it’s going to be very helpful if wasps are good against these worm things.” Rissa shivered dramatically, then leaned against Serenity and whispered into his ear. “We need to talk after we’re off camera. Figure out what your spell did. I haven’t asked overtly but I don’t think it only affected me.”

Serenity nodded and hugged Rissa while they waited for Lancaster’s return. There wasn’t anything they could do for Made; all they could do was wait.

Rissa’s presence made Serenity feel better. She seemed to feel the same way about him. He didn’t say anything, and neither did she; they’d always been capable of simply enjoying each others’ company without needing words to fill the space.

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