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Chapter 502 - Celestials’ Rest
🕑 Added 2022-09-23 22:59:43 +0000 UTCEnjoy!
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Celestials’ Rest was surrounded by fields, some clearly used for raising animals and others clearly farmed for crops. There were several bridges on the way to the main settlement, clearly crossing man made canals. Serenity knew there was a river that ran through the area, so that was probably the water source; it came down from the mountain Zenith was on, but the road didn’t follow the river; the canals were probably running from the river to wherever the settlement needed water.
There were Earthlings enslaved at Celestials’ Rest. Serenity had known that from Djen’s records, but it hadn’t really sunk in until they arrived at the massive compound. He was going to have to somehow find them, free them, and send them home. It was a daunting task.
When it finally came into sight, Serenity knew his task was going to be even harder than he’d thought. Celestials’ Rest was a city. There was a large spire of a tower in the center, but it was surrounded by smaller buildings. Only the central spire was more than three stories tall, but the city itself was probably a mile wide. It was far smaller than Zenith, and Serenity could see some areas where farming or grazing land was incorporated into the settlement, but that still left a lot of places he’d have to look.
The central spire didn’t fit with the surrounding building at all well. It wasn’t tall for a skyscraper, but it was still over four times the height of anything else in the city. It reminded Serenity of some of the old ideas of what a spaceship might look like, a singular tall tapered cylinder with a spike at the top. It even had fins coming out near the bottom; Serenity could only see two, but if they were evenly spaced there should be a third he couldn’t see. The primary difference between the tower and a spaceship was that it wasn’t made of metal; instead, it was clearly made of stone.
The windows and doors scattered around the surface, along with periodic floating staircases connecting the doors, also helped dispel the illusion of it being a space-going ship. It was a strange design and Serenity could help but spend a little time wondering if there was a reason for it, but he didn’t have the information to know.
The place to start was probably the slave traders. He had Djen’s records, after all, so he should be able to figure out who’d handled the slaves. Even with that, it wasn’t going to be easy; it was unlikely that they’d all gone to the same buyer, and on top of that, who knew if their new owner would be interested in selling? One of the things that had made the task approachable in Zenith was that almost all of the Earthlings were still owned by slave traders, who were definitely interested in selling.
Before he tackled that, though, he wanted to get a message to Rissa to come to Celestials’ Rest instead of Zenith. Or perhaps he should send her to Lowpeak? That was probably where he was headed next with Andarit anyway.
Xarx drove the lead wagon to the gates and then to a run-down inn. They left the wagons in a locked area at the rear and handed the erkals over to a stablehand before heading to the front of the inn. It looked like the sign had once had words, but now all that could be made out was the picture, which seemed to be a giant beer stein sitting next to a bed.
The door opened onto something that looked far more like a tavern than a hotel. Serenity supposed he should have expected that from the sign, but it still surprised him, since there was such a large area for wagons in the back.
Of course, that wagon area was probably why they were at this particular inn.
The tavern was nearly empty. Xarx led the way to the bar, even though there was no one standing at it, then called out loudly. “Arrimet! Do you have three rooms open?”
An older woman, probably in her sixties, opened a door in the wall behind the bar and stepped into the room. She felt solid and sheltering, right at the peak of Tier Three, but there was no sharpness to her aura and no indication that she was able to control it at all, any more than the bandits had been able to control theirs. “Xarxinal. I see no one’s managed to put you out of our misery yet. I thought you’d taken up with some noble muckety-muck and weren’t going to show your face here again?”
Despite her harsh words, there was no edge to her voice any more than there was to her aura and she seemed to be having trouble controlling the edges of her mouth.
“Is that any way to treat your nephew?” Xarx’s voice was irreverent, almost amused, and the grin on his face showed that he wasn’t at all upset with his aunt’s response. “I know I introduced Ceney to you on our last trip and told you we’d be back in a few months.”
They were clearly not here just because the inn had a place for the wagons; on the other hand, this probably did explain why handing the wagons over was as simple as it seemed.
“It’s been almost a year, Xarx.” Arrimet couldn’t conceal her grin any longer. “I was getting worried about you, with the news out of Zenith this week. Why do you need a third room? Who are these two?”
“Guards,” Xarx grinned. “Not as many as we wanted, but better quality, at least. Don’t know if they’re going to stay with us when we move on, but I’ll still cover them for the night. They deserve it, after the bandits.”
Arrimet shook her head. “Here I thought you’d leave the guards at the Rest as usual. Two … why would you leave Zenith with so few and two good wagons? You know that’ll attract attention.”
Xarx sighed. “I’d have left Zenith with no guards if I had to. We’d only have brought one wagon, then, but we’d still have come. Zenith is … Zenith fell. An invasion through the portals, right on the heels of a massive fight. Losing everything would be better than staying in Zenith right now.”
For some reason, both Xarx and Arrimet turned to look at Ceney, who blushed at the scrutiny. “So, ah, are there rooms?”
Xarx’s face snapped over towards Arrimet.
Arrimet nodded. “Three, yes. But you’re going to have to pay full price for them; they’ll fill and at a premium if you don’t take them. You aren’t the only ones fleeing Zenith, and this is the first city they can reach so many are stopping here for a while.”
“What is the Baron doing? Is he preparing to fight the invaders?” The blush was already fading from Ceney’s face as she spoke. “Oh, and which rooms will it be? Can we get connecting rooms?”
Arrimet snorted. “Only connecting rooms left are on the top floor. Are you sure you want them?”
Xarx nodded. “Yes, please. It’ll be safer.”
“Hmf. Safer. When you have to worry about that in my Inn … bah. And as for what the Baron’s doing about the invaders, I’ve got no idea, girl. He doesn’t exactly invite me over for afternoon tea. You can go there and ask yourself.” The innkeeper bent down and looked at something under the bar. A moment later, she held out three keys to her nephew. “Third floor, the end of the hall closest to the stables. Dinner starts in an hour, but prices are up. If I were you, I wouldn’t stay here.” Her eyes drifted back over to Ceney. “Might not be safe.”
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Andarit barely waited for Xarx to inspect the three rooms for intruders and the door to be shut and locked behind them before she turned to Ceney. “You’re a Daughter of Zenith, aren’t you?”
Ceney froze.
Andarit kept going as though Ceney’s reaction were agreement. “I should’ve realized it sooner. I knew there was a Daughter named Ceney, I just didn’t make the connection. Are there any others left? The three alive and not abdicated must include you and Prince Ora, but I don’t know who the third one is. It didn’t occur to me, but you wouldn’t have been at the presentation, would you? Only lineal heirs…”
“Whoa, slow down there.” Serenity set a hand on Andarit’s shoulder. “You’re saying Ceney is Prince Ora’s sister?”
“Aunt,” Ceney corrected. “I’m his mother’s sister. She gained the mantle three months before I was even born, so I was never expected to inherit. It’s good to know Ora survived, I thought everyone was gone.”
Xarx sighed. “And you just admit it. How am I supposed to keep you safe if you can’t do better than that?”
“They already knew,” Ceney objected. “Plus, they don’t care. Lowpeak isn’t going to support the invaders, no matter what. You know that. It’s why I wanted to tell them days ago.”
“And he’s still not Lowpeak! He’s a true mercenary! Who knows who’ll hire him next?” Xarx pointed at Serenity while he was talking, but didn’t look at him.
Serenity sighed. “You know, you could just ask. Yes, I’m a mercenary and yes, I’m working for Duke Lowpeak. No, that’s not the only reason I’m here. No, I’m not likely to work for the Eternals, not with what they’ve done.” He hoped that was enough. “So if that’s taken care of, do any of you know where I can find a City Node? Preferably one with a portal? I want to tell Rissa where to go, and that means I need to know where to send her.”
Ceney’s “Rissa?” overlapped with Xarx’s “What they’ve done?” in a round of mutual confusion that told Serenity he’d hit that one way too fast.
It was too bad, too. He’d hoped to get by without a real explanation. A real explanation might lead to more surprises like Guildmaster Tirmanak Oathbinder. While the Guildmaster hadn’t been a bad surprise, Serenity wasn’t in the mood for surprises.
Still, he’d better explain. As much as he’d originally told Kalo would probably work; people being stolen, the quest, and his allies coming to help him with it all shouldn’t cause any issues. The fact that they’d found out that the Eternal Church was involved somehow and probably behind it all wouldn’t hurt, either. “Why don’t we all sit down? A real explanation is going to take a while.”
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It took hours, mostly because Xarx wouldn’t stop asking questions. They nearly missed dinner; when Ceney realized how late it was getting, she pulled Xarx aside for a short talk. When they came back, Ceney announced that she and Andarit would head to talk to the Baron in the morning. Serenity expected Andarit to object, but when she didn’t say anything he didn’t either. She had to deliver the letter from Prince Ora somehow, after all, and if she wanted to do it in person that was reasonable.
After dinner, Xarx was happy to lead them all to one of Celestials’ Rest two portal nodes. One of them was in the spire and not available to most people but the other one was supposed to be usable by anyone. It was also near the spire, and it was obvious that was for a reason. The node and the portal it could generate were both within a large enclosed area with two doors. One led to the outside while the other led into the side of the spire. It was clearly designed to be able to be both controlled and defended, unlike many of the portal nodes Serenity had seen recently. Including the one in Zenith.
Serenity still hadn’t decided if he wanted to tell Rissa to head to Lowpeak or have her meet him at Celestials’ Rest, but at least he knew he had some work to get done here. The important thing was getting back in contact.
Andarit was right behind him. As soon as Serenity finished, she was going to contact her father. Node messaging was expensive, but for this she was willing to spend the Etherium.
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Author's Note: Serenity's mostly given up on keeping his mission secret at this point. Why bother? It's not like it won't be obvious when he starts buying slaves that he's doing something.
