“This job has terrible ti off,” Scule muttered from atop Vin’s shoulder as he waited for Vin to finish casting his modified ‘Sense Earther’ spell. In reality, Vin was using his Runic Recalibration Capstone and his Manacraft skill to tweak Sense Soul to pick up souls with a whopping zero in their magic attribute. But seeing as the only pings he would receive were from humans freshly dropped off from Earth, its only real purpose was for sensing Earthers.
“You know you didn’t have to co with us,” Vin pointed out, turning to Lul and shaking his head as the spell finished up. “No Earthers here either.”
“That’s seven no’s in a row,” Lul sighed, taking their hands and casting Mass Dinsional Shift, bringing them right to the edge of the stone fra leading from the dungeon back down to the Underside. Vin would never get tired of how convenient having a girlfriend who was a skilled dinsional mage was for getting around, and it made these ti-sensitive missions far more likely to succeed. “I know the odds of finding Earthers are low, but it's still rough to strike out back to back so frequently.”
“Don’t worry, I bet Scule knows a thing or two about striking out,” Shia snickered, the Druid prodding at the glaring petian with her finger. “How are things going between you and Fria, anyway?”
“For your information, I’d say things are going quite well!” Scule sniffed, crossing his arms and staring defiantly up at the elf. “Last night she took the two of us up into the sky, and we practiced flying around! It was very romantic!”
“Dream dating sounds strange,” Lul admitted, leading the way across the vast, empty chamber of the Underside as they headed toward the next fragnt on their list to check for missing Earthers. “What happens if one of you has a nightmare? Does the other have to experience it as well?”
“From what I understand, seeing as she’s a rather experienced Dream Mage, that’s not sothing I have to worry about,” Scule shrugged, his glare quickly morphing into a smile as he turned to Lul. Vin had to admit, he’d rarely seen Scule as happy as he was when talking about the pixie he was now seeing. Normally Scule didn’t grin like that unless the Rogue was actively thinking about stealing sothing valuable. “She explained that with Create Dream, she’s in total control of where we go and what we do on our dates. So no need to worry about nightmares. We can do whatever our heart desires!”
“That does sound pretty romantic,” Lul said softly, shooting a quick glance at Vin out from underneath her dark hood. Despite the fact that the pulmon no longer had translucent skin, old habits were hard to break, and she often kept her now-lavender face hidden away beneath her hood unless it were just the two of them.
“As soon as I learn Dream Walk, I’ll take you on a fun dream date as well,” Vin promised, his chest filling with warmth at the tiny but excited smile on Lul’s face.
“You people and your relationships,” Shia said, rolling her eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with being single, right Reginald?”
The snoozing rat poked his head out of Vin’s front pocket, blinking as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and looked around in confusion. Realizing what had just been said, he let out a few quick squeaks, and Vin and Scule both started laughing.
“What?” Shia demanded, frowning at the two of them. “What did he say?”
“I only get the gist of what Reginald says, but it was sothing along the lines of him ‘never having had that problem,’” Vin translated.
“Yep, that’s pretty much it!” Scule said, howling with laughter at the scowl on Shia’s face. “Face it, you get less action than a rat!”
“To be fair, I think you could say that about pretty much anyone,” Lul pointed out. “Doesn’t Reginald have sothing like a few hundred grandchildren by now?”
That sobered Scule up fast, and the petian cleared his throat, looking rightfully embarrassed.
“…Alright, yeah, Reginald might actually put himself out there a little too much if we’re being honest.”
By that point, they’d reached the next dungeon, and they all held hands to allow Lul to warp them straight through it. Stepping out into the fragnt, Vin cast ‘Sense Earther’, blinking as he actually got a reading back this ti around.
“Hold up guys, we’ve got a live one,” he said, letting out a sigh as he planted his hands on his hips and looked around, glancing at the unending fall just a few feet to his right. “Figures it would be here of all places.”
The five of them were back in the sky fragnt. Arguably Vin’s least favorite fragnt out of all of the ones he’d ventured through so far, and for good reason. The fragnt didn’t seem to have any natural ground. It was open sky as far as the eye could see, filled with nothing more than thousands of small clouds floating all over the place. Like the one they were currently standing on, many of these clouds were unique, filled with mana dense enough for people to stand on. But when night fell and the water mana within the clouds grew heavier and denser…
They had a tendency to shatter.
The last ti they’d been here their entire group, sans Alka, had nearly fallen to their deaths, plumting all the way down through the cloud layers to what the denizens of this fragnt called the darkened depths. No clouds existed down there, because there were truly colossal epic monsters appropriately called World Eaters that slowly flew around down there in the darkness. Each one was the size of a small mountain range, and they were by and far the scariest things Vin had encountered in all of Edregon. Not to ntion the first cause of his Beyond the Veil ability putting him into a coma as he witnessed sothing his mind wasn’t ready to handle just yet. The epic monsters were so large they had so sort of ability to hide themselves within the darkness down below, and Vin’s class ability as an Adventurer of the Arcane had oh-so-helpfully allowed him to see partially through it. The huge spike in experience from the grand arcane discovery had been nice, but the three-day-long coma he’d suffered afterwards had been less so.
All that to say, Vin didn’t want to spend any longer within this fragnt than they had to.
“I guess so long as the missing Earther was smart enough not to walk off a cloud, there’s not too much danger in this fragnt during the day,” Lul admitted. “Are they close?”
“Not exactly. They’re about two miles that way,” Vin said, pointing to where he’d felt the soul. “And they wouldn’t be on just any cloud, don’t forget they popped into Edregon yesterday. If they’d been on a regular cloud, it would have shattered when it froze overnight. They have to be with the avisul.”
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“Oh yeah, their main cloud was reinforced to keep their whole village floating, right?” Scule asked, scratching his head as he thought back. “I rember experinting with freezing so of their smaller clouds with a new magical poison I was developing.”
“Yes, I also recall you nearly dropping a frozen cloud on my head while I was trying to get their Cloud Whisperers to teach air magic,” Vin drawled, earning an embarrassed cough from the Rogue. “Regardless, let’s get moving. Lul, seeing as you can pick out the safe clouds, would you mind warping us? Moving all of us with Redirect Gravity would be too costly for .”
“Yep, that’s exactly what the Magic Eye passive is good for,” she said, her dark purple eyes that matched the color of her personal mana literally twinkling as mana coursed through them.
Utilizing Lul’s Mass Dinsional Shift, the four of them leapfrogged their way across the fragnt, pausing every now and again to ensure Lul never ran too low on mana. Despite the fact that it was still rather early in the day and they had plenty of ti before the clouds turned brittle once more, Vin was still tense every ti they warped to a new cloud, expecting the spongy texture to shatter under them and send them falling back into the darkened depths yet again. He now had three entirely separate spells to stop that from happening, between Redirect Gravity, Create Cloud, and Slow Fall, but old traumas died hard.
Lul must have felt him tensing as they traveled, because she squeezed his hand in her own, giving him a reassuring smile every ti they jumped. She looked like she wanted to pull him into a big hug and promise him everything would be okay, but she was far too shy to do such a thing with Shia and Scule along for the ride. Instead, to try and distract himself from the yawning void below them, Vin focused on his interface, taking a look at just how far he’d co from his first day on Edregon.
Vinnie Stone
Adventurer of the Arcane: Lvl 48
Titles: Human Vessel (Lesser), Common Ally (Minor), Survivor, Epic Monster Slayer, Spell Weaver
Exp. 1,159,460/1,176,000
Strength: 20
Dexterity: 30
Endurance: 74
Vigor: 25
Focus: 75
Magic: 75
Attribute Points: 0
Skill Points: 1
Passive Points: 0
Class Ability: Beyond the Veil
Vows/Boons: Vow of Benevolence/Grace of Gods (Boon)
Capstone: Runic Recalibration, Flexible Formations
Passives: ntal Map, Polyglot, Distance Runner, Threat Detection, Iron Mind, Mana Well, Artifact Extraordinaire, Magical Adept, Spell Builder
Skills: Tracking lvl 12, Manacraft, Introspection lvl 20, Dungeoneering lvl 15, Total Resistance lvl 19, Running lvl 19, Cartography lvl 12, Drawing lvl 12, Swimming lvl 16, Sleeping lvl 17
Tier 0 Spells: Sense Stone (earth), Sense Life (life), Sense Magic (neutral), Sense Curse (curse), Sense Air (air), Sense Dinsions (spatial), Sense Vibrations (vibration), Sense Death (death), Sense Fire (fire), Sense Water (water), Sense Soul (soul), Sense Gravity (gravity), Sense Dream (dream)
Tier 1 Spells: Renewal (life), Entangle (nature), Replenish (nature), Light (light), Summon Stone (earth), Concealnt (neutral), Familiar Pheromones (nature), Whispering Wind (air), Create Water (water), Isolate Dinsion (spatial), Tremorsense (vibration), Decay (death), Neutralize Poison (life), Detect Truth (soul), Create Fla (fire), Enhance Gravity (gravity), Create Air (air), Slow Fall (air), Protection from Fire (fire), Extinguish (fire), Still Wind (air), Firm Water (water), Vibrate (vibration), Create Dream (dream)
Tier 2 Spells: Stone Shot (earth), Stone Wall (earth), Stone Shape (earth), Stone Furniture (earth), False Life (death), Dinsional Sheath (spatial), Aqua Sphere (water), Redirect Gravity (gravity), Fireball (fire), Create Cloud (air), Magic Lock (spatial), Self Destruct (fire), Replenishing Breath (air), Warmth (fire), Mage Hand (gravity), Tremorsight (vibration)
Tier 3 Spells: Binding (spatial)
Going from level 1 to level 48 in only a couple of months was no easy feat, to the point where Vin was easily the front-runner when it ca to Earthers and their levels. He hadn’t asked in a while, but he was pretty certain the next closest to him in level were his fellow council mbers, and they hadn’t even managed to hit their second prestige classes at level 40 the last ti the topic had co up. Of course, that had been before he’d spent two weeks unconscious, working with the pixie Fred to master the basics of dream magic. Not to ntion the intense battle for wave six that followed. A lot could happen in only two weeks, and battling against thousands of monsters was a pretty good way for most classes to earn experience, so Vin had a feeling he wasn’t the only Earther to have hit his second prestige by now.
Going over the many spells he’d mastered managed to keep him distracted, and in what felt like no ti at all, they reached the avisul. The singular, giant cloud with a village laid out on top of it was hard to miss, even less so with the handful of smaller clouds trailing it, all of them connected with thin wispy tendrils set in place by the Cloud Whisperers. While they hadn’t shared the magic with him, Vin knew that the Cloud Whisperers were capable of creating clouds of varying densities, so of which were hard as steel. It was these that the avisul used to make their tools, seeing as they certainly didn’t have anything like tal to work with floating up here in the sky.
The five of them were spotted and clearly recognized by so of the flying avisul on their way over, because when Lul warped them onto the edge of the island, a familiar, old face was waiting for them.
“Welco back,” Telin wheezed, the ancient mayor of the town looking like he was two wings in the grave as he gave them a shaky smile. The avisul looked like humanoid bat-folk with their leathery mbranes connecting their arms to their sides to act as wings, long pointed ears that put any elf’s to sha, and their sharp, needle-like teeth. But despite their scary appearance, they were as kind as any other people. Living up here in the clouds, they weren’t exactly used to receiving visitors, even before their fragnt had been snatched up by the Gods to form Edregon. But even so, they had welcod them well enough the first ti they’d t. “It has been too long,” Telin continued. “Though I suppose after your encounter with the World Eaters, I can understand why you’d be hesitant to return.”
“It is hard, willingly walking around on clouds again,” Vin admitted, exchanging a knowing smile with the ancient avisul. Telin had admitted during their last eting that he’d witnessed the World Eaters for himself when he’d been younger, the sight of which had put him in a similar coma for a few weeks. “Though I’m sorry to say we’re not here for pleasure. Is there any chance you all received another human visitor soti yesterday? We’re hunting for so people who got lost in a giant magical mishap.”
“In fact, we did have one pop onto one of the trailing clouds,” Telin wheezed, the old avisul slowly deflating as he forced the words out, to the point where he was practically doubled over. Silence stretched between them for a solid few seconds, before Scule cleared his throat.
“So… is he de—”
“Pluck is with him now!” Telin finished, jerking back upright and gasping for air as though it was only sheer willpower keeping his heart beating at this point. “Allow to lead you to them!”
While the five of them followed him, Scule muttered in Vin’s ear.
“Seriously, how old is this guy?”
“According to his great-grandson Pluck, more than a hundred,” Vin muttered back. “From what I understand, that’s even more impressive when it cos to avisul than humans.”
“Good on him for living such a long, healthy life,” Lul whispered, smiling at the ancient avisul’s back.
“Makes you wonder what his diet is,” Shia added, tapping her chin curiously as they walked.
The village atop the cloud wasn’t too large, and it didn’t take them long to reach the missing Earther. However, rather than find the Earther lounging out atop the cloud, basking in the sun and enjoying themselves, Vin was startled to realize that wasn’t the case at all.
From the looks of things, the missing Earther had been all but quarantined.
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