Explorer of Edregon

Vin spent the rest of the afternoon recovering from the tense council meeting. Forget fighting monsters or running for his life, nothing could drain him in quite the same way as sitting around a table and debating with his fellow councilors. It was as if the decisions and choices they made were physical weights riding upon his shoulders, and he all but bolted from the building once Spur decided they were done for the day.

He spent the next few hours updating his journal with what he'd learned of the prisoners' fragment, including as many details as he could remember about both the Red Dawn and the shrine of rebirth. While taking his time sketching out the crying statue, struggling to get the God's expression just right, Vin was hit with two welcome notifications back to back.

Drawing increased to lvl 8! 800 exp gained.

Magical Explorer lvl 31!

+3 attribute points

While level 31 didn't give him anything more exciting than some additional stats, it was still nice to hit a new level. After dumping his free points into focus, he went straight back to his drawing.

Once he'd jotted down all his findings, Vin finally remembered that he'd tasked Alka with keeping an eye on Golrim and ran off to check in with her and fill her in on what she'd missed within the prisoners' fragment. Thankfully, she didn't have much to report.

"Guy hasn't done anything fishy," Alka shrugged, motioning for her Slayer wannabes to take five and grab some water. Based on the heavy panting and trembling limbs, Alka must have been running her group through the paces all morning. She was down to only a half-dozen volunteers by now, which meant these had to be the ones truly determined to try and become Slayers.

"He stayed in his room all night, and since morning, he's been working with Spur on something in one of the few buildings still standing," she continued, not needing to do such trivial things as catch her breath or drink water like her poor trainees. "Spur has guards posted out in front of the building, so I figured that was good enough. Even if you can turn invisible, sneaking around during the day is far harder than doing so at night."

"Fair enough," Vin nodded, wondering how to best approach the issue of Golrim not informing them about the Red Dawn. There was no way something like that was an oversight, but try as he might, he couldn't think of a reason why Golrim would keep their existence to himself. If he'd wanted to try and lead them into an ambush in the hopes of getting them killed, he wouldn't have warned them about all the unrest in his fragment in the first place. After a moment, Vin realized it would make the most sense to simply ask the man himself after he'd recovered the truth-detecting magic from Madam Trebella, so he put the matter aside for now.

"So, I know you've kinda got your whole training thing going, but have any interest in joining me for a quick trip over to the infernals' fragment? I'm hoping to get my hands on some truth-detecting magic, and there's only one person I know of who is capable of that."

"You're going to put yourself even further in debt to that Witch?" Alka asked, her glowing eyes narrowing. "I don't know if that's such a good idea."

"I thought the same, but then I realized it's also a golden opportunity. We meet a lot of new people during our travels, and I could really use some truth-detection magic for myself. Especially after our recent run in with Curash."

"I still can't believe you guys just blindly trusted him like that," Alka snorted. "How many times have I told you not to take what people say at face value?"

"Enough that I should probably start listening," Vin sighed, knowing there was no sense in arguing with her. Alka was definitely the most cautious member of their group, and he was pretty confident they wouldn't have ended up prisoners of the Red Dawn if they'd had her with them. "Anyway, wanna come with me or not? I think Shia and Scule are doing their own thing for now, so I'd appreciate the company."

"Sure, why not. I don't think my trainees are in good enough shape to handle much more of this anyway," she admitted, her head swiveling a hundred and eighty degrees to stare at her wannabe Slayers. "You guys hear that? You've got Vin here to thank for an extended rest, but we'll be right back at it first thing tomorrow!"

Vin received a handful of weak 'thank you's,' before most of the trainees trudged away, many of them supporting one another and stumbling.

"Alka, I think you might be pushing them a little too hard," Vin said, watching them leave and wincing at the state they were in. Based on how haggard they looked, he could only imagine whatever Alka was putting them through was far more intense than the three days of training she'd forced their team to undergo before taking on the divine warrior. "Don't they need time to recover between exercises?"

"I know what I'm doing Vin, don't forget who you're talking to," Alka said, her head spinning back around to face him. "If this experiment works and I really can create a new Slayer guild, it will change everything."

"I don't doubt it." The thought of a half-dozen people all with Alka's insane fighting capabilities mowing their way through a swarm of monsters was a welcome one for sure, and Vin wished more than anything that Alka's experiment bore fruit. "Well, I just ate, so I'm ready to head out when you are."

"Lead the way, beanstalk," Alka teased, giving him a mocking half bow.

Rolling his eyes, Vin took off toward the dungeon entrance, knowing Alka would be right on his heels. He ignored the wide-eyed looks he got from many of the Earthers as Alka and him ran past, and he silently thanked Spur for putting the third wavers' temporary camp in the opposite direction from the dungeon.

The last thing he needed right now was to make all those rumors of him floating around any worse.

By now, Vin was getting rather good at taking down the big bad bear monsters guarding the dungeon in their fragment. While they were certainly large and packed with muscle, they pretty much always charged at him in a straight line, which made sniping them with a mana-empowered Stone Shot fairly simple.

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The nimble wolf monsters were a little trickier, but with Alka at his side, they made quick work of them and found the mysterious corridor in no time at all.

Despite the fact that what he was finally starting to think of as the Underside stretched out potentially forever in all directions, Vin was always on the lookout for Lumel whenever he ended up using it for travel. Like usual though, the Dimensional Mage was nowhere to be seen, no doubt off conducting more experiments somewhere.

While running through the room connected to the stone villagers' fragment, Vin pulled up short, suddenly remembering a promise he'd made.

"Oh crap, we need to make a quick stop. There's something I need to grab from Sakis before we see Madam Trebella."

"Lead the way," Alka shrugged, unbothered by the added stop. "You haven't actually discovered Sakis' dungeon yet though, right?"

"No, but so far every one I've seen is fairly close to the center of the fragments." Walking up to the stone corridor that would take them to Sakis' dungeon, Vin laid a hand against it and focused on his Dungeoneering skill.

Dungeon Type: Cave

Primary Monster Type: Arachnid

Strengths: Poison

Grouping: Solitary

Movement: Medium

"Ugh… Arachnid monsters," Vin muttered, remembering the giant swarm of monster spiders that had attacked them on their way to the trogums' fragment. "Damn it, I keep forgetting to ask Shia to show me her Neutralize Poison spell. Should probably pick that one up for myself sooner or later. Before Scule decides to prank me or something."

"Just stay behind me, I'll protect you," Alka laughed, unsheathing her sword and starting down the corridor.

Rolling his eyes, Vin followed her down the long tunnel, not willing to let the Slayer do all the hard work. He decided then and there he'd spend at least a few days after all this catching up on his spellwork. Now that his magic attribute was nearing 50, he had quite a few slots available to him that he was itching to fill.

True to his skill, the tunnel led them straight into a dark cave system. Vin discovered that Alka's golem body evidently could see in the dark just fine, as by the time he'd joined her and lit up the cave with a floating Light spell, she'd already dispatched the first monster.

"Not spiders. Scorpions," Alka corrected him, flicking the blood off her sword. "Guess we finally found where these guys come from."

"Maybe," Vin nodded, kicking the scorpion's hard carapace. While dungeons tended to be hot spots for monster spawning, he was well aware by now that monsters could form out of the ether pretty much anywhere, at any time. For whatever reason, the only real limitation he'd noticed seemed to be that they never spawned too close to people.

And thank God for that. If monsters started spawning inside their walls, that would be quite a problem.

Although it was their first time in this particular dungeon, making their way through it proved to be almost trivial. The giant scorpions only attacked one at a time, and despite their three different stingers, they still couldn't land a hit on Alka. The Slayer's graceful fighting style had been impressive to watch back when she was still human, but now that her limbs weren't limited by their joints?

She was death incarnate.

Alka walked forward like a living blender, her body spinning and slicing its way through anything the dungeon dared to throw at them. Despite the fact that the monsters' pathetic stingers weren't even capable of scratching her, she didn't grow lax, continuing to dodge and weave around every strike as if a single hit would be fatal for her. Vin merely followed along behind her, keeping the Light spell floating high overhead to ensure there weren't any monsters coming up behind them.

They found the exit in no time at all, and Vin grinned as they walked out into the arid landscape and he realized they were barely two miles from Sakis.

Like always, because he entered this dungeon from the Underside instead of where he was supposed to, he didn't receive his notification until they left the dungeon completely.

New dungeon discovered! 5,000 exp gained.

It's a start, he thought, dismissing the notification. The experience needed for leveling continued to slowly grow greater and greater as time went on, and he hadn't even hit his second prestige yet. According to Deorer, that's where classes got really hard to level, so he couldn't say he was looking forward to the challenge all that much.

The two mile run to Sakis was fairly uneventful as things went, and for the first time, Vin didn't receive a welcome full of spearpoints as he approached the village. It seemed either he'd finally made enough of a name for himself with the villagers, or Alka's horrifying dark visage was rather recognizable from far off, because the squad of warriors merely waved them on through after giving them a warm greeting.

"Vin! It's good to see you again," Peter grinned when Vin stopped by the farm. Plopping down a stone bucket full of what smelled like fertilizer, the farmer lightly pressed his dirty knuckles together in front of his chest in greeting. "And with one more hand than the last time you were here! I take it things are going well?"

"As well as ever," Vin said, returning Peter's smile. The large farmer's friendly attitude was positively infectious, and Vin couldn't help but offer a stupidly pleased grin of his own as he was finally able to return Sakis' greeting with his new arm. "Have you met Alka yet?"

"I can't say I have," Peter said, turning his beaming smile on Alka and offering her the same gesture. "Good to meet you, Alka. Any friend of Vin's is a friend of mine."

"Likewise," she nodded, doing her best to copy the strange foreign greeting despite one of her hands having been replaced with a dwarven warpick. Leaning down toward Vin, Alka lowered her voice. "I don't mean to be rude… But why are we here?"

"I was hoping to pick up some of your vatos for a friend," Vin told Peter in answer, remembering the sweet, pulpy fruits he'd enjoyed so much the last time he'd visited the farm. "And possibly any vegetables you're willing to spare? Nothing crazy, just one or two of each if you don't mind."

"Sure, always happy to spread the farm love," Peter shrugged, grabbing a basket and heading over to the many trellises dotting the walls. While he picked out a few fresh vegetables, Alka gave him an even stranger look.

"You made me fight our way through a dungeon and run a couple of miles… to pick up groceries?"

"I promised Agne I'd bring her back some vegetables from other fragments ages ago, and then totally forgot about it," Vin shrugged, watching Peter inspect each plant carefully before picking them. "She helped watch over The One That Paints In Red and cooked for me, and we're not exactly in a rush, so I figured I might as well make good on my promise. Better late than never, right?"

Alka was silent for a few seconds, her glowing eyes narrowed. After a moment, she nodded, turning to watch Peter as well. "Fair enough. I guess I've grown so used to us always being on a time crunch I forgot what it was like to just… do things because you want to."

It didn't take Peter long to finish gathering the vegetables, and Vin thanked him as he shoved the bundle into his pack. It was a bit large and unwieldy, but it was the best Vin could do until Lumel finally taught him how to make his own dimensional storage.

"I don't suppose Shia came with you?" Peter asked, trying to sound nonchalant as Vin struggled to get his pack closed.

"Not this time," he said, noting how Peter seemed to deflate slightly. The man was such a large bundle of positive energy that even the smallest dent to his mood seemed huge.

"Well next time you see her, let her know she's welcome to drop by the farm again any time she wants," he offered. "I don't think our plants had ever been happier than when she was last here!"

"I think Druids tend to have that effect," Vin chuckled, finally getting his pack closed. Promising he'd deliver the message, he exited the farm with Alka right on his heels. "Alright, while we're here I want to check in with Eithan real quick and see if I can't grab a new earth spell from him. After that-"

"Vin? Is that you?"

Surprised to hear him in Sakis of all places, Vin turned around as he hunted for the voice's owner.

There, walking down the central street of the village with cane in hand was the elder, already looking curiously between Vin and her newest companion.

Because directly to her right, stood a grinning Forpurt.