Explorer of Edregon

It took a few minutes for Vin to explain what he'd felt with Tremorsense to his companions, but once they got a better picture of what they were dealing with, they decided to strike the plan of pretending to destroy the ritual projecting the barrier. Alka's annoyance seemed to soften a bit when she realized it was sheer terror that was preventing the denizens of this fragment from meeting with them rather than any sort of stubbornness, and she agreed that a more delicate touch might be more appropriate for them.

After some quick deliberation, they decided it would be best to leave communication with these people to one of the actual Diplomats or Ambassadors Vin had under him now. But just because they were already here, they decided to at least spend the night camping out on the edge of the hamlet. That way if there were any particularly brave souls within the hamlet that wanted to come say hello, they could approach them on their own time.

"What do you think happened to make these people so terrified of others?" Vin asked, peering into the flickering fire as they lounged about.

"Could be anything really," Shia shrugged, growing another branch from Blossom and snapping it off before chucking it into the fire. "Different people have different levels of mental fortitude. Maybe their race is particularly delicate, and they just can't handle this transition to Edregon."

"They've had four months to toughen up," Alka scoffed, shaking her head as she reached into the fire and shifted a few of the burning branches. Naturally, the dancing flames did absolutely nothing to deter her golem body. "If you ask me, this barrier is doing them more harm than good. You can't just live your life hiding from everything."

"I mean, it seems like they very well can," Vin pointed out, glancing up at the giant barrier. "I'm sure plenty of Earthers would be happy to do the same if we were capable of something like this."

"It's not healthy," Alka argued. "People need to keep moving forward, keep improving, regardless of their past. Doesn't matter if you're a warrior or a farmer, improving oneself is what life is all about. Otherwise, are they really even living?"

"They showed up when I cast Sense Life," Vin pointed out with a grin.

"I wish there was more we could do for them," Shia muttered, staring into the fire and ignoring the two of them as Alka chucked a few flaming twigs at Vin who desperately tried to block with his own golem arm. "We've been all over Edregon by now, and we've never encountered anything like this. I know we agreed to leave this to your subordinates, but it just feels weird not trying to do more."

"No sense worrying about that just yet," Vin said, slapping his outfit and trying to put out the embers on his chest. "One of them might still show up during the night."

"If Shia grows me enough wood, I'll keep the fire burning," Alka said. "You two should get some sleep. Plenty more fragments to check out after this one."

"Probably not a bad idea," Vin yawned, shoving aside the temptation to delve into an artifact and start learning a new spell. The fact that he'd already learned one new spell today helped with that, and he knew he should actually try and get a full night's rest at least every now and again. "Wake us up if something happens."

Getting a nod from Alka, Vin walked a few feet away and got to work. A few quick casts of Stone Wall formed a basic shelter, and Stone Shape allowed him to make a simple, albeit lopsided roof over his head. Stone Furniture conjured up a rather uncomfortable looking bed, but that was quickly solved by casting Dimensional Sheath and summoning his brand-new shimmerwing mattress out of thin air.

"That is the saddest excuse for roughing it that I have ever seen," Alka said bluntly as she watched him fluff out his mattress and eagerly crawl into bed.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Vin argued, pulling his merider-silk blanket from his bag and wrapping himself up in it. Note to self, I need to find a pillow made from clouds or something like that when I get the chance. That would really tie this whole thing together.

It wasn't that Vin wasn't a fan of camping, but after spending the last six years of his life sleeping in all sorts of random conditions, he felt like he'd earned a little comfort. It was the discovery of new things and places that he enjoyed about exploring the world, not the sleeping on the cold, hard ground night after night.

Ignoring Alka's continued taunts, Vin curled up and focused on getting some rest. The knowledge that Alka was watching over them was all the security he needed, and his shimmerwing mattress ensured that he was quickly whisked away into the land of slumber.

Vin bolted upright as a blood curdling scream rang out from the nearby hamlet. Throwing himself out of bed, he darted out of his makeshift shelter to find Alka already with her sword drawn, facing the nearby settlement. Shia had also emerged from her small lean-to she'd seemingly grown out of the very earth, and now had Blossom in hand.

"What happened?" she asked, glancing between Alka and the hamlet. "Were they attacked?"

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"I haven't seen any monsters," Alka said, shaking her head as she pointed at one of the closer houses. "The scream came from that house over there, but I have no idea what caused it."

Following Alka's finger, Vin hesitated for a moment before coming to a decision.

"I'm going to check it out," he declared, grabbing his staff and turning toward his companions. "Can you two sweep the perimeter and make sure there aren't any monsters crawling around? Last thing we need is discovering that there in fact are monsters on this fragment that only come out to hunt at night."

"Sounds like a plan," Alka said, taking off into the night without another word. If there were monsters out there, there wouldn't be for much longer.

"Be careful, Vin," Shia said before summoning Blossom and taking off in the opposite direction.

"That's the goal," he muttered to himself as he ran toward the house Alka had indicated. Now that the screaming had stopped, the hamlet looked as still and lifeless as ever. None of the neighbors had come running out to check on whoever it was that had screamed, which could very well be entirely the three of their faults. If nobody was going to go check on the person because of the 'monsters' camping outside of town, then it was up to them to make sure everything was okay.

As soon as Vin was in range, he cast Sense Life, noting that there was only a single person contained within the house that the scream had originated from. A quick cast of Sense Death confirmed at the very least that there weren't any dead bodies, which meant the sole person living within had been the cause of the scream.

Or some monster had broken in and grabbed somebody before fleeing with their new meal.

Not willing to waste any time, Vin made it to the front of the house and ripped the solid wooden door off its hinges with a flash of blue light. Maintaining his glowing Light above his head so that he could actually see what the hell he was doing, he tossed the door aside and ran into the house. He briefly noted the beautifully carved wooden motifs of people dancing and the high-end looking furniture before shoving that all aside and taking the stairs three at a time. He knew the single occupant of this house was on the second floor thanks to his spell, and he all but flung himself up the stairs in his haste to reach them. Coming out onto the second-floor landing, Vin halted as he finally came face to face with one of this fragment's people.

The being was rather thin and wiry, wearing form-fitting clothes that looked almost like some sort of uniform. He had light blue skin and an abnormally large head topped with unkempt white hair, and round eyes that were near perfect circles. Like Vin had felt with his Tremorsense earlier that day, the man had six individual fingers on each hand, and each finger stretched nearly a foot long, with what looked like two additional knuckles to allow them a massive range of movement. All in all, the man he found curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth on his bedroom floor, was frankly one of the strangest looking races they'd come across so far on Edregon.

Vin stared at the man for a moment, carefully examining him for any sign of injury or trauma. Other than the fact that he was violently shaking, he seemed completely healthy at first glance. Deciding to be safe before approaching, Vin tapped into his Common Ally title.

According to his title, the man was a neilan, a race of particularly fragile people with weak constitutions. In exchange for their larger brains, their bodies were weak and wiry, to the point that Vin couldn't help but wonder if using the System to increase their vigor would honestly even end up doing anything for them.

While Vin examined him, the shaking man finally opened his eyes and spotted him standing there. His eyes widened, revealing noticeably large pupils as he screamed bloody murder a second time and tried to scramble back away from him.

"It's alright!" Vin said, holding his hands out and trying to calm the neilan down. The act of holding his hands out only seemed to make matters worse, as the stranger started screaming even louder, desperately trying to put even more space between the two of them despite the fact that his back was to the wall.

"I'm a friend!" Vin tried, quickly lowering his hands and going so far as to put them in his pockets when he realized they seemed to be half of the problem. "I heard you scream and wanted to make sure you were okay!"

Once his hands were hidden, the neilan seemed to calm down a hair. He was still panting and staring at him like he was holding an axe over his head and threatening to chop the man into little bits, but at least he'd stopped screaming.

While he let the man just breathe and try to calm down, Vin's eyes flicked around the room. Based on the blanket half dragged off the large bed and the strange uniform-like clothes the man was wearing, Vin suddenly realized what must have happened.

I think those might be some form of pajamas… Was the scream from some sort of nightmare? If so, it must have led right into a panic attack or something seeing as I found him curled up in a ball and rocking on the ground.

"I'm sorry if I scared you," Vin said, slowly taking another step back and carefully taking a seat on the ground. He had the feeling trying to make himself look less threatening might help the situation, and his hunch seemed correct when the man took one last shuddering breath and finally stopped shaking. "My friends and I were nearby and I heard you scream. Just to confirm, you're not hurt or anything, right? I have healing magic if you are."

"No… No, I am uninjured," the neilan finally said after a few tense moments, his voice surprisingly low pitched for his thin frame. His eyes swept up and down Vin as if searching for any sort of indication that he would be attacked. "My apologies for the fright. I was experiencing a particularly painful recall. You are one of the ones that broke through the barrier?"

"Ah… Yeah, that was us," Vin said sheepishly, glancing away from the staring neilan. "Sorry about that. I'm a Magical Explorer, and it's kind of my job to check out the different fragments and see what they're like. Your fragment for example has been… Well, rather strange."

"It is the other hexagons that are unnerving to us," the man said, shuddering at the very thought and wrapping his eerily long fingers along his legs as he pulled them into his chest. "They are unruly and unpredictable, and have horrific beasts roaming their surfaces."

"You mean monsters?" Vin blinked. "We noticed your fragment didn't seem to have any monsters anywhere." Or animals in general, for that matter.

"Of course not! Ridding our land of monsters was the first thing my people did on our island," Naib sniffed, shaking his head.

"After solving the issue of death of course."