Explorer of Edregon

Vin just sat there, staring at the nervous man who was still largely huddled in a ball across the room from him. It was certainly one of the stranger conversations he'd ever had, but the fact that it probably wasn't even in the top three said a lot about his time on Edregon so far.

"I'm sorry. What was that about solving death? Actually, before that, I feel like we kinda skipped some of the more basic questions I had for you. Like for instance, what's your name?"

"I am called Naib, and I am a Ritualist," the man said, continuing to carefully watch Vin as though he still didn't trust him not to do anything despite the fact that Vin was sitting down with his hands in his pockets.

"Oh, are you the one that made the barrier ritual in the middle of your settlement?" Vin asked excitedly.

"I worked on it, but no, we all are responsible for the barrier. We are all Ritualists," Naib explained.

"By choice? Or do you mean the System just makes you guys all Ritualists for some reason?" Vin asked, curious if it was some racial-quirk he'd yet to encounter during his travels.

"It is a requirement to live on the island. We are all expected to do our part to better the island and maintain our paradise. It is the rule."

"Alright, that makes sense," Vin said, nodding along with the neilan. "So uh, back to that whole 'solving death' thing you mentioned. Want to explain that a bit further?"

"Only if you swear upon whatever code you live by that you will not hurt me or the other people living on the island," Naib said, staring at him.

"Of course, I'd never hurt anyone without a very good reason," Vin said, going to raise a hand to swear before thinking better of it. "I swear, neither my friends nor I will do anything to harm you or your people, unless you threaten us first."

Naib seemed satisfied with that, as a noticeable amount of tension seemed to leave him and he sunk down a bit. Vin observed how his many-knuckled fingers loosened their grip around his legs, and he watched curiously at the neilan curled them up far more than he would have thought possible before tucking his hands in his lap.

"I understand our island is, technically, no longer an island," Naib began, frowning at his own admittance. "But before the apocalypse, my people and I lived peacefully on Chocubral, an island located deep within the Misty Seas. Our society was a utopia, brought about by the combined efforts of hundreds of master Ritualists. After decades of research and experimentation, my people finally created the ultimate ritual. A field spanning our entire island that prevented death itself!"

Naib paused, slowly shaking his head as his eyes shone in the light of Vin's spell. "It was a masterpiece! A three-part working that did exactly what my people strived to create. First was the life-alignment field, which kept our bodies hale and healthy, and quickly worked to heal any sort of injury the moment it had arisen. Second was a soul-alignment field that prevented a person's soul from leaving their body in the event of an unexpected and devastating injury. And third was a mana-shifting directive capable of redirecting magical residue that resulted in monster spawns, ensuring that all monsters would spawn as aquatic creatures off our coast, both keeping our island free of monsters, and building a natural barricade to keep ships and others away. With these fields working in tandem, my people had finally solved the issue of death itself!"

"Wow… That certainly sounds like something," Vin admitted, curious where Naib was going with this. It all sounded very impressive, and he had about a thousand questions he wanted to grill the man on, but he had a strong feeling there was a rather large 'however,' coming at some point.

Sure enough, he was right.

"It was," Naib sighed, the shimmer in his eyes finally going out. "We lived in our peaceful utopia for centuries. Life was perfect. Without fear of death, my people lived long, slow lives, wanting for little and simply happy to enjoy our existence. Right up until the apocalypse."

Naib shuddered, as though even the thought of what had occurred was too much for his memories. "I take it you are also not originally from Edregon?"

"No, I'm from another world as well," Vin nodded. "So is everyone else I've encountered. I'm pretty sure Edregon doesn't actually have any native people, seeing as it was formed out of chunks of other worlds."

"That supports our hypothesis," Naib muttered, frowning. He went silent, seemingly lost in thought. Vin waited almost a full minute, but the neilan appeared to almost be in a trance, staring at the floor as though there was something only he could see. It took Vin clearing his throat for Naib's attention to snap back to reality, and he looked at Vin as though whatever that strange pause was had never happened.

"The apocalypse...?" Vin offered, wondering what the hell that had been about. He didn't think Naib had been injured, but maybe he'd banged his head falling out of bed after all.

"The master ritual was so large and complex that in order to cover the entire island, rather than one single focal point, it was actually a connection of a few dozen smaller nodes scattered around the perimeter of the island. This system worked flawlessly-"

"Right up until the Gods yanked your settlement away," Vin finished, his jaw dropping at the realization. "…Plucking you out from the center of your island and tearing you away from your ritual."

"Precisely," Naib sniffed. "After living free from such mortal fears as death and injury, we were stripped bare in the blink of an eye, returned to face the fears of primitives once more."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Well, that's mildly hurtful… Though I guess I can't exactly blame him seeing as he's right and all.

"Why not recreate the ritual? Surely it would be even easier now that you have less terrain to cover."

Naib went silent for a moment in response to the question, his mouth turning into a fine line as he took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

"We can't. For whatever reason, the Gods did not just rip us from our utopia and drag us to this hellscape. They saw fit to strip us of nearly eighty percent of our population. Including all of our greatest minds that originally formed the master ritual all those years ago."

"Of course," Vin muttered. Realizing Naib was giving him a look, he shook his head. "From what I've seen on my travels around Edregon, people above a certain level were either left behind when the fragments were taken, or given the option to come here but remain trapped in some sort of divine bubble for whatever reason. No idea why some were given one option over another."

"That would certainly explain why so many of our people were left behind," Naib scowled, his face going dark. "If given the option to come to this hellscape or remain behind still within the bounds of the master ritual, I would not expect anyone to make the journey willingly."

"So, all of you who are here… I guess you were all what, below level 40? 60?" Even after all this time, Vin had yet to figure out the secret behind who the Gods forced to stay in their original words versus who was taken for a ride alongside their fragment.

"Based on what you just informed me of, from our findings, my hypothesis would be that level 60, the third prestige, is the cut off," Naib said matter of factly. "Few primitives actually manage to reach such a level of progression within their short lifetimes, so that would still allow for the vast majority of any primitive civilization to carry over atop their world shard."

"I mean, seems like you hadn't reached it either," Vin said, perhaps a tad more defensively than he'd intended. There was something about being repeatedly called a primitive to his face that was making him a tad agitated.

"My people have all the time in the world," Naib sniffed. "We are not rushed, and as such, we level slowly. I have been alive for eighty-four years now, so I am still rather young compared to most living on the island."

"Seriously? You're eighty-four years old?" Vin stared at the blue-skinned man, doing his best to judge his age. It was always tricky when it came to other races, but if he had to guess, he would have assumed the man was in his late twenties or early thirties. Certainly not in his eighties.

"Indeed."

Vin sat there for a moment, his mind awhirl with everything Naib had told him. Not only was the likely-confirmation about the level cut off useful information, but there was another part of Naib's long explanation that had stood out to him. Something he was very curious about.

"You mentioned how a portion of your master ritual was used to direct where monsters spawn," Vin said, his heart racing as he clenched his fists in his pockets, trying to keep his voice neutral. "We didn't see any monsters in your fragment on the way over here. Are you able to recreate that portion at the very least?"

"Yes, that was the easiest of the three fields," Naib nodded. "Our central ritual you no doubt saw is a two-part ritual. It maintains a barrier over what remains of our island, and it directs the monsters to spawn in the fragment adjacent to ours."

"So you can redirect monster spawns?" Vin asked excitedly, thinking about all the potential applications of such magic. If they could shift the spawn locations of monsters, they could potentially prevent the giant hordes from spawning with each wave of Earthers, possibly redirecting them into some sort of prepared kill zone. They wouldn't even need to fight, they could just-

Vin's excited thinking ground to a halt, as his mind finally caught up to what Naib had said. "Wait… You directed it to the fragment adjacent to you? By any chance do you mean to the north of you? In that direction?" he asked, pointing to what he had dubbed as 'north.'

"Yes. We picked a direction at random," Naib confirmed. "None of my people were willing to venture out and take stock of the surrounding lands, so it made no difference to us. It was rather difficult with our levels stripped away, but each of us have been practicing rituals for decades, or even centuries. Even if the apocalypse stripped us of our levels and abilities, it did not take away our knowledge."

The fragment north of this one… That's the crystalline desert.

Where the blue fur clan was overrun by monsters and utterly slaughtered.

"Naib… Wouldn't that cause a huge uptick in the monsters in that fragment? Endangering all the lives of the people living there in exchange for your safety?"

"Of course. But they would not be able to penetrate our barrier, so it is of little concern," he said, as if it were obvious. "They are primitives. They are used to death."

Vin just stared at the uncaring man, trying to wrap his head around what that meant. It hadn't been all that long ago since Vin had ventured out to deliver a message to Neurol's family, the leader of the blue fur clan. They'd fought their way through a surprising number of crystalline monsters as they searched for the clan, and when they finally found what was left of them, it hadn't been a pretty sight. Vin had been forced to return to Neurol and give him the news that his family and everyone he'd ever known before becoming a merider had been killed, and even now, the merider's unnatural smiling-grief played through his head.

Neurol had thought their deaths were because he, their strongest warrior and hope for their clan's future, had abandoned them.

In reality, it was because the neilans were effectively treating the crystalline desert as their personal trash can and dumping all their monsters into the adjacent fragment.

Vin could only stare at Naib's unconcerned face as the man watched him, patiently waiting for his next question. Taking a deep breath, Vin slowly got to his feet, shaking his head as though that would make all of this make sense.

"I need to get some air," he finally managed, turning his back on the surprised neilan as he made his way downstairs. These people were responsible for the deaths of hundreds. And almost worse, they didn't seem to care in the slightest. Even now, Vin could remember the feeling of the dried-out bones that he and his friends had spent hours collecting before dumping into a mass grave, hoping at least the knowledge that they'd buried the dead would give Neurol some peace of mind.

Vin had to remove himself from Naib's presence before he ended up doing something he'd regret later, divine boon be damned.