Explorer of Edregon

The rest of the day was spent taking care of things on Vin's to-do list. First, he tracked down Theodore once again and finally gave him his new artifact. The Spy agreed it was probably best to wait until he'd actually prestiged before risking sneaking past the dungeon monsters and into the Underside, but Vin gave him a quick rundown on what to expect and how to use the corridors anyway. For now, Theodore would partner up with some of the more adventurous combat classes and physically step into each of the adjacent fragments, just so he could enter them via the Underside if needed.

Once that was done, Vin fulfilled his agreement with Alka and spent the afternoon engaging in mock-combat with her six trainees. Each of the potential Slayers had come quite a long way over the course of the last two weeks, and despite being fresh from the third wave, Vin was pretty certain any one of them would easily give a second wave fighter a solid run for their money. Despite that, they were woefully unprepared to fight against someone capable of casting magic on the fly, let alone someone with his high attributes. After they failed to land so much as a hit on him, Alka requested he come back and give them another run through the gauntlet at a later date.

Even more impressive than their individual skill, however, was the fact that Alka was also training them to fight as a unit. The six trainees were already capable of fighting shoulder to shoulder without interfering with one another's attacks, and if it wasn't for his drastically higher level and abilities, Vin was pretty certain the six of them working together would have been enough to take him down. Even after managing to beat them in a 6-on-1 fight simply from dodging and wearing them out courtesy of his incredibly high endurance, he was honestly excited to see what having six fully trained Slayers fighting side-by-side would look like once they were ready.

After fulfilling his promise to Alka, Vin made a quick stop over by Bill the Alchemist to ask about Scule. At this point, their resident Rogue had been gone for over two days, and Vin was admittedly beginning to grow a tad worried. Theodore hadn't heard from Scule while they were gone, and unfortunately, Bill confirmed he hadn't either.

Vin decided to give Scule one more day before he tried his luck at prying the Rogue's location out of Alka. Scule obviously didn't see the need to inform them as to what he was doing, and Vin didn't want to be an overbearing friend. But Edregon was a dangerous place to run off alone, even if he had Reginald along for the ride. Hell, the only two people Vin knew that had survived on their own travelling between fragments were Forpurt and the divine warrior. One had been a horrifying, blood-thirsty killer faster than any potential threat, and the other was capable of shattering solid stone with a single punch.

Scule could die just from something accidentally stepping on him.

Vin knew he wasn't giving his friend enough credit, but he couldn't help and worry. In an attempt to distract himself, he decided to do what he did best. Following an early dinner at the mess hall of marbled boar that melted on the tongue, Vin withdrew to his tiny stone closet of a room.

And was surprised to find it gone.

Vin stood there, blinking at the large storeroom that now stood where his residence once had. It seemed all the little stone-cubicles filling up this portion of camp had been demolished, and replaced with a handful of buildings filled with supplies brought over from Earth and materials collected from their fragment.

Huh… Am I officially homeless again?

Vin stood there for a few minutes, watching some burly folks lug materials in and out of the storerooms as he wondered who the best person to ask about this was. His brain tended to default to Myers, but knowing how busy the lieutenant was, he always felt bad about bothering her if it wasn't absolutely necessary. Thankfully, it seemed someone recognized him, as a heavy-set man in overalls slammed down a thick barrel before wiping his hands and walking up to him.

"Need something?" he asked, looking more curious than anything. "You're The Roamer, right? I don't think we've actually met. I'm James, second wave. Head of supplies."

"Please, call me Vin," he all but begged, shaking the man's hand. "And sorry, I was just lost in thought there for a moment. I'm pretty sure I used to have a small room here."

"Ah, sounds like Witherson forgot to tell you," James chuckled. "She decided to move the supplies closer to the guild buildings, so this portion of the town was restructured over the past few days. There are a few residential areas now, yours would probably be on the north side with the rest of the council members."

"Oh god, please don't tell me I live in a gated community or anything like that," Vin pleaded, his stomach twisting at the thought. He swore if Spur tried to force him to become the very thing he hated, he was going to have some very strong words with the man.

"No, nothing like that," James laughed, grinning at the distraught look on his face. "That's just the residential area closest to the town hall. I think your housing is a bit more spacious than everyone else's as a perk of being a councilor, but I bet it's nothing crazy. You certainly won't have a mansion or anything like that."

"Thank you," Vin said, a wave of relief rolling through him. "In that case, I guess I'll go check it out. Good luck with your supplies."

Letting James get back to his barrels and crates, Vin followed the man's directions to the north side of town. Sure enough, there were five rows of what looked like townhouses set up, in what was an obvious attempt for housing to try and take up as little space as possible. Vin thought he was going to have to make a trip back to town hall and bug Myers anyway in order to figure out which one he was staying in, when he realized each of the homes had actual name plates. Once he knew that, it didn't take him long to find his own, and he rolled his eyes at what someone had carved into his.

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Vin "The Roamer" Stone - Council Member (Foreign Branch)

"Hilarious," he muttered, taking a look at the name plates directly beneath his own.

Alka "Slayer" Unknown - Foreign Dignitary (Tige Kingdom)

Shia Bircwal - Foreign Dignitary (Sacred Forest)

Scule Wouldn't You Like To Know? - Foreign Dignitary (Citadel)

Reginald Scurry - Scule's Handler

Grinning at whoever had decided to add Reginald as Scule's handler, Vin walked into his new residence and took a look around.

His townhouse was on the end of his row, meaning they only shared one wall with others, and they clearly had a bit more space than most. Like James said, it wasn't anything massive, but it was definitely noticeable. The house consisted of four small bedrooms, a large central living area, a simple kitchen and dining area, and even a bathroom with actual indoor plumbing. Vin had absolutely no idea how Witherson had managed to pull that off, and frankly, he didn't care. He was probably more comfortable with roughing it than just about anyone else from Earth, but even he missed being able to take showers.

He did think it was a tiny bit wasteful that Alka and Scule had their own entire rooms when Alka didn't actually sleep and Scule's room could have been the size of a microwave, but he wasn't the one that had made the decision.

The house itself had some bare-bones furniture scattered around and basic supplies such as plates, mugs, and utensils, but other than that, it was entirely empty. Making a mental note to swing by the crafters in the future and see if there was anything fun to add to the house, Vin took a seat and pulled up his interface.

Vinnie Stone

Magical Explorer: Lvl 34

Titles: Human Vessel (Lesser), Common Ally (Minor), Generalist Mage

Exp. 584,160/595,000

Strength: 14

Dexterity: 26

Endurance: 54

Vigor: 25

Focus: 50

Magic: 51

Attribute Points: 3

Skill Points: 3

Passive Points: 0

Vows/Boons: Vow of Benevolence/Grace of Gods (Boon)

Capstone: Runic Recalibration, Flexible Formations

Passives: Mental Map, Polyglot, Distance Runner, Threat Detection, Iron Mind, Mana Well

Skills: Tracking lvl 8, Runecraft lvl 13, Introspection lvl 9, Dungeoneering lvl 10, Total Resistance lvl 4, Running lvl 17, Cartography lvl 6, Drawing lvl 8

Tier 0 Spells: Sense Stone (earth), Sense Life (life), Sense Magic (neutral), Sense Curse (curse), Sense Air (wind), Sense Dimensions (spatial), Sense Vibrations (vibration), Sense Death (death)

Tier 1 Spells: Renewal (life), Entangle (nature), Replenish (nature), Light (light), Summon Stone (earth), Concealment (neutral), Familiar Pheromones (nature), Whispering Wind (wind), Create Water (water), Isolate Dimension (spatial), Tremorsense (vibration), Decay (Death), Neutralize Poison (life)

Tier 2 Spells: Stone Shot (earth), Stone Wall (earth), Stone Shape (earth), Stone Furniture (earth), False Life (Death), Dimensional Sheath (spatial)

This is starting to get a bit long, he thought, scanning down through his spell list. On the one hand, he was beyond proud of himself for having mastered so many different runic formations. But on the other hand, the fact that he was rapidly nearing level 35 and still didn't have a tier 3 spell to his name pained him a bit.

He knew it was his own fault. That a tier 3 spell would require some serious dedication and for him to put in multiple days of continuous effort to learn. Still, it was something he was determined to do before hitting his next prestige, and he decided that would be the perfect thing to devote his days of waiting toward when he was stationed in town in preparation for the fourth wave.

It would have to be death, earth, or spatial aligned, seeing as those are the only tier 2 spells I have, he thought, briefly mulling over which affinity he'd prefer to keep progressing before deciding to shelve the thought for now.

Looking over his attributes, Vin struggled to decide what to do with his three new points. His magic and focus were finally caught up with one another again, his endurance was better than ever thanks to his class bonus, and his dexterity and vigor were both higher than any baseline-human from Earth at this point. There was only a single attribute left that was lagging dramatically behind, and as little as Vin cared about something like strength compared to his magic or speed, throughout his travels it had become obvious that a decent strength was still important. He was lucky that he could rely on his golem arm for massive bursts of power, but even that was limited.

If I put these three points and the next three points both into strength, that brings it up to 20, which from what I gathered is essentially the peak, natural human strength for someone back on Earth. Not including people that use stuff like steroids. I think I'd be content leaving strength at a nice 20 and then turning my attention back toward magic and focus.

Deciding that was as good a plan as any, for the very first time since arriving on Edregon, Vin dropped his three free points into strength. It had been some time since he last really noticed a physical change in his body from his attribute scores, but he gasped as he felt his muscles grow denser and more compact, and he swore he sunk down another fraction of an inch into the couch as his weight increased by a few pounds of pure muscle.

"Well that felt weird as hell," he muttered, flexing his human hand and grinning at the power he felt within his own grip. Obviously, he knew 17 strength was still a pitiful amount compared to any actually seasoned fighter, but it was quite a large step up from 14.

Now then, there's one more thing I need to do before I start working on some magic, he thought, rubbing his hands together in excitement as he peered over his interface.

Time for a new skill!