Explorer of Edregon

Deciding communing with the Gods would probably be smarter to do when well-rested, the team quickly set up camp and hit the hay while Alka stood guard. Vin felt more than a little secure with his temporary stone tent and reset divine boon, and with his shimmerwing mattress and merider-silk blanket, he was out before his head even hit the ground.

Come morning, they all shared a quick breakfast of trail rations as they worked up the courage to do what came next.

"I'm not even sure if I'll do it just yet," Scule admitted, staring up at the weeping God just waiting for them to touch it. "I mean, talking to a God… That's terrifying."

"The ones Shia and I spoke with seemed friendly enough," Vin admitted. "Though based on the divine warrior, who had to have picked up his boon from like the God of Sacrifice or something, not all of them are quite so friendly."

"Regardless of how friendly they are or not, they shouldn't be able to directly hurt us," Shia pointed out. "Remember, the whole point of Edregon and the new System was because the Gods bending the rules and casting their own magic rather than working through the System corroded things and messed it all up. You're not going to get smited."

"Hell, you might even get a divine boon for your troubles," Alka added, snorting at the very idea. "Maybe you'll get a boon of tininess that allows you to turn regular-sized once a day or something."

"For the record, I am normal sized, you all are giants," Scule shot back, throwing a pebble at Alka's head that rang off her darthsteel helm. "Though I will admit, a divine boon would be nice. Honestly, I'd be happy with the exact one Vin has."

"It will cost you an arm and a leg," Vin joked, waving his prosthetic in front of him. "But seriously, boons are a lot trickier than that. You need to be pretty devoted to a certain way of thinking, enough to pass whatever requirements the Gods have in place."

"In some cases, very devoted," Shia chuckled. Her own divine boon was a Boon of Devotion, given to her due to her love and devotion to her master. "Regardless, the longer we spend talking about it, the less likely I think we'll be to actually do it. You guys ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Scule groaned, looking a tad green as he stared up at the statue. Vin couldn't exactly blame him, either. Scule was the most devout among them, having grown up in the holy citadel, surrounded by thousands of divine classes. The thought of actually requesting a meeting with the Gods was probably insane to him.

"I'll make sure nothing happens to your bodies, so take all the time you need," Alka told them, petting Reginald before he scurried over to join Scule. "Try not to piss them off!"

With those words of encouragement, Vin led them into position before summoning a large Stone Wall directly under them, raising them up into the air. The spell slowly ground to a halt, leaving them on what was essentially a thick pillar, standing immediately before the statue of the crying God.

Even from barely a few feet away, the sheer skill of the sculptor that had created the statue shocked him. The tears streaming down the praying God's face looked like they were seconds from falling to the ground, and Vin took a deep breath as he reached a hand out.

"All together?" he asked, getting three nods in return. "Alright. Three… two… one…"

The four of them placed their hands and paw on the statue at the same time, Scule and Reginald standing on a branch Shia had grown for them out of Blossom. As soon as his own hand touched the cool stone of the statue, Vin closed his eyes and called out in his mind.

Goddess of Benevolence… If you're listening… I'd very much enjoy another chat.

"All you had to do was ask."

Vin blinked as he opened his eyes and found himself once more standing within that black void of nothingness that he'd first found himself adrift in while selecting his initial class. Just like the last time he'd been here, a smiling woman stood before him, wearing the same pristine robes and sandals she'd been wearing when they first spoke. Her long hair drifted in the void as though she were underwater, and her voice sounded like a thousand different voices all speaking at once. Yet rather than being distracting, it was almost harmonious, somehow.

"It is good to see you face to face again," she said, looking him up and down. "I have monitored your journey, naturally, as you have my boon. But it does not quite compare."

"You've been watching me?" Vin asked, his face growing a tad red as the Goddess laughed softly.

"Indeed I have… You've come up with some rather creative uses for my boon, haven't you?"

"Are you able to read my mind?"

"No, but after you live for a few hundred millennia, you get to be pretty good at reading people," she teased. "Do not worry. I don't mind your use of my power to help you learn magic. You have more than earned such a reward, never having even come close to harming someone who did not deserve it. True benevolence is a rare trait, and one I wish to protect at all costs."

"Thank you," he said, letting out a sigh of relief. "Wow, I have so many questions I don't even know where to begin."

"With your friend watching over you, you have plenty of time. Though as I said before, there are limits to the amount of aid I can provide you. The rules are a bit more flexible when it simply comes to knowledge, but there are still rules all the same."

"I guess I'll just ask the questions I have, and you can just tell me if it's something you're willing or able to answer?" Vin asked, getting a warm nod in return. "In that case, for starters… What on Earth is going on with the waves of Earthers coming over? Why are they coming faster than we were originally told? Why are the monsters continuing to get worse, despite the number remaining the same? Where are all the missing people from the fourth wave?!"

"That is more than one question," the Goddess teased, though even in her strange, chaotic voice he could pick up on the fatigue she carried. "There have been complications we Gods did not anticipate. The corruption of the old System and universe ended up spreading faster than we anticipated. We'd predicted that by moving a portion of ourselves over to this new universe, the corruption would slow down. What we didn't realize was that while our continued presence was in fact making things worse, it was largely countered by our efforts at slowing the spread of corruption. In our attempt to buy the old universe more time by moving to this new universe, we doomed it all the sooner."

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"So even while poisoning it, you were actively holding the pieces together," Vin surmised, getting a nod from the Goddess. "Can any of you go back?"

"The old universe is too fragile for something like that," she said sadly, shaking her head. "At this point, all we can do is speed things up. But as I told you before, while we Gods can create impossible, universe-spanning works of magic, things get sloppy when we are forced to move quickly."

"So the decreased time in between waves is because the time-table is being moved up…" he muttered, putting the pieces together. "And the missing people? Were they just some… unfortunate casualty?"

"It pains me to admit it, but yes, that is largely the case," she said. "The act of bringing thousands of souls from a collapsing universe to Edregon is not something that should be done lightly, but we are running out of time. Do not forget, it is not just the people from your old country we are taking, there are many other Earthers being moved with each wave as well."

"What happens to them? The ones that don't make it?"

"The vast majority of them? You do not want to know," she said simply, her voice wracked with grief and sorrow and convincing him in an instant that he did in fact not want to know.

"Can you at least tell me the new arrival times for the future waves? That would make our lives a lot easier."

"The corruption and our efforts to combat it are moving around too much," she admitted. "I can't give you that information, as not even we know it at the moment. I can only warn you that the amount of time each wave comes early by is going to continue to increase."

"Well that's something at least. You mentioned the other Earthers from countries other than mine. Can you tell me anything about them, like where they ended up? Are they close?"

"I was given permission to explain to you the changes in the waves, as what we originally told your people as Sender X has not come to pass, but I cannot share with you information about the other fragments," she said, giving him a sad smile. "I know you wish to help them, but you will have to do it on your own."

"I'll admit I pretty much expected such an answer," he sighed. "Okay, can you at least explain why the monsters are getting worse with each wave of Earthers? I mean, you said monsters were a direct result of the magic being conducted, and each wave is the same number of people. Why are they getting worse? Hell, the last one had an epic monster of all things!"

"One which you did a remarkable job of defeating, I might add," she smiled, her eyes tearing up as she gazed at him. "Though not without cost to yourself."

"What do you-" Vin gasped as he looked down at himself, finally realizing his left arm was gone from the elbow down. When he'd last spoken to the Goddess, even after having half his arm chopped off, it had still been there in this strange black void. "Where's my arm?!"

"It was consumed by the very epic monster you defeated," she explained, reaching out and gingerly touching the air where his missing arm would have been. "The monster ate far more than simple flesh and blood. I will save you the heartache now, and tell you that your arm is truly gone. No magic is capable of bringing it back at this point."

Vin could only stare at his missing arm, blinking in shock at the realization. Despite how useful his golem arm was, a part of him had still seen it as only a temporary measure, just until Shia or Frank grew skilled enough to regenerate missing limbs. But now…

Cramming that storm of emotions down for the moment, Vin shook his head, recalling that there were more important things he could be doing than breaking down in front of a Goddess. It wasn't as if his golem arm was being taken away or anything, so he had no right to feel like he'd just lost something that was already gone.

"Why are the waves getting worse?" he repeated, clearing his rough throat as it threatened to close up on him.

"The main reason is that as the old universe grows more and more corrupted, more magical residue is being picked up by the ritual and being transformed into monsters upon reaching Edregon. I will warn you, it is only going to grow worse with each passing wave."

"Fantastic," he sighed. "If that's the main reason, what's the other?"

For the first time, the Goddess of Benevolence seemed to hesitate for a moment, her eyes peering off into the endless void around them as she chose her words carefully. "The ritual we hastily designed is not working entirely as intended. As you know, the monsters appear shortly before the people do. The gap between the monsters spawning and the people being deposited on Edregon was intended to be far longer, to give the monsters time to fight amongst themselves and disperse, giving the people from your world a more fighting chance. The other people taken from your world… None of them are doing quite as well as your fragment. Most of their first waves were killed by the very monsters spawned as a result of the ritual, and the following waves have not been much better. We Gods have been directing more of the magical residue from the ritual toward your fragment to try and give the survivors of the other waves a more fighting chance."

"What? How is it we started off so much better than all the others?" Vin asked, shocked at the news. "I mean, we lost all our guns and everything. We didn't have any sort of advantage that the others…"

He trailed off as his mind flashed back to a certain, floating artifact that he himself had helped destroy. To this day, it was the only grand-tier artifact that he'd ever discovered, and the one responsible for redirecting most of the monster spawns from the fragments surrounding it straight into the waiting hands of a deranged Relic Guardian.

"We didn't encounter the monsters that were spawned as a result of the first wave," he gasped, realizing just how insanely lucky they'd been. "The Relic Guardian killed them for us! If we'd been forced to fight even just a dozen or so monsters immediately after landing on Edregon…"

"The vast majority of Earthers taken from other parts of your world perished, or were forced to abandon their comrades and flee in order to survive," the Goddess confirmed. "Which is why we're directing more of the monsters to spawn on your fragment. Your people's continued survival across Edregon is critical-"

"Benevolence!"

Vin flinched back as a bald man covered from head to toe in thick, heavy chains suddenly appeared in the void beside the Goddess. His face was stern, and he glared at the Goddess with barely contained anger. "You have said too much! We agreed as one how this new universe would be run! You cannot tell him anything more, regardless of what is at stake, or you risk starting this new System down the same path as the old!"

"I understand, Contract, but if they die-"

Chains exploded out of the second God, wrapping themselves so thoroughly around the startled Goddess that she was entirely covered in a fraction of a second. Before Vin even knew what was happening, the mass of chains vanished into thin air, and he suddenly found himself alone with who he could only assume was the God of Contracts.

"You were offered the carrot the last time, which means now you get the stick," the second God said coldly, not even turning to look at him. "You are privy to knowledge you should not have, and while I cannot take it back from you, I can at least do this much. If you attempt to tell anyone any of the information Benevolence gave you about the other people from your world or what happened to their fragments, I will personally end your life before you get the chance to do so. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Vin gulped, sensing the sheer power radiating off this new God. He didn't know if the Goddess of Benevolence was simply kind enough to conceal her own power while she spoke with him or if this one was just that much more powerful, but he could tell without even trying that this God could flatten him and the entire fragment he was standing in without even blinking if he so chose.

"Good. The Contract Has Been Sealed."

The God raised a single finger, and one of the seemingly endless chains wrapped around his body uncoiled and shot across his finger like a snake, leaping the gap between the two of them. The last thing Vin saw was the chains formed from links of world-ending power wrapping around his head before everything went black.