Explorer of Edregon

Vin gasped as he came to, blinking at the sun high overhead. Seeing as they'd begun communing with the Gods early in the morning, at least a couple hours had passed since then.

"Vin!" Shia said, suddenly appearing over him. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," he groaned, pushing himself into a sitting position and taking a swig from his water skin. "…what happened?"

"That's what we were going to ask you," Scule said, hopping up onto his shoulder and looking cautiously at his face. "When Shia and I finished our conversations, you were still deep in your trance. After a few more minutes, some sort of golden chain appeared out of nowhere and wrapped itself around your body, snapping tight before vanishing. Reginald confirmed it was divine magic. What the hell did you do?!"

"Ah…" he said, the memory of the God of Contracts telling him to keep what he'd learned to himself finally coming back to him. Even now, the thought of explaining what he'd learned about the other Earther fragments made him feel a tightness squeeze around his chest, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt his own divine boon wouldn't be enough to save him if he tried his luck at breaking the 'contract' he'd just made. He had no idea why or how the God of Contracts seemed to be able to use divine magic on him directly, but he could only assume it had something to do with the Goddess of Benevolence breaking their own rules to tell him things she wasn't supposed to.

The good news was it seemed the God of Contracts didn't care about Vin talking about him, as he didn't feel any sort of pressure as he began speaking.

"I spoke with the Goddess of Benevolence, the same one who gave me my boon back in the citadel, and she ended up giving me some information she wasn't supposed to. Before I even knew what was happening, the God of Contracts, a really freaky guy covered in these crazy looking chains, appeared out of nowhere and snatched her away. Then he forced me to agree to a contract with him. If I try to reveal what was said, he'll kill me."

"You met the God of Contracts?" Scule asked, his eyes going wide. "That's… By the Gods, that's nuts!"

"Is that any different than meeting any one of the other Gods?" Shia asked.

"Are you kidding me?'" Scule asked, belting out a slightly crazed laugh as he looked between them. "He's only about one of the most powerful Gods to ever exist, if not the most powerful God. Everything revolves around contracts and agreements. Even the divine vows you both have taken are basically contracts, meaning they technically fall under his domain. He's about as high up on the totem pole as you can get, along with the likes of the Goddess of Death and the God of Life. Seriously, Vin, even if he didn't bind you or whatever just happened, you do not want to piss that God off."

"Can't say I was planning on it anyway," Vin drawled, tucking away his water skin and getting to his feet. "Seeing as even the weakest God is probably strong enough to kill us with a mere thought, none of that really matters. How did your guys' conversations go?"

"Mine was fine," Shia said, gently brushing the leaves atop her staff. "Spent most of it asking for status updates on the elves we left behind, as well as my master of course. The good news is from what little the God of Devotion could tell me, they're doing well. Obviously, I hear from my master every so often in the dungeons, but our meetings are always so brief. You're not going to believe how Scule's discussion went, though."

"I was part of it and I still can't believe it," Scule muttered, shaking his head.

"What, did you get your own divine boon after all?" Vin asked.

"Hardly. But Reginald did."

Vin could only blink at the news, both surprised to learn that Reginald had been granted a boon, and by the irritation in Scule's voice. Scule talked a big game, but he knew that the petian would never be actually jealous of something good happening to his companion.

"Wait, what?" Vin laughed, turning to find a blushing Reginald on his other shoulder, looking shy. "I didn't even know that could happen!"

"Yeah, you and me both," Scule snapped. "Anyway, I ended up speaking with the God of Loyalty, and imagine my surprise when the God of Loyalty barely even looked at me before turning his attention toward Reginald. He said I hadn't fulfilled the requirements for his boon, but Reginald had. So, he's got a boon now. And what a fantastic boon it is."

"Well come on, don't leave me hanging. What did he get?"

Nobody spoke for a few seconds, and Vin looked around at them all in confusion. Finally, Shia broke the silence.

"The boon is called God's Gift. In the event that Scule were to ever die… Reginald can give up his own life instead. The drawback should be pretty obvious."

"Hold on, seriously? The boon just gives Reginald the option to die in place of Scule?" Vin repeated, staring at the embarrassed rat. "…That's a terrible boon!"

"That's what I said!" Scule snapped. "But Reginald ended up taking it anyway. I tried to tell him I wouldn't even want to live with myself if he ever ended up doing something like that, but he wouldn't listen to me!"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Ideally, we never get into such a situation, and the boon doesn't even matter," Shia said, taking Reginald off of Vin's shoulder and petting him gently. "Reginald just doesn't want to see you get hurt, Scule, that's all it is."

"I don't need you to tell me how my animal companion is feeling," Scule huffed. "And it doesn't matter now anyway, it's not like he can give the boon back. Not without breaking his vow of loyalty or however the hell it works."

"Then let's just forget about it and move on," Vin tried, offering Scule a small smile. "Other than that, did you enjoy actually getting to talk to a God?"

"Hard to enjoy it when I was shaking so badly I thought I was going to throw up the whole time," Scule admitted after a moment. "But yeah, it was pretty neat. I asked him a couple of personal questions from my time before Edregon, got some interesting answers. And no, I'm not sharing with you lot."

"We weren't going to ask you to," Shia said soothingly.

"Speak for yourself, I was gonna," Alka finally chimed in, stepping out of the dungeon. "Vin finally up again?"

"Yeah. What were you doing?"

"Once Shia, Scule, and Reginald snapped out of their trances, they took over watching you so I could check out the dungeon," she explained, pointing back the way she'd come with her sword. "Tried my hand at fighting the shadow monsters. They're a real pain to fight, let me tell you. Pretty much immune to mundane weaponry."

"Then it's a good thing we'll never have to actually fight them," he said.

"So I know you said there was a lot you couldn't tell us. But do you have anything you need to rush back and report on?" Shia asked, gently putting Reginald back on his shoulder. The rat scampered over to Scule and began rubbing against him. After a moment, the petian sighed, hugging him tightly.

"I learned a couple of pretty big-ticket items, but nothing remarkably time sensitive," he decided. "I can't fully explain why, but the waves are in fact going to keep getting worse, and they're going to keep coming faster than expected. But seeing as the battle for the fourth wave only just happened, we've got a few weeks before the fifth one."

"Well that's good at least," Shia nodded. "Anything else?"

"In fact, there was one other thing." Clearing his throat, he gave her a sheepish smile. "Turns out, you don't have to keep pushing yourself to get to the point of casting Regenerate anymore. At least, not on my behalf."

"What?" She blinked, looking understandably confused. "What do you mean?"

"Remember the epic monster Alka and I fought? How it spanned multiple dimensions and I needed to keep shoving my arm into it to cast Isolate Dimension so Alka could even attack it? Well, I'd thought I'd gotten off scot-free thanks to my golem arm, but it turns out that's not quite the case. The monster ended up eating… I don't even know, the concept of my arm, or something? Basically, I don't know what happened, but I have it on Godly authority that my arm is gone for good and can't be regenerated."

"Really?" Shia asked, staring at his golem arm with intrigue. "That's so weird! Maybe Lumel will have a more detailed explanation for us. Did it hurt when you plunged it into the monster?"

"Have you ever submerged a body part into freezing water? Water so cold that it felt like you were getting stabbed by thousands of tiny knives? It kinda felt like that."

"Yeah, that doesn't sound good," Alka agreed. "Damn, I'm sorry Vin. I didn't realize you were sacrificing your arm for good when we took that thing down."

"Trading half of my arm for all the lives in Terra seems pretty worthwhile to me," he said, nodding his thanks anyway at her concern. "I'd be lying if I said I was totally fine with the realization my arm's never coming back, but I don't think I'd change my decision. Not to mention my golem arm is totally fine, so there's that."

"Man, the Gods just love ruining people's days," Scule muttered, frowning even as he continued scratching Reginald's head. "At the very least, I certainly don't have any desire to talk to them again any time soon."

"You and me both," Vin agreed, laying a hand on his chest as he imagined those impossibly tight chains wrapping around him once more. "Though I do hope the Goddess of Benevolence is okay."

"So long as you keep what she told you to yourself, she'll probably be fine," Shia reassured him. "My master always told me that the Gods were too big to truly harm. Even when it came to one another."

"Perhaps…" Vin couldn't help but recall how the God of Contracts had declared that the Goddess had gone against the agreement that all the Gods had collectively made. If there was one thing strong enough to hurt a God, it was probably all the rest of them combined. "Anyway, we got what we came here for. Unless anyone else has anything that they want to add, I vote we drop the Godly talk for now."

"Seconded," Scule said, scowling one last time up at the statue of the crying God up above the prison entrance. "Think we should remove the stone pillar you made? Just so it's not quite so easy for anyone else to climb up and touch the statue?"

"Probably not a bad idea," he decided, walking over and doing just that. A minute of Stone Shape was all he needed to get rid of the pillar, and he wiped his hands as he looked at his waiting friends. "Alright, we've only been gone for a day so far. I doubt they could have burned the whole town down in that short amount of time. You guys good to move onto the next fragment? If we're sticking with the second ring, we have three more unknowns in a row."

"Sounds pretty exciting," Alka said, her glowing eyes flaring in her version of a wide grin. "I wonder what monsters they have waiting for us?"

"I wonder what valuables they have waiting for us," Scule countered, rubbing his hands together eagerly and getting a tiny eyeroll from Reginald.

"I'll be happy if they have any unique vegetation," Shia declared, tossing her staff down and commanding it to transform into Blossom. "Oh, let me know if you guys spot any particularly vibrant flowers while we're running around. Mary, the Herbalist I'm friends with, was looking for some new species for her garden. She wants to try cross-breeding plants from different fragments and see what happens."

"That sounds like it might be a bad idea… but eh, I'm certainly no botanist," Vin decided, shrugging as he took off toward the next fragment. If their resident Druid was cool with the idea, then it was probably fine.

Even so, it might not be the worst idea to start prepping for battle with a giant, mutant plant in the near future.