Explorer of Edregon

Blinking in shock, Vin nearly dropped his Beyond the Veil ability as he stared at the floating pixies behind them. Seeing as the two of them certainly hadn’t existed moments ago, it was clear that they were hiding themselves somehow with magic. But his Sense Soul didn’t pick up on them, meaning they were either hiding themselves from that too, or for whatever reason, the two pixies didn’t have souls.

He really hoped it was the former.

“Hey, Fria… Is it just me or does that human seem to be staring right at us?” the pixie on the left asked, looking curiously at him.

“You know, Fred, it does sort of look that way,” the pixie on the right said, nodding her head vigorously. “I wonder what he’s looking at.

“Uh…” Vin said, his eyes going back and forth between the two pixies. “Hello?”

“Ohh I think he’s doing the whole ‘pretend like I can see the invisible people’ bit,” Fred said, giggling as he put his head in his hands. “Let’s see how long he keeps it up for! What was the old record, three hours?”

“Closer to four if I remember correctly, but it has been a few years since then,” Fria said, giggling and twirling around in the air, causing a handful of what looked like pixie dust of all things to drift to the ground. “This one looks determined though! Maybe he’ll keep it up longer!”

“Vin, what are you looking at?” Scule asked, following his gaze and looking straight through the pixies. “Some magical crap we can’t see?”

“‘Magical crap?’” Fria huffed, frowning and placing her hands on her hips as she glared at Scule. “To think I thought that one was a little cute, even if he lost his wings somehow! Now I’m going to give him nightmares!”

“It’s two pixies,” Vin finally said, causing Fred and Fria to both nearly fall out of the air in shock as their wings stopped beating for a moment. “And I wouldn’t sleep in this fragment if I were you, Scule.”

The two pixies quickly fluttered back up to head-height of him, staring with wide eyes. Slowly, they drifted left together without even communicating, and Vin tracked the two of them, coughing after a few seconds.

“Yeah, I can see you. Would you mind—”

Vin gasped, jolting up into a sitting position as he came to and found himself lying in the ticklish grass. His heart was pounding and his mind raced in confusion, but before he could figure out what happened, he realized Shia and Lumel were sitting on either side of him.

“Take it easy,” Shia warned, continuing to cast Renewal on his head like she had been doing by the looks of things. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah… What happened?”

“What do you think happened? You tried using your class ability that the Goddess specifically told you weren’t quite ready for just yet, and rather than only use it for a few seconds, you held onto it long enough to try and hold a conversation,” Shia said, shaking her head. “She did warn you to be careful.”

“Sorry… I was just so caught off guard by the sudden pixies,” he said, holding his head and giving the two of them an apologetic grin. “Where are Scule and Reginald?”

“Ran off to meet the pixies,” Lumel answered, looking distinctly annoyed with him for perhaps the first time he could remember. “After you revealed to them that you could see them and passed out, the pixies finally appeared to us and freaked out a little bit. We tried to reassure them you would be fine, but Fred and Fria feel pretty bad about the whole thing. They said they would come meet us ‘for real,’ and Scule offered to meet them halfway.”

“I think he has a crush on Fria,” Shia snorted as she let her spell end. “You should have seen the way he hurried to ‘escort’ them over here.”

“Shia, would you mind letting me talk to Vin in private for a moment?” Lumel asked, looking just as surprised as they were that she actually came out and asked. “Sorry, I just need to discuss something with him.”

“Sure, but only if you promise part of that discussion is reaming him out for being a reckless idiot,” Shia grinned, getting to her feet and gently smacking him on the back of the head. “Just because the rest of us aren’t dating you doesn’t mean we like seeing you continue putting yourself in comas either, you know.”

As soon as Shia walked away, immediately delving into an in-depth discussion with a nearby tree by the looks of things, Lumel sighed. Taking his hand in hers, she squeezed it, rubbing his knuckles with her thumb as she tried to collect her words.

“I know I told you that your adventurous spirit is one of the things I love most about you… But there has to be a limit. The Goddess herself warned you to take it easy with Beyond the Veil, and while a few seconds here and there might be okay, there’s nothing I can say about holding the ability active for so long besides that it was needlessly stupid. Once you’d confirmed the pixies were watching us, you should have dropped the ability and called out to them.”

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“Yeah… I mean, I don’t have any sort of defense other than I was so startled I forgot, which is in fact pretty stupid,” he admitted, gently placing his golem hand over her own. “At the very least, it definitely feels like my body is getting stronger like the Goddess said it would. I didn’t even feel any sort of strain or anything right up until I passed out.”

“While I’m glad to hear that, you need to be more careful,” she said, doing her best to look stern. “You heard Shia, your friends are worried about you as well. Why do you think everyone dropped what they were doing to join you on this newest trip after you’d been imprisoned for the better part of a week? You going off on your own and vanishing for so long gave us all a rude reminder that as capable as you are, and even with your divine boon, you’re still only human.”

“Trust me, I understand that much,” he chuckled weakly, pushing himself to his feet and pulling her into a quick hug. “Thanks for worrying about me. And for keeping the reaming to a minimum. I promise I’ll take it easy with Beyond the Veil until I hit level 50 like the Goddess suggested.”

“If it helps, I can tell Shia I yelled at you. Though I don’t think she would believe me,” Lumel giggled, giving him a quick kiss before pulling back. “Based on how quickly the pixies can move, Fred and Fria will probably be here any minute.”

“I mean, they can fly, so that doesn’t really surprise me,” Vin said, spotting movement in the distance. “In fact, I think that’s them now.”

Sure enough, what he first thought were two birds flying through the air quickly revealed themselves to be the two pixies that had been stalking them, and he spotted Scule and Reginald running along right in front. Stopping directly before him, Scule looked him up and down.

“Oh good, you’re still alive. Always a pleasant surprise.”

Reginald’s tail smacked him on the back of the head, and Reginald squeaked out his own thanks that he was doing okay.

“See, I told you the human would be fine,” Fred said, rolling his eyes as Fria sniffed and wiped a tear from her eye. “She thought the sight of us scared you into a heart attack or some other such nonsense."

“No, just some personal stuff I’m working through,” Vin laughed, giving the pixies a formal wave. “Nice to officially meet you. I’m Vin, an Explorer.”

“Lumel, Dimensional Mage,” she said, still holding onto his arm as if afraid he’d collapse to the ground again the moment she let go.

“And you’ve already met me and Reginald, but that weirdo talking to a tree over there is Shia, obviously a Druid,” Scule said. “We have one other party member, but she’s off doing her own thing at the moment.”

“What a colorful bunch!” Fria said, twirling in excitement as she wiped the last tears from her eyes. “I’m Fria, and this is my twin brother, Fred. We’ve been watching you ever since you first stumbled upon one of our mushrooms.”

“So the two of you know dream magic?” Vin asked, having to physically keep himself from rubbing his hands together hungrily. “What did the mushroom do?”

“It placed a marker on you to allow us to track you while using Dream Walk,” Fred explained. “It’s the perfect reconnaissance spell, as waking people can’t detect us. Or at least, it was the perfect reconnaissance spell. We’ve never had someone see us through our magic before. Nobody that wasn’t already asleep I mean.”

“Hold on, the two of you were asleep while talking to us?” Shia asked, having finally torn herself away from the tree and rejoined the group. “How does that work?”

“A far trickier spell called Revealing Dream,” Fria answered. “Not many of the pixies can cast it, but Fred and I are two of the best when it comes to magic. Especially after The Jolt that wiped away all our levels. The spell lets us show our dreamselves to others in the waking world during a Dream Walk, but we can’t interact with anything. Not even we’re good enough for that just yet.”

“Wow, that’s some impressive magic!” Scule said, beaming up at Fria. “You must be an incredible mage!”

“Why thank you!” Fria smiled, twirling around once more as Fred frowned.

“Hey, I know the exact same spells she—”

“Our sleep-loving friend here is almost certainly dying to get his hands on some of your dream magic,” Scule continued, cutting Fred off entirely. “Is there any chance we might be able to stay with your people for a few days so you can teach him? He’s like a sponge when it comes to magic, always trying to suck up more!”

“Scule, have you forgotten about our current mission?” Shia asked, raising an eyebrow with a knowing grin. “Thousands of orcs and beastkin, needing somewhere to go? Ring any bells?”

“Oh yeah, and if those guys could come live in this fragment that would be awesome,” Scule added, waving his hand lazily. “What do you think?”

“We pixies don’t have any sort of formal settlement like the tall-folk tend to have, so there is more than enough space,” Fria shrugged. “But we’ll have to run it past the others. I doubt it will be a problem, so long as they are friendly. Our people have hosted clans of nomads in the past, occasionally for years at a time, so we’re pretty used to visitors just dropping in.”

“Well, that’s a massive load off our backs,” Vin said, excited to hear they not only had a passage out of the alliance through the goblins’ wall, but an actual place for the orcs and beastkin to make new lives for themselves. “Though Scule wasn’t exactly wrong… Is there any chance I could convince one of you to show me the basics of sleep magic?”

“I mean, we can certainly try,” Fred said, turning to share a knowing frown with his sister. “You wouldn't be the first tall-folk our people have taught. But dream magic is a tad… trickier than most other forms of magic.”

“I figured, but I’ve learned the basics for spatial magic, gravity magic, even soul magic,” Vin said, eagerly leaning forward. “Trust me, I can handle it.”

“You misunderstand,” Fria said, drifting closer and tapping her head. “It’s not that the runic formations are harder, it’s that the fundamentals for dream magic are completely different from others.”

“Different?” Vin asked, his excitement slowly ebbing away as he saw the uncertainty in Fria’s eyes. “How so?”

“Let me put it to you this way,” Fred said, grinning as he joined his twin in front of his face. “You ever try casting magic in your sleep?”