Explorer of Edregon

“Okay, I feel like you guys probably should have led with the whole ‘eternal slumber’ aspect of attempting to learn dream magic,” Vin said as he frowned at Fred. Rolling his eyes, the pixie shrugged off his twin’s warning.

“Bah, Fria’s always a worrywart when it comes to dream journeys. The only people who get stuck down there and never wake up are those with weak wills and low focus attributes. The real risk is that regardless of how strong a mind you have, it can take some serious time navigating your way through all the dreams and connecting your mana pool at the end.”

“So are we talking hours? Days…?”

“The longest one I was ever stuck on was three and a half months,” Fred admitted, scowling at the memory. “Stupid tall folk wouldn’t listen to me and just kept running from one dream to the next screaming.”

“You were stuck in his dream for months?” Vin asked, wondering how one even kept their sanity after something like that. “That sounds awful!”

“Eh, time flows differently within dreams, even under the watchful gaze of a skilled Dream Mage when they’re not the one directly in control,” Fred shrugged. “Barely felt like more than a week for me, which granted, was still far more time than I like being stuck with someone in their own head. But I can feel the magical power radiating off you, you’ve got to be in your second prestige, right? You shouldn’t have that problem.”

“Look, I’m very interested in learning the basics for dream magic, but I can’t risk getting trapped in a dream for a few weeks, let alone months,” Vin said. “I’ve got a lot of responsibilities to my people that I need to fulfil.”

“Honestly, it’s because of your connection to your people that I think you should risk learning dream magic,” Fria chimed in. “Scule told me all about how you guys roam around Edregon on your adventures, using the dungeons to quickly return home and touch base every so often. But even that is rather slow going. Imagine if you could send a message back to your fellow council members via their own dreams. It would be instantaneous, and remove the need for you to risk making the journey back to Terra altogether unless you were needed.”

“That… does sound incredibly useful,” Vin admitted, realizing learning dream magic very well might be worth the risk. After all this time, long-range magical communication was still something he was sorely lacking. Not only that, but the ability to access his magic within his dreams might have other benefits as well. “If I link my mana pool to my subconscious, would I be able to practice magic every night while sleeping as well?”

“Yes, but you won’t be skilled enough to make an efficient use of your time for quite a while,” Fred said. “A full night of sleep will probably translate to little more than somewhere between thirty minutes to an hour of dreaming. Not to mention you’ll still be at risk of things like runic backlashes. While your mind might be dreaming, your mana-filled core is very much real. Many mages find the additional layer of separation even harder for working on magic.”

“Most who have the same idea as you, of using sleep time to further their studies, end up simply using Dream Walk to project their dreaming selves into the physical world,” Fria explained. “They hire people to turn pages of books for them to read, or get an artifact to do that for them. They aren’t able to hold the spell together indefinitely, but it’s much easier to keep track of time while Dream Walking in the real world than within one’s own dream.”

Sucking in air through his teeth, Vin let it out slowly as he ran the numbers in his head. At this point, it had been twenty-four days since the battle for wave five. If the waves were coming as they were supposed to, they should have had just shy of four weeks before the next monster wave occurred. That said, the amount of time the waves were arriving early by was growing longer with each one, which meant he couldn’t risk spending too long messing around within his own dreams.

Twenty-six days until the unadjusted monster wave. Leaving twelve days in reserve at an absolute minimum to account for it arriving early, that gives me…

“In order to pick up a new magical affinity, and hopefully gain the abilities to do everything you guys have mentioned… I can spare two weeks for the dream journey, but not a minute more,” he said, giving Fred a hard look. “Can you guarantee the journey won’t take any longer than that?”

“Not really…” Fred admitted sheepishly. “The only way out of a dream journey is to conquer it, or die. If something were to happen to your physical body in the real world, I’d snap out of the journey automatically when your dream ended.”

“Oh, well that’s a relief,” Vin said, grinning at the twin’s confused faces. “In that case, in the event our dream journey ends up going on for longer than two weeks, would one of you mind stabbing me in the heart?”

Fred and Fria stared at him like he was insane, the small motes of pixie dust that seemed to always be falling from somewhere on their person even halting for a moment. Clearing his throat, Fred gave him a concerned look.

“You do realize if you die in the real world while you’re dreaming… you… you die for real, right?”

“Trust me, I’ve got some special magic that will take care of that,” Vin said, waving away their concern. “It should snap me out of whatever magic I’m currently under as well when it saves me from getting stabbed.”

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“What the hell kind of magic is that?” Fria asked, flitting around him in a small circle as she looked at him from all angles. “Can we learn that?”

“Sorry, it’s not really something you can learn,” Vin said, clapping his hands together. “Alright, I’ve decided! I want to go on this weird journey and learn dream magic!”

“I still don’t quite understand the whole ‘stabbing’ thing, but if you say so!” Fred said, grinning as he flew up in front of his face. “In that case, just let me know when you’d like to get started, and we can begin the journey. Fria and a few other pixies will guard over our unconscious bodies, so we won’t be in any danger.”

“You’re just going to lead him on a journey? Just like that?” Fria asked, frowning as she stared at her brother. “I’ve never seen you offer anyone a journey before without charging them an arm and a wing!”

“I still feel bad about causing him to pass out the other day!” Fred said quickly, swallowing hard as he floated back a few inches subconsciously. “I just want to make things right, that’s all!”

Vin rolled his eyes as Fria flew closer to her brother, causing him to cower before her. In reality, he understood exactly what Fred wanted from him. In exchange for leading him on his dream journey, he had no doubt Fred expected him to do what he’d originally asked and try to get Scule to stop seeing Fria.

It sounds like Fred and I are going to be spending some time together on my dream journey. Maybe I can talk some sense into him about letting his sister make her own decisions while we hunt around inside my head.

“Alright, I need to head back to town and let everyone know I’m going to be gone for a bit,” he said, stepping back from the angry tension between the two pixies. “Will you be ready to go in a few hours?”

“Whenever you want to go on the journey, I’ll be ready,” Fred said, looking like he wanted nothing more than to flee from his sister within someone else’s dreams. “Just come back here to this forest, I’ll have things set up and ready to go!”

Thanking his future dream-guide one more time, Vin jogged back to the dungeon entrance, going over the list of people he needed to inform what he was about to do. As he ran, he decided not to waste any time, making the plunge in purchasing his final skill.

Warning. You have filled 10 out of your 10 allotted skill slots.

Picking up the Sleeping skill came with a strange sense of calm and control in his head rather than the usual wave of knowledge. He somehow understood that he’d now be able to fall asleep easier than normal, and he grinned in excitement at the thought of getting to the point where he might be able to even practice magic within his own dreams.

Running past the reptile monsters within the dungeon without even bothering to kill any of them, Vin darted into the Underside and made a beeline for Terra. He didn’t actually know where anyone was, but as long as he informed one member of the council and one of his teammates, they could both inform the rest.

On his way from the forest dungeon over to the town gates, the distant sounds of cheering and shouting caught his attention, and he realized they were coming from the new colosseum Witherson had built a short way outside of town. He’d still yet to actually check it out, seeing as he honestly wasn’t all that interested in fighting himself when he didn’t have to, but based on the level of noise he could hear from even this distance, it definitely sounded like it was a hit with the Earthers. Deciding he’d have to at least take a look sooner or later if only to satisfy his own curiosity, Vin jogged into town.

“Hey, Linda,” he said, smiling at her as he stepped into town hall. “Any chance you know where the closest council member would be?”

“Phil is busy fighting in the colosseum today, and Spur is with Tom over in Sakis, talking to their elder,” she said, going over a sheet of paper. “Witherson and Alice should be somewhere around town, however. They’d be your best bets.”

“Thanks, Linda, you’re the best!” Vin debated simply leaving the message with Linda to pass along for him, but he figured vanishing for potentially two whole weeks deserved at least explaining himself face-to-face with one of the other council members.

Thankfully, he managed to find Alice in the first place he thought to check. The Trapper was in the support guild, working away at a new trap design that looked like a giant bear trap with way more springs than it needed. As the leader of the entire guild, Alice actually had her own office and private workshop, which Vin entered after a quick knock.

“Oh, hey Vin,” she said, putting down her tools and flashing him a quick smile as she carefully stepped back from her work. “What brings you here?”

“I’m about to be led on a magical dream journey by a pixie who wants me to help break up his twin sister’s relationship,” he said, deciding to just get straight to the point. “No telling how long it will take, but I might be gone for the next two weeks.”

“Wow, the fact that this doesn’t even shock me in the slightest says a lot about what we’ve come to expect about you,” Alice admitted, cleaning off her hands with a rag. “Wait, you think it might take two weeks for the dream journey, or two weeks to break up the relationship? Because if it’s the latter, I can give you some tips that should get the job done in only a few hours.”

“Two weeks for the dream journey,” he clarified, giving her a weird look. “…How many relationships have you broken up?”

“Go have fun on your journey,” Alice grinned, already turning back to her trap rather than answer his question. “I’ll let the others know.”

With the council taken care of, Vin ran back to the apartment, where he found Reginald on the common room table, reading a regular-sized book about cheese-making. The rat was turning the pages with his tail, but he paused as Vin came in, waving and giving him a happy squeak of greeting.

“Hey, Reginald, I might be gone for the next week or two on a dream journey. Fria will probably tell Scule all about it tonight, but I just wanted to check in. Can you tell the others?”

Reginald gave him a nod and a few squeaks that he could sense were a confirmation and wishing him luck, and he thanked the rat, letting him get back to his reading. Jotting down a quick note explaining things in more detail for Lumel, and giving her the exact location he was going to be at within the pixies’ fragment in case she wanted to check on him, he left it on her bed before heading back to the dungeon. He would have preferred telling her in person what he was about to do, but with her access to the Underside, there was no telling where on Edregon she’d run off to, and he didn’t want to delay his journey any longer than he had to. If Fria was forced to stab him awake from his dream journey, he’d probably have to do the entire thing all over again in order to learn dream magic, which was a large chunk of time he didn’t want to waste twice.

Besides, she’d probably forgive him when she read his note. It wasn’t every day that he offered to take her on the literal date of her dreams as an apology.