Explorer of Edregon

Vin wasn’t surprised to discover that all three of the missing Earthers he’d rescued from the rankers had been placed into the same apartment. Based on the small nameplate in front of the door, it looked as though they were still missing a fourth roommate, but that would probably change sooner than later as the new wave arrived. Space was a premium in Terra, after all, and despite Witherson working actual magic sometimes, they couldn’t just let an empty room stay empty for long. Knocking on their door, Vin waited a moment before Thomas opened it, blinking at him in surprise.

“Vin!” he signed, grinning at the surprise visit. “Are you here about the whole doomsday-thing? We’ve been getting a ton of random visitors this last week. Having all the different council members drop by our apartment at random has been pretty interesting though. Have you met Golrim? I think he was my favorite.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much why I’m here,” Vin agreed, unable to keep himself from snorting. “And yes, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Golrim. Has John finished resting?”

“He’s up again, though he’s pretty sluggish,” Thomas said, glancing over his shoulder. “Jess is out working in the crafter guild on improving her skills and gaining some actual experience. Terra doesn’t really have many gemstones, so she’s focusing more on working with simple metals at the moment. Want to come in?”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Vin said, nodding his thanks as Thomas led him inside. It seemed the three of them had already riffled through all the different furniture that many of the crafters put up in their ‘stores’ for people to take, as their apartment looked pretty well lived in. Leading him to the common room, Thomas turned to sign as he walked backwards.

“By the way, is there any chance you might be able to make me an artifact that would allow other people to understand sign-language like you can? Spur suggested I float the idea past you when I asked him if they had anything like that. If I could lend it to whoever I’m talking to, it would make things a lot easier.”

“I’ve made a few minor artifacts in the past. I'm a little busy at the moment, but I can certainly give it a shot down the line,” Vin promised, noting the look of relief on the young man’s face. He had no doubt that having to whip out a sketchpad and write whatever he wanted to say to someone was an exhausting endeavor, and Vin made a quick note in his journal to try tackling that artifact when he had some free time. Thomas had already been through enough after spending two weeks trapped within the rankers’ fragment.

“Thank you, that would be amazing. John’s over here, but the way.”

Walking into the common room, Vin spotted the Watcher immediately. Lying back on a chair that reminded him of a beach-chair, minus the sand, John looked up at him warily.

“Oh hey,” he said, rubbing at his reddened eyes as he sighed. “I was wondering when you were going to show up. Commander Spur said you were off doing your own thing when I asked. Something about pixies?”

“A pixie led me on a dream journey through my subconscious in exchange for trying to get my friend to stop seeing his twin sister,” Vin explained, pulling a chair closer and sitting down in front of him. “Though that’s not important right now. And I managed to change his mind anyway. What’s all this about Terra being destroyed?”

John stared at him, slowly blinking and rubbing his tired eyes yet again. From this distance, Vin had no issue making out the heavy bags under his eyes or the way his head was almost permanently drooped. He didn’t know if it was the toll the man’s Capstone was taking on him, or just that he wasn’t able to get any true rest with the knowledge that Terra was doomed hanging over his head, but either way, the poor man looked as if he desperately needed some real sleep.

“Terra?” Vin repeated, waving his hand in front of him. “Your Capstone? John?”

“Right!” John said, flinching back as if he’d been caught dozing with his eyes open. “Sorry, I haven’t really slept in a few days. Not for more than a few hours here and there at least. What did Spur tell you?”

“That when you hit level 10 in your Watcher class you picked up the Doom Watch Capstone, which lets you see when something really bad is about to happen,” Vin summarized. “And you saw the destruction of Terra.”

“It’s not like I get visions,” John clarified, slowly shaking his head as Thomas sat down beside them, listening intently to the conversation. He’d brought over a tray of drinks that smelled like coffee, and John thanked him as he took one of the cups and began sipping the still-steaming liquid. “It’s more like a powerful sensation of dread deep in my bones. Somehow, the Capstone doesn’t just generate that feeling, but gives me the ability to read and quantify it as well. Like it’s some scale that only I have the key needed to understand. When I first used it, I didn’t know what to expect, and the wave of dread that washed over me was so powerful I ended up passing out and waking up in the hospital the next day. Since then, I’ve managed to get a better hold on it. It’s still not very fun, but I can handle it better.”

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“So you can somehow understand that this wave of dread is the equivalent of Terra being destroyed?” Vin asked, wanting to confirm what everyone was saying.

“Pretty much,” John nodded. “I know something bad with the power to destroy the entire town is going to hit, and I know roughly when it’s going to happen. According to Phil, my Capstone is basically the Dangersense passive on steroids, though I don’t have that one myself.”

“So you feel confident saying it’s going to destroy the town… Why word it that way rather than say it’s going to kill all the Earthers?”

“I don’t know,” John shrugged. “Myers asked me the same thing the last time she checked in on me. The best I can say is that whatever is coming doesn’t feel like it’s targeting the Earthers. Though it doesn’t really feel like it’s targeting the town, either. It almost feels as if Terra is simply going to get caught up in the crossfire of something unstoppable. I’m sorry, I know that’s not very specific, but it’s the best I can do.”

“Maybe it’s some sort of natural disaster, like a tsunami, or a giant meteor strike,” Thomas offered, looking curious. “Can meteors even happen here on Edregon? Do we have space over our heads filled with celestial bodies, or is it all empty? I heard each fragment has their own sky, so how does that work? Illusions?”

“I have no idea, and I don’t know,” Vin said. “Though you may be onto something with that natural disaster idea.” I guess technically Lumel’s people might have the magical capabilities of sending some sort of giant wave in our direction, but why would they do that in the first place? I can’t think of any good reasons.

Unless the Queen who hates Lumel with a burning passion strong enough to banish her somehow found out that she was living with us now.

Vin shuddered at the thought of a few hundred-foot-tall wave of water smashing through their pitiful defenses and ending all their lives in an instant, praying that wasn’t the case. He liked to think nobody would be cruel enough to kill thousands of innocent people just to try and extinguish the life of one person they hated, but he knew there were in fact people out there who would do exactly that without losing a wink of sleep. The only reason he figured they could strike that idea off the board was because Lumel’s own mother was the court mage and leader of the pulmons’ magical might. He could only assume she would refuse to send such a drastic attack at her own daughter.

“Some sort of attack not actually directed at the town itself…” he muttered, racking his brain for ideas. “In that case, if we can just figure out what it’s targeting, we should be able to—”

Vin froze, a sudden, almost obvious thought all but slapping him in the face. He hadn’t even considered it until just now, but he groaned as he placed his face in his hands. “John, I know you’re tired, but could you do me a favor? Could you use your Capstone one more time?”

“Golrim said I should rest longer between uses… But I guess it has been long enough,” John admitted with a sigh. Closing his eyes, he sat up straighter, folding his hands in his lap. “Trust me, I know my power is beneficial to the town, but feeling so much dread washing over me time and time again really starts to… wear down… on…”

After a few seconds, John’s eyes flew open, and his jaw dropped as he turned to stare at Vin. “What did you do?!” he sputtered, all but sinking down into his chair in relief. “The ocean of dread! It’s not exactly gone, but it’s massively diminished! Like something is still coming, but it’s not guaranteed to destroy us all!”

“I was afraid of that,” Vin sighed, feeling like he’d borrowed John’s power as a wave of dread washed over him. “The council has been trying all sorts of different ideas, but one thing remained constant all this time. Me.”

“You?” Thomas asked, looking confused. “What do you mean?”

“These past two weeks, while everyone was trying everything they could think of to change the future, I was guaranteed to be here for the battle for the sixth wave,” he explained, thinking it all over in his head and confirming it made sense. “I’d instructed the pixie watching over me to wake me from my dream journey before the wave arrived just to be safe, so no matter what, I was going to be here. I didn’t know about John’s premonition or anything like that. Not until I came back to town. Before John used his Capstone a few moments ago, I came to a decision to do something I would absolutely never do under any other circumstances. Not since missing the battle for wave three and coming home to find hundreds of Earther corpses dotting the landscape.”

“What did you decide?” Thomas asked, looking like he already knew the answer.

“I decided that I’d leave town entirely and go somewhere else before this next monster wave hit,” Vin said, swallowing hard as he had to all but force the words out of his mouth. “Which can only mean one thing.”

“Whatever I felt was coming… Whatever force is powerful enough to destroy all of Terra... It’s coming for you,” John whispered, sinking back into his chair a bit as if trying to get away from him. “What on earth could it be?!”

“It pains me to say this, but it could honestly be a couple of things,” Vin admitted, going through a mental checklist of things he’d either witnessed or potentially angered that had both the power and the means to potentially wipe out all of Terra. The Worldeaters from the Sky fragment I narrowly escaped from… The librarian and her golems if she changed her mind about me… The ranker king seeking his revenge for me taking his hand… Hell, it could even be the Rebel Queen and an army of trogums for all I know.

“What matters is we finally figured out how to save Terra,” Vin said, getting to his feet and beginning his trek to the town hall in order to tell Spur the good news. “While the rest of you all fight against the monsters in the battle for wave six… I’ll be somewhere far away, facing down whatever has a vendetta against me specifically. Alone.”