Explorer of Edregon

It had been quite some time since Vin last worked on any earth-affinity spells, but it was just like riding a bike. Though the tier-1 spell did end up taking him a little bit longer than he’d originally figured it would. Having watched the Whisperer’s apprentices using the spell to pull large mounds of dirt straight out of the tunnel walls, he’d expected its runic formation to look similar to Stone Shape, albeit less complicated for its lower tier. To his surprise, while there were certainly a few similarities, the two spells ended up being fairly different. Stone Shape was intended for far more delicate, careful work, while Shift Earth had clearly been created with the sole purpose of breaking apart and moving a lot of dirt very quickly.

That said, Vin was practically an expert when it came to learning low-tier magic at this point, and he still managed to finish up what he’d set out to do with plenty of time to spare.

New spell learned! Tier-1 Earth Spell (Shift Earth).

If he were being honest, it wasn’t so much Shift Earth itself that he was excited by. While the spell would certainly be useful, it wasn’t as if he could use it to create a giant hole in the ground in a split second. The spell merely broke up all the dirt it was directed toward, said dirt would still need to be manually transported elsewhere, hence the curious wheelbarrow-sleds the dwarves were using to pile it up outside the tunnel system. No, Vin was excited for what the spell had the potential to build into, as he’d come up with an idea for a tier-2 spell the moment he’d laid eyes on it.

However, for the first time in quite a while, he had to be a little bit cautious.

With the addition of Shift Earth under his belt, Vin was now up to a total of seven different spells with earth affinities. A mage risked giving their personal mana a specific affinity the moment they learned more spells of that affinity than one more than a tenth of their total magic attribute, rounded down. With a magic attribute currently at 87, that meant if he wanted to be one-hundred-percent safe, Vin’s current limit to how many earth-affinity spells he could learn should be nine. Granted, due to his Mana Well passive, he actually had a fair bit more wiggle room there than most mages would, but he still didn’t like taking unnecessary chances if he didn’t have to.

Even so, the idea he had was too good to pass up, and a quick check with his Spell Weaver title confirmed that his intended combination would work. Figuring he still had a few hours to work with before his friends returned, Vin got started on his spell, only rushing a little bit. He ended up making some significant progress…

Right up until he was nearly killed.

One second, Vin was in Introspection, hard at work. He wanted to finish up the spell before calling it a night, and he was feeling confident in the fact he was only dealing with earth rather than one of the trickier affinities like soul or spatial. That confidence quickly proved to be his downfall, however, as he accidentally wove his mana into an incorrect rune and triggered a runic backlash that was too much even for his new mana-venting technique.

In an instant, Vin was ripped out of Introspection by something dense and heavy crushing him from all sides. His eyes shot open at the sudden attack, but he could make out nothing more than darkness, and he was forced to squeeze them shut immediately when whatever was pressing in on him went into his eyes as well. With a start, he discovered the pressure was too much for him to even breathe, and Vin’s heart began pounding as he realized he might be in some serious danger.

First things first… don’t panic.

Having spent almost half a year on Edregon at this point, Vin was more than used to finding himself in deadly situations seemingly out of nowhere. He wasn’t being attacked by a monster, and beyond the inability to breath and incredible discomfort of all the pressure, he didn’t seem to be in immediate danger. All but forcing himself to calm down, he silently wove the runic formation needed in his core, flooding his lungs with much needed oxygen as Replenishing Breath got to work.

No longer at risk of suffocation, Vin calmed down further, quickly figuring out what had happened. Seeing as he’d been working on a stronger version of Shift Earth and then experienced a runic backlash, it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out what he’d done.

I must have caved in a section of the trogums’ tunnel on myself, he thought, wincing at his own stupidity. It took a special kind of stupid to try creating a brand-new spell revolving around digging while working alone, underground.

I’ve got to get out of here before my friends come back or I’ll never hear the end of this.

Just as Vin was about to see if Redirect Gravity could be used to free him from his earthly prison, he thought he felt something through the dirt. Curious, he decided to cast Tremorsight instead, revealing a small team of four dwarves hurriedly digging away at the mound of dirt he was buried under. Two of them were using shovels while two were using Shift Earth, but all four of them were digging away like their lives depended on it. Vin wished he could get them a message that he was alright and they didn’t need to panic, but Whispering Wind only worked if he had a direct line of air from him to his targets.

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I wonder if ‘Whispering Dirt’ is a spell. Sounds sort of stupid, right up until you experience being trapped in a cave-in.

Rather than risk dropping what felt like half-a-ton of dirt on top of his potential saviors’ heads, Vin decided to sit back and let them dig him out. The dwarves proved to be remarkably efficient diggers, and it was only a couple of minutes before they got to the point where he was able to push his way out into the air.

“Vin!” Maggy cried, tossing her shovel aside as she grabbed his arms and helped drag him fully free from the dirt. “Are you okay?!”

“Yep,” he said, coughing some dirt from his lungs as he let Replenishing Breath come to an end. “The only thing injured is my pride.”

“You’re lucky we were nearby!” one of the Whisperer’s apprentices scolded him. The other two dwarves let out sighs of relief before beginning to fill up those strange wheelbarrows and starting to transport all the dirt outside. “How do you think the Whisperer would have reacted if we’d been forced to return to her and tell her we found you dead, having suffocated from a mountain of dirt you dropped on yourself?”

“Sorry,” Vin said sheepishly, his face red as he brushed dirt off of himself. “I was trying to get a new spell figured out before calling it a night. Ended up triggering a backlash. It’s been awhile since anything this bad has come from them, so I think I may have grown a tad overconfident.”

“Magic isn’t a toy to be played around with, or a force to be taken lightly,” the apprentice said, her frown lessening slightly as she realized he already understood. “Just be careful. I’m sure there are plenty of people who would be even more upset at your passing than we would be.”

Vin debated explaining that he hadn’t really been in any serious danger thanks to Replenishing Breath, but decided against it. The Whisperer’s apprentice was absolutely correct. Even if this particular scenario hadn’t been all that bad, it was an excellent reminder that runic backlashes were a deadly, unpredictable force. At this point, with his Spell Builder passive helping him navigate around weaker ones, and his mana-venting technique turning medium backlashes into nothing but expelled mana, he’d grown overly confident. This was the perfect wake-up call he needed to remind himself that major runic backlashes could be quite deadly, even for only tier-2 spells.

It was also good information to have surrounding how his divine boon handled certain threats, such as being suffocated. He didn’t know if the boon would be powerful enough to blast away all the dirt that had been pressing down on him if he hadn’t had Replenishing Breath available to him, and he really didn’t want to find out.

After reassuring Maggy he wasn’t going to do anything like that again, Vin spent the next hour helping the dwarves clear the tunnel of dirt from his mess up. Through some miracle, his backlash had only collapsed part of the tunnel over his own head. None of the trogums or dwarves had been caught up in the cave-in, which was a massive relief. Vin didn’t know what he’d do if he learned his own overconfidence had resulted in the loss of an innocent life, and he prayed he’d never have to figure that out.

“Are you doing alright?” Lumel asked later that evening as everyone other than Alka turned in for the night. The trogums had offered them a room in one of the tunnels for them to use, but Vin had instead chosen to camp up on the surface. Monsters were still a real concern, but they weren’t anything a quickly constructed shelter from Stone Wall couldn’t stave off. Shia, Scule, and Reginald had taken the underground room, but Lumel had joined him. “You’ve been pretty quiet ever since we all met back up.”

“Just lost in thought,” Vin admitted, deciding to just come right out and explain what had happened. Despite knowing he hadn’t really been in any danger, Lumel scooted closer to him and wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly as he talked.

“So yeah…” Vin finished with lamely. “...Bit of a rough evening.”

“What’s important is that you and everyone else is okay,” Lumel said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “And you’ll be more careful in the future.”

“No worries on that front,” Vin snorted, deciding that was enough about his own personal failings for one day. “What about you? How was learning about the trogums?”

“Really interesting! Did you know they have categorizations regarding the different focused trogums? While all of them resulted from the Rebel Queen removing them from the gestation process before they were fully developed, it seems certain ones were removed sooner than others. Because of that, some of the focused trogums are more capable than their peers, even if still not quite as mentally developed as the elites. They’re able to hold off on the compulsions that drive them for a while, especially if they are actively working toward creating a better way for them to indulge in them down the line.”

“You know, that would actually explain a lot,” Vin admitted, thinking back to The One That Paints In Red. “We helped a trogum travel from one fragment to another awhile back, and it was able to hold an actual conversation and follow directions. I wonder how it's even doing right about now.”

He hadn’t given it too much thought, but if the Rebel Queen’s mental orders were capable of reaching multiple fragments away, he could only hope that The One That Paints In Red hadn’t suddenly gone on a berserker rage in the center of the Crater and tried attacking the dwarves. Granted, even if it had, it probably wouldn’t have been that big a deal. The regular trogums were only a threat due to their overwhelming number. Vin was pretty certain even the weakest dwarven warrior could easily subdue a single trogum if needed.

“That’s not even the craziest thing!” Lumel said, her eyes shining as she launched into a detailed explanation of how the elites had decided to divvy up the work needed to be done now that they were without their queen. Vin couldn’t help but smile and hold the pulmon close as she spoke, her interest in other cultures and beings written all over her face.

He’d never get tired of watching the quiet, soft-spoken mage transform into a confident, eager researcher the moment she got going, and his worries about his own glaring mistake were quickly washed away as he listened and learned all about trogum society.