Explorer of Edregon

“What?!” Vin shouted, scrambling back to his feet as his eyes went from the morose mage lying on the floor to his notifications. “I thought you couldn’t do anything to me in your current state!”

“I’d hardly call hiding a notification or two from your awareness ‘doing anything’,” the man scoffed, still not even bothering to look him in the eye as he stared into the void. “But there. There’s your reason to go find some way to destroy me. Save your mind the hassle of worrying and just get on with it already. I’m tired of having hope.”

Vin said nothing, merely frowning at the prone mage as he looked back at his notifications. Though after getting over the outrage of having them held from him, he blinked, realizing what his Common Ally title being evolved meant.

“Wait… you’re not human?” he asked, giving Ovord a strange look. “You certainly look human. Albeit a human with some sharper, almost elven features.”

“No, I’m not a human,” Ovord sighed. “Nor am I an elf, despite the fact that I look like a combination of the two. The soul is the reflection of one’s true self, but I was once an Arch Mage of the Soul. I have hidden my true form in here just as much as I used magic to hide it in the real world. Sadly, my illusion spells were never as good as my soul ones, and I was eventually discovered. It was the main reason why I was attacked and imprisoned.”

“Just because you weren’t a human or an elf?”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand. On my world, we had ‘major’ races and ‘lesser’ races,” Ovord explained wearily. “Only the major races were allowed to learn magic. When I discovered I had a gift and a love for magic, rather than follow the rules, I disguised myself inside and out and did whatever it took to learn. I swore that I would never reveal my true face, and I will maintain that oath to myself until the day I die, so don’t bother asking.”

“Wow,” Vin muttered, looking at Ovord in a new light. The fact that forming a bond with the mage had caused his title to upgrade meant that whatever race he truly was, it wasn’t one he’d ever formed a bond with before, which was wild to think about. “Listen, Ovord… I’m not going to have anyone kill you. Hell, I’m not even that mad about you trying and failing to influence my soul. I am rightfully pissed that you hid two of my notifications from me, but so long as you promise never to do that again, I think we can come to some sort of agreement. Like I said before, I’m willing to try and figure out a way to get you your own body. I’ve done it once, I’m sure I can do it again. But you need to have a little bit of trust. It’s going to take some time, and I’m planning on using that time to see your true colors. But if I think you deserve a second chance, I’ll give you one.”

“…You would still help me even after I admitted to trying to backstab you?” Ovord asked, finally tearing his gaze from the void and turning to look him in the eye. “…Why would you do this?”

“Because I feel bad for your situation? Because I like helping people? Because I see a bit of myself in you and it scares me a little?” Vin admitted with a shrug. “As much as I hate to say it, I have to agree with someone I was just talking to before this. If I found myself in your same shoes, trapped in an eternal prison of darkness for centuries… I think I’d do whatever I could to escape it as well. I don’t do well with being cooped up. Again, I’m not making any promises just yet. First, I need to be confident you’re not some evil mage who’s going to turn around and try to destroy us once he’s free. You manage to convince me of that, and I promise you we’ll get you your own body again.”

Slowly, Ovord picked himself up, getting to his feet and dusting off his outfit as he stared at him. To Vin’s shock, the man then got down on one knee, lowering his head and pressing a fist against his chest.

“On my chosen name of Ovord Soulseeker, I swear my allegiance and fealty to you, Vinnie Stone. In exchange for your assistance with obtaining a new body for myself, I offer up this soul bond. I will—”

“Hell no,” Vin said, startling Ovord as he grabbed the mage under the arms and yanked him back to his feet. “No, no, absolutely not. Not in a million years would I enter into any form of soul-based contract, and definitely not one with a former Arch Mage of the Soul. I might not be the sharpest tack on the shelf, but even I’m not that stupid.”

“But I am designating you as the superior within the bond,” Ovord argued, his brow furrowing as if he couldn’t understand why Vin would reject such an offer. “Even if I am merely a shadow of my former self, I am still quite knowledgeable and can offer you much assistance. Rejecting such a vassal doesn’t make any sense.”

“Look, Ovord,” Vin said, shaking his head as he tried to figure out how to get through to the strange man. “I don’t know how things worked on your world, and it sounds like you had a bit of a rough time with the whole ‘major’ versus ‘lesser’ races deal over there. Where I’m from? We don’t do that sort of thing. I’m going to be making a point to get to know you better, but that means you’re going to have to get to know me better as well. For starters, we’re going to keep things simple. You don’t block my notifications and try anything else underhanded, and I’ll see about getting you your own body again. Deal?”

Ovord stared at the hand Vin was holding out for him, his brow just as furrowed as it was when he rejected the man’s soul bond. After a moment, Vin realized what was wrong, and he laughed.

“You shake it. Then we’re in agreement.”

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“You just… shake hands?” Ovord asked, yet again looking at Vin like he couldn’t tell if he was messing with him or if he was just an idiot. “That’s how you seal your important deals? No pledge of loyalty? No soul bonds?”

“Yep, that’s all there is to it. I mean, I suppose I could ask Linda to help me write up a contract or something if that would make you feel better, but I don’t think we even have any lawyers, so that probably wouldn’t really do much good. Not to mention you sort of need a physical body in order to sign something.”

“I suppose this will suffice,” Ovord said, slowly reaching out and taking Vin’s hand in his own. The soul mage’s hand was soft and delicate, and Vin smiled as they shook.

“Great. By the way, I might need you to hide away within my mana pool now and again during certain conversations with the council or when I’m with my lifemate. This current situation isn’t really fair to her by any means, so I want to do what I can to make it not quite as bad.”

“I can live with those terms,” Ovord said. A small, genuine smile appeared on his face as they stopped shaking hands and he paused, staring at his own palm. “I can live…”

After ironing out those ground rules and coming to terms with the soul mage hitching a ride on his title, Vin spent the next two days running around Terra, taking care of things he should have helped with over the past few weeks while he’d been in his coma and catching up on all he’d missed.

Though before any of that, first was his new passive point, just patiently waiting for him. As excited as Vin was to take it and spend it immediately on something useful, Lumel actually suggested he hold off on doing so for a level or two. According to her, in the same way the System offered up certain passives as options when a person’s attributes hit 50, even more impressive passives were made available when those attributes hit 100. With Vin’s magic and focus attributes both in the 90s, he decided he was willing to hold onto the point for a little while, just to see what the System would offer him for hitting that milestone.

Of course this tidbit of information came only after he’d dropped his latest bonus points into vigor, which was nothing more than bad luck on his end.

That decision made, next on the list were his apprentices. After giving them the short version of what had happened, it was his turn to be surprised when all three of them revealed that they’d managed to reach their prestige classes at roughly the same time. Shuvo had been first, becoming a Runic Alchemist and streaming tears of joy down his face as he revealed his accomplishment. Thomas had become a Magical Student, looking prouder than Vin could ever remember. And Jess…

Jess became an Enchanter.

“That’s the full prestige class? Just ‘Enchanter’?” Vin asked, getting a nod from the woman that sent her usual dangling earrings swaying back and forth.

“Yep. Any reason it’s only one word instead of two like everyone else’s?”

“It means it’s a unique prestige,” Vin explained, making a mental note to check in with Golrim sometime and figure out precisely what that meant. “It’s not inherently better than other prestige classes, just more specialized. Like how Slayers are focused largely on hunting monsters specifically.”

“Huh,” she said, aimlessly playing with one of her earrings as she looked lost in thought. “Interesting.”

Unlike his previous students who had backed out of further magical lessons after hitting their prestige, Shuvo, Thomas, and Jess were all more than eager to get their hands on even more magic. Vin knew he had to get them to pump the brakes a bit, but he also wanted to reward their enthusiasm. Leaving each of them with a tier-2 spell of their choosing and the required building blocks to get there if they were missing them, he left them to it.

After that, he checked in with the council, sitting in on a very overdue meeting as he got brought up to speed on Terra as a whole. The plan with the festival to celebrate six months since Terra’s founding was moving forward without a hitch, and it was doing exactly what they’d hoped it would. Morale over the missing seventh wavers had been more than restored, as everyone threw themselves headfirst into preparing for the festival and first actual holiday here on Edregon. Crafters worked on masterpieces and support classes tried to perfect their skills. Combat classes were preparing for a massive tournament Phil was putting together that would take place within the colosseum, and the mood around town was higher than ever before.

“We have to hand it to Golrim yet again, the man definitely knows how to run a kingdom,” Spur admitted. “Talk of the festival has been going around like wildfire, and keeping even a quarter of our preparations a surprise has been nearly impossible. I’ve had to beat Theodore away with a stick to keep him from getting his hands on our plans. That’s not a joke, for the record, he just wouldn’t stop changing his disguise and coming for them. It was a small stick, though, for what it’s worth.”

“It probably isn’t very fair of us to ask this of you after everything you just went through…” Witherson admitted, before moving forward with her request anyway. “But how soon until you can head back out to finish your work on the third ring? Your map of the three rings is one of the first things that ended up getting leaked, which means we are sort of on the hook for it now. We managed to keep the fact that you spent the last few weeks in a coma a secret. As far as everyone thinks, you’ve been away working on getting your map done in time.”

“We’ve got about two weeks still before the festival,” Vin said, shrugging as he thought about the logistics. “That’s more than enough time really. I was planning to push a little bit beyond the third ring down south to investigate the fragments that the Rebel Queen had advanced into, but my team checked in on them and got them situated already, so I’m good to turn my attention to the north. There are only six fragments up there I need to hit in order to finish up the third ring. Should be simple enough to go through all six if I have two weeks to work with.”

“Just bear in mind you also need time to actually create your map once you’re back here in Terra,” Spur pointed out. “We need a big fancy banner, so your Cartography skill is going to get a real workout. We can make something more fancy down the road, like an engraved plaque of some sort.”

“Duly noted,” Vin said, rubbing his hands together in excitement. Even if he’d been in his own head battling a former Arch Mage for ownership of his own soul, he’d technically spent the last few weeks lying around. He was more than ready to get back out there and finish what he started.