The rest of the evening was spent lounging around in the apartment chatting with Lumel while the two of them filled the other in on everything they'd missed. Vin learned all about how she'd spent days trying to understand the bare basics of the spatial magic the Gods had used to design the Underside, and he in turn told her all about the valley in the mist and the lightning fragment. As per usual, Lumel was beyond curious about the valley. Different societies and the way people chose to live their lives always interested her.

"That's so strange!" she said for the third time, her brow furrowed as she tried to wrap her head around the valley. "What do you think was stopping anyone from just taking a class and never telling the others? For all we know, everyone in that valley had given into the System long ago, and they were just pretending to be holier-than-thou to one another. What if the people who choose to admit they're taking a class and leave the valley are the only honest ones?"

"I… I have no idea," Vin admitted, leaning back on the sofa as he stared at her in shock. "The thought never even occurred to me. I guess if someone developed a passive or Capstone that would let them see if someone else had a class, similar to Phil's Challenger's Intuition, that would let them know the truth… But then they couldn't actually call anyone out without admitting that they themselves had given in and taken a class… Wow."

While he was struggling with that, the front door swung open and Shia walked in, looking a little worse for wear. A number of the leaves making up her chain-link style armor were bent askew, and countless strands of hair were hanging messily from her long braid.

"Hey Shia," he said, waving at her from his spot on the couch. "You look terrible."

"That's about how I feel, too." She snorted, shaking her head. "Took a while, but my master finally showed up. Gave me a few exercises that have been kicking my butt. I need to go take a bath and repair my armor. Oh, good to see you Lumel!"

"Nice to see you too," Lumel said, smiling shyly at the Druid and subconsciously covering her face with her hood. Even now, Lumel didn't do so well around anyone other than him, terrified of how people tended to react when they saw her transparent skin and how her blood and muscles shifted underneath.

"Oh, before I forget…" Shia tossed a lumpy pouch at him, which Vin caught out of the air. Glancing inside, he raised his eyebrow as he realized the entire pack was stuffed full of strips of jerky. "That's for Reginald, in case you see him before I do. I still owed him a bag of jerky for our last bet."

"I'll give it to him when I see him," Vin said, laying it on the coffee table.

"Word of advice, Lumel, don't bet against the rat." With those parting words of wisdom, Shia headed into the bathroom and the sounds of the tub filling with water came through the door. After staring at the meat for a few seconds, Lumel gave him a confused look.

"Why is Shia giving Reginald a large bag filled with jerky?"

"Shia, Scule, and Reginald all had a bet going when we entered the misty fragment," he explained. "Scule bet that the fragment was empty, and Shia bet that the people within somehow managed to repel the Red Dawn. Only Reginald bet that the Red Dawn never even managed to find the people within the fragment, so he won the bet, which was jerky and some wine. I'm not even sure if a rat can drink alcohol though…"

"You guys have the weirdest adventures." Lumel giggled. "Speaking of which, would you mind if I tried tagging along on your next one? I'm still not entirely certain if I want to make that a regular thing, but now that I've finally prestiged, I figured I needed to try joining you guys at least once. I'm a Mage of Discovery now, after all. I probably need to try discovering some stuff."

"Of course, I'm sure everyone would be happy to have you! And it sounds like your new class will fit in perfectly," he admitted. "I'm not sure when we'll be heading out again, though. I want to make sure everything's okay with the infernals before we do."

"Oh yeah, how are they doing? I haven't seen them since you led them back to your fragment."

"Okay, but not great." He sighed, wondering where to even begin. "With Madam Trebella gone, they need a new leader. Everyone wants Xaril to take over the role, but there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that would ever happen."

"Xaril… the annoying one you told me about?"

"Yep, that's the one. Anyway, I'll know more tomorrow. Fingers crossed they've gotten it all figured out by now and I don't need to do anything more than introduce their leader to Spur and the other council members."

"No need to go overboard, just do what you can," she said, offering him a small smile. "You do more than enough for everyone and Terra as a whole from what I hear. I think you earned a pass on this one."

"Thanks, Lumel, I appreciate it." Yawning, Vin realized just how long they'd been talking as the distant sounds of the clock tower struck midnight. "Wow, time flies when you're having fun, I suppose. You cool if we call it a night?"

"Of course," she said, hurriedly getting to her feet and looking like she wanted to say something. After a few seconds, and a surprising amount of blood rushing to her face, she leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. "Goodnight!"

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"Goodnight," he said, blinking as she vanished with a flash of purple. From the sounds of movement in her room, she'd used a tier 3 spatial spell to teleport all of ten feet.

Strange… Lumel doesn't normally run away from me with Dimensional Shift these days unless she's really embarrassed about something.

With a shrug, he decided not to worry about it. Even if he was curious, he wasn't about to pry into her affairs if she didn't want him to. So far, their strange relationship had worked out surprisingly well, even with their long stretches where they didn't actually see one another. After heading to his own room and pulling his shimmerwing mattress out of nowhere with Dimensional Sheath, he plopped down on what had to be a small slice of heaven and immediately fell asleep.

The next morning, Vin started off his day by fulfilling his promise to his two newest students. First, he headed back into the Support Guild and left the runic formation for Sense Magic floating in the air for Ronald once he was ready. Then, he went out to the nearby river, only to find Wanda already sitting where he'd met her the other day, deep in the throes of fishing if the bucket of fish beside her was any indication. She must have seen the look of surprise on his face, because she smirked.

"You must not know a lot about fishing, huh? I get up with the sun. It's the best time to get set up and start catching."

"It would seem there is in fact a lot I don't know about fishing," he admitted. "Still want me to leave you with the runic formation for Sense Water?"

"Please. Fishing has a lot of downtime, so I'll have plenty of time to practice."

Nodding, he did just that. Wishing her good luck with both the fish and the spell, he then turned and started heading back toward town, only to pause at the new face he saw approaching him.

A woman in a long brown cloak and a monocle of all things on one eye was making her way across the meadow, clearly aimed directly at him. Her face was a hard mask free of emotion, and her voice was gruff as she stopped immediately before him.

"Vinnie Stone?" she asked, glancing around as if ensuring that their conversation wasn't being listened in on.

"Please call me Vin," he said, wincing at the sound of his actual name being spoken aloud once more. He'd thought only Spur and Myers were aware of his greatest shame, so he couldn't say he was all that pleased to find this random stranger somehow knew it as well. "Do you need something?"

"Town Hall. Ten O'clock. Be there," she said, her gravelly voice sounding like she hadn't had anything to drink in days. Before he could offer her some water, she turned on her heels and began walking away.

Vin stared at her back as she left, wondering what the hell that was all about.

Then he remembered he was actually one of the people in charge of Terra, and if there was a mysterious person wandering around demanding people show up to unknown meetings, he should probably make sure nothing nefarious was going on.

Shaking his head, he cast Stone Wall, causing a thick wall to erupt out of the ground in front of the mysterious woman and cutting her off. Without hesitating, she tried to turn and walk around it, as if her path hadn't just been impeded, and Vin rolled his eyes as he cast Stone Wall two more times, fully boxing her in. Now, if she wanted to leave, she'd have to turn around and face him.

To his utter astonishment, the woman pressed her hands against the wall as if examining it for clues, slowly trying to slide her body along it as she reached the opening, all while avoiding looking at him. She tried to slide around the edge of the wall and escape the half-formed box without turning in his direction, which was when he grabbed her by the shoulder.

With his golem hand, allowing it to flare blue as a warning.

"Alright, I'm more than used to dealing with quirky people thanks to Theodore, but I have to make sure you're not some sort of threat to town," he said, feeling her stiffen under his grip. "Seeing as you look like a budget Sherlock Holmes, you're an Earther, right? What wave are you from?"

Before she could even answer, Vin suddenly recalled something Myers had mentioned back when they were trying to figure out who had killed Patty and Kyle. She'd said they had an Investigator from the third wave, someone who had been a private eye back on Earth, and had even mentioned that she was a tad difficult to work with. While he wondered if this was that same woman, she finally turned to acknowledge him once more.

"Names Sherly. Investigator. You might have a grip on me, but I've got my eye on you, Vinnie."

Oh yeah, she's definitely like Theodore.

"Look, Sherly… You're more than welcome to go around pretending to be a detective, or whatever. But please try not to worry anyone, alright? Edregon's scary enough as it is without random strangers demanding you meet them at specific locations and times without an explanation. I'm assuming this is you trying to tell me in your own roundabout way that Spur wants me at today's council meeting?"

"The clues certainly point toward that being a safe assumption." She nodded, not once dropping the gravely voice she spoke with.

I wonder if that helps her level up, or something… There's no way that's good for her throat.

Finally letting go of her shoulder, Vin could only shake his head as he got to work dismantling the stone walls he'd created. "Thanks for the warning, I'll head over there in just a minute."

By the time he'd finished cleaning up, Sherly was nowhere to be seen. Edregon gets all types, I guess, he thought, wiping his hands and making his way over to town hall. Wishing Linda a good morning and getting a welcoming smile in return, Vin stepped into the usual meeting room, finding the familiar faces of the four other council members waiting for him.

Along with the new leader of the infernals.

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