Chương 261: (256) 4.35. Who Needs Sleep

"Vin!" Lumel shouted, running over to him and throwing her arms around him the moment he entered the small cloud tent. Despite the fact that Shia, Scule, and Reginald were all lounging off to the side, next to a tiny pile of what looked like luminescent moss used to illuminate the tent, she held him tight, pressing her face against his chest. Normally the pulmon was far more shy and reserved around other people, but it seemed her concern was overshadowing her usual temperament.

"I was afraid you all had fallen into the 'darkened depths' below! None of the avisul would tell me what was down there, but they refused to go even close to it and warned me if you had gone that deep, you wouldn't be coming back. I'm so glad you're okay!"

"It's alright, we're going to be okay," he said, reassuring her as he wrapped his arms around her and returned the hug. Glancing over her head, he looked at Shia and Scule.

"And I checked with the man in charge of the village. According to him, this cloud is magically reinforced. No need to worry about it collapsing out from under us."

"Well thank the Gods for that," Scule muttered, sinking down into the soft cloud and leaning his head back on Reginald's fluff. The petian was so exhausted he didn't even fire off any quips about Vin and Lumel hugging.

"So what happened? All I know is after spending hours flying around looking for you, all of a sudden, there you were! The avisul have exceptionally good hearing, and they picked up on your screams before I even spotted you. You shot up out of nowhere!"

"Remember how I learned Aqua Sphere in order to potentially save your life one day?" he asked, chuckling at her confused expression.

"Yeah, I didn't expect it to be the spell to save me either." Vin quickly ran her through a limited version of what happened. He focused mainly on the spells he used in order to save them, and purposefully tried to make the World Eaters sound far less terrifying than they actually were. Lumel clearly picked up on his hesitation and the way he shuddered slightly as he spoke, because she simply took his hand in hers and let him get through his story.

It wasn't until he finished up that the sleeve of her robe pulled up her arm slightly and he realized she had horrific red marks along her wrist.

"Lumel, what happened?!" he gasped, gingerly pulling her arm closer and examining the wounds. It was weird to see her transparent skin torn up and marred, but the blood that was pooling there and clotting told a rather clear story.

"It's nothing, it's just from flying around with the avisul looking for you guys for a few hours," she tried to reassure him.

"They had to return to the village and swap out fliers every so often, but I went with each group. The only way I could go with them was if one of them held me by the wrists in their talons. After a few hours…" She shrugged, trying to downplay the injury. Vin knew that pulmons were already naturally more fragile than a standard human. Even with her robes to act as cushions, her wrists appeared as if they'd been scraped completely raw of skin.

"Lumel, two of us are capable of healing magic," Shia frowned.

"Why bother trying to hide something like this from us? Obviously, we don't want you to be in pain!"

"Compared to what you all went through, my injuries don't seem so bad," Lumel muttered, pulling her hood a bit further over her face and shying away from the Druid.

"…Not to mention, I know Vin told me to, but the moment we all got into danger, I ran away again."

"Lumel, there's a big difference between running away because you're scared, and running off to get help," Vin said, gently pulling her arm closer and going to cast Renewal before remembering he was running on dregs. Enough of his mana had come back that his pounding headache was down to a dull throb, but it probably wouldn't be smart to empty himself again. His head still just felt fuzzy and strange in general as well, but he was doing his best to ignore that for the moment.

"Sorry, Shia, I'm still about empty. Can you heal her?"

"Of course." Taking Lumel's hands in her own, Shia clicked her tongue.

"Honestly, you're more intelligent than this. I know you feel guilty that you weren't trapped down there with us, but we literally only survived because you left to find the avisul. If anything, you're a hero!"

"I'm sorry…" Lumel whispered, meekly letting Shia heal her wounded wrists. Vin watched curiously how her blood went through clotting, to reforming transparent skin, to flowing normally again all within a couple of seconds as the magic did its job.

"I've been working on viewing myself in a better light. It's just hard sometimes." Reginald perked up at that, squeaking out a few sentences before nodding his head and lowering it back onto the cloud floor. Scule cleared his throat and translated.

"Reginald says 'you're the only one who will always be by your side, so you might as well try and enjoy the company.' What Seer did you get that one off of, huh?"

"As usual, Reginald's right," Shia said, finally letting Lumel's hands drop.

"We think you're pretty amazing after everything you've done. If you don't trust your own judgement, why not trust ours?" That seemed to shock the pulmon into silence, and Vin chuckled as he took her hand in his own, gently running his thumb over her soft skin.

"Maybe don't trust Scule's judgement, though. That tends to lead to trouble more often than not."

"Hey now, if this cloud wasn't so comfortable, I'd get up and smack you for that!" Scule said, having now sunk deep enough into the cloud that Vin could barely see the top of him.

"Ahh who am I kidding. You did a hell of a job getting us out of that jam, Vin. You earned one smack-free night, I suppose."

"It is the middle of the night," Shia said, yawning as if to prove her point.

"And we all did just survive a rather harrowing experience. Maybe we should hit the… cloud?"

"Forget middle of the night, we're pretty firmly in 'early morning' territory," Scule groaned.

"Unlike a certain Explorer, I don't have a billion points in my endurance to help me stay awake. I think I'm going to pass out for a week. Wake me once this cloud drifts close enough to the fragment barrier that we can casually stroll out of this death trap."

"Getting out of here is going to be a bit scarier knowing what's down there," Vin admitted, shuddering slightly at the thought.

"Maybe we could stay here for a few days? I'd love to chat with their Cloud Whisperers and see if they have any magic I could pick up."

"Again, I'm planning to sleep for a week, so that's fine by me," Scule said, his words joined by a tiny thumbs up being shoved out of the petian-shaped hole he'd sunken into. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"I would enjoy getting to talk to the avisul and learning a bit more about their culture," Lumel admitted, looking excited by the idea.

"After all, these people are literal Airwalkers. I'd love to learn about how they function!"

"I'm willing to bet they have some farms or plants tucked around here somewhere," Shia said, tapping her chin in thought.

"I'm fine spending a few days here. But are you sure that's okay? The infernals were expecting us back after only a single day. Won't us remaining here keep them from moving into Alka's fragment?"

"Damn it, I forget about all that," he said, stifling a groan as he recalled other people were relying on him now.

"Can you send Erik a message or something with that magic seed? Ask him to pass word on to the Earthers for us through Kelly?"

"I'll need to find something similar to soil in order to use it, and that might be tricky…"

"Oh, I can help with that!" Lumel said, holding out her hand that wasn't currently holding his and causing a bag of dirt to appear in it with a flash of purple.

"I took this ages ago, back when I first set foot on dry land after using the dungeons to leave my fragment. I'd never seen actual dirt before, so I was super excited and ran it through a bunch of tests. You can use it however you'd like."

"Lumel, you're just the best," Shia said, eagerly taking the dirt like it was a newborn infant and earning a small blush from the pulmon.

"You know some people who also have access to seemingly endless dimensional storage could have thought to shove some dirt in them for their Druid teammate by now!"

"I only shove things of value in here!" Scule's voice argued from within the cloud.

"I'm not going to fill it with dirt! Smite me!" Reginald squeaked out a warning, but it came far too late. Tucking her dirt under one arm, Shia crouched down and shoved her hand into the cloud, yanking a shouting Scule out of the ground and giving them both a terrifying smile.

"I think we'll leave the two of you alone," she said, bringing Scule up to her face and pulling her lips back even further, revealing her full set of serrated teeth.

"I'm going to go teach a certain Rogue all about the many applications of dirt."

"Saint! Saint! Vin, I'm crying 'Saint' here, come on!" Scule shouted desperately, unable to escape from Shia's grasp despite all his wriggling.

"Reginald! Tell my storyyyy-" Shia walked out of the cloud-tent, the strange material making it up revealing itself to be shockingly sound proof as Scule's pleas for help were cut off in an instant when the flap sealed itself shut once more. Shaking his head, Reginald let out a tired squeak before getting up and stretching. Giving them both a respectful salute with his tail, he squeezed out the flap and ran off after his troublesome companion.

"Are they always like that?" Lumel asked after a few seconds, still staring at the near-solid wall they'd vanished through. Vin couldn't help but laugh in response.

"They play it up a bit when we go through anything particularly dangerous, but yeah, that's pretty normal. It's kinda their way of celebrating us all surviving and coming out of a tough scrape in one piece. You'll get used to it."

"So you still want me to come with you on future adventures?" Lumel's voice was quiet, as if she wasn't sure if she really wanted an answer to that question.

"Do I still want you there to yank our asses out of the fire like you did today? Yes, yes I would very much like that," he said, giving her a big smile.

"Seriously, you're amazing. If there's one thing I've taken from all this, it's that I need to stop dragging my feet and finally learn Dimensional Shift myself. Or at the very least, some method of flight."

"While I do think that's a great idea, don't forget your Dimensional Shift won't be as powerful as mine," she reminded him yet again, almost as if she was scared he'd finally learn the spell and be annoyed when it wasn't what he wanted.

"You don't have my passives or Capstones I picked up as a Dimensional Mage."

"Don't worry, even if I can't warp around such massive distances like you can, a shorter ranged teleport still sounds incredibly useful." Yawning, Vin realized after their near-death experience and barely escaping from the World Eaters, he was utterly exhausted, even with his high endurance. His body had functionally crashed from adrenaline at least half a dozen times in the last twenty-four hours, and all that stress was finally starting to wear on him. Maybe that was why his head felt so stuffy and thick.

"Well, it's been one hell of a long day. We probably should try to get at least a few hours of sleep. Any chance you know if the other weird cloud-tents are nearby?"

"This one… this one is for both of us," she admitted quietly, blood pooling in her face as she stared down at the ground.

"When I first appeared and told them I needed help finding you guys, I mentioned you and I were lovemates in my haste. I don't know what that means to these people, exactly, but they told me this was our tent."

"Ah, sorry… I didn't realize!" he said, clearing his throat at the misunderstanding and hoping his own face wasn't turning as red as it felt.

"I don't want you to be uncomfortable. I can go find Telin or Pluck and ask for a different one." Vin turned to head out the flap and do just that, but a gentle tug on the back of his shirt stopped him. Lumel's whisper was so quiet, he thought he imagined the next words out of her mouth.

"... I don't mind…" Slowly, Vin turned to face her. To his surprise, in stark contrast to her timid words, the pulmon's hood was fully pulled back for once, revealing her head in its entirety. Weeks ago, he might have flinched at the blood rapidly filling her cheeks as she blushed, or the way the muscles around her lips trembled slightly as she tried to keep her determination on her face. But now, all he noticed were her deep, purple eyes swirling with mana, and her quivering lips as she stared up at him nervously.

"Lumel…" he started, gently taking her hand in his own and meeting her determined gaze.

"Are you sure? Seriously, I'd be more than happy to stay, you have no idea. But I don't want to rush you into anything you're not ready for. We have all the time in the world."

"You nearly died today," she countered, the memory of the day's events adding a bit of steel to her voice as she took a deep, shaky breath.

"I already knew Edregon was dangerous, of course. But everything that happened today… Spending hour after hour being dragged across the sky, not knowing if you guys were dead or alive… It helped me realize something. I need to be more assertive when I want something, because there's no guarantee it won't be ripped from my hands while I'm still gathering my courage to go for it." Before Vin could say anything, there was a flash of purple, and Lumel was suddenly holding an extra set of robes in her free hand.

Without breaking eye contact, she squeezed his hand in her own, before tossing the robes over her shoulder. The thick robes landed directly on the glowing moss illuminating the tent, throwing them into total darkness. Vin could only hear the sound of his own heart pounding in his ears, along with his and Lumel's shaky breathing. He felt her grip tighten even further around his hand as she leaned forward, the heat radiating from her body suddenly more noticeable than ever before.

Her voice shook as she spoke almost directly in his ear, but she managed to get the words out, if only barely.

"I… I think I'm down… a set of robes…" she whispered, gulping and placing her other hand against his chest, startling him at the sudden contact and nearly flinching back herself when she felt just how fast his heart was beating. Feeling the effect her actions were having on him must have given her an extra sliver of confidence, however, as the shakiness in her voice subsided a bit and her tone grew more certain.

"I need to replace them, and I only have one other pair…

"Will you help me take them off?"