Chương 320: (313) 5.9. Ribbit Rally

Getting to watch the warana pilot their lily pad with nothing but their breath was quite interesting, and Vin felt his Common Ally passive grant him a little more information about the new race of people they'd discovered. The warana were amphibious, unlike Lumel's people who couldn't survive for long outside of the water without magical protection. Though also unlike Lumel, who could breathe both water and air, the warana couldn't actually breathe underwater.

They were capable of holding their breath for hours at a time, no doubt thanks to their magical lungs, but they did need to come back up for air eventually.

"The gathering is where warana come together to rest and talk," Tud explained as they skimmed across the water.

"Should try and gather more Fishers there to help find your friend."

"That's a good idea, thank you Tud," Vin said, finally peeling his eyes away from the rotating Sailors to look at Tud while doing his best to keep a straight face. The warana didn't really have many facial expressions, and Vin got the sense rather quickly that their smiles unnerved the poor creature. I wonder if this is what Shia feels like all the time with her pointed teeth…

"I don't like the way that guy looks at me and Reginald," Scule muttered as Tud turned and went back to watching the water. When they'd asked, he'd explained how the minimum crew size for a pad was three. Two to handle the sailing, and one to monitor the water for threats and keep their eyes peeled for food.

"If I vanish, just know that guy tried to eat me."

"I'm pretty certain trying to eat a Rogue of Poisons would give someone serious indigestion," Shia snickered, petting a snoozing Reginald in the palm of her hand.

"Honestly, maybe that should be our secret weapon the next time we get attacked by an epic monster. Just chuck Scule into their mouth."

"There wasn't enough poison in the world to take down that creepy flesh-worm thing," Scule shuddered.

"Glad I didn't have to join the fight against that one."

"Your Living Giant was amazing, Shia," Lumel said, beaming at the Druid.

"I watched part of your fight against one of the ends of the monster. The fact that you held off an epic monster on your own is incredible."

"It was just one small part of the monster," Shia said, fidgeting with her braid under Lumel's praise.

"If that thing turned its full attention on me, I would have been ground into paste. Alka and Vin are the ones that cut their way into the center and actually gave us a shot at winning."

"And I don't plan on doing it again," Vin said, trying not to remember the sensation of being crushed by acidic flesh on all sides.

"I'm already dreading what the next epic monster the System is going to throw at us will be."

"Myers let slip that she had an idea or two for some 'heavy ordinance' going forward," Shia said, scrunching up her face at the term.

"I don't quite get what she meant by that, but when I asked, she said she wanted to devise a weapon that would help against even monsters as large as that thing had been."

"Dear God, that's terrifying," Vin said, wondering what on earth Myers was planning. This was the woman who had reinvented explosives using monster parts. There was no telling what else she was capable of coming up with.

"We are at the gathering," Tud called out, drawing all their attention toward the front. The gathering, as it turned out, was a massive collection of lily pad ships almost identical to Tud's own. There had to be at least a few hundred boats all pressed up together, most of their sails lowered and the warana lounging around chatting with one another.

Many were eating colorful fish or working on repairing sails with pieces of new lily pads, yet others were simply lying on the ground, curled up and unmoving as even more warana walked around them.

"Uh, Tud," Vin said, staring at the many motionless warana.

"... Are those guys okay?"

"Yes. They are resting," Tud said, pointing at the nearest clump with his spear.

"Warana rest for long periods of time, and cannot be woken until fully rested. It is why we come together and gather, to watch over one another as we rest."

"They can't wake up? Like, not at all?" Scule asked, suddenly looking quite a bit more curious about this fragment.

"They're also naked and eating what looks like entirely raw fish, so maybe don't get your hopes up," Shia snorted, deflating the petian's sails a bit. The number of warana was quite large, but the sea of greenish-blue skin made it easy enough to pick out the two missing Earthers. Toward the center of the gathering sat two people in classic gray Project Ark fatigues on their own lily pad, looking more bored than anything. At the very least, Vin was glad to see they weren't freaking out.

None of the warana were even attempting to communicate with them, and the Earthers didn't seem to mind.

"I see the Earthers," Vin said, pointing them out.

"Well that was easy enough." The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"I'll admit, I was half expecting to find them being roasted over a stew pot or something," Scule said, speaking in his own language.

"Anyway, what now? Do we split the party and have some of us bring them back while the others work on finding Alka, or do we all lead them back and then return later?"

"The dungeon is almost certainly underwater like back on my fragment, so dungeon travel is out," Lumel pointed out, turning to look at Vin.

"If you want to stay and hunt for Alka, I could lead the two of them to safety with some chained warps and just meet you all back at the town. I know you have to be even more worried than I am."

"It's weird. I know she's completely fine, but I still can't help but want to find her as fast as we can," Vin admitted, giving Lumel a small smile.

"That said, I don't want to send you off on your own. I know you're literally the one in the least amount of danger here, seeing as you can actually swim well and teleport of all things, but I'd rather we stick together for now."

"Why don't we just tell the Earthers to hold tight until tomorrow?" Shia offered.

"Not like they have any choice anyway. We get your divine boon reset, grab Alka, and then we can all go back to Terra together via lily pad. Tud might be willing to sail us to the edge of the fragment even."

"We should probably check and see what the Fishers actually want in exchange for helping us get Alka back," Scule pointed out.

"... Maybe pants or something."

"Do you guys mind asking around while I check in with the Earthers?" Vin asked, looking between all of them.

"They'll probably feel more comfortable seeing just another human after their rough landing on Edregon."

"We'll take care of it," Shia nodded, gently transferring a snoozing Reginald into Vin's pocket as their lily pad docked with the others.

"Tud, do you mind introducing us to some of your Fishers?"

"That is fine," the warana said, blinking slowly.

"Follow me." While Murk and Pin began using some sort of sticky algae to carefully connect their pad to the rest of the gathering, Vin hopped off the pad himself and began making his way forward. Maybe it was the fact that the warana had been watching the two Earthers for the better part of two days now, but his sudden appearance didn't seem to garner much attention. Honestly, he got more stares just from strolling through Terra than he was getting here at the gathering. You know, this is kinda nice.

Maybe I'll come back some day. The two Earthers spotted him while he was still a few pads out, and they quickly jumped to their feet, their eyes widening in recognition of his own faded Project Ark fatigues.

"You're from Earth!" the first exclaimed, an older man Vin would guess was in his mid-fifties or sixties based on his balding gray hair and potbelly. He looked just about ready to cry at Vin's appearance, and his partner was no less excited.

"Thank God! We have no idea where we are and none of these… people speak English," she explained, peering nervously at the warana once more. She looked to be close to the man in age, with hard wrinkles on her face and a thick pair of glasses in front of her eyes.

"Do you know where the others are?"

"Yes, I came to bring you two back to them," Vin said, doing his best not to laugh at their joint relieved sighs at the news.

"Do you two know each other?"

"Not before we were brought here by the frog-people, but we haven't had much to do but talk while sitting around," the man said.

"I'm Paul, a glorified desk jockey."

"And I'm Eleanor, a crossing guard," she said.

"Really?" Vin asked, more than a little curious as to the answer to his next question.

"What classes did you guys pick when you came to Edregon?"

"I always wanted to try my hand at writing, so I grabbed Scribe," Paul shrugged.

"Apparently, the class starting passive makes you ambidextrous when it comes to writing, which is kinda neat, I suppose."

"I chose Bodyguard," Eleanor said, catching the look on his face despite his best efforts.

"What? I like making sure people are safe, and none of the other options interested me."

"Sorry, that was rude of me to react in that way," Vin said, his face heating up slightly.

"Once I get you two back to everyone else, I can introduce you to someone who can help you plan out your futures. If that's something you're interested in. I'm definitely more of a 'go it your own' kind of guy, so no pressure."

"We can worry about that once we're out of here," Paul said, all but bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"Can we go? I'll feel a lot safer surrounded by humans again."

"Ah… Well, for starters, you should probably get used to other races. Terra, the town we live in, has a handful of other non-human inhabitants, and I have a feeling we're only going to get more as time goes on."

"We have a town?" Eleanor asked, looking taken aback.

"Hasn't it only been a few months?"

"A lot can happen when you have crafters involved," Vin chuckled.

"So here's the thing. On our way over to collect you, one of my teammates ended up getting snatched up by a monster and dragged underwater. Super long story, but the short of it is, she's still alive, and we need to rescue her before we go. And to do that, we need to wait until tomorrow, so I'm going to need the two of you to wait a bit longer before we head back to town."

"How on earth is she still alive?" Paul asked.

"You said she was snatched up by a shark monster? What the hell does that look like?"

"You'll probably sleep better at night if I don't tell you," Vin said.

"Or at least wait until we get out of this fragment."

"Fragment? What do you mean by that?" Eleanor asked, adjusting her glasses and peering at him more closely.

"And what happened to your arm?!" Oh yeah, brand-new to Edregon… I should really start keeping track of how many times I've had to give this speech.

"Lost the arm to a deranged Relic Guardian with some serious faith issues before getting a replacement from a magical golem with the help of an angry dwarf," he said, pulling out his journal and flipping to the map of Edregon he'd been adding to all this time.

"So Edregon is constructed from fragments of other worlds, you see…"