Chương 357: (350) 5.46. Well This Sucks

The sound of Alka screaming was so foreign to him that Vin just stood there as the barrier sealed back up, staring at the shifting grey energy in surprise. Once the shock had passed, he snapped into action.

"Shia, cut it again!" he demanded, running toward her.

"My boon makes me the next hardest to kill, I'm going in solo! Give me thirty seconds and then follow after!"

"Got it!" Shia nodded, raising the staff again.

"Good luck!" The moment the gash was made, Vin dove through the opening, rolling like Alka had trained them as he jumped to his feet into a combat stance. Preparing the runic formation for Stone Shot in his core, he readied himself for anything. He was prepared for monsters or waiting rankers or some other threat to jump him in the dim light. He wasn't prepared for darkness. Total and absolute darkness met his eyes, more complete than any he'd ever seen before.

It somehow felt even darker than if he'd had his eyes squeezed shut and his head pressed into a pillow, which didn't make any sense. He did somehow see a notification about entering a new fragment, but he dismissed it immediately.

"Vin? Is that you?" Alka shouted, sounding like she was about fifteen feet to his left.

"I can't see crap in this fragment! I couldn't find where to come back!"

"Alka?" he asked, realizing what must have happened.

"We heard you screaming! We thought you were in trouble!"

"No, I'm blind!" she snapped, frustration clear in her voice.

"I stepped away, and then I must have turned slightly because I found the barrier, but I don't know where the slit is! I can't see anything!"

"Light should still come through from the neilans' fragment into this one through the opening," Vin pointed out, blindly stumbling back to the barrier to make sure he didn't get lost like she had.

"Wow, why didn't I think of that?" Alka asked, her voice thick with sarcasm.

"This isn't just darkness from a lack of light. I don't know what's going on, but it's magical somehow. Light isn't a problem for me, I can see in the dark just fine, but I can't see in here."

"Oh yeah, I forgot you could see in the dark," Vin admitted, raising a hand and experimenting." Light." To his astonishment, he could feel the mana coursing through his runic formation and tell his spell was active, but there wasn't the slightest change to the darkness all around them.

"Okay… Yeah, something's up with the darkness," he said, mentally moving the spell around to no avail.

"There should be a blindingly bright ball of magical light directly in front of my face at the moment, but I still can't see anything."

"I think we may have figured out why the rankers weren't able to get through the fragment," Alka drawled.

"Hold that thought, thirty seconds is nearly up!" Like Alka, he wasn't certain if he was directly in front of the barrier anymore, but at the very least, he knew sound could travel through it when an opening was cut. Mentally counting in his head, he waited for the full thirty seconds to pass before shouting quickly.

"No danger, just darkness, can't see anything, can't find the opening!"

"Fantastic warning, I'm sure that got the point across," Alka said from right next to him, causing him to jump.

"Honestly, it could have been more clear," Scule's voice sounded from a few feet to their left.

"Scule?" Vin called out, turning toward the petian.

"Why did you come through without the others?"

"Oh, we're all here," Shia said, her voice coming from right beside Scule.

"We were already preparing to warp over to you guys if you hadn't come through, so when you said it wasn't dangerous, we decided to go for it."

"This is… a rather disturbing fragment," Lumel's voice said, sounding a tad shaken.

"Pulmons are capable of seeing in extremely low levels of light, which is why we can shut off our optic nerves when we close our eyes. I don't think I've ever been in this level of darkness before."

"I'm assuming this is some sort of magical darkness and Vin didn't just forget he has the Light spell?" Scule asked.

"Yeah, magical darkness," Vin nodded, before realizing doing so was pointless.

"We need to be careful. I highly doubt the rankers are afraid of a little darkness, which means there must be threats within the fragment. Otherwise they would have just blindly marched through."

"Agreed," Alka said.

"So now what? We all just hold hands and blindly march on through ourselves until something attacks us?"

"Actually, we don't need to march completely blind," Vin said, realizing he had just the spell for the situation." Tremorsense." As his spell began sending out rapid pulses of magic to detect vibrations, he let out a sigh of relief at the moving mental image of his friends that instantly formed in his mind. It was grainy and black and white, but he could finally see what was actually going on.

"Oh yeah, forgot you had that one," Scule said, turning to look in his general direction again.

"Suddenly, I'm feeling a lot more confident in our odds of survival."

"It's not perfect," Vin admitted.

"And it won't work great on things that aren't currently moving. But yeah, if it's alive and nearby, I'll be able to detect it." Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. While watching the picture of his friends in his head, Vin blinked as the black-and-white schlime turned and made a beeline straight for Alka. The moment Epli touched Alka's leg, the Slayer leapt back, letting out a stream of curses as she did so.

"Gods damn it, Scule, did you just touch my leg?!"

"What? I'm over here!" Scule responded angrily from a dozen feet away.

"Maybe it was Reginald?" An annoyed squeak came from Reginald, who was slowly but surely making his way toward Vin, his nose twitching all the while. Seeing all this go down, Vin came to a sudden realization.

"Wait… I'm not the only one who can 'see' in here. Epli and Reginald aren't totally blind."

"Blind?" Epli asked as it moved toward Alka again.

"Confused?"

"Of course! Schlimes don't have eyes in the first place, they must have some other method of seeing the world around them!" Shia said, tapping her chin in thought.

"Whatever Epli is doing, it's interesting that she can see while Alka's magical vision is blinded just like ours. And I suppose Reginald has his sensitive nose to rely on as well."

"What about you, can't you lick the air or something?" Scule asked.

"I can taste magic, I'm not a snake," Shia snorted.

"And for the record, I am tasting quite a lot of it in fact. Though it's not a flavor I've ever tasted before, which means I can only assume it's darkness, or something similar."

"That's not ominous," Alka said, allowing Epli to crawl up her body and slip in between the cracks of her helm once more.

"Epli, can you let me know if something is coming toward us?"

"Yes," came from Alka's head, and Vin couldn't help but chuckle. Alka's voice didn't actually come from her mouth, so Epli's voice actually felt like it came from the Slayer more naturally than Alka's own did.

"Well, I'm glad we're not all relying on me," Vin admitted, scooping up Reginald and placing him in his front pocket.

"Scule, want to join Reginald for now?"

"Yeah, that's probably for the best," Scule agreed, cautiously walking toward him with his arms extended.

"Wow, this fragment sucks."

"We'll try not to spend too long here," Vin promised, meeting him halfway and picking him up off of the ground, before placing him safely beside Reginald in his pocket.

"Lumel, Shia, Alka, we should probably hold hands. Or at least tie ourselves together so you guys don't get lost."

"Good idea, I'd rather not get separated from the group," Shia nodded, reaching out and taking Lumel's hand after a moment of blind searching.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, recoiling slightly.

"Lumel, your hand is so soft! It's like gel!"

"That's pulmon biology for you," she said nervously, slowly dragging Shia along behind her as she moved toward Vin.

"Sorry, I can put my gloves on if you want."

"No, you're fine! I was just surprised," Shia chuckled.

"Vin never said anything."

"I didn't realize I was supposed to tell you what holding Lumel's hand felt like," he drawled, helping Lumel out by stepping forward and gently taking her hand in his own. Lumel smiled in his general direction, and he returned it, despite the fact she clearly couldn't see him do so.

"Alka, you joining the hand chain?"

"A Slayer having to hold hands with people," Alka muttered as she walked toward them and grabbed Vin's other hand with some help.

"Nobody tells my trainees about this or there will be consequences."

"What's our silence worth to you?" Scule chimed in from Vin's pocket.

"What are your legs worth to you?" Alka shot back.

"Point taken. Lead the way, tremor-boy!" Rolling his eyes, Vin did just that. With all of them linked up, he started walking, and the others walked alongside him. It was, without question, the slowest Vin and his team had ever moved across a fragment. The terrain was flat and littered with small crevices, meaning they had to walk slowly to avoid stepping in or tripping over the holes every so often.

Unfortunately, holes in the ground weren't known for being all that active, which meant they were functionally invisible to his Tremorsense spell. A fact he was constantly reminded of as they continued tripping their way forward. After a few minutes of struggle, they eventually got into the groove of having Epli call out 'hole' anytime a particularly large one was approaching so they knew what to expect.

"I have got to work on a better version of this spell," Vin grumbled as he tripped over yet another crevice despite Epli's warning.

"I think I can make it so I just see everything within a certain distance around me. It'll just take a bit more mana."

"After nearly twisting my ankle for the fourth time, I'm honestly tempted to ask you to do so and share the runic formation with me," Shia admitted.

"How long have we even been walking?" Scule asked.

"Feels like we should have hit something by now."

"How long have we been walking?" Alka repeated, turning to glare in Scule's direction.

"I don't see you doing any walking, you know."

"I don't see much of anything right now, what's your point?" Scule snickered.

"I think it's been about an hour or so," Vin admitted, praying they weren't about to start blindly fighting. At least not while Scule was still in his front pocket.

"My Mental Map still works in the darkness, so I've been keeping us going in a straight line. We've walked a bit over two miles at this point."

"Which means we've got hours left of this," Scule grumbled.

"Alright, wake me if something interesting happens. I'm taking a nap."

"You know, I've never really been jealous of Scule's size before, but I wish I could just sleep my way through the hard parts of these journeys," Lumel admitted quietly at his side.

"Getting to see new cultures and magical wonders of the different fragments is amazing, but times like these? Not so much."

"Eh, he drones on about his fear of birds often enough that I've never seen the appeal," Shia shrugged.

"You'd think they make a conscious effort of targeting him every day with how much he hates them. Though I suppose having a big, comfy Reginald to snuggle up against would be kinda nice…"

"Maybe if you had Blossom grow a coating of moss it would feel sort of the same," Vin offered.

"At least texture wise."

"You think moss feels the same as fur?" Shia snorted.

"Oh man, that's gotta be one of the hottest takes I've-" The ground fell away under their feet without warning, and Vin could only blink in shock as he went to step forward, only to find nothing but air. Still holding hands, they all screamed together as they plummeted into the darkness below.