Chương 452: (445) 6.59. You All Know Your Jobs

Once they knew the scale of the threat they were facing, the team leapt into action. Before anything else, they needed to know precisely how far the trogums had already advanced from their own fragment, along with their rough number in total. There was no telling what would happen to the army of trogums if the queen actively controlling them was killed, which meant they needed to ensure any nearby settlements were preemptively evacuated and no more lives were at risk of being lost.

"That would be a mission for the twice-prestiged Rogue," Scule grinned, hopping onto Reginald's saddle and giving them all a lazy salute.

"Let the two of us handle all that. We're a lot harder to spot than you guys are, and much better at getting out of tricky situations." Reginald squeaked his agreement, saluting them as well with the tip of his tail before taking off out of the Haven.

"So long as we're stuck here waiting for those two to get back, I'm going to focus on repairing as many of the injuries the elves received as I can," Shia said, having already finished up with Huark's eye as she shifted down to start on his missing foot. Huark and the other Tamers looked beyond grateful to have her assisting them, and Huark's brand-new eye was shining with tears as he looked at Shia like she was some sort of angel.

"Thank you," he whispered, sniffling and taking a deep, shaky breath as he watched her.

"I never thought I'd be able to walk on my own two feet again."

"Guess that leaves the two of us," Alka grunted, ignoring the touching display of emotion as she turned to look at Vin.

"What are you planning to do?"

"I have a feeling it's going to take Scule a good bit of time to get a sense of what we're going up against," Vin admitted, scratching his head as he wondered what the best way to spend his time was.

"Honestly, I think I'm just going to go find somewhere isolated and start working on spellwork. I've got no end of ideas as to new spells I want to try putting together, and at this point, it's the simplest method I have for earning experience. There's no telling how my new class at level 60 is going to change all that, which means I might as well take advantage of it now while I can."

"Makes sense," Alka nodded.

"Just try not to blow yourself up. We might be needing that divine boon of yours sometime soon."

"I'll do what I can. What are you going to do?"

"Wander around above ground and stab some monsters," Alka shrugged.

"Maybe keep an eye out to ensure no trogum hordes are sneaking up on us while we're getting prepared. You're sure we can't just run through the dungeon over to their fragment and take out the Queen? I feel like that would be the fastest way to deal with all this."

"There's no telling where the Queen is hiding, and we have no way of tracking her down," Vin explained for the second time.

"With their vast array of tunnels running underground all over the fragment, it could take weeks trying to figure out where the Queen is located, and that's assuming she doesn't realize what we're doing and starts moving to avoid us. Hell, for all we know, she's already shifted over into one of the new fragments they've conquered, in which case we'd be running around like chickens without their heads trying to track her down in the entirely wrong fragment.

Until Scule and Reginald get back and tell us how many fragments have already fallen, or we can come up with a way to reliably find her, focusing on ensuring the people in these nearby fragments are safe is for the best."

"Fine. But I don't like it," Alka said, turning and heading out of the Burrow. With all his friends busy with their own tasks, Vin was alone once again. But just as he prepared to head off to find a room on the edge of the Haven where he could be alone, a powerful whisper reached out to him and him alone." I am going to begin preparations for the evacuation of my people. Would your own people welcome us as refugees if we came to them?"

"You're going to give up your home? Just like that?" Vin asked, unable to believe what he was hearing.

"Can't you literally just shout at them to go away and disintegrate their bodies with your voice?"" Have you already forgotten the most important lesson I taught you? Raw mana is not to be used to intentionally kill, lest you wish to bring rot and ruin upon yourself and the world around you. My people are barely a thousand strong, and we rely heavily on our ability to dig through the earth to keep ourselves hidden.

From what you told me, these trogums are just as capable diggers, and they outnumber us quite severely. If we stand and fight, we die. Fleeing is the only way to save my people should the trogums invade this fragment next." Vin gritted his teeth as he vented his mana, lessening the strain on his mana pool that came from listening to the Whisperer's words.

This close to her actual location within the Haven, he couldn't listen to her string two sentences together without feeling the foreign mana trying to jam its way into his core. Stolen novel; please report.

"To answer your question, yes, Terra would accept all of you if need be. But we're going to stop them before it comes to that. I'm betting the queen is going one fragment at a time, ensuring it is thoroughly wiped clean before advancing to the next one. She is well aware of the sheer power even a single individual can bring to bear against her, so I'm doubtful she'd be willing to let anyone slip through the cracks in her invasion and make their way to her."

Now that they knew the Rebel Queen was actually a warmongering monster, Vin cursed their past selves for dealing with the divine warrior before he could reach the queen and take her out. Of course, the man grew stronger with every life he claimed and the quasi-developed trogums he'd been slaughtering were innocent in all this, but who knew how many lives could have been saved if they'd only known then what they knew now.

Urlana's smiling face flashed through Vin's head once again, and he scowled as he went back to finding a room for himself that was as far away from praying dwarves as it could possibly be. It seemed word of what was approaching had already gotten around, as the Haven was far more filled with meditating, worried dwarves than it had been the last time he was here.

"I don't suppose you have any suggestions for a spell I should work on, would you? Even if you don't use your power to kill, you're still a remarkably high level and have been around for some time. I'll happily take ideas."" I do not. The Whisperer has always been a symbol of peace and tranquility for their people. I don't possess any combat spells, and I make a point to not study them."

"I sort of figured you'd say something like that," Vin admitted. As annoying as it was, he had to respect how the Whisperer upheld her beliefs, even with an army knocking on their door.

"In that case, can you at least help me find a room I can practice in? Not that I think this will happen, but I'd rather there not be anyone close by in the event I get hit with a particularly nasty backlash." One of the Whisperer's apprentices quickly made their way to him, leading him up onto the second floor and providing him with an isolated room. Once he was nestled in and the door was closed, Vin slipped into Introspection, his lips pressed thin as he contemplated.

I need a spell that can slow down or stop a large group of mindless attackers. Something simple, but widescale. Fireball isn't bad, but it's slow moving and pretty lethal. I'd rather have something much harder to dodge and not necessarily guaranteed to kill whatever I cast it at. Almost instantly, an idea popped into Vin's head, and he grinned as he realized he knew exactly what spell he wanted to put together.

It was an idea he'd had back in Terra's courtroom when he needed to stop an unruly mob in their tracks from tearing Golrim into little pieces. A swarm of feral trogums would probably react the same way to what he had in mind, which meant it was perfect for their current purposes. Throwing together the runic formation for Vibration, Vin walked around it as he kept the spell inactive, taking in the pieces and thinking about how he wanted to tackle this.

Flooding the tier-1 spell with mana thanks to Runic Recalibration had worked well enough in a pinch, but it had been incredibly inefficient. Not to mention it hadn't worked nearly as well as he would have liked. The spell had achieved the split-second moment of indecision he'd hoped it would, but it had almost certainly been spotting the Roamer landing hard in front of Golrim and facing them down that had actually stopped the mob in their tracks. Above all else, the spell needs power.

It doesn't have to be pretty, and it doesn't have to do anything complicated. It just needs to be able to handle more mana and work on a wider scale. With that in mind, Vin got to work. Seeing as he was just building off a single spell in an attempt to make it better, his Spell Weaver title remained silent. Instead, Vin relied on his Spell Builder passive and his Friend of Mana Capstone to keep him safe from making any minor mistakes as he worked to widen the spell's capabilities of what it could handle.

As he worked, Vin realized that he had at least one other spell he could take some inspiration from, even if he wasn't utilizing its formation directly. Enhance Gravity grabbed the forces that were already in place and made them stronger, which was exactly what he wanted to do, only with the vibrations he himself was causing.

Once he had that thought, Vin was able to lean upon Flexible Formations as well, copying how the runes were laid out in a few places and shifting them just so in order to get the output he wanted. Vin knew he didn't have a ton of time, but he wasn't working on anything too complicated. Vibration magic was slightly more complex than any of the more-basic elements, but it was nothing compared to soul or gravity magic.

He may have caused a portion of the second floor of the Haven and his own bones to violently shake at one point when he slipped up and triggered a large runic backlash, but not even that snapped him out of Introspection. His spell was only going to be a tier-2, which meant its backlashes shouldn't be anything lethal. After what felt to him like only an hour or two, but what was almost certainly far longer, Vin's mana formed the final piece of his new spell.

He smiled as he cracked open his eyes, noting how some of the tiny decorations in the room were now either askew or had fallen to the floor completely. He'd have to remember to apologize to the Whisperer and her apprentices for the ruckus he undoubtedly caused throughout the Haven, but that was a matter for later. Now that he had his newest crowd-control spell, it was time to see if Scule and Reginald hadn't come back with information on the trogums movements and who they needed to save. New spell learned!

Tier-2 Vibration Spell (Mass Vibrations). 10, 000 exp gained.