The trek over to Scule’s fragment and the citadel was child’s play compared to the first time around. The numerous clumps of exploding fox monsters were easily handled by Shia and Alka, making it a fairly quick journey overall. Shia’s Grass Spikes were even more effective than they used to be thanks to her new passives and Capstones that empowered her nature magic, and Alka laughed in the face of the fox monsters' puny explosions.

  Puny only in comparison to the weird, floating jellyfish-monsters of the valley hidden in the mist, of course. Those explosions made the foxes look like kid-sized fireworks.

  With Shia and Alka working together, aided by the occasional Stone Shot from Vin just to help speed things along, the six of them quickly made their way through the fragment. As they walked, Alka realized something. After swiftly cutting down three more foxes before they could even get the chance to detonate, she made a contemplative noise and turned her head around.

  “You know, I think this is the first time all of us are venturing out together. It feels like at least one or two of us have always been busy as of late.”

  “There’s always things to do,” Shia shrugged, decaying the excess branches off her staff that had pierced through a few more of the foxes that had tried to get in close. “I’m busy with the Sacred Forest and training with my master. Lumel spends most of her time studying down in the Underside. Scule’s working on his poisons and has his family, and Reginald sticks with him of course. You’ve got your Slayer trainees to worry about, and Vin seems to be running around like a monkey without a head trying to help anywhere and everywhere at the same time.”

  “It’s not my fault everyone keeps asking me to do stuff,” Vin argued. “Though it is nice having everyone together for once. Shame it’s for a fragment we’re not actually expecting any trouble in.”

  “Speak for yourself, you haven’t even met my parents yet,” Scule muttered.

  While each of them took turns lamenting the slow rise of all the things that kept them busy these days, Vin couldn’t help but think back to the last time they’d made this journey.

  It was crazy to think it had been about two months since he’d visited the citadel with Shia and Alka by his side. So much had changed in such a short amount of time.

  For one, Alka was no longer a ghost. Even now, he could remember how strangely reassuring it was knowing she was echoing his form everywhere they went. Not just from the additional attribute points, but from the knowledge that she could take control of his body and slaughter anything that threatened to hurt them. He was beyond happy that she’d managed to get a brand-new body for herself, but a small part of him would always miss having that connection that had since been severed.

  After Alka’s metamorphosis, naturally, the largest change was undoubtedly having Scule, Reginald, and Lumel along for the ride. Never in a million years would Vin have guessed he’d become great friends and go adventuring with a six-inch-tall man and his friendly rat companion, or that he’d end up dating a fellow mage who not only came from the bottom of the sea, but was a princess of all things.

  It seemed every day spent on Edregon just brought more wonder and insanity into his life, and frankly, he was all for it.

  “There it is,” Shia said, pointing off into the distance as the citadel walls finally came into view. “I swear, it almost looks smaller than I remember.”

  “You know… do we actually have a plan for getting past the walls this time?” Vin asked, realizing they’d never actually talked about it. “It’s been two months. Do we really think the guards still haven’t leveled up enough to be able to cover the whole wall during the night?”

  The first time they’d broken into the citadel, they’d taken advantage of the low level guards and their equally low attributes to sneak over the wall in the dead of night, courtesy of a tree Shia had grown. The citizens of the citadel were under the false impression that their divine classes were all huddled away within the central holy district, and that the rest of the city was on lockdown while they waited for the divine classes to announce everything was fine. Because of that, most of their combat classes were leveling up incredibly slowly after the Great Reset, as they didn’t really have anything to actually fight.

  “If Alka wasn’t here we could just teleport past the wall,” Shia said, tapping her chin. “What do you think, Scule? How did you get in the last time you were here?”

  “Oh, we petians have our own secret backdoor in the wall that was built years ago when we first came to the citadel,” he said, waving a hand like it was no big deal. “It seems they forgot to add anything about that to the lockdown procedure, so I can get in and out of the citadel easily. Though even if I didn’t have that, are you serious? I’m a twice-prestiged Rogue. You think I couldn’t sneak my way past a handful of low level guards?”

  “Twice-prestiged Rogue and the size of someone’s shoe,” Alka pointed out. “I'd be surprised if there was anywhere you couldn’t sneak into at this point.”

  “An unnecessary comparison, but accurate.”

  “So just to confirm, the lockdown is still in effect?” Vin asked. “I mean, it was already a bit crazy that they’d kept it up for three months the last time we were here, but it’s been nearly five for these people now since the Great Reset. Are they literally so devoted to the gods and the divine classes that they just haven’t questioned anything?”

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  “Holy. Citadel,” Scule drawled, as if that fully answered the question. “I don’t think you guys quite understand. The citadel was the holiest city in my entire world. Sure, there are a few people quietly whispering here and there in the city about what’s truly going on, but the vast majority are content to simply follow the orders of the divine classes and wait things out. If you ask me, I wouldn’t be surprised if it took them at least a year or two before enough people decided to speak up and finally get the lockdown lifted. I have no idea what the food situation looks like, though it can’t be that bad. I haven’t heard any talks of rationing or anything like that just yet.”

  “Guess that means asking the guards to let us in is still off the table,” Shia frowned. “Well, if we don’t have any other ideas, I suppose our only option is to wait until night and climb the wall again. We’ll just have to hope the guards haven’t improved their focus enough to cover the wall this time around.”

  “You guys have fun with that,” Scule snorted, getting onto Reginald and directing the rat to jump down to the ground. “I’m going to go ahead and give my family a heads up you’re coming. The last thing I need is the sight of one of you scaring them and giving them a heart attack.”

  Vin caught the subtle flinch from Lumel at Scule’s words and the way she pulled her cloak to better hide her face, and his heart reached out to her. Scule must have noticed as well, as he hurriedly continued. “I mean just look at Alka! If she stomps into petian territory like some giant war-golem, waving her warpick all about, she’ll scare half the neighborhood to death!”

  “Let’s see if I can’t set a record,” Alka said, her eyes flaring as she laughed.

  “Just ask anyone where the petians live, they’ll point you in the right direction!” Scule called out over his shoulder as Reginald took off across the plains toward the citadel.

  “So… guess we just hang around here for a few hours until night then?” Vin asked, turning to look at his friends. “Get in a little magic practice?”

  “How the hell did I end up journeying around with three mages?” Alka muttered, shaking her head. “I’m gonna go find some more of those exploding foxes to fight. Might drag a few of their bodies back to Myers and ask her to make some equipment for my Slayers. I’ll be back before the sun goes down.”

  “Don’t get lost!” Shia said, waving as Alka took off back the way they’d come. “I guess I’ll be the one to stand watch, seeing as I have Split Focus. You guys can slip into Introspection if you want. Blossom will warn us if anything gets close anyway.”

  “Thanks, Shia, I still have a lot of work that needs to be done on my current project,” Lumel said, offering Shia a warm smile before taking a seat and diving straight into it. Vin took a moment to admire the insanely complex series of runes that began forming within Lumel’s mana pool, before deciding he might as well get started himself.

  “Hey, Shia, could you show me the runic formation for Still Wind? There have been a number of times now where I found myself wishing I had that spell, so now’s as good a time as any to learn it.”

  “Sure,” she said, raising an eyebrow as she started drawing it out in the air for him. “Though don’t you think you should be getting started on Dimensional Shift sooner or later?”

  “I’m not actually sure if I am going to be learning that one after all,” he admitted sheepishly, quickly explaining his realization about how the spell would leave Scule and Reginald behind. “Don’t get me wrong, I can still think of plenty of fantastic uses for it, but I just think I could spend a week or more devoting my time to better spells.”

  “It’s your magic,” she shrugged, letting her glowing finger fall to her side as she put the finishing touches on the formation. “Though you’re going to have to learn a tier 3 spell sooner or later. The fact that you’ve managed to hit your second prestige without having any under your belt is a bit ridiculous.”

  “I know, I know,” he sighed, recalling her earlier explanation about how most mages had magic tied to their current level. For example, mages in the 20s for level tended to have tier 2 magic, while mages in the 30s would have tier 3, and so on. Here he was, already sitting at level 43, without a single tier 3 spell to his name, let alone tier 4. “The battle for wave five is coming up fast, which means we’ll have another large chunk of time sitting around waiting for the monsters to spawn. I’m planning to take advantage of that to finally buckle down and learn my first tier 3 spell.”

  “That’s a good idea,” she said, transforming her staff into Blossom and instructing the wooden cat construct to stand guard. “I’m going to make a push to see if I can’t finally get Regeneration up and running for Terra’s benefit. My attributes are finally close enough that I should have access to the spell again in one more level, but I need to convince Frank to sit down with me and really run me through human biology.”

  “Wait, I thought you were capable of casting the spell back before the Great Reset? And you’d only been in the high thirties for level?” he asked, trying to remember their first few conversations from way back when. “Shouldn’t you have it already?”

  “I spread my attribute points out a little more this time around than before the Great Reset,” Shia admitted, her face turning a bit red. “I know you and some of the others were relying on me finally gaining access to Regeneration again, but my master recommended I put more points into vigor than I previously did, which slowed down my magic and focus growth a little.”

  “It’s fine, I know your master comes before anything else,” Vin said, offering her an understanding smile. Shia had literally been given a divine boon from the God of Devotion because of her love for her master. If it was between following a suggestion from her master or rushing to try and get his arm back, he wasn’t surprised in the least to hear she’d decided to go with her master.

  And he wouldn’t even be able to regenerate his arm anyway, so it was largely a moot point.

  “Welp, I’m going to get started on Still Wind,” he decided, sitting down next to Lumel and giving Shia one last smile. “Good luck with the watch!”

  “Thanks,” she said, returning his smile with a nod and one of her own. “I’ll try not to let any of the exploding monsters get too close to you guys while you’re busy.”

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