Chương 265: (260) 4.39. Poison Me Once, Shame On You…

Lumel popped into existence a short distance away, spotting Vin as he slowly drifted to the ground for what had to be the fiftieth time. Vin had quickly discovered that the fluffy, lumpy exterior of the Cloud Whisperers' strange house was quite easily climbable, and he'd been scaling the five story structure before leaping off time and time again. The younger-looking Cloud Whisperer had poked her head out and watched him for a bit at first, before going back to whatever it was she was doing.

Seeing as they didn't tell him to knock it off, he figured he was okay to keep experimenting as he was.

"I see you've learned at least some form of air magic," Lumel smiled, giggling as he gracefully landed face first into the soft cloud once again. Even if it had been solid earth, he was descending slowly enough that he wouldn't have gotten so much as a scratch on him.

"Yep! Slow Fall," he explained, getting up and brushing himself off, before realizing he didn't have any dirt on him that needed brushing.

"Man, living on a cloud has to be weird."

"I bet you'd get used to it if you spent your whole life here," she shrugged, reaching out and taking his hand. One quick world-shift later, and they were back on the main island. Vin noted how she'd purposefully placed them far from any of the edge of the island, and he squeezed her hand appreciatively.

"What did you end up doing today, seeing as you didn't need to watch over my unconscious body?" he teased.

"I actually spoke with Telin for a good bit," she said, looking proud of herself.

"He was kind enough not to mention my appearance, and we spoke for a few hours about their lives up here. Would you believe that the avisul don't even have words for certain things you or I take for granted? Take dirt, for example. Despite the fact that practically my entire race spends their life deep underwater, we still know what dirt is, at the very least. But when I tried talking about the tree Shia was planting, I had to explain what dirt was to him.

Apparently, their own fruit bushes manage to grow straight out of the cloud layer somehow."

"I guess that makes sense… Your Airwalkers would have told you about it, so you know of its existence. But do you think this world even has dirt? It's not like we're drifting high above the ground. There is no ground."

"Right?! It's so interesting!" Lumel exclaimed, almost bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"Getting to experience entirely different worlds that are leagues apart from our own… Edregon is such a wonderful place!"

"Definitely," he nodded, easily piggybacking off her excitement.

"You know, I don't think I got to tell you about the lightning fragment we ventured off to the other day. There were these talking schlimes, right…" The two of them chatted about the many unique fragments on Edregon as they grabbed a late dinner, which was yet even more stew, this time supplemented by some dried biscuits made from the seaweed. It appeared as if the avisul used the weeds as both food and a material for clothing, which was rather interesting.

"Do you think they have stew for every meal?" Vin asked as they sat up on top of their tent, watching the distant sunset. Because of the lack of solid land anywhere to be found, the sunsets on the avisuls' fragment lasted for multiple hours, and they could literally watch it descend far below the horizon before it finally vanished.

"I mean, I'm wondering if it's got something to do with the way their stomachs work, versus if they just don't have anything else to eat."

"The contents change up, I know that," she said, sipping out of her bowl.

"Two days ago they added some chunks of monster meat to the pot, so they're definitely not vegetarians."

"I suppose that explains why Shia hasn't passed out from hunger just yet," he snorted, seeing Lumel's confused gaze.

"Oh, the elves are like ninety percent carnivores. They eat almost entirely meat."

"Oh, duh… I don't know how I didn't draw that connection with the teeth and everything," she said, her face turning a bit red as she glanced away.

"... I thought maybe they needed the sharp teeth to better eat fibrous vines or something…"

"Wait, seriously?" he laughed, grinning as she pouted at him.

"Lumel, why didn't you just ask her? I mean, maybe don't pull a Kelly and ask about every facet of her life and elven culture, but Shia would be more than happy to tell you about the elves of the Sacred Forest."

"I know," Lumel sighed, placing her bowl down and leaning back as she stared at the dimming horizon.

"Even knowing how nice Shia is, it's just hard for me to reach out and ask people things. I never want to come across as bothering them."

"You know… I hadn't actually considered this before, but it's not just fear of people reacting to your appearance that holds you back from interacting with others, is it?" he asked, coming to a sudden realization.

"... Are you really just super shy as well?"

"Maybe a bit…" she admitted, pulling her legs into her chest.

"I know I told you about my time in the palace, but I didn't really have anyone to talk to growing up besides my parents, and you already know how that was. The queen made her displeasure with me quite public, and none of the other kids wanted to risk drawing her anger onto themselves. I had a few acquaintances here and there who weren't afraid of the queen and treated me fine, like my cousin, but that was about it."

"Why is it that Chefs always seem to be either the angriest people you've ever seen, or impossibly jolly?" he asked, scooting over and putting an arm around her.

"I'm sorry you had to deal with all that. But on the plus side, you've got some pretty awesome friends now, if I do say so myself." The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"They're alright," Lumel giggled, turning and going to give him a quick kiss. As if waiting for its cue, the cloud tent a few dozen feet to their right violently erupted at that very moment, spilling dark blue gas with streaks of green hidden within out of the main flap and all over the surrounding area.

"Get back!" Vin shouted, quickly casting one of his newest spells as Lumel moved behind him." Create Air!" At his direction, the dark blue smog was blasted away from them by a powerful gust of wind that shot out of his hands. Thankfully, the gas appeared to be less dense than the surrounding air, as rather than spill out across the cloud, it floated up into the sky, quickly dissipating the higher it rose. Within only a few seconds, the surprise gas was entirely gone.

"Do you think that was Scule?" Lumel asked, staring at the cloud tent with a few tendrils of gas still leaking out of it.

"I'd bet my boots on it," Vin frowned, leaping down and moving to rush inside the tent in question. Yet before he could do so much as set foot within, the petian strolled out of the tent, grinning from ear to ear despite the dark blue smoke still drifting off of him.

"Why hello there, Vin! Fancy meeting you here!"

"Scule, what the hell was that?!" he demanded, preparing Neutralize Poison and moving to poke him in the chest. But before he could, the petian hopped back, tutting and waving a finger at him.

"Ah ah ah, no need for that! You're looking at the newly minted Rogue of Poisons! I'll give you one guess as to what the class ability is!"

"... You're immune to poison?" Vin asked, watching the toxic gasses still drifting off Scule's tiny frame.

"Got it in one! This changes everything, Vin, you have no idea," Scule said, rubbing his hands together and chuckling a tad evilly for his tastes.

"Not to mention, I finally prestiged before Shia. She would have lorded it over me forever if she'd pulled it off first. Totally worth secluding myself in there for the last few days."

"Shia prestiged a day or so ago," he said, watching as Scule's laughter cut off, replaced by indignant choking.

"She's a Druid of Bonds now."

"Well… damn it!" Scule cursed, sighing as he tried kicking at the cloud and failed to break any of it off.

"Smite me, I guess my only hope is to double down and try to beat her to the next prestige."

"What did you get for your passive?" Lumel asked, having finally hopped down to join them now that the poison was cleared out.

"Rapid Application," he answered, his grin suddenly back in full force.

"I don't actually need to bother manually putting poison on my weapons any more. I just have to think about which of the poisons I have on me I want coating my weapons, and the passive does the rest. Works with stuff stored in my cape, too."

"Wow, that's a pretty great find for your fighting style," Vin admitted, looking impressed.

"Can Reginald pull from your cape as well for his tail-blade? You said he shares your abilities because of your Magical Bond passive, right?"

"I… You know, that's a good question," Scule blinked, looking around.

"Where is he anyway?"

"Knowing Reginald, probably off finding a sky-rat or two to woo," Vin said, earning a chuckle from Scule.

"Let's hope not! Guy's got enough grandkids running around to worry about… Well, guess I should probably go find him before he adds to that number. Have a good night you two!" Giving them a lazy wave, Scule scampered off in search of his companion.

"What's this about Reginald?" Lumel asked, looking understandably confused.

"What did Scule mean by him having kids running around?"

"Oh, Reginald has a bad habit of getting in close with the local rat populations of the different fragments we go to, if you know what I mean," he said, unable to contain his laughter at her shocked expression as he led them back into their own tent for the night.

"Yeah, it's something else. Rest assured, if a fragment has their own form of rats, Reginald will find them."

"I never would have thought," she muttered.

"It's always the quiet ones…"

"I think Reginald would talk more if anyone other than Scule could actually understand him," Vin laughed. The conversation quickly died as the two of them realized they were once again alone in their own private tent for the night. Lumel had been focused on getting him up to speed that morning when he'd woken up, but now, he could practically feel the uncertain and hesitant mood hanging in the air. It certainly didn't help that they hadn't really had a chance to talk about what happened just yet.

"About the other night," he started, seeing Lumel flinch slightly before turning to meet his gaze, waiting with bated breath to hear whatever he had to say. She half-hid her face under her hood, all but peeking out with her purple eyes. As much as it pained him to see her looking so worried, it was also cute all hell, and he couldn't help but smile as he reached out and took her hand.

"If I hadn't made it obvious enough at the time, I really enjoyed getting closer to you. And while I would be more than happy to do that kind of stuff again whenever you want, I'm not expecting it or anything, so you don't need to worry." His words seemed to bleed the tension from Lumel's hooded form, and she let out a relieved sigh as she straightened up and pulled her hood back more.

"Thank you, Vin, you have no idea how much I needed to hear that. After we did… what we did… and you failed to wake up for three days… I couldn't help but spiral downwards a little bit. Obviously, I know you wanted what happened between us to happen as much as I did, but I couldn't silence those errant thoughts telling me you'd wake up and think it had all been one big mistake."

"I really am sorry about that," he said sheepishly, only just then realizing how hard that must have been on her.

"I can promise I'll try not to pass out for three days straight after the next time, alright?"

"... You really do want there to be a next time?" she asked quietly, blushing slightly as her eyes flicked away from his own.

"I'd hoped, but like I said, those pesky negative thoughts…" Vin wasn't sure what to say to help convince her she hadn't scared him off or anything like that, or how to go about boosting her confidence. Thankfully, there was a far more obvious solution that didn't involve talking. Wrapping his arms around her, she let out a surprise squeak as he pulled her against him and planted a deep kiss on her cool, gel-like lips. It had been Lumel to take the lead the other night and show him precisely what she wanted.

It was only fair that he returned the favor.