Chương 438: (431) 6.45. Go Away

"Took you long enough! What's the point in having such freakishly long legs if you run so slowly?" Fred complained, frowning at him as Vin exited the dungeon.

"Do you want to waste time being snippy, or do you want to lead me back to where Lumel and Fria are waiting?" Vin drawled, earning a humph from the pixie before they took off. As they traveled, with Vin running and Fred flying beside him at head level, Fred did his best to prepare him for what was to come.

"Don't forget, whatever you encounter in Lumel's dream journey, it's going to be largely based on whatever was last on her mind before she underwent her journey. You probably won't be seeing her deep, old memories or anything like that you were concerned about. Not unless she was thinking about them recently. What was the last thing the two of you were doing before she came to Fria?"

"We spent the night practicing magic in a shared dream with one another. We were practicing how Dream Walk worked," Vin admitted. The moment the words left his mouth, Fred faltered in the air, nearly careening down into the ground before his tiny wings flapped hard and he caught himself. Flying into Vin's face, the pixie shouted at him.

"The last thing she was thinking about were dreams?! Oh man, that's not good. That's not good at all!"

"Why? What's so bad about that?"

"A dream journey is loosely based on the recent memories of the person undergoing the journey, such as how you witnessed Reginald reading a book on cheesemaking, and then encountered the rat in the middle of incorrectly doing so in your dream. But if her recent memories were of her own dreams…" Fred paused, shuddering slightly as he flew. The motion caused a fresh wave of glittering dust to fall from his wings, the sparkling colors an oddly sharp contrast to the worry on his face.

"There's no telling what you might encounter in there. Nightmares… Recurring dreams… It's no wonder Fria got trapped. This is a lot worse than I thought."

"If it's so bad, why didn't you double check what we'd done recently before we went on the dream journey?" Vin demanded, more than a little annoyed by the pixies' lack of oversight. If they'd been informed of this particularly strange interaction, this wouldn't have been an issue in the first place.

"We've never had this happen before, this is all conjecture on my part!" Fred snapped.

"Do you understand that before Edregon we would generally take one person on a dream journey every few years? We've never had someone go straight from using Dream Walk to going on a dream journey. We're in uncharted territory here!"

"Luckily for you, I'm an Explorer. Uncharted territory is my specialty," Vin said, brushing the pixie out of his face as he kept running. Fred led the two of them back to a large gathering of pixies, and Vin vaguely took in their curious way of life. At a glance, it was clear that the pixies valued mobility and speed above all else, which was presumably how they'd survived against the increasing waves of monsters before their fragment had been snatched up to form Edregon.

They had tiny tents constructed from sticks and grass, and miniscule campfires with small pots sitting on top that were the size of shot glasses. Almost three dozen of them were buzzing around the one thing in the village that stuck out like a sore thumb, and Vin's breath caught as he spotted Lumel's body, lying on the ground. In stark contrast to the worry and panic Fred had instilled in him, rather than pain or fear, Lumel's face was blank and calm.

Fria's tiny form lying opposite Lumel with their heads nearly touching was similarly expressionless, the two women looking like they'd merely laid down on the soft grass for a quick nap. Vin could hardly believe they'd been sleeping here for nearly three weeks. Dropping to his knees beside her, Vin took Lumel's hand in his own, squeezing her soft, gel-like skin before turning toward Fred.

"I'm ready. What do I have to do?"

"All you need to do is cast Dream Walk. I'll take care of the rest," Fred explained, already directing pixies to clear a portion of the grass beside Lumel.

"Remember what I said. You die in her dream journey, and you'll die out here. I still don't know if you just don't care about your life or what weird plan you have prepared, but my sister's life is on the line here as well. Be careful."

"I'll do what I can," Vin said. Nodding his thanks at the other pixies, he planted his new staff down beside him and laid down on the grass. Still holding Lumel's hand, he squeezed it one more time before leaning on his Sleeping skill and willing himself to drift off. As he did so, he threw together Dream Walk within his core, timing the spell just right. Vin blinked, looking down at his own peaceful, calm face lying there on the grass beside Lumel.

None of his worries or concerns were visible, and he shook his head, looking around for Fred. The pixie appeared moments later, motioning for him to shift over to Lumel's head.

"One last warning… You're going to be under many of the same restrictions we guides are during the dream journey. Even if I can get you partway to Lumel and skip over a few of the first parts of her journey, I can't pull you back out myself. You're going to have to either climb your way back through the different layers, or help her reach the bottom and leave with her, just like how you and I did in your own dream journey. Otherwise, you'll be trapped with them."

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"Thanks for the warning, but I pretty much already assumed that would be the case," Vin admitted, staring down at Lumel's sleeping face.

"No more wasting time. Put me in."

"If you can pull this off, Fria and I will both owe you one," Fred said, closing his eyes and placing a hand on both Vin and Lumel's heads as he brought them close.

"Good luck!' Vin blinked as he suddenly found himself standing in a library. It wasn't anything nearly as grand as the floating library he'd gotten used to, but it was still quite impressive. Rows of strangely thick, blocky books filled shelves lined with intricate carvings and beautiful motifs, as though someone had gone to great lengths to ensure that every square inch of the library was a true work of art.

Curious, Vin reached out and plucked a book off one of the shelves, surprised to find that the material was much harder than he'd expected. The book appeared to be some sort of coral-based carving, and the thin pages were etched within rather than written with ink. Though that made a lot of sense. Seeing as the library was completely submerged underwater. Duh… Vin thought, placing the book back on the shelf as he drifted around. Lumel's a pulmon.

She literally lived her entire life underwater until a few months ago. Of course her dreams are going to be the same. Thankfully, after all the evenings spent swimming with Lumel within Aqua Sphere, Vin was a more than competent swimmer. His level 17 Swimming skill seemed to translate over into the dream as well, and he flitted between rows easily, looking for anything unusual. In typical dream logic, he didn't even need to worry about casting Replenishing Breath in order to breathe down here.

Lumel didn't have any issues breathing in her dreams, which meant Vin wouldn't either. Though he was down a golem arm, which made swimming a little bit trickier than out in the real world. Vin scowled as he glanced at his missing appendage, having completely forgotten that his injury translated over into dreams. He'd needed to find a replacement for his golem arm half-way through his own dream journey, and he definitely wasn't going to get that here.

That meant this entire rescue mission was going to have to be accomplished one-handed, which was not the best way to start things out. At the very least, he did have his brand-new staff strapped across his back, the bonded artifact having manifested in the dream with him. The sturdiness of the wood against his back was reassuring, and Vin put the matter of his missing arm out of mind as he swam around. The key to progressing through a dream journey was finding a portal to take the dreamer from one dream to another.

At the moment, he was chasing after Lumel, which meant whatever ridiculous shenanigans she'd had to go through to bypass this level would hopefully have already been completed. Ideally, all Vin would have to do was find the portal she'd gone through and run through it as well, effectively speedrunning Lumel's dream journey. Though if he was unlucky, the dream would functionally reset and treat him as Lumel, forcing him to go through exactly what she had in order to progress.

Keeping his eyes peeled for any sort of door or entryway, Vin nearly missed the librarian drifting in the water behind her desk with a thick book tucked underneath one arm. Vin stared at the only real thing of note within the entire library, putting two and two together easily enough. Lumel must have had to get the book from the librarian somehow, and then opening it had functioned as the portal to get to the next dream.

It would seem the dream had in fact been reset, and Vin cursed his luck as he stared at the silent pulmon and tried to come up with a plan. Clearing his throat, he swam forward, offering the elderly pulmon a warm smile. Unlike Lumel and her dark robes, this pulmon wore simple green clothing that drifted about in the water, her transparent skin on full display.

"Hello there," Vin started, wondering if the pulmon would react to a human of all things swimming over to them, or if the dream people would simply see him as Lumel.

"Is there any chance I could borrow that book?"

"The Queen has requested this book personally," the librarian stated bluntly, not even glancing at Vin as she kept etching something down onto a blank page.

"Really? The Queen requested… Bending Reality, a Primer?" Vin asked, raising an eyebrow as he scanned the spine of the book nestled between the librarian's arms.

"I didn't realize the Queen was so interested in learning spatial magic."

"The Queen has many hobbies," the librarian sighed, sounding like she wanted nothing more than for a fishing hook to swing down from the heavens and snatch Vin away.

"If that is all, please leave me to my work." Vin floated there, frowning at the librarian as she continued with her carving. This dream wasn't hard to interpret in the slightest, and it confirmed Fred's theory that he probably would be witnessing some of Lumel's old memories that she frequently dreamed about. Vin knew Lumel had spent the majority of her old life in the palace library, researching and working on her magic.

What she'd never confided in him, however, was the fact that the Queen wouldn't even let her have that without interference. What kind of a prick uses their power just to request books that they know someone else is intending to read? It wasn't as though Lumel had chosen to be born a bastard child between the king and the court mage. She hadn't had any say in her existence, but the queen didn't give a damn about any of that.

He wondered how the shy, timid Lumel he'd come to know and love would have reacted to such a blatant overreach of power. Knowing her, she'd probably turned away without a word, finding another book to read while hoping that the queen didn't take that one away from her as well. The mental image was enough to make Vin start seething, and he swam over, grabbing the book and ripping it out of the startled librarian's arms.

"Maybe you were all but forced to do what the queen said because she's the queen, but I don't give a damn. You sure don't look like you're doing this with anything close to regret, so screw you lady." While she sputtered and reached under her desk for something, Vin didn't hang around to see what it was she was grabbing. Flipping open the portal to the next dream, he let himself be pulled into the book. Luckily, this first dream had been pretty straightforward and safe.

Because the nightmare that followed immediately after was anything but.