After nearly falling to his death, coming face-to-face with the World Eaters, and then his night with Lumel, Vin slept harder than he had in his entire life. When he finally awoke, that strange, uncomfortable thickness in his head had finally vanished, and he felt better than he had in ages. Yawning, he stretched out on the cloudy ground making up the inside of their tent, smacking his lips as his first thought of the day was a bit of a silly one.

So… the shimmerwing mattress is in fact more comfortable than sleeping on a cloud, even if only just. Uncanny.

Curiously, the glowing moss that Lumel had covered last night had once again been uncovered, illuminating the tent and making it quite clear that Lumel was nowhere to be seen.

Oh God, please tell me I didn't scare her off…

Slightly panicking now, Vin hurried to get his clothes back on and make his way out to try and find her. But while struggling to yank his boots back on, Lumel herself surprised him by walking through the tent flap, her eyes going wide when she spotted him.

"You're awake!" she gasped, teleporting the few feet between them with a flash of purple before dropping to her knees and throwing her arms around him. "Oh thank God, I was so worried!"

"Uh… good morning to you too?" he said, chuckling a bit as he returned the hug. "Sorry, did I sleep late or something? Not that I don't mind the wake up call, but I'll admit the reaction seems a bit extreme."

"Vin…" Lumel paused, stepping back and giving him a concerned look. "You've been asleep for three days."

Vin blinked at this news, unsure how to take that. He certainly didn't feel as though he'd just slept for three straight days, but he didn't see any reason why Lumel would lie about something like that. Any one of his other friends might try and prank him for whatever reason, but not Lumel. The worry on her face was as clear as day, and the way she was wringing her hands together certainly didn't feel as though this was some sort of joke.

"Wow… I mean I know we had a long night, but three days to recover…"

Giggling, Lumel's worry was quickly replaced with an embarrassed smile as her face turned red, and she shook her head. "Glad to see you're doing just fine. And as much as I'd love to take credit for that, that's not the reason. After you failed to wake up the other morning, I went to Shia for help. When Renewal didn't do anything for you, we tried going to Telin, who said he knew exactly what the problem was. Strangely, he didn't give us many details, but he said your mind was recovering from the mental strain of seeing something down below in the darkened depths. Shia and Scule seemed to somewhat understand what he meant, but they couldn't really explain it. You guys saw some sort of living darkness coming to attack you down there? They told me you mentioned it was an epic monster, but that was all."

I guess that confirms neither of them saw what I did… Thank the Gods for that.

"It wasn't just 'living darkness…' There were epic monsters down there alright. Monsters, plural," he said, eliciting a gasp from Lumel. "I don't understand it myself, but somehow my new ability, Beyond the Veil, let me partially pierce through the darkness that they lived within. I even made eye contact with one of them. I could feel its hunger. Its desire to consume anything and everything in its path. If it hadn't been for Scule's quick thinking with the extra mana gem we'd stolen from the floating library, none of us would have gotten out of there alive."

"You're saying this fragment has a lower layer where multiple epic monsters live?" Lumel asked, shivering slightly at the very thought. "Are you sure we're safe?"

"Telin doesn't understand it himself, but he told me that they would stay down there below the cloud layer," Vin shrugged, trying to sound far less worried than he actually was. "I have to say, I'm pretty surprised to hear it took me three whole days to recover from just meeting the gaze of one of those monsters. With my Total Resistance and Epic Monster Hunter title, I would have expected a quicker recovery."

"This is a quick recovery. Telin told us he expected you to sleep for at least a couple of weeks," Lumel explained, her face going dark for a moment. "Apparently some people who lay eyes upon what lives down there don't wake up at all… Or they become empty husks of their former selves, their minds devoured."

"Well, good thing we don't need to worry about that," he smiled, leaning forward and giving her a reassuring kiss. "I guess I have some catching up to do. What's everyone else been up to these past few days?"

"Shia managed to use the dirt I gave her to contact Erik and fill him in on the current situation. According to him and Kelly, the infernals have been safely relocated to Alka's old town, and she's been helping them get settled. Other than that, Shia has been making friends around the village and checking out some of their plants."

"So nothing new there," he chuckled, happy to hear that the infernals at least hadn't been delayed due to his long nap. "What about Scule and Reginald?"

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"Scule found out that there's a venomous monster that lives in this fragment, sort of like a stingray, but one which flies through the sky. He persuaded a group of warriors to give him some of the monsters' bodies, and he's been all but locked up in his own tent the past few days working on some project. When I asked, all he said was he was attempting to create the strongest poison Edregon had ever seen. I haven't even seen him in two days, Reginald's been bringing him food all this time."

"Eh, I'm sure he's fine. Scule got the Determined Rogue prestige class for a reason. When he puts his mind toward something, everything else kinda falls away until he accomplishes it. Anyway, what have you been up to?" he asked, looking pointedly at the pulmon. "I can't help but notice you didn't include your own activities in there. You're part of the team too, you know."

"Most of my time was spent meditating on a new spell… in here, next to you," she said quietly, growing flushed once again. "I have gone out and spoken with the avisul a couple of times, but I can tell my appearance disturbs them a good bit. And I wanted to make sure someone was here when you finally woke up!"

"I appreciate it," he smiled, deciding not to get into the issue of how the avisul were reacting to how she looked. It was pretty clear she didn't want to talk about it, and thankfully, a powerful rumbling from his stomach gave him the perfect segue to a different topic. "I suppose it's been days since I've actually eaten anything. Want to come grab a bite to eat with me? I didn't really get a chance to take in the village the other day when we were rescued."

"That sounds great," she said, returning his smile as she stood up and helped him to his feet. "I can show you to the eternal stew pot."

"Sorry, the what now?"

Rather than answer, Lumel merely giggled and dragged him out of the tent. Vin blinked at the bright sunlight that met his gaze, the light far more bright than the gentle light that the indoor moss gave off. Trusting in Lumel not to walk him off the edge of the island, he let himself be steered toward the food as he rubbed his eyes and took in the village.

The avisuls' village was about the same size as Sakis, sporting what looked like somewhere a bit shy of a thousand people. It was hard to get an accurate estimate, as the village wasn't actually entirely constrained to one single cloud. While they were walking on what appeared to be the heart of the village, there were a good number of smaller clouds drifting nearby that were connected via wispy tendrils. Some held small plots filled to the brim with what looked like bushes filled with fruit, while others were like the ones they'd seen previously, filled with shallow pools of water. Both had plenty of avisul tending to them, either harvesting the weird seaweed from the ponds or plucking fruit from the bushes and placing them into baskets formed from clouds. In fact, it seemed that other than their clothing, which he assumed had been constructed using the very same seaweed the Farmers were harvesting, just about everything they used seemed to be made from the weird cloudy material.

While he was trying to figure out if there were any objects that one couldn't use a cloud to build, they arrived at what had to be the eternal stew. In the center of the village was a vast pot suspended over a fire. The pot itself, unsurprisingly, was made from clouds. Only now that they'd gotten close, however, was Vin able to tell that the color was a bit different from the clouds they were walking on, or those used to construct the buildings.

"Wait… do they somehow use mana to alter the clouds' properties? Basically turning it into different materials altogether?" he asked, laying his golem hand on the hard pot and ignoring the worried looks he was getting from the Chef as he touched the scalding cloud. From just a touch, he could tell that this greyish cloud felt nearly as solid as metal, without any of the springiness of the very clouds beneath their feet. He could somehow sense the many layerings of mana that had been imbued into the material to fundamentally alter it.

Minor Arcane Discovery! 1,000 exp gained.

Guess that's a 'yes.' Interesting.

"That would make a lot of sense," Lumel said, grabbing two bowls and dipping them into the stew pot. "Here, try this. From what I heard, they've had this one stew cooking for the past four generations. Whenever it gets low, they add more water and ingredients, so there's technically a chance part of your bowl contains bits of stew from decades ago. I thought it sounded weird at first, but it's pretty good!"

Trusting in the knowledge that he knew Neutralize Poison, Vin sipped at the stew, raising his brow at the rich flavors contained within. It was somehow both salty and sweet at the same time, and he quickly devoured his entire bowl before grabbing a second. Thankfully, the Chef looked more than happy to let him take as much as he wanted, and Vin had to wonder if the Chef was getting some sort of large experience boost feeding all these different races that had appeared out of nowhere.

He and Lumel wandered the village as they sipped their stews, pointing out the different shades of cloud and taking in the sights. There were young avisul flying about here and there, playing what looked like a particularly difficult game of airborne hide and go seek tag. Not only were the young avisul remarkably nimble in the air, they could lose their pursuers at the drop of a hat by flying into any of the nearby clouds. The adults didn't seem at all concerned that their children were flying out past the boundaries of the village and could theoretically fall to their deaths if they lost consciousness or got hurt. Instead, they focused on simple acts such as touching up the exterior of their tents with small bits of like-color clouds or chatting with one another.

Vin noticed more than one pair of eyes land on them and follow them as they walked, but he shrugged it off. From how Lumel pulled her hood more closed around her face, she must have noticed as well.

Finally, they neared the edge of the village, and Vin came to an abrupt stop. He'd intended to walk to the very edge and peer down, but he realized his feet might as well have been cemented to the fluffy ground. Even the mere thought of approaching the edge of the village made him break out in a cold sweat, and he flinched when Lumel went to take his hand in her own.

"Vin… are you alright?" she asked, looking worried.

"I'll be fine," he laughed nervously, trying to downplay his unexpected reaction. "Looks like I'm still a bit shaken up about the whole 'nearly falling into the jaws of a horde of epic monsters' thing. I'll be good in another day or two, don't worry."

Lumel still looked worried, but it seemed she didn't want to push the issue as she carefully led him back the way they came, away from the edge of the village. Vin couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief as they put more and more distance between them and the edge of the cloud, and he frowned to himself.

That might be a bit of a problem…

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