For once, Vin spent the rest of the evening simply relaxing and hanging out with his friends rather than working on magic or worrying about solving anyone else's problems. Alka was apparently still over in her old fragment helping the infernals get situated in their new home, so Vin, Shia, Scule, and Lumel hung out in the common room as they unwound. Despite how many reassurances the avisul had given them that their main cloud island was sturdy and wouldn't collapse underneath their feet, none of them had truly been able to let their guard down after their near-death experience until they were on solid ground again.

Reginald was apparently still in 'vacation mode,' and he instead chose to lock himself in his room with half a wheel of cheese he was still working his way through.

Lumel was the first one to turn in for the night, which wasn't surprising seeing as she hadn't actually gotten any sleep the night prior. The rest of them slowly followed suit, and as Vin flopped down in his own room on his shimmerwing mattress, he had a sudden realization.

One cast of Create Cloud later, and he had the world's fluffiest pillow under his head that had only just enough mana layered within to last until a bit before tomorrow's council meeting. With a smug grin at his own ingenuity, he wrapped his merider-silk blanket around himself and proceeded to have the greatest sleep anyone had ever experienced.

The spell worked just as he'd hoped, and Vin woke when his pillow faded away, jarring him from unconsciousness as his head dropped a few inches onto his mattress. Even better, the last wisps of water vapor in the cloud was like a gentle spray of moisture on his face to truly help him wake up. Finally, he'd invented a magical alarm clock.

Speaking of things I've needed for a long time, that reminds me… I need to get back to working on that Magic Lock spell Lumel showed me right before our cloud shattered and we all nearly died. Guess I got a bit distracted after all that. Understandably.

Vin had already put in a few hours of practice into the runic formation, but it was still a tier 2 spell, and a spatial one at that. It would be a good bit more effort before he had the runic formation down.

Adding it to his growing to-do list, Vin forced himself out of his cozy cocoon and ran off to grab a bite to eat at the mess hall. The number of people doing the same was even less than it had been the last time he'd been here, which could only mean that more and more people were choosing to visit the scattered restaurants around town. Last he'd heard, they had nine different ones set up. The three most popular were the three manned by the original Chefs from the second wave, but the remaining six were still quite well travelled. Five were run by Chefs from the third wave, and one was actually being operated by one of the Bands who had taken the crafter class with a cooking specialization at the shrine of rebirth.

There were another three crafters with similar specializations who had come in with the fourth wave, who were the ones currently keeping the mess hall up and running.

At least we have restaurants covered, he thought as he ate, going back over Becca's melancholy the night before. Seeing as we don't have grocery stores or anything, nine restaurants and one mess hall give a pretty wide variety of options.

Hearing the clock tower chime, Vin realized he was running behind, and he quickly finished his food before rushing over to the town hall. Pausing just long enough to wish a surprised Linda a good afternoon, he slipped into the council room.

"Damn it!" Spur said, banging a fist on the table as he laid eyes on him. "Come on, Vin, you couldn't have waited two more days?!"

"I'll take that Theodore coupon now, thank you very much," Alice grinned, holding out a hand expectantly. Grumbling, Spur leaned over and slapped a crudely made coupon into her hand, looking none too pleased about it.

"Have Theodore's 'leave me alone' coupons seriously become bartering goods?" Vin asked as he took his seat. "I mean, he can be a little annoying, but he's not that bad."

"Says the only one of us not trapped here in town with him," Spur grumbled shooting daggers at Alice as she tucked her winnings away. "Anyway, how are you feeling? We got Shia's message delivered via Kelly the other day. Last we heard, you were stable and unharmed, but in some sort of coma?"

"She said something about 'bird-people?'" Witherson added, looking curious. "People capable of flight, I presume?"

"Yeah, we met another race of people, the avisul. They're more like bat-people than birds, though. And I'm fine," he said sheepishly, a bit surprised to hear that they were worried about him. "Just a bit of an unexpected run in with some powerful monsters."

"How powerful?" Phil asked, suddenly interested in the conversation. Naturally, hearing that they'd encountered a monster capable of knocking Vin out for a few days had piqued the Challenger's interest.

"'Kill you and everyone you've ever met entirely by accident,' powerful," Vin said, causing Phil to blink at his serious tone. "All I did was look at the monster and I was knocked out for three days, even with my defensive skills. Trust me, this one isn't one you go trying to pick a fight with. You'll just die."

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For once, Phil seemed to understand that some monsters were simply too strong for regular people to face down, and he slowly nodded, leaning back in his chair.

"Alright, why don't we just get started with the meeting?" Spur offered, clearing his throat in an attempt to break through the somber mood Vin had suddenly thrust them all into. "Vin, anything else to report besides horrifying monsters and bat-people?"

Vin gave them all a quick rundown on the sky fragment and the avisul contained within, stressing the dangers of the fragment and how the avisul were a peaceful race with no interest in leaving their home. Thankfully, he didn't think anyone was even capable of making their way into the fragment without some form of flight or teleportation magic.

He also told them about his latest prestige, after realizing he'd forgotten to fill them in before he left on his latest trip.

"You hit your second prestige… eight days ago?!" Spur repeated, staring at him in shock as he all but sputtered. "How… what…"

"I think what Spur's trying to say is congrats," Alice laughed, shaking her head at the Commander's stupor. "Competition has been tight around here regarding leveling. Spur's been in the lead, thanks to all the experience he gets from running a town of a few thousand people, but he only just hit level 34 a few days ago. Most of us aren't far behind him."

"Adventurer of the Arcane," Phil grunted, crossing his arms and looking unimpressed. "Sounds about right. You're more of a threat than when I last saw you."

"Ah, that's probably because I finally picked up my second combat spell," he admitted. "Fireball. Slow moving, but the explosion is good for groups of small monsters."

"You can throw fireballs around?" Witherson asked, raising her brow. "Would you be willing to help me test out some of our defenses? We have to be careful not to waste too much of the explosive powder Myers invented, so I haven't been able to run nearly as many tests as I would have liked."

"I'll add it to the to-do list," he shrugged, doing just that. While he recorded it in his journal, Spur seemed to finally get a hold of himself, and the Commander simply sighed.

"Alright, we might as well get this meeting truly underway. Who wants to go first? Let's start with a general recap for Vin, seeing as he was gone for a week."

"Construction has continued around town, as more and more people have put in permits and applications for certain buildings," Witherson began, taking charge as usual. "We are quickly getting to the point where we have at least one 'store' for just about anything you could possibly need, manned by an appropriate crafter. We're good on space at the moment, but with Golrim's help, we recently calculated that we'll probably have to expand the wall again sometime after the fifth or sixth wave, depending on casualties we suffer in the battle for wave five and how many of them actually make it over to Edregon."

"That makes sense," Vin said, shuddering at the memory of the missing people from the fourth wave. The fact that almost a quarter of the people simply vanished was more than a little terrifying.

"Nearly all of the second wave combat classes have prestiged at this point, and a good portion of the third wavers have as well, giving us an impressive militia," Phil said, going next. "The dungeon has proved to be an excellent training ground, and we've partnered up with both Sakis and the elves of the Sacred Forest to practice fighting new monsters and learn from them. Sadly, the infernals' claw-focused fighting style isn't easily replicable, so their warriors haven't been much help."

"Support classes have been leveling and improving their craft every day," Alice grinned. "The guilds have been a massive hit with everyone, and similar to the combat classes, thanks to the efforts of your own people in the Foreign Branch, we've begun sharing information with the surrounding fragments. We've got a few Farmers over in Sakis learning how they handle their underground farm, and some Hunters studying with the elves. Our Herbalists, Woodsmen, and similar classes have been working with the infernals. Their Witches and Warlocks need pretty much as many resources as we can get them, so we've become allies quite quickly. Oh, and Alka is doing well over there by the way, I've swung by every other day to check up on her. She asked me to tell you 'A week? Seriously?' last time I saw her."

"Glad she's doing alright," Vin said, rolling his eyes.

"Terra as a whole is doing exceptionally well," Spur admitted, deciding it was his turn. "Abby and the new guard have stopped most problems before they could grow into anything too big. Monsters haven't been an issue thanks to frequent patrols of combat classes. And the Bands and Earthers are getting along swimmingly. Having even just a handful of extra points in the focus attribute makes learning a new language far easier than it ever was back on Earth, so the language barrier has been all but dissolving before our very eyes. We have an armed group that ventures over to the Bands' former fragment every other day to allow any who wish to worship at their shrine of rebirth do so, and a small handful of Earthers from the second and third waves have actually gone and successfully changed their class. It's been less than a dozen people at this point, however, most seem rather happy with what they ended up originally going with."

"Glad to hear! How's Golrim been doing?"

"Absolutely swamped with work now that the fourth wave has gotten settled, which is apparently just the way he likes it," Spur shrugged. "Golrim, Linda, and Myers have functionally become the backbone of what makes Terra run. It's actually gotten to the point where a good chunk of people have started jokingly referring to them as 'the shadow council.'"

"I'd be a lot more concerned about that if Myers wasn't part of this dark council," Vin chuckled. "Linda seems nice enough as well. How's Kym been?"

"Kym…" Spur paused, looking like he was choosing his words carefully. "...is doing fine. However, he's made something of a new friend."

"Really? Kym of all people?" Vin asked, surprised by the news. "I thought all he cared about was reading?"

"Yes, but he ended up finding a like-minded soul," Spur sighed. "They've pretty much moved into town at this point, though we still need to run them through the screening process. I've been told you're familiar with them. Tall, annoying, dark red skin?"

"An infernal?" he asked, curious which one would have befriended Kym so quickly. Suddenly, his prior conversation and offered deal with a certain infernal came back to him, and his blood went cold. There was only one infernal he was familiar with that seemed to care only about reading over anything else.

"You have got to be kidding me."

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