Chapter 1157 (1/2)

It wasn’t that Vye woke up, it was just that Vye was tired of being cold and wet in her bed. The itching had long since ceased, but it had left her with a heavy sense of clamminess that refused to fade. So she heaved herself up and stripped off her soaked clothes and found something casual to wear. She looked down at herself and saw jeans and a t-shirt that depicted a logo of a pre-System band. After throwing her towel over her shoulder, Vye walked pretty blindly out of her tent.

It almost came as a surprise that it was still night. For what felt like a fair stretch of time there, Vye had been replaying Aldo slipping, the strike that went through his heart, and then his heroic adjustment to still finish the job. Time seemed to accelerate around her as the replays continued. Only that image held any sway to Vye’s Perception. Everything else was just lost to that slowly fraying movie that Vye couldn’t look away from.

It had felt like she was drowning. The tears wouldn’t come out of her eyes but they pooled in her throat and scared away her breath.

With a few leaps, Vye quickly arced her body up over the edges of the tree line and landed with a dull crash inside a thick patch of brambles. Luckily System’s energy hadn’t soaked into this place for long, or the brambles would have toughened up to the point where they could leave a scratch on Vye. As it was, she simply brushed herself off and plowed her way through to leap again, taking chunks out of the distance between the Order Ducis camp and Kharon.

The area Southwest of the newly connected Zone was a wide space of plains draped between mountain ranges. Kharon was nestled up against a relatively modest series of mountains, perhaps not even reaching a height of one thousand feet above sea level. But still, the city certainly looked impressive with its flags streaming and two of its larger legs deployed, stabilizing it to lean against the mountain.

Kharon breathed out smoke and ladders, draped elegantly down to the recently excavated mines.

Yet all of those things were far from Vye’s mind as she hopped up, over and over again, crossing the rocky terrain toward the well-outfitted public baths that was one of Kharon’s most popular features.

Vye was just clambering up to the hidden Order Ducis entrance into Kharon and giving the guard a tired nod when a huge column of light smashed into the ground only a few kilometers away. Turning slightly, Vye felt something break as she saw the familiar descent of Mjolnir hitting nearby.

Although she had suspected that this would happen when Naffur ordered them to just let the other Raid Boss go without doing anything, it still struck Vye. After all, the settlement that had requested their help was too new to the System to fend off Raid Bosses on their own. These people seemed to have gone through a month of tutorial before they were thrust into the world, but it hadn’t prepared them for the brutal reality of what was happening.

So the Order Ducis has asked for help, relying on the influence of someone quite far away in order to save these people. Perhaps to the people it wouldn’t make a difference, but to Vye… As the pillar of light slowly dissipated into drifting motes, Vye could only grit her teeth.

The Order Ducis was supposed to be the one to help those on the edges of the world. They were the pioneers. And sure, Mjolnir reaching all the way out here wouldn’t have been possible without communication with the Order Ducis. But Vye couldn’t get around the truth that this was a failure.

It was all so disappointing.

Are you disappointed in us, Randidly? Unlike you, we are just...

Rather than walking through the streets, Vye quickly ascended to the rooftops of the meandering buildings of Kharon. Most of the population was involved in the extraction and refinement of metals, so the new buildings seemed to be thrown up every day. So much so that they were almost running out of room in the city proper, and there had been proposals to expand the buildings into some of the wilderness areas of the minor island that was considered Kharon.

From what Vye had heard, Tatiana had vetoed that idea. Rather than encroach into the wild space, she encouraged the the engineers in Kharon to discover ways to condense there buildings. There was talk of creating layers of the city and building houses right on top of each other. Which would usually be more of a health risk than it was worth, but the one common benefit of the System was health.

So when Vye arrived at the roofs, they were covered in raw materials and chalk marks that likely depicted future plans for development. Yet it was not a future that she was ready to face yet. Vye ignored the small marks and began to race across the roofs, rapidly gathering a rather large following of moss spirits that gleefully formed a trail behind Vye’s lithe form.

“We failed,” Vye whispered into the rushing wind around her. Although the moss spirits didn’t possess ears to hear what she said, they could probably feel her emotions very clearly. After all, Vye was one of the ones in Kharon that always gathered a large amount of moss spirits. For whatever reason, she was popular with them.

They gathered around her in a halo, moving faster than Vye could manage. She could feel their empathy. They settled on her skin and warmed her, one small spirit at a time.

Driven by a strange impulse, Vye landed on the top of a building across the street from the public baths she was heading toward and slowly unfurled her Fate. As her image billowed outward, it pushed away most of the surrounding moss spirits. Her Fate grew directly out of a small chunk of crystalized skin in her hand, quickly becoming a rectangular map with curling edges. As she looked at it, Vye felt a twinge of regret in her heart.

Fate of the Bright-Eyed Explorer Lvl 17: The Fate of one who wants to see the edges of the world. Will keep track of the portion of the world explored by the owner of the Fate. The more of the world and the more landmarks that are viewed encounter, the greater the benefits that the Fate owner will receive as she Levels! Current benefits: +1 Free stat, +1 Agility.