As much as Leo disliked the scorpion magical beasts hidden within the sands of this plane, he was forced to admit that the desert was excellent for continuing their growth. The birds flying overhead only dove down to attack during the night in an attempt to utilize the cover of darkness, and the scorpions didn’t tunnel very far through the sand, which meant after they set up camp in a new area and cleared them out, they didn’t have to keep watch for any more popping up. Without having to worry about any surprise ambushes, Leo made the call to delay their trip by a day or two in order to focus on their own cultivation.
The sand scorpion gems were like snacks for the soul, but the birds’ hefty Grade 12 gems were exactly what they needed. Leo lost track of the number of day-night cycles they camped out near the exit rift, dispatching birds during the night and cultivating during the day. Already, he was discovering how the amount of power required to finish the outermost tier on his soul was growing almost exponentially with each soul rank he improved, and he tried not to grow frustrated as he physically felt his growth begin to slow down. The higher-Grade beast gems helped offset that increase of course, as they contained more power. But the fact of the matter was that the days of bumping his soul up to the next rank in only a few hours were already long behind him.
“Finally,” Leo grunted, coming out of meditation with a sigh as he finished the latest layer on his soul, bringing him up to a soul rank of 13. The act had taken over a dozen day-night cycles, which meant more than a full Nexus day just of killing magical beasts and cultivating. “I knew things would slow down sooner or later, but actually hitting that wall is pretty rough.”
“It looked rough,” Taylor agreed, peering at him from her relaxed position in the tent. She was leaning back against the fabric of the tent as her stomach went to work digesting her latest magical beast gem, and she looked more bored than anything. “Wanna head to the next plane yet? Fight new monsters?”
“Magical beasts. And yeah, time for the next plane,” Leo decided, stretching what little he could within the confines of their small tent. “This is a tier 14 plane, but we haven’t seen any magical beasts stronger than the birds, which are only Grade 12. We won’t be advancing any further than we already have.”
Decision made, the two of them exited the tent, and Taylor watched him curiously as Leo dismantled and packed up the tent with all the skill of someone who had done so countless times over the past day and a half. Once it was secured within his pack once more, Leo led Taylor over to the nearby rift they’d been camping by.
“This will lead us to a tier 10 plane, so we’re going to have to dampen our souls for a bit,” he said as he read from the map, rolling his eyes at Taylor’s groan. “Don’t give me that, we’re not going to be in there for very long! We’re just traveling through to a tier 16 plane. You’ll have plenty of things to kill and eat once we get there.”
“Much better,” Taylor grinned, walking forward and touching the rift. Without even waiting to see if he was following, she stepped through the open rift, vanishing in an instant.
Letting out a sigh, Leo tucked the map away and followed after her, sucking in a deep breath as he focused on compressing his soul to a soul rank of 10 to match the plane. Seeing as he currently had 11 Grades worth of beast gems within his core, he actually had to lock one of his gems in an inactive state this time around, and he quickly decided on his Darkvision skill. Taylor could see in the dark just fine, which meant even if they ended up entering the new plane during the night, they should be alright.
Leo stepped out onto the new plane, rubbing at his chest as he went to take in their new surroundings. The map hadn’t had too much information on this plane beyond the tier, size, and basic terrain.
There hadn’t been a single warning about the weather.
“I don’t like this,” Taylor grumbled, staring at him as the heavy downpour continued hammering down at her. Already, she was utterly drenched from head to toe, her messy braid hanging heavily down her back. Leo couldn’t help but laugh at her disgruntled expression, even as he was hit by the same heavy rain and joined her waterlogged state in seconds.
“Come on, a little rain never hurt anyone!” Leo grinned, pointlessly wiping the water from his eyes as he looked around. The torrential downpour made it almost impossible to see more than a few dozen feet ahead of them, but he was still able to make out the edge of what looked like a rapidly flowing river. “We need to follow that!” he shouted, pointing toward the river. “It should lead us to the next rift!”
Taylor followed without a word, and the two of them walked along the muddy riverbank, keeping a careful eye out for any magical beasts or other threats that might jump out at them. Leo figured if they were going to be attacked, it would be from some form of aquatic magical beast living within the river. With that in mind, he kept his sword at the ready and his eyes on the rushing water, waiting for anything.
Only the attack never came.
After a solid hour of tromping through mud, they finally came upon a landmark the map had indicated. A truly massive mushroom that stretched a good four or five stories up, its canopy large enough to completely block out the rain and offer those trekking through the downpour a slight reprieve. In any other circumstance, Leo would have been relieved to get out of the rain and dry off a bit.
If there wasn't already a group of people lounging around beneath the giant mushroom.
The second he spotted them, Leo thrust out a hand, halting Taylor in her tracks. From their position within the downpour, it was likely the two of them hadn’t been noticed yet by the unexpected group, and he wanted to take a moment to look them over.
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“What?” Taylor complained, squinting up at him. Unsurprisingly, Taylor really didn’t like the heavy rain, which made a lot of sense seeing as the plane she’d lived the last ten years of her life in didn’t have anything of the sort.
“People,” Leo muttered, nodding toward the group warming themselves by a fire under the mushroom. The rain made it difficult to make out much more than their number, which looked to be about three blurry blobs. “There’s a group of people over there, hiding from the rain.”
“So? Charles was nice. We could say hello? Share their fire and dry off?” Taylor asked, clearly excited by the prospect of getting out from under the rain as well. The poor woman looked absolutely miserable, and she gazed hungrily upon the flickering flames tantalizingly just out of reach.
“Not everyone is quite so friendly,” Leo muttered, his mind flashing back to Jess and her mining crew trying to take him down and hand him over to the Planar Lords’ agents. To be fair, he couldn’t really fault them for their actions. They’d thought he was some sort of horrific criminal responsible for the collapse of his home plane, and they would have had no reason to doubt the Planar Lords.
“Well I’m wet. And I don’t want to be wet,” Taylor said concisely, brushing past him as she stepped out of the rain. Knowing that allowing Taylor to make the first impression on these strangers was a recipe for disaster, Leo quickly followed after her, joining everyone under the mushroom. The moment he got a good look at the three people sitting around the fire, Leo paused, gripping his sword all the tighter.
At first glance, it was clear that all three of the strangers warming themselves were gem holders. A wiry man with rough black locks of hair was conjuring small balls of fire, flicking them into the campfire one after another and causing the flames to dance erratically. To his left was a much larger man currently rubbing some oil on a monstrous greatsword nearly as large as Leo himself. From the way he held the blade with a single hand, turning it this way and that without even straining, he clearly had more strength than a regular person. The last member of the trio was a woman, an archer by the looks of things, as she was in the middle of carefully inspecting her unstrung bow. The moment he and Taylor stepped out of the curtain of rain, all three of the strangers froze.
“Ho, there,” the greatsword-holder said, relaxing once more when he realized his party wasn’t under attack. “Looking to get out of the rain?”
“If you don’t mind sharing the mushroom,” Leo nodded, before shaking his head as he spotted the hungry look on Taylor’s face. Her eyes were locked on the warmth of the crackling flames, and he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn she hadn’t even glanced at the three people sitting around it. Leo was still cautious of the three strangers, but seeing their initial reaction when he and Taylor stepped out of the rain reassured him somewhat. If this had been some sort of ambush, he would have expected a much calmer reaction than a flash of surprise and worry across their faces. “Do you mind if we join you at your fire?”
“Plenty of fire to go around,” the man capable of conjuring fireballs said, grinning at them. “I’m Ember. The man overcompensating with his choice of weapon is Steel, and the chick’s Willow. Though I wouldn’t call her a chick when her bow is strung and at the ready, mind you, or you’ll find yourself with an arrow someplace you really wouldn’t want to find one.”
“You better hope I drink enough tonight to forget that comment,” Willow said, glaring at her grinning companion before giving Leo and Taylor a far more polite nod. “But yes, you’re welcome to join us. Maybe just don’t sit so close to Ember, he has a terrible condition that’s highly contagious. He just seems to keep growing arrows out of his body for seemingly no reason. Healers can’t explain it.”
“That’s enough you two,” Steel sighed, giving Taylor and Leo a tired smile and shifting to give them some space by the fire. “Don’t mind these idiots. They’ve got a sort of on-again, off-again thing going on, and if you can’t tell, they’re currently in the off-again phase of their relationship.”
Taylor didn’t need any further encouragement, and she quickly plopped herself down on the edge of the fire, causing the three strangers to blink as she immediately started peeling her soaking-wet shirt off.
“Taylor!” Leo hissed, grabbing her wrist and stopping her right before she could give their new acquaintances quite the show. “Do you remember that talk we had back in town? About propriety?”
“I remember you trying to get me to stop chewing with my mouth open,” Taylor said, tilting her head as she stared at him. “There was more?”
“Yes,” Leo sighed as she confirmed his suspicions that she hadn’t really been listening at all to what he’d said. After snagging a few new sets of actual clothes back in town for her to replace her old rags, Leo had quickly discovered that Taylor didn’t have any hold ups in the slightest about changing in front of others. He’d done his best to explain the concept of nudity and propriety, but obviously, it didn’t take. “You shouldn’t just strip down in front of people like that,” he whispered.
“Please, don’t stop on our account,” Ember grinned, the man hungrily staring at Taylor’s still-exposed midriff.
“You are such a pig!” Willow snapped, shoving Ember over and stomping off in a huff to the far side of the mushroom.
“What? I was trying to be polite!” Ember argued, immediately getting up and following her. Steel merely shook his head as the two of them began quietly arguing, and he let out a weary sigh.
“The party dynamic works a lot better when they’re not fighting, so I hope they make up,” he explained, giving Taylor a kind smile. “And I have to agree with your companion there, miss, you really shouldn’t go around exposing yourself like that to strangers. I get the feeling you can handle yourself just fine in a fight, but no need to invite unnecessary danger. Raiders aren’t the only threat we face out here. There are plenty of creeps who get their hands on magical beast gems and prey on the unsuspecting.”
“Fine,” Taylor grunted, finally letting go of her shirt and glaring at Leo. “Happy?”
“I would be if I thought you’d remember this,” Leo said, releasing Taylor’s wrist before she got any more annoyed and bit him. Joining her and Steel by the fire, he turned to look at the large man. “Anyway, what are the three of you up to? Heading to town?”
“The opposite actually,” Steel admitted, tossing a new stick into the fire as he looked at them with excitement in his eyes. “We’re heading toward the new colossal plane!”
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