“Vita, come on. The mists aren’t getting any thicker.”

Penelope waits impatiently on a ramshackle, swaying rope bridge hanging over the deadly abyss. I, meanwhile, have my feet planted firmly on the ground like a sane person. I am, against all of my rational instincts, attempting to stop being a sane person and join her on the bridge. It’s not going well.

While my memory of the Mistwatcher fucking annihilating part of the island we live on is somewhat oddly colored by the matching joy of finally being free of my shell, as the days passed that joy began to feel a lot less raw while the fear… well, the fear only got worse.

“I-I’m getting there! Just give me a bit!”

“You’re not even within twenty feet of the edge! Come on, already!”

She says that like it’s easy! I almost died thrice over the last time I went to the edge! My mind keeps flashing back to Gladra saying I’m likely to die of thirst before splatting across one of the Mistwatcher’s freaky eyeballs. Assuming the Mistwatcher doesn’t kill me itself on the way!

I try in vain to approach the edge a few more times before Penelope eventually lets out a groan.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this. Penta! Get her over here!”

The slime obeys, jerking my body forward. I shriek internally as I’m forced across, barely resisting my horrible urge to rip Penta’s soul to shreds and flee from the edge. Penta reaches the bridge, grabbing firmly onto the ropes then looking straight up as she staggers slowly across. I mentally thank her, reigning in those murderous instincts. We’re not over the edge, no siree! We’re just having a walk and staring at the sky! We can just ignore the fact that I’m no longer sensing any small animals burrowed beneath us. That doesn’t mean anything.

Our tense, blind stroll takes far too long. Soon I can sense the souls of Litia’s residents, and sure enough well over half of them have a goopy black tagalong. A lot of the souls here are crazy strong, with the Nawra souls piloting the bodies in various stages of growth. Hrm… maybe I can free enough powerful people to just fight Remus down…? That would be risky. If I free someone and they turn out to be traumatized or an otherwise shitty actor, it could blow the whole operation. Ideally, we use the poison to get almost everyone at once. I don’t know if that’s possible, but we’ll definitely be trying to find a way.

A rather large soul with a slime tagalong approaches us as we near what I hope is the end of this definitely-not-an-abyssal-rope-bridge. The human soul has an acrid smell to it, but the scent wafts from a core of calm white that feels pleasantly cool. I could probably see what they physically look like from here, but neither Penta or I are inclined to stop staring at the sky until we reach land. Even my soul’s eye is pointed straight up; while it doesn’t ‘see’ in the same way my eyes do, its sensitivity to souls is so high I can vaguely make out the shapes of people I’m ‘looking’ at. Though the soul-sight is just an enhancement of my normal soul sense (which I still have), it is in many ways almost the reverse of it: there’s no distance limit in whatever direction I’m pointing my eye at, but the extra sensitivity is blocked by objects. Helpfully, I can often tell the vague position of those objects based on how I don’t see souls where they are, instead seeing soulless things as silhouettes. I don’t understand how it works yet, but the important thing right now is that I’m less than inclined to witness how far I still have to walk.

“Hey, kids!” a hissy voice shouts at us. “This ain’t a traveler’s rest stop! Get off our bridge! If ya need an inn, Grassdeep is six hours starboard down the road!”

“We’re well aware!” Penelope shouts back. “Is Remus still here? We’re with him.”

“Remus?” the acrid-souled person snaps. “The hell do ya want with him?”

“We’ll tell him when we see him! He knows us! Penelope and Vita!”

I don’t hear a response and Penelope keeps walking, so I assume that satisfied them for now. Penta follows as I return to trying to distract myself from all the invisible Mistwatcher tendrils pouring up out of the below and trying not to scream whenever one passes close to me. The tendrils ignore me, at least, which makes sense. They’ve always been there, and while I could feel the one that touched me back when Rosco was tragically and brutally slain I could never see them until now. Even suspended over the edge, the mists protect me from the fullness of that godly creature’s gaze.

Eventually, blessedly, we make it back onto land. I collapse to the ground as Penta relinquishes control of the body to me, hands and knees on the ground.

“Don’t got legs for the sky, do ya kid?” that hissy voice asks, amused.

I look up with my meat-eyes, glowering at the powerful, slime-infested person above me. The person with the white, bitter soul is surprisingly short, only a few inches taller than me. They wear a huge jacket with a comically oversized collar, covering the lower half of their face. Though it’s a simple dun material, there doesn’t seem to be a single inch of space without some kind of pocket. From their salt-and-pepper bowl cut and partially covered face, I can’t tell their gender but I can guess that they’re about Remus’s age. Their soul isn’t much weaker than him either, but I can probably kill the slime. It feels new, still being mostly sticky-black rather than taking on the traits of the host.

“If you could sense the kind of shit this body can, you wouldn’t wanna look down either,” I answer, glowering up at them.

They raise an eyebrow. I don’t have time to explain before I spot Remus running towards us.

“Vita! Penelope!” he calls to us, smiling broadly. “What are you two doing here? I thought I told you to stay in Skyhope!”

Despite our insubordination, he seems quite happy to see us.

“Security got obsessively tight because of Hiverock,” Penelope half-lies. “Templars were everywhere. We thought it wise we meet you here before something unexpected caused suspicion.”

“Ah, damn,” Remus curses. “Well, good thinking. And good timing, actually! We were going to set out to retrieve you soon anyway. This saves us a trip! How have the two of you been faring? Any trouble on the road?”

“I’ve been doing all right, pops!” I answer, injecting as much cheerfulness into the statement as I can. “Part of the road was fucking exploded up port from here. Just… a whole chunk of the goddamn island was gone. Didn’t have much trouble going around, though.”

“Saw that,” the short hissy person comments. “It was a perception event. No idea what caused it. Maybe some moronic metal merchant with more money than sense?”

“I hope not. Metal is precious enough without fools losing it,” Remus says firmly. “Though the debris didn’t reach Litia, and that’s what matters. Anyway... Vita, Penelope, this is Seong. They were formally on my hunter team, before the others retired. Seong, Penelope and Vita are my hunter trainees. They’re a lot like us in other ways as well, so I hope you all get along.”

“Now ah understand,” Seong nods. “S’good to meet you two, then. These gals are how we’ll find the others…?”

“Correct,” Remus says, smiling. “Vita’s scouting talent lets her sense things through objects. With her help, we can hopefully track down the rest of our kin and rescue them from the forest.”

“I’ve been working on my range the whole way over, pops!” I brag, saluting. “I can feel things even further away, plus more if there’s nothing in the way!”

“Oh, that’s wonderful, Vita!”

To my surprise, Remus pulls me in for a one-armed hug, not unlike Lyn and Rowan often do. I guess… that makes sense. He thinks I’m his daughter. Thinking about that, I feel a pit growing in my stomach.

“What role did Seong play on your hunter team?” Penelope asks Remus curiously, fishing for information.

“Ranged combatant and poison expert,” Remus explains. “It’s a pain in the ass getting field rations from anything they kill, but no one is better to have against a monster outside your weight class.”

Poison expert. Fuck. It’s a good thing Penelope asked, we’ll probably need to kill that Nawra before we try anything. We can’t risk Remus getting suspicious here, though. Maybe I can get them alone?

“Ta be honest, ah’m not fully confident ah can perform up to mah host’s full skill level yet,” Seong whispers to us. “Ah believe ah’ll be able to perform adequately enough ta reach the forest depth ya last saw our brethren, though.”

“You’ll do fine, Seong!” Remus insists. “Come on, Vita, Penelope. We should introduce you to the others!”

“Are um… are they all my siblings?” I ask hesitantly. I feel at least twenty other slimes around the village, which seems like a lot of kids to make in less than a month. There could be even more out working the fields, Litia is pretty darn large.

“Siblings, nieces, nephews, etcetera,” Remus answers. “We’ve been spreading as fast as we can, which is easy enough with Litia’s overabundance of food.”

Penta steals control just long enough to prevent me from shuddering. Nawra are terrifying.

“Are you planning to spread to Skyhope through the grain gate…?” Penelope wonders out loud, hand on her chin. “I hope you haven’t sent anyone through, yet. Now would be a dangerous time to expand.”

“Grain gate?” I ask.

“Litia supplies a fair percentage of Skyhope’s grain and produce, Vita,” Penelope explains. “Its position as an independent island makes it one of the safest places on Verdantop against monster attacks. When Valka acquired the territory, they invested a significant amount of metal into making a high-output dimensional gate between Skyhope and Valka so that the goods can be transported quickly and safely.”

“What!” I protest indignantly. “Why the hell didn’t we just take that here, then?”

Penelope rolls her eyes.

“It’s too small. We could get through it, but our hosts are far too large to fit. Leaving them behind would obviously not turn out well for us.”

Oh, so it’s kind of like a larger Everfull, but still not big enough for a person. They can probably pour wheat grain and other things through, but not big stuff. Obviously, I don’t make the comparison out loud. I’m a bit worried about Nawra using that as an escape route and infiltrating the city that way, but by now the Templars probably have a deathtrap waiting for any of them that try it. As awful as the Templars’ involvement is for me personally, it’s a good thing we warned them.

“I don’t have any plans for the grain gate, actually,” Remus says. “Other than continuing to use it for its intended purpose, anyway.”

Penelope raises an eyebrow.

“Really?”

“Of course! Expanding to Skyhope would not only be a fool’s errand, but it would endanger us all. We just need somewhere we can live as a people. Somewhere safe. Litia is perfect because it’s isolated enough and important enough to protect us if the worst should come to pass. Once we save everyone we can find, we can hide them all here. If we’re somehow found out… well, they can’t wipe out a place like Litia lightly.”

Penelope and I ever so briefly share a look, no doubt thinking back on how Gladra had been casually considering melting this place. Unfortunately, Remus seems to catch that.

“What’s the matter, you two? Do you disagree?”

Penelope, thankfully, is on the ball.

“Not entirely, but from my perspective as a noble I have some important caveats to add. The council resents Litia for possessing both economic importance and relative independence. They may very well authorize a purge in order to solve what they consider two problems, food shortage be damned.”

Remus scowls.

“That’s utterly insane.”

“I…” Penelope takes a deep breath and sighs. “Well. I suppose I don’t entirely disagree. If our objective is safety, though, we should slowly start to make concessions regarding Litia’s independence. That will make the council very happy, and reduce the likelihood of detailed investigations occurring here.”

“Mmm… thank you for the advice. You seem to have calmed down considerably from when I last saw you, Penelope. It’s good to see.”

“You were right,” Penelope tells him. “Your plan is our best hope. It just took me a while to see that.”

Remus smiles, clearly quite pleased. The way Penelope so fluidly and naturally lies is kind of creepy. I’m more than happy to let her keep doing most of the talking.

Litia is constructed so most of its buildings are near the bridge entrance, with the farmland radiating out and away. It’s therefore not a terribly long walk to the village proper, despite the impressive size of the island. That’s kind of weird to think about. Verdantop is the name of our big island, but Litia is still part of Verdantop, right? Or is it not? Eh, I’ll ask Penta or Penelope later. Soon enough we make it to the village, and Remus sends Seong to gather the other notable slimed folk, taking us all somewhere in town where we can talk freely.

Only three new faces join us in Seong’s house: a stocky, tan woman who looks to be in her mid-forties, a thin woman covered in tattoos who seems to be a bit over Lyn’s age, and a young, brown-haired boy who… okay, he technically looks a little older than I do. But younger than I actually am! The boy and the stocky older woman appear to be related; they both have brown hair, brown eyes, and round faces. While the woman grins boisterously, however, the boy has a hollow expression on his face.

“You brought Melik?” Remus asks the older woman, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes,” she confirms. “I followed your advice. He’s one of us now.”

Remus smiles.

“I see. I’m glad. Vita, Penelope, meet Taline and her son, Melik. Taline was part of my old team, like Seong. Our defensive expert and scout. The young lady here is Theodora, Litia’s most powerful metamancer.”

The lady with the tattoos, Theodora, nods her head politely, not saying a word. Wispy, tall, and pale-skinned on any part of her body not covered in drawings, she has an almost ethereal look about her. Her slime is one of the largest-souled here, just after Remus’s, and her host’s soul is a hard, blue ball with jagged, lightning-shaped patches of red glowing around it.

The mother and son pair, meanwhile, each have souls that feel like rushing air, a gale-force wind blowing towards their centers. The son’s soul is small and flecked with black, while the mother’s is large, yellow, and smells of fermenting grain.

“So, Vita, you can sense our kin in everyone here?” Remus asks to confirm.

“Yep,” I lie smoothly. “You and the Taline lady even have a second in ya, pops. You’ve been splitting fast!”

He chuckles, nodding.

“Indeed. So then, we can start detailing our immediate plans… although first I want to ask you, Taline, why bring Melik? Surely you’re not suggesting we bring him to the forest with us.”

“Watcher forbid it!” she answers, laughing. “No, nothing of the sort. He’s young and new. But I want him to learn and see what we’re doing here. Just to watch, so he’ll be better prepared in the future.”

The young boy says nothing, but Remus nods in understanding.

“I see. Laudable. Well then, to begin…”

The meeting starts proper. I tune out from most of it; I have my own problems to think about. Here to help him, Remus has a learned mage, who’ll be able to detect the Everfull if I try to use it. A poison expert, who might be able to notice if we slip them something. A woman whose power I don’t know, but could be any sort of potential threat since Remus introduced her as a scout. Then, finally, the wild card. Her kid. Melik, whose ass I just covered hard.

Because unlike what his infected mom just claimed, he doesn’t have a Nawra in him.