“Have a good night?” Ember smirked, looking knowingly at Leo as he packed up their tent. Willow and Taylor had gone off to try hunting something fresh for breakfast, and Steel was busy scribbling away at his own map of the colossal plane he’d been working on.

  “Yeah,” Leo nodded, trying not to let his face heat up as he immediately recalled the very good night he’d had with Taylor. It turned out that one of the benefits of having a soul rank of 17 he’d never even considered was that such a body came with plenty of extra stamina. Combined with the strength skills nestled within his core and Taylor’s almost unnatural flexibility…

  He clearly didn’t do a great job of keeping his thoughts off his face, because Ember burst out laughing. Leo tried to ignore him and finish packing up their tent, but the man was practically doubled over with laughter, to the point where Leo was surprised he wasn't rolling around on the ground. Finally, Ember managed to collect himself, wiping a tear from his eye as he straightened himself up and grinned.

  “Ahh, to be young again. There’s something about experiencing all that for the first time that you can never quite capture again. Trust me, I’ve tried. Plenty.”

  “Do you need something?” Leo offered, not at all comfortable discussing the details of his and Taylor’s love life that now suddenly existed. While the physical stuff had been absolutely mind-blowing, after everything he’d been through with having his whole plane and everyone he’d ever known and loved ripped away from him, it was honestly the intimacy and fact that he had someone he felt so comfortable baring himself to, body and soul, that he’d enjoyed the most. Something he had a feeling Ember wouldn’t quite be able to resonate with.

  “Relax, my guy, I just wanted to tell you good job. Willow told me all about her conversation with your partner last night. Apparently, Taylor made it very clear how she felt about you and all but demanded a crash course from Willow on precisely how two people became a couple. Glad to see my girl’s advice wasn’t totally wasted.”

  “I’ll have to thank Willow for all her help,” Leo said, hefting his pack up onto his shoulders. “I doubt that could have been easy explaining all that.”

  “Bah, Willow loves girl talk,” Ember snorted. “Her main complaint about our team is that she doesn’t have another girl to chat with about this sort of stuff. Why do you think she grabbed Taylor the moment you guys left your tent and all but dragged her off ‘hunting’? She’s desperate to hear all the juicy details about last night.”

  “Why are you so dead set on there even being any juicy details?” Leo demanded.

  “Dude. Your tent? Not exactly made from sound-proof fabric,” Ember said, bouncing his eyebrows as Leo covered his face with his hands and wished he were anywhere else but there. Thankfully, Steel chose that moment to come to his rescue.

  “Alright, enough teasing him,” the large man said, tucking his map away as he walked over and clapped Leo on the back. “Congrats on officially getting together, Leo. I knew it was only a matter of time. Though seriously, if this is going to become a nightly thing, maybe try and tone it down just a little bit? At one point I honestly thought a magical beast had slipped past Willow and gotten into your tent.”

  Leo’s face was hot enough that he was pretty certain he could have cooked their breakfast on it. Despite knowing the two of them were ribbing him in good fun, he couldn’t help but be embarrassed. While things had started off slowly and cautiously between him and Taylor, in typical Taylor fashion, she’d abandoned any sort of reservations or fear soon enough. It seemed if she got distracted enough, she partially reverted back to her more feral self, all but growling without even realizing it. Among a number of other rather interesting noises Leo would probably never forget.

  And if that wasn’t enough, Leo was pretty certain he had literal claw marks on his back that would take at least a few more hours to fully heal.

  “Hey!” Willow called out, popping out of the forest and narrowing her eyes at her teammates. “You two better not be teasing him about last night!” She and Taylor each held another one of those fat fox animals, and Willow brandished hers like a weapon as she stalked over. “That’s enough of that, now. Love is a beautiful thing, and I will not sit idly by and let you two knuckleheads stomp all over it!”

  “Alright, alright, sheesh,” Ember said, holding his hands up over his head as though afraid of being smacked with the dead fox. “No more teasing, I promise. Can we eat? I’m starving!”

  “Then why don’t you make yourself useful and start on the fire?” Willow asked, giving Ember a quick kiss as she grabbed his hand and dragged him over to their firepit from last night.

  “I’d better go make sure those two don’t start fighting,” Steel sighed, clapping Leo on the back one more time before walking off. Suddenly, it was just the two of them, and Leo blinked as he realized Taylor was looking at him with her head tilted. She looked the same as she always did, with her inquisitive eyes and matching dark hair held back in her usual braid. Yet something just seemed different about her. Something that made Leo oddly nervous to be talking to her.

  “What? Something wrong?” he asked, strangely self-conscious all of a sudden.

  “No,” she said, her curious head tilt quickly replaced with a warm smile as she walked over and gave him a tight hug. “I’m just happy.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “…Happy to see me, or happy I’m about to cook breakfast?”

  “It can be both,” she teased.

  And just like that, whatever strange tension had manifested since spending the night together dissipated without a trace as Leo found himself laughing at her honesty. It seemed regardless of what had happened between them, Taylor was the same as she’d always been. Besides her physical affection going up a notch, she wasn’t treating him any differently, and she wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Come on then. Ember should have that fire going in about ten seconds,” he said, taking her hand and leading her over to the fire. He did get one shrill whistle from Ember when the man spotted the two of them holding hands, but a quick smack to the back of his head from Willow put a stop to that.

  Breakfast passed without incident, and seeing as they’d already packed up camp, their team headed out immediately after. Leo was surprised to find that even with these newfound feelings in his heart, he was able to pretty easily slip back into Cartographer mode as they continued venturing deeper into the unknown plane. A single lapse of focus could be instantly lethal, and he made sure to keep his attention on the surrounding forest as they walked.

  Though he might have snuck a glance or two back at Taylor here and there. Just to make sure she was alright.

  Their team easily took care of another camouflage spider, and even came across one of the giant beavers, which Leo, Steel, and Taylor managed to take down all together without too much difficulty. Leo didn’t know what skills Steel actually had, but the man’s durability was no joke. He was able to take direct hits from the beast’s large paws without so much as shifting back an inch.

  Taylor seemed to be in such a good mood that she didn’t even complain to him about not getting to cultivate the higher-Grade beasts, and for once, all seemed well with the world.

  Right up until they received a shocking surprise.

  “Leo,” Taylor hissed, causing him to release the latest breath of raw power he’d taken in from the dead beaver as he opened his eyes. He, Steel, and Willow were all currently cultivating the power diffusing from the magical beast while Ember and Taylor kept watch. Though from the excited look on Taylor’s face, whatever she was interrupting him for wasn’t because of an incoming beast attack.

  “Everything okay?” he asked, hopping off the beaver’s corpse and looking around. “What is it?”

  “I…” Taylor paused, her eyes darting over to the other three just in time to catch herself. “…need to talk to you. Privately.”

  “You two didn’t get enough time together last night?” Ember smirked, making kissy-faces at the two of them. “I don’t see any heat signatures, so you should be okay. But don’t go too far, now!”

  Leo went to argue with him, but Taylor simply grabbed his wrist, yanking him off into the forest. Once they were out of range of hearing, she turned to him. “My open-soul technique finished! I know where the rifts are!”

  “Oh, that’s fantastic!” he said, immediately growing just as excited as he pulled out his journal and flipped to the map of the plane he was working on. “How many are there? Can you give me their general direction and distance?”

  Doing just that, Leo followed Taylor’s directions as he worked to fill out his mostly blank map with the many rifts scattered about. Though the more of the map he filled out, the more confused he became. Finally, he stopped her.

  “Taylor… did your open-soul technique stop halfway or something? I remember you mentioning you might have to do such a large plane in chunks.”

  “No, I’d be able to tell if it did. It fully looped around the plane,” she confirmed. “Why.”

  “It’s just… this doesn’t make any sense,” he said, turning his journal to show her what he’d jotted down. “The farthest rift you mention is located thirteen miles away. This is a colossal plane. It should be thirty miles wide at a bare minimum. Which would mean fifteen miles to make it halfway across the rift, and another fifteen miles to complete the loop and get back to where you started. Again, that’s at a minimum, it would almost certainly be larger. Statistically, the rifts should be evenly distributed throughout the plane. So why aren’t there any fifteen miles away? Or even farther?”

  “Dunno,” she shrugged, squinting at his journal. “Is it that weird?”

  “It’s definitely weird,” he said, trying to think of some sort of reasonable explanation. “Are there any dead rifts?”

  “A few, but they’re all still closer than thirteen miles away,” she said. “Maybe it’s not a colossal plane after all?”

  “Impossible. Any Cartographer worth their gems would double and triple check something like that before reporting it to the Nexus. Colossal planes are exceedingly rare, and ones with good, livable climates like this even more so. That’s the whole reason there’s a giant crowd of gem holders coming to check this place out, to see if this plane might be able to become some sort of alternative Nexus one day,” Leo said.

  The moment the words left his mouth, everything snapped into place.

  “Oh no,” he said, the blood draining from his face as his hands started shaking. “No, no, no!”

  “What?” Taylor demanded, looking around to ensure they weren’t under attack. “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything! Oh, Lords, I know what their plan is! I know why the killer has been targeting certain gem holders! I know what’s going to happen!”

  “That’s good, right? We’ve been trying to figure that out for days.”

  “It’s not good! It’s not good at all!” Leo said, dropping his journal as he grabbed Taylor by the shoulders. “You were right! This plane isn’t a colossal plane, that’s the secret the killer is trying to keep from getting out!”

  “Okay,” she said, tilting her head as she stared at him. “…So?”

  “It’s a trap! This whole, entire plane is one big trap!” he tried to explain, angry with himself for not figuring it out sooner. “The Planar Lords are using this as an opportunity to gather up the loudest of the dissenters within the Nexus! The people who are actually willing to actively go and try and change how things currently are!”

  “But why gather them here? The Planar Lords’ agents would have to dampen their souls to enter. It would be an even battleground going up against thousands of gem holders.”

  “That doesn’t matter, they’re not planning to fight them at all,” Leo said, scooping up his journal from the ground and shoving it back into his pack. Looking at Taylor with wild eyes, he continued. “They just needed a plane large enough to keep the ruse going. A gargantuan plane almost thirty miles wide would do. Because as soon as they have all the people gathered up in here…” Leo swallowed hard, hoping beyond hope he was wrong, despite knowing in his heart he wasn’t.

  “They’re going to collapse the entire plane. Killing anyone who might possibly stand against them in one fell swoop.”

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