Today's Earth date: March 13, 1992

Mom, Dad, I'm sorry it took me so long to realize the obvious.

I'm a Paladin.

I don't know why I've been so resistant to truly embrace that. It's all the things I ever dreamed of, really. I have powers. I get to help people. I get to go on adventures.

You'll never get to read any of these entries, and you'll never know how much good I've done in this world. And I will do even more good in this world that you'll never know. But I still hope you're proud of me.

I'm your son. I'm Laszlo the Chosen Paladin.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

***

"Wayne, Fergus, you should see this," Sammy shouted through the rain the next morning. The cook and Vanilli were repacking the wagon.

When both of the scholars approached, Sammy added, "I didn't touch it either. Promise."

Inside the open compartment was the Water Sigil they found after defeating the crab knight by the Water Temple. An enchanter already confirmed it wasn't magic, but to Wayne, the Sigil felt like a quest item. If there was a chance it might be relevant in the Temple dive, Wayne wanted to have it within reach. That was always the best move with quest items. Leaving them in storage meant risking a long and tedious stretch of backtracking.

Now, the Water Sigil glowed, but the light was faint.

Wayne removed it from the compartment, and even in the dimmed daylight of a rainforest downpour, the glow became imperceptible. It was so weak that Sammy only noticed it because it was stuffed in the back of a dark storage compartment.

"Thanks, Sammy," Wayne said, looking at the Water Sigil closely. "I don't know what this means, though. Fergus, would you mind keeping an eye on it while I drive the wagon? If anything changes, well, I know you'll let me know."

Fergus accepted the Water Sigil with a nod.

"Want to check out 'the Crack' before we get going again?" Wayne asked.

"That's a terrible nickname. Drumin's Divide, its proper name, is sufficient," Fergus said, his nose up in the air. "But yes."

When the pair moseyed toward the bridge over the chasm, the rest of the party followed. Stopping to look at the view felt a little touristy to Wayne, and for the first time, he asked himself why that was a bad thing? Being a tourist on Earth had a negative reputation, and travel culture had its share of elitism. There were the "right" and "cool" ways to explore a new place, and being one of the people that stopped on the side of the road to look at the view wasn't one of them.

That feeling made Wayne feel a bit ashamed about his own tourist proclivities, such as visiting cheesy museums devoted to obscure topics.

Why did Wayne give a shit about being a tourist? Why did anyone, for that matter?

If someone was respectful and kind but liked riding a charter bus between stops with a hundred old people doing the same, whatever. They were having fun and not hurting anyone.

Fergus saw Wayne chuckling to himself and raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry," Wayne said. "I just had a realization that I wish I had had decades ago on Earth."

"Ah, but you had it. Late is better than never."

Wayne nodded.

Drumin's Divide was as wide as an interstate highway and had a bridge spanning its width. The bridge was built in the same style as the Vientuls bridge–the original, not the one that regrew from coral after that business with the snail.

The perfectly vertical sides of the Divide made Wayne appreciate the nickname "the Crack" a touch more, but not enough to find it acceptable. However, he could admit that the visual was accurate. Standing in the middle of the bridge felt like standing on a fault line. The world used to be connected here, and immense forces pulled it apart. This didn't have the organic whimsy of a canyon formed from erosion. No, Drumin's Divide was more like a broken plate.

"Think it's really bottomless?" Sammy asked, leaning over the railing.

"The ground of our world is not infinitely deep," Fergus said, "so that's unlikely."

Wayne had an idea. He climbed up on the railing. The Altimeter on his HUD read zero because his feet were on a solid surface. That wasn't exactly how a real altimeter worked, but knowing how far he was from the next nearest surface made using Brake might each easier.

When Wayne Blitzed over the void, his Altimeter spun wildly, something he had never seen it do before. Returning to the bridge, Wayne reported that his skill couldn't measure the depth.

He looked back over the railing. He could go down and see for himself like he had done with the gargoyle pit… No, he pushed that idea from his mind. Wayne had a lot of mana, but it was still finite. There would be a point in his descent where he wouldn't have enough mana to Blitz back to the top, and he saw no hints of places where he might rest from where he stood. If the rest of the Divide was as vertical as what was visible from the surface, he would have to manage his mana carefully.

The risks weren't worth it. An infinitely deep pit might be a physical impossibility, but the Mariana Trench wasn't infinitely deep either. It was simply incomprehensibly deep, and for all practical purposes for what humans could survive currently, that was the same as infinite.

Before the group boarded the wagon, Wayne activated Probe to see if any Spawners were nearby. Seeing none, they crossed Drumin's Divide and continued toward the Earth Temple. If they could push the pace, they might have been able to get there by the end of the day, but the state of the road could mean up to two days between here and their destination.

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Long wagon rides typically had stretches where no one spoke, much like the momentum common to Earth road trips. Once the journey was truly underway, there wasn't much to do but quietly watch the world roll by.

Travel was like that for the Zeroes as well, but the misery of the weather drove out any chance at levity. Wayne, sitting on Outlawson, set his mind to brainstorming how to find more consistent sources of experience, doing his best to occupy his thoughts with anything but how cold and wet he was.

Searching for overworld Spawners was his best idea, which made him unhappy. Though those could be great sources of experience points, they weren't predictable, nor did the party have a method for finding them. By the time Vanilli could feel the presence of demon material, Wayne's Probe skill was in range to find it, regardless.

He briefly considered rigging his own Spawner with demon material, or asking Vanilli to forge the largest monster he could with his Forgemaster tools, but both of those felt ethically dubious. Beyond the potential cruelty, Vanilli had already resolved to want to help people with demon material–replacing limbs like he did for Kryss–and taking opportunities away from amputees did not feel great for Wayne.

But despite the rain, the journey was soothing. Outlawson had found a sort of rhythm to his movements, and Wayne found himself at ease with the process of travel. The Forest of 10,000 Cuts was beautiful. Life was beautiful. The rain be damned.

Wayne closed his eyes and swayed to his feeling of serenity. His contentment filled him with warmth, and any desire to work or be productive melted away.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!"

Wayne startled at the sudden blast of Paula Abdul in his ears. He blinked his eyes and looked around.

Rainforest surrounded him. The road and wagon weren't in sight, nor could he see what direction he had traveled from. He looked down to find slashes in his clothes and deep cuts bleeding beneath.

Vanilli stood next to him, his boombox on his shoulder, the volume set to max. Wayne briefly wondered if fixing a boombox with mana also made it waterproof.

The demon cupped a hand around Wayne's ear and leaned in to yell.

"SIREN TRAPS! THE OTHERS ARE CAUGHT TOO."

That snapped Wayne into being fully aware of himself and his surroundings. All of the coral gashes burned in the rainwater, but it was bearable.

He looked at his HUD and sighed with relief when he saw History tracked his path. No matter what, he'd be able to get back to the wagon, and he could see the green dots of his party moving deeper into the jungle, as well as the blue dots of Sammy and Vanilla.

Random.

Song: Funkytown

Artist: Lipps, Inc

Album: Mouth to Mouth

Genre: Minneapolis Sound

The intro of the song wasn't familiar, but a few seconds in, he confirmed it was in fact that Funkytown. The tone was weird for a life or death situation, but it would have to do.

Wayne set his volume to max and pointed Vanilli in the direction of one of the green dots while he went after another.

Rounding up the party took several minutes, and each member went through the same awakening process as Wayne. Fortunately, Wayne could use the Voice ability to explain to them exactly what was happening without shouting. With their party members grouped close to stay within the safety of loud music, Wayne and Vanilli led the group back to the wagon.

A few steps in, Fergus grabbed Wayne. "Where's Sammy?"

Wayne looked at his HUD. He only saw Vanilli's blue dot. When did Sammy's dot disappear? Had Wayne been too focused to notice it blink out?

He pointed for Vanilli to continue leading the party away. Wayne ran back to the last point in his journey where he remembered seeing Sammy's dot. The dot was southeast at the time, so Wayne struck out in that direction. He ran through the growth, coral be damned.

Probe wasn't picking up anything. No red dots. No new blue dots.

Panic pressed on his chest, a force so immense and powerful that Wayne's stats didn't matter. This was Sammy. Their Sammy. Just a kid who loved sharing food. Wayne couldn't let him down. Not like this.

"Fergus…"

"Is Sammy okay?"

"I haven't found him yet. The whole party is on this channel, so everyone: When I say 'now!' I want you to scream with your minds for three seconds. No time to explain. Two, one, now!"

Wayne muted BGM Switcher and listened for the song of the siren traps. He felt the draw of magic built purely from the darkest sides of love and desire, but his party's chaos over Voice drowned out the worst of it. Though the sound was only in his mind, Wayne found that it hurt his ears, nonetheless.

He unmuted BGM Switcher, and Funkytown began to play again.

He breathed deeply while his body and mind worked to remember themselves.

Wayne drove forward several paces. Still not finding Sammy, he repeated the process.

This round felt stronger than the last, but he heard the course correction he needed. With his own music blaring, Wayne burst into a small patch of open jungle to find a blanket of red flowers coating the ground. A Sammy-shaped bundle of vines sat on top and in the midst of the flower patch.

"I see him. When I ask you to start, scream until I tell you to stop. I'm going into the flowers and don't want to take any chances. Okay, two, one, go."

Wayne dashed ahead, his mind overwhelmed with the volume of his music and the screams in his mind. He hacked at the vines, trying to balance urgency with care. Cutting off Sammy's arm wasn't on the to-do list for the day.

As the binds came loose, Wayne grabbed Sammy's arm and pulled him away from the flowers. He had several red puncture wounds where the small barbs on the vines had poked into his skin, but other than being unconscious, Sammy seemed perfectly healthy.

"Okay! I'm clear."

Hector continued screaming.

"Hector! Hey! Hector."

"Oww," Hector said, "Why'd you do that?"

"We were all done screaming a while ago," Margo said.

"Sorry."

***

"That would have been an embarrassing way to die," Fergus said. "And only luck saved us. If Vanilli wasn't immune… No reason to think like that, but I can't help it."

The party stuck to Voice chat as Paula Abdul continued rocking the hell out of the Cuts.

"Does anyone remember hearing the music start?"

Every party member answered that no, they didn't remember hearing anything.

"One second, I was thinking about a squad mate I used to know and the next moment Vanilli is shaking me in the jungle," Armond said.

The rest of the party had similar stories. The lure of the siren trap was so powerful that the music worked its evil magic near-instantaneously. Odysseus had the luck of knowing where to expect the sirens so that he and his men could prepare by putting wax in their ears.

Well, except for Odysseus. He was tied to the mast and listened to the whole song.

Wayne found it odd that there was no detailed description of what Odysseus said in those moments where the song had overwhelmed him completely. Wayne imagined it probably sounded like those Instagram screenshots of one cringey guy texting endlessly despite receiving no reply.

"At any rate, I think I'll have to hug Vanilli for an uncomfortably long time," Fergus said.

Wayne agreed, laughing out loud. He also couldn't overlook how happy Vanilli was that the party had no choice but to listen to Paula Abdul on full blast the rest of the way to the Earth Temple. Today, Wayne was more than fine indulging Vanilli.

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