CHAPTER 117
Everlyn looked up. “It’s been barely an hour.”
Tom shrugged his attention, focusing on what was currently selling in the auction house.
Quarter Glacier Wyvern Bloodline Potion.
This potion will fully awaken a quarter Wyvern bloodline where the imbiber will randomly take characteristics of a Glacier Wyvern.
Affects Vary.
Price 8,010,129
It was not as pricy as the dragon equivalent, but it was still pretty impressive. One day Tom promised himself he would get the credits to consider that sort of upgrade. Not ice or fire, as he had no affinity for it. Instead, he would target something sensible, like a storm blood line to make use of his lightning efficiency and a bit of the dark.
Thortacaa Legendary Shield (Tier 4)
A 3 metre by 2 metre shield with a 70% chance of reflecting all spells under tier 2 with reducing chances for higher spells.
Price 1,210,000
Without fate benefiting him, the Spectaculi had nothing to tempt him. With most objects well out of his price range, even with his improved finances now that a cut of the purchases of over seventy people were funnelling back into him.
Affinity Stone Grand Harmony
Increase skill level of the tier five grand harmony spell by 3
Price 210,000
That was within his price range, well, if he borrowed from the others.
“Can I buy a grand harmony spell?”
The grand harmony spell is a spell in a variety of Expert and above classes in both bard and cleric pathways.
These are class locked spells and cannot be purchased directly with experience or provided as loot drops.
Yep, that class restriction made sense, given its price. Increasing a tier five spell by three levels was a massive upgrade and a bargain for that sort of cost, but this affinity stone was useless to him and most people out there, which was why it was cheap. It was niche, like the elemental summoner passive trait stone he had been lucky enough to purchase.
Niche meant affordable, but with a hundred items going through at a time the chance of any niche item matching his needs was near zero, unless fate was invested.
“What are you doing?”
Tom looked up guiltily and then at the pile of books. Everlyn flicked a look at his side of the table and the books still waiting to be read.
“Two-minute break.” He promised.
He kept scanning through the options on offer and then stopped in surprise.
Skill Stone of True Dreaming (Tier 7)
This skill allows you to dream from the perspective of a sapient creature that has observed a past event that has relevance to the dreamers’ aims or the potential to enrich him or her. Additional senses may be overlaid to highlight key features. This ability will evade most forms of warding.
Effectiveness is driven by relevance, proximity, level of opposing fate and the dreamer’s static fate pool minus class levels.
Restrictions. No other oracle skills can be utilised by someone with the True Dreaming Skill.
Unstable must be consumed in twenty-three hours
Cost: 124,000
“Yes!” Tom yelled.
“What?” Everlyn was out of her chair and looking at what he had discovered.
“That’s our answer.” He pointed at the description.
Everlyn’s eyes flickered over the information. “That restriction is pretty huge.”
Tom frowned when he re-read the line. “I skipped that.” he admitted now no longer so certain of its fit.
“Did you have any Oracle skills in the tutorial?” Everlyn asked.
“Of course, battle sight, treasure vision, weather predictor, camp sight.”
“I know the last two but battle sight?”
Tom shrugged. “It was not very useful. Occasionally I would get glimpses before a fight and then mid battle receive a déjà vu sensation that would help me avoid something like a tail lash. I think it was helpful.” He shrugged. “It was never clear if the distraction was worth the benefit. The other three were all helpful.”
“I had those and ones that helped with discovering tracks and hiding my own. They too were incredible.”
“Hiding your own tracks?”
Everlyn laughed. “Yep. I would get a vision of a beast finding traces of my passage in the future. It gave me a chance to lay false trails and/or remove whatever mistake alerted them. Every time it triggered, I improved my technical skill because it identified a flaw in my technique.”
“Losing access to oracle skills will be a bummer, but that skill.” Tom pointed at it. “Is almost tailored to resolving our issue. Particularly given how large my effective fate pool is. Remember that condition means that if you’re not pumping in more than one attribute point to fate per level you’re going backwards.”
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Everlyn licked her lips. He could see that she was weighing the skill. “But we don’t want to cripple ourselves just to find this murderer.” Everlyn said quietly. “I know that sounds cold, but the two of us are probably worth half the people here, if not everyone else combined. It’s better to cut contact and leave them to their fate than ruin our future potential.”
“It’s a tier seven Skill.”
“Tiers are not everything.” she said coldly. “And I know you’re not the type to assume that a higher tier is automatically better.”
“No, I’m not that type. I assess things on their merit, but I’m not so sure that this is useless,” Tom told her. “And I quote. ‘Observe a past event that has relevance to the dreamer’s aims or the potential to enrich them.’ What does that last part mean?”
Everlyn shook her head. “The bit that worries me is from the perspective of a sapient creature has observed in the past. We’re in the middle of nowhere. How many sapient creatures are around?”
Tom shrugged. “We won’t always be isolated. But even now that enriches means that if a scout sees something without noticing it, I’ll get a dream with the additional senses to discover what the secret is. Even with only seventy eyes, it could pay for itself and you know it’s powerful. It’s tier seven.”
Everlyn shook her head unconvinced. “It will definitely let us solve the murder, but the cost is still–”
“By the time I can afford other oracle skills we’ll almost certainly be around other species. Can you imagine how good this will be if we are being hunted or hunting a sapient. We’ll basically know their plans.”
“But it won’t directly help you find treasure, predict the weather or determine the security of a camp site like those other skills.”
“I don’t need those skills. The battle trance one maybe but not the others.” Tom shrugged. Those he didn’t need. “You’ll still be purchasing them and we only need one person in the group to possess them. I can afford to specialise. It’s tier seven. Show the price of any tier six or above skills on the auction house.”
Two options appeared.
Spell: Earth Mastery - Tier 6.
This spell gives the user a domain equal to fifty metres times skill level. All earth objects that have not been forged by a master smith or above will obey the command of the Spell caster for a small additional mana cost.
Unstable must be consumed in six hours
Cost 750,000 Time to Expiry 10 minutes.
The spell was more impressive than the description implied. Any earth spell ranked below tier five would fail to hit and anyone weaker than rank thirty would be crushed at a moment’s thought.
“I know how much tier six and seven spell’s cost.” Everly said unimpressed.
Spell: Vloadooa Dragon Form - Tier 8
Transform into a mature Vloadooa dragon for one hour
Unstable must be consumed in three hours
Mana Cost: 1450
Cost: 4,500,000 Time to Expiry 40 minutes.
“What’s a Vloadooa Dragon?” Everlyn asked reasonably.
“I imagine it’s terrifying.”
“Yes. I know what tier eight spells are capable of. And why True Dreaming is a bargain, it’s obviously a weak tier seven skill.”
“Maybe.”
“Yes it is, or else it would sell for a tier seven price instead of tier four or five.”
“Everyone who has the cash for this sort of stuff already has oracle skills. This is like my trait stone for the elemental summoner class. No one else can use it.”
“Yes, they can,” Everlyn interrupted. They just need to give up all their existing oracle Spells and Skills.”
“Oh, yeah.” Tom agreed when he re-read the description. “Still, most of those people probably have tier four or five investments already. The benefit they get is a lot less than for someone like me, with no investment in oracle skills.”
Everlyn laughed. “I don’t even know why I bother. You’ve already decided. Now.” She tapped the table and the piles of books. “We’re not putting all the eggs into that one basket. We need to study.”
Tom sat down and threw himself into the research. The books he picked up ranged from what was close to a picture book about rituals promoting fertility, crop, animal and sapient to a dense encyclopedia of rituals on the art of fate tracking.
Fate as always fascinated him, and he had not explored tracking methods before. He got lost in the tome almost reading every word in the five pages of font eight writing. Apparently, to assist in fate tracking rituals there were almost two hundred Spells and Skills to learn to give you a base to progress further before touching your first ritual. Further on there were details around the interactions of various combinations of Skills. Sometimes one plus two would equal five, but the vast majority of the time it would end up somewhere lower than three.
Fate abilities did not play nicely with others and knowing when not to use a skill at high levels was as important as possessing it.
Still, it was interesting in a theoretical sort of way at least if you were a professor. He was an ex apprentice builder and while he could see there would be times in the future where this stuff would become useful he wasn’t going to be that boffin. Maybe at some point he would get physical copies of these books and lock Harry up with them till the ritualist got hooked.
Nevertheless, there were some pretty valuable insights. With a thought, a short list of seven skills was recorded. They ranged from tier three to six, so it will be a long time until he could purchase them, but once his rank was improved Tom knew he would be looking to further develop his strengths.
He pushed the book away and picked up another.
Useless.
He tossed it onto the discard pile which, unlike Everlyn’s his grew in a glorious disorganised mess. His girlfriend made the book vanish after she had checked it, but Tom liked to see the progress.
Tom lifted a heavy tome and dropped it on the table in front of him.
Thump.
A cloud of dust billowing out of it. The realism that had gone into the system room was incredible.
Everlyn was so engrossed that she did not even jump at the loud noise. Tom admired her. He didn’t understand how she could sustain that sort of focus. Sure, he had been reading a boring tome, but the main issue with his productivity was the number of times he checked the progress of his auction.
“Stop staring at me and keep working.”
Tom jumped and flipped open the next book. “Create Soil”. He noticed Everlyn smile as she turned a page.
Tom attempted to focus exclusively on reading. Create soil might actually provide an insight, as the bodies had rested on what was best described as a fine layer of soil.
“Anything?” Everlyn asked finally.
“No. Maybe another day or…”
He gestured at the auction.
“That’s going to bankrupt us.”
Tom shrugged in response. “Still a bargain.”
“It better work.”
“It’s tier seven of course it will.”
There was a ding.
Warning.
The auction on the item Skill Stone of True Dreaming has entered its last minute.
As you held the highest bid, you will be able to match any future bids.
Tom sighed in relief. They were ahead with a minute to go. Hopefully, no one else was interested. Together, they waited for an announcement of late bids, knowing that even a minor bidding war would probably take the Skill Stone of True Dreaming out of their price range.
There was another ding
Congratulations! You have purchased the Skill Stone of True Dreaming (tier 7)
Total cost of 148,000 plus 29,600 margin has been subtracted from your account.
“We won.” Tom said in disbelief. “We own a tier seven Skill?”
“Ridiculously cheap. If its functionality matches its tier at least but we’re broke again.”
“We won.” Then he looked at the mound of books still on the table. “Please tell me that we’re done for the night?”
Everlyn shrugged. “With your new Skill I don’t see the point of continuing to throw darts in the dark. Getting a tier seven skill that cheap almost certainly burnt the entire team’s fate. I doubt—”
“Yes.” Tom did a fist pump. “Solved my way. Throw cash at it.”
“While we’re rich why not.” Everlyn giggled.
“Show credit balance.
Tom: 31
Everlyn: 789
“Sob…” He pretended to cry. “We’re no longer rich.”
Everlyn laughed at his antics, which made it all worthwhile.