CHAPTER 120
Everlyn had her bow out, pointing at the exit. She had picked up on his panic and reacted to protect them. Tom reached out a hand, placed it on the lower bow limb, and then pushed it down.
“There’s no threat.” He whispered while he attempted to calm his racing heart.
Her bow vanished, and then he made his own weapons disappear as well. That effort was harder than he had expected. There was something coldly comforting about holding a weapon when he was roiled up like this.
His mind seethed with turmoil and he forced himself to breathe deeply and then release slowly while listening out to see if there were any alarms from the camp outside their bunker. After that first night, they had learned. Each bed was now linked to the upper fortification so that if an alarm was raised, it would be reflected in here.
In and out, Tom forced each breath to drag out while he regained his composure.
The logical part of him concluded they were not in immediate danger. If that sapient and its mount had landed, every single alarm they had would be rung, and he and birdbrain were so massive and strong that they wouldn’t bother sneaking in. When you had overwhelming strength, there were some things you didn’t worry about.
In and out.
Everlyn was stroking his back in concern. She was smart enough to know that he had a vision and wise enough not to push him to discuss it immediately.
In and out.
The power that sapient must have had to so casually dismiss the wasp hives as beneath his consideration…
Tom shivered.
In and out.
He had known logically about how strong the surrounding sapient species were, but whatever sapient that was… That casual attitude to areas more powerful than what the humans could collectively face meant Tom did not want it to find them.
His heart rate calmed.
There was no alarm. The risk was not imminent and the more he thought about it there had been no sense of urgency in the vision, and in some ways no threat… And Tom knew having felt two minds now on successive days that the vision could have shared an incident that would have chilled him to the bone. Everyone occasionally had thoughts they were not proud of.
“It’ll be okay,” Everlyn whispered. “Take your time.”
Tom took a moment longer to strain his hearing and then nodded.
“I’m ready.”
In moments, he was sitting on her couch.
Everlyn was staring at him. He could see her legs twitching as she struggled to contain herself. She wanted to jump up and demand actions. She held her silence, but it was clear it was too much for her. “What happened?”
Rather than answering he took a moment to stare at the flickering flames while considering the best choice of words.
“It was a dream from the perspective of an alien.”
There was a sharp intake of breath, and her eyes widened.
“The alien had a flying mount and had spotted the wasp plains.”
Her fists clenched, and she went white. A tremble passed through her, and then her face hardened. “Fair enough. It was always a matter of time.”
“That’s what I fear. He,” Tom tasted the word, but from what he had sensed in the moments they had shared that he was the appropriate pronoun. “Was going to investigate the new mountains as a priority.” Tom hesitated and then decided to be as honest as he could. “He considered them more likely to have a treasure, and that was his preference. With that stated, it was clear he planned to explore all the expanded area. Eventually, he will fly over the wasp plains.”
“And see a line of destroyed hives that leads right to us.”
“Yes. Thirty kilometres in a straight line. It can’t be missed.”
“Shit.” Everlyn cursed. “Do we abandon the event and flee to hide our trail?”
“I didn’t get an impression of danger.”
She looked up and studied the roof. “Why show it then?”
“I don’t know, and I can’t even estimate how long we have. That vision might have been from a month ago or yesterday. The dreams are not clear. He might take a day to explore the mountains or two months or longer. I can’t tell anymore.”
“We should run.”
“It didn’t feel like a warning and to do that we need to admit my skill to everyone. What is the killer going to do, then?”
“No. The murderer won’t find out. If anything, it makes us more secure. We can describe it as a danger sense. With your legend, people will accept you having something like that.”
“I still don’t think he is a threat.”
“The vision had to have a point.” Everlyn countered.
“The alien seemed reasonable, loyal… Maybe the vision was not nefarious. Maybe it was like the Hao one. Maybe this alien is someone I can use to get stronger.”
Everlyn shook her head. “I don’t know. How powerful was he?”
Tom said nothing. Which was an answer.
“He could destroy us like that.” She snapped her fingers, guessing correctly. “How can we do anything but run?”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Because there was no sense of threat. If there was, I’d tell everyone and our group would scatter to the wind.”
“I can’t believe this is happening.” She whispered.
“You think I need to fess up? Describe everything and let people decide by themselves?”
Everlyn paused. A range of emotions crossing her face. The final one being wry acceptance. “No.” She answered quietly and frowned at herself. “No. We need to trust your skill and your interpretation. You can’t toss something like this to the mob. You have to decipher what that dream is telling you. Determine what you can do to profit from it. If this creature is a threat, I’m sure you’ll get a secondary and tertiary warning before it gets close. Otherwise, what is the point of a vision that has misled you that much?”
Tom chuckled, exhaustedly. “When I purchased this skill, this was not an outcome I was expecting. Given why we bought it to be presented with a path to upgrade my golem and now an impossibly powerful alien with the first two visions. Ridiculous. I was prepared for it to help me find trials or natural treasures and give me clues to uncover the killer. Not this. I guess it goes back to the theory that maybe they have wards around them that my skill can’t pierce.”
Her nose wrinkled. “It’s tier seven. I doubt any human will lock it out. Temporarily, possibly, but not permanently. My guess is that this alien is more important than solving the other problem.”
“Hao?”
Everlyn sagged a little at the reminder, then she perked up. “Possibly getting tier three material for Golly is essential for the future. The skill communicates by sharing memories, but at heart it’s prophetic and we’ve seen how long it takes Hao to create even a few hundred grams of tier three material. If you need Golly to be tier three in the future, then it might prioritise Hao over other considerations. It’s still possible that both of these two visions were more important than finding the killer.”
“Providing they don’t get any other victims.”
Everlyn chose not to respond to that through the way she looked away told him she disagreed with the vehemence he had displayed. Tom agreed. He knew he was being petty. There were millions of combinations where both Hao and the alien mattered more than catching a murderer. Even if it meant multiple people being killed. The problem with oracle skills was how they couldn’t be directed. The Skill would decide about what was best for him and probably do a better job than if he more actively controlled the process.
“You’re not that naïve.”
“No, I’m not.” Tom admitted. “The killer will be solved in time and the importance of these last couple of visions will become apparent in hindsight as well.”
She shrugged. “It’s exhausting.” Then looked at a wall. “Time.”
3:30 am
She grimaced at the number. “I’m not getting back to sleep. That’s over five hours already. My preference is six, but if I’m disturbed after four hours I know I won’t fall back asleep.”
“Not enough for me. I need another hour.” Tom admitted.
“Shoo then.” Everlyn said with a laugh. “I’ll research and see what else I can find.”
Tom left the system room and forced himself to go to sleep.
He only dozed and fitfully at that. There were dreams of striking it rich with the help of the furry pawed alien and others of it destroying them utterly.
Tom remembered the strange sensation of being in its thoughts. It had been different to Hao’s even without the visual confirmation Tom would have worked out it was a unique species. For his sensibilities, there had been a jarring non-human edge which was hard to describe.
His subconscious dreaming mind re-examined every moment of the vision. The mountains the person had seen were on the other side of the wasp plains. They were not the foothills that Tom was currently in and the alien had considered them to be low level. The wasp plains in contrast hadn’t been low-levelled they had been regarded as unlevelled which was why it had explored the mountains first, possibly, in an extreme case, there might be something that might present a minor challenge.
Whoever or whatever the creature was, the one fact that was pertinent to any future interaction was that he could wipe out Tom and the entire camp without issue. That was the conclusion Tom had to draw from how he had viewed the wasp plains. Basically, the strength that Tom and everyone else had expected natives to possess. Even though all of them had been predicting, it didn’t mean the knowledge was anything but horrifying.
They were gnats, and they had to evolve to be dragons.
The only reason he was not fleeing immediately was that stray thought about terrors.
The person had condemned that mindset!
Which meant the alien on Birdbrain was not a terror.
Which in turn meant that despite the power discrepancy, having the creature find them was not a death sentence. The alien might be open to trade and given its strength possibly even charity. There must be something to be said for being on the good side of a competition race.
Trade what?
Tom did not know and his dreams morphed into an elaborate scheme where he trapped it in layers of conditions like Tom was the devil and created a web of complexity where he got everything he wanted for no cost.
He jerked awake with Everlyn’s hand on his shoulder.
“What?”
“It’s half an hour till dawn.”
Tom released a sigh.
Future threats had to be put aside. They had the more immediate concern of the next event wave to deal with. As always, nearly everyone was up when they emerged into the main courtyard despite it being predawn.
Warmed savoury porridge was available at the firepit and Everlyn and he found an unoccupied desk and chatted while having a leisurely breakfast.
Then, in the lighting day, with the sun peeking over the horizon they went off to repeat the exploration of the nearby caves.
All their muscles were sore when they returned in the evening.
The fortifications had been transformed. The walls were now more than just physical. Instead, they glowed with magic spells and rituals. It was impressive what seventy dedicated humans with a diverse range of skills and access to a store to purchase specific defences could achieve.
“Any excitement?” Tom asked Michael when the older man sat down next to him.
The healer shook his head. “Only the lizards. Those things seem to be migratory.”
“Did Golly help?”
“No, the threat wasn’t large enough to activate it.”
Tom mock pouted. After all, if Golly had got involved, then some of that experience would have leaked to him.
“Golly is for emergencies.” Michael said tiredly. “You know this.”
“I know.”
“But!” Michael pounced on his pause.
“But nothing. I would like for it to fight during the day, but I accept that’s not possible.”
Michael laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “How about you?”
“Nah, nothing. We cleared two small packs of ferrets and that was it.”
“And harvested a handful of alchemical ingredients.” Everlyn told him. “But we knew we weren’t getting anything good. We were close to here and too many people with treasure sensing traits. After tomorrow’s wave, I’m heading further out. Exploring cleaned areas is frustrating.”
They retired to their bed.
His mind latched onto the feeling he had experienced yesterday. The sheer simple joy of flying high above the ground in an area that had nothing strong enough to hurt you. The thrill of exploration.
Tom shook his head.
No!
He was getting distracted. He marshalled his thoughts to focus on what was important. The alien was in the category of existential threat. If it was coming for them, the oracle skill would tell him no matter what he wanted from it.
The killer! Tom forced himself to concentrate on that and all the clues they had established. The annoying mysterious dungeon lock that had trapped them in the trial. It had kept half of them contained while the rest were knocked unconscious. Why? Probably a restriction on their knock out spell. How? That was a mystery.
Then there were the other deaths. Reilly, Mac and Jeffrey felt like crimes of opportunity compared to the extra planning that had been put into Tiny’s murder.
He wondered about Birdbrain. What was it? A griffin, a chimera, something else unique?
No.
Tom forced himself back to focusing on the killer. How had they locked the trial? Was that a thread to pull or just a one-off item that would be a dead end?
He drifted off to sleep. Everlyn was teasing him, annoying him, then running away, and she had some wraith-like ability to turn to mist to escape him. It was a fun game, and he knew she would let him catch her soon.
He lunged at her and she transformed into smoke with the wisp of blackness washing over his eyes, and then the world altered…
Everlyn was gone. The sense of her vanished; instead he was caught in comforting pitch black darkness and was completely aware.
It was another prophetic dream.