CHAPTER 121

The black space Tom found himself in felt familiar. If this was a dream from his skill True Dreaming, he needed to absorb and memorise every single detail available. He put all of his own concerns and the dregs of his own unique aside to concentrate on the moment.

The mind he was in was annoyed, frustrated, and disappointed. Those emotions spiralled together, with no singular one gaining dominance, but beneath them was an undercurrent of determination. A faith in a path that was unshakable. The task would be done and regret would do nothing to stop that from occurring.

The mind was far more logical than his own, but as Tom felt out the particulars he was satisfied in one thing. It was human.

Was it the killer?

Tom searched further for context while the body he controlled looked blank forward actively procrastinating.

There were no clues in the senses he had available. Tom wanted to look down to see the person’s hands. A distinctive freckle or the pattern of hair could confirm their identity. Even a glimpse of their clothes would help, but there was nothing.

It was total darkness.

No, Tom corrected his thinking. He knew where he was. This was the void that occurred when entering a trial. For all intents and purposes, that meant he was bodiless. It explained the lack of sensory feedback that Tom was suffering. From his own experience, Tom recognised how isolated your senses became in this environment. All you had was your thoughts, and voice if you chose to interact verbally with the trial. Though knowing his luck, this person would be one of those who managed everything in thought, something that was also possible here.

This was the killer, Tom was certain of it. Hopefully, the bastard would slip up.

Text appeared in front of him. Tom, or more precisely the individual he was possessing focused on the words to ensure they were what the mind was expecting.

You possess a fully charged Radunoc Mark. Would you like to activate it?

Those words were exactly what the waiting mind had been expecting. “Yes,” the person answered confidently and hope soared in Tom. The voice, if he had the voice he had the killer. He tried to place the tone, but it was not one that he recognised. Male, it sounded male, but… he couldn’t be sure.

What function would you like to choose?

* Extend portal duration. Error - Not available for a permanent trial.

* Upgrade Trial.

* Decay Trial.

* Administrative Functions.

Annoyance filled the mind of the person whose senses Tom was sharing. The mark was a long-term investment and had been bought to be used primarily for the first two options. Though the decay had also been attractive. The killer could imagine sneaking in and breaking a permanent trial of humanity’s enemies. The number of ranking points that sort of infrastructure destruction could generate would be immense. But instead of doing that they were using it on that last line. The single most useless bit of functionality the mark imparted.

“Administrative Functions.”

Once more, Tom could not place the voice and he knew it was the same effect that made him cringe when he heard his speech on a video. It didn’t sound like him because the voice he heard when he spoke included the direct vibrations through solid matter besides sound waves, while the video only captured sound waves. That was why he couldn’t identify the person with their speech. The same effect was happening here. He was almost certain it was male.

Administrative functions available are.

* Hide trial. Aura and visibility of trial will be decreased materially for eleven months.

* Block Entry to trial for up to two weeks.

* End all existing trial runs early.

* Delay exit from trial for up to sixty-two hours.

The internal thoughts of the body he shared were scathing. Even here at the administrative trial, they had to resort to using the least powerful option. But it had to be done…

“Block exit for two hours.”

The dream ended, and Tom was immediately awake. This time, he did not jump in alarm. There was no need. He placed the event, and it was historical. Unfortunately, there were few clues about the killer apart from the fact that they were human.

Why?

Why were there so few clues available? Why hadn’t his vision shared a memory where he could have got indications about the physical body.

Yes, this vision told him bits about the killer’s mindset. The murders, instead of being about passion and depravity were being treated almost like it was a job. Not that Tom had sensed any remorse which potentially made the killer more deadly. A professional hitman was harder to catch than a serial killer who often became a victim of their habits and the need to kill even when an opportunity didn’t present.

While the insight into the psychology was nice, Tom wanted to know is why such a flawed moment in the killer’s history had been shown? Anywhere outside, in a tent, having a piss, killing someone. Any of those moments would have given him the chance to glimpse the person’s hands. And as with his experience with Hao that would have been enough. Or clothes, or anything, really. The fact the memory had shared precisely zero identifying features was disturbing.

Was that his subconscious at play?

An inner fear of finding out who it was?

Or was it the Skill deliberately obfuscating the solution?

Tom could see advantages of delaying the discovery because once he knew who it was then his protection from his oracle question was gone. Once he identified the killer, he had twenty-four hours to permanently deal with it. The implications of the Skill being aware of the question and adjusting its visions based on that were disturbing.

That was the problem of a tier seven skills, Tom acknowledged to himself. It could do more than he could imagine.

The alternative was wards or anti scrying spells being used by the killer. Potentially the trial was the only place where those defences broke down sufficiently for his Skill to burrow through and bring something useful?

Tom didn’t know.

It could be one or all of them acting together, but today he was closer than he had been. A human was responsible for each of the deaths and that person had felt almost trapped in the decisions they were making.

There was one other thread to chase down.

Tom stepped across into his system room.

“Show the trait Radunoc Mark?”

Trait: Radunoc Mark

This trait, when fully charged offers options to affect a wide variety of trial features. This can include upgrading trials or destabilising them to the point of destruction amongst a host of other options.

Cost 1,200,000

There was more information available if he drilled down further but Tom’s gut told him the display of the trait in action had provided a superior understanding of the trait’s flexibility than the simplistic system descriptions that were available to him here in the system room.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

For a moment, Tom focused on the bottom line in the description.

That cost.

Over a million experience was required to purchase the trait. It was too much. No one in their group could possibly have earned even close to that result unless sacrificing Jeffrey had yielded that level of windfall directly. If it had, it seemed unlikely that they would have used that experience to purchase this mark as there were better things for them to concentrate on. Plus, if each murder gave a million experience everyone in this group had already lost. For that sort of reward and the snowballing that would accompany it, Tom almost approved of the gamble or he would have if his and Everlyn’s lives weren’t on the line.

Tom shook his head to dismiss the thought. The mark had to have been purchased from contribution points. That was the only explanation, and it matched what he recalled from when he had been sharing the killer’s mind. The mark had not been related to killing.

It was best to assume it was from contribution points because the other option was too dark. If that was the case, then it was a type of clue.

“Price of Fate’s agility.”

1,090,000

Tom nodded at that number. That gave him a benchmark of the value of the Radunoc Mark.

The next question was whether this new information combined with his questions in reserve would allow him to hunt down the target?

“No!” He declared forcefully into the metallic room.

No, that was the simple answer. A million contribution points could be hidden. If they had ground contributed points twice as fast as someone else, this sort of purchase would be invisible and even forcing out the exact build of everyone would be unlikely to reveal the killer.

“Is there a way to identify a Radunoc Mark?”

There are a number of identification skills that can achieve this.

“How much will they cost?”

The cheapest direct version is

Skill: Legendary Identification - Tier 6

This skill reveals extensive details about anything that it is used against

Cost: 890,000

“What about indirect versions?”

Lower tiered skills can also find it providing they are skilled up sufficiently.

Penetrating Insight - Tier 4 with the use of the level sixteen threshold bonus is the most assessable of these.

Tom absorbed the information, silently and with more than a bit of annoyance. It was another avenue cut off. There was no way anyone could afford the tier six spell and while Penetrating Insight was affordable, barely, there wasn’t a pathway to level it up to sixteen in the time frames they had available. Maybe the challenge trial if someone hadn’t gone through it, but even then why would someone capable of getting that type of result waste it on a version of identification.

The mark was an apparent dead end.

“Worthless!” he yelled in his system room and then with a sigh returned to the real world.

It was another piece of the puzzle, but not a deciding one. Not that it mattered, it was an event day.

He dozed till Everlyn became active.

She opened her eyes and assessed his face. “You had a dream.”

He nodded and then her face lost all animation, and he followed her into the system room.

“What?” she demanded immediately.

He explained the dream and shared all the details, including how ultimately it did nothing to get them closer to finding out who was responsible.

She threw her hands up into the air. “Damn it. I had hoped your True Dreaming would solve things faster.”

“Apparently, it’s not that simple. Possibly the killer has a ward that stops my skill from revealing him.”

“I had really hoped…” she muttered.

“Though it’s not actually the worst thing in the world if it takes a few days to find the killer.”

“What!” Her eyes blazed in anger. “Are you forgetting Reilly?”

“No. Of course not, but finding the killer won’t bring her back to life.”

“Be very careful about what you’re about to say, Tom.”

Tom hesitated. Everlyn was not stable around this topic and she took it far more personally than he did. “We have time. The killer has just killed and probably won’t kill for a week or so—”

“You don’t know that. It’s not like there’s a set schedule. Three days, a week, two weeks and then back to less than a week. It looks random.”

“No. I don’t know. But the patterns there. We’ve presumably got a few days—”

“Better to get them immediately.”

Tom sighed in exasperation. “Do you have to keep interrupting? I am just spit balling, but finding the killer now could be a disaster. I can’t imagine any worse way to prepare for the dome coming down. Do you think the killer will surrender? You know he’ll fight back and we’ve got the next event wave to think about as well.”

“What!”

“The waves are a lot of experience and loot and if we uncover the killer not only do we lose the killer’s help to defeat the next wave.”

“The event! It doesn’t matter. We can abandon this place.”

“Not only do we lose the killer or potentially killers’ aid we also lose the fighting ability of whoever the culprit kills defending himself from arrest.”

Everlyn looked at him in shock. “Wait. Tom that’s not like you. You aren’t seriously suggesting. You aren’t saying that it’s better to wait until after the third wave before finding out who the killer is.”

“No, of course not.” Tom lied.

“Good, because oracle skills can pick up on that. If you want that or even subconsciously.” She glared at him with concern. “You don’t do you. You’re not really suggesting you want to not find till after the event is resolved?”

“No. I’m pushing the skill as hard as I can to resolve the issue.”

“I can’t believe you even suggested otherwise. How would you feel if you held off and someone died, Tom? And if you are subconsciously considering it, then it’s the same as if the dream told you the answer today and you didn’t tell anyone.”

“No, I’m not hiding anything.”

“I know, but True Dreaming is an oracle skill. There is no room for anything but certainty. We need to reveal the killer as soon as possible.”

“I agree.”

Everlyn nodded and then laughed deliberately trying to lighten the mood. “Sorry. I realise I came out a little unhinged then. But the whole concept of gaming with people’s lives and that’s what delaying is doing doesn’t sit right to me.”

“Nor me. It was more about today. If the dream had given me the killer’s name, I was thinking about how disruptive it would be to our preparations.”

“Yes, it would have been. But the good news is we have four days to catch them.”

“And we will.” Tom promised, but he knew that was not how he really felt. Unveiling the killer before the event would be crazy. At best, it would lose them one and a half percent of their fighting strength, but if the killer took other people with him, then it might cost a significantly higher percentage. Tom had no doubt that the murderer would protect themselves. That mind he touched had been almost as dedicated and focused as Tom’s own.

Plus, thanks to his oracle question, he and his friends weren’t in immediate danger until he found out who the killer was. Delaying finding out who until the end of the event was the best outcome. If someone died in the meantime, he would have to live with that guilt, but till the event was finished it would be best if the killer remained unknown.

“Its important Tom. Yes, finding the murderer will cost us some fighting ability against the next wave, but for morale it’s worth it.”

“You don’t need to worry. While I can’t control my skill, but I’m doing everything I can to catch the killer.”

Just not immediately, he thought to himself. After the last wave is better.

He hoped his skill heard him. and then they got up together. The sky above them was obscured by the glowing dome, and everyone was up and awake. Tom wasn’t sure if any of the survivors in the entire group slept over six hours a day. His immediate team certainly didn’t.

The two of them strolled over to get food and chatted with everyone they met. The social interaction was more Everlyn than him, but she actively included him and because it was necessary, he smiled and endured. With the dome restricting their movements, there was no point rushing to do anything. It was not like either of them could go out exploring till after the event, as the dome had already encased them. The entire community was committed.

He had his morning planned out, but given how quickly his spells decayed and when timers became available, there was nothing he had to do immediately.

Above them the dome glowed, and sentries were posted all over the place. Most of them looking inwards, guarding against the human monster rather than threats from outside. The dome would not break for another four hours and the sun was only now rising.

“What’s it going to be today?” Everlyn asked suddenly where they sat at the community tables. She waved at the dome.

“Rank sixteen equivalents.” Tom said with a small laugh.

“I know that. Any predictions of type?”

Tom shrugged at the question. “We’ll find out.”

“Guess? For me.”

“There’s no point. We’ll fight what comes and if we prepare for a specific foe, I wouldn’t be surprised if the GODs change it just to be unpredictable.”

“They aren’t allowed to do that.”

“Have you read the rules?”

“No.”

Tom laughed. “Who knows what’s allowed or not. Nothing has been communicated, so assume the worst.”

“Still, what are we going to fight?”

“Flying birds with bows.” Tom said after a moment.

“I’m going with super fast bunnies that can leap over the walls.”

“With horns?”

“Of course.”

“Perfect for me, then. I’ve got lots of experience fighting them.” They had been the first monsters he had fought. Evie knew that.

She flashed him a smile. “That’s why I mentioned them. Or a behemoth complete with thick skin or magic to negate your meteorites.”

“I don’t think thick skin will do it.”

She laughed. “So cute and optimistic. Your spell might have wiped out the golems but is only a tier four spell and a reduced strength one at that. There are lots of things that can counter it.”

“Our enemies are rank sixteen.” Tom countered. Everlyn was kind of right. The meteorite spell, while powerful, would be counteracted at high levels. In fact, Tom was sure that there were creatures out there that each missile would bounce off, but not creatures that were on average only four times as robust as a human back on earth. Not to mention the risk of spell in the future being magically foiled or dodged. “The spell will be frequently resisted by higher ranked monsters, but at this level. Nope.”

“Maybe… depends how much leeway whoever is coordinating has to directly counter individuals.”

“Are you turning my words against me?”

She giggled. “Maybe.”