CHAPTER 159

Tom tramped around the fortifications, keeping an anxious eye on the green mist that churned at the top of the walls. Occasionally it would spill over and then exposed to the wind it would dissipate but in the minute that took there would be tendrils of mist searching the air for a victim like the limbs of an eldritch horror. They would start off near solid and become steadily more transparent. He decided to not attempt to go through them, even those that were no longer visible. With his Touch Heal effectiveness and his upgraded skin and titles he was confident he could weather incidental exposure, but there was no point pushing the boundaries.

Finally, he rounded the fortifications and saw the spot that Golly had been left on guard.

Tom’s heart sank.

From forty metres away, he could see the scattered chunks of black obsidian. His golem torn apart, and the parts scattered. He could sense the elemental encased or more buried in a chunk of rock. Stone it was currently burrowing out of in order to fly over and reach him.

Unbidden, he had stopped walking. He stood silently, watching and assessing the damage. It was catastrophic. A bubble appeared on the mound of stone that the elemental had grown to protect itself, and then it burst out.

Immediately it shot across the distance and settled onto his shoulder like an oversized shotput sphere in weight if not size. He staggered slightly under the abrupt load but did not protest. A flood of images assaulted him and an apology. Suggestions of what could be done to improve but as Tom suspected, they were weak. More power, or more speed or illusions, or the ability to sink into rock. Basically, the elemental knew the golem had been completely over-matched.

Then, for a moment, it became serious and dumped a heap of data into his mind. Tom swam through the detail unable to comprehend what had been delivered. Then he felt like breaking down into tears as the context of the data dump sunk into his consciousness. It was the emotions of the elemental through the battle.

You did good. He told the wisp. Very good, you set the groundwork to win with your axe.

I did?

Yes. Tom assured it.

Really, there was a flood of pride along with the thought.

Images, this time more logically organised without the emotions were sent to him. The almost instant realisation that the golem construction lacked the speed to protect itself. After that, all the elemental’s focus was on maximising the damage that it could do. It knew it wouldn’t survive and its beautiful body would be destroyed, so all it could do was to extract the maximum price for that loss. It had sacrificed parts of itself to get the axe strikes in.

Tom suddenly had a new appreciation for the scattered chunks of obsidian. They were not the result of the wyvern overwhelming the golem, but the elemental winning a strategic battle against a stronger opponent. Every one of them was an extra cut on the beast that would otherwise have failed to land.

The outer armour had been lost and then the elemental had reconfigured itself to function without an arm while still being able to swing an axe.

More violence, more cuts, and sacrificed obsidian.

Rinse and repeat.

The struggle had lasted less than twenty seconds, but the golem had got numerous blows off both with the axes and its magic.

That was a brilliant battle plan. Tom told it. Once I’ve rebuilt the golem, I’ll be in contact.

He felt sadness from the elemental.

Yeah, I know it’s going to take a while to get the materials and time to rebuild.

The impression of years was sent to Tom… with the subtext of hopefully only that long…

He had forgotten how distorted an elemental’s perspective of time, particularly one of the earthen variety.

A lot less than that. Weeks, months with the words he included a mental image of what a week and a month meant.

Joy and excitement radiated from the small ball on his shoulder. It bounced in place.

He winced and cupped it with his hand so it wouldn’t shatter his collar bone.

The elemental didn’t even notice, but then why would it? After all, it had no concept of a human’s fragility.

It takes almost no time to rebuild. Yay.

Yes Yay! He sent to it and then, by a mutual decision the current contract was released and with a burst of energy a pathway to its home plane was created and it vanished.

With the impressionable mind no longer present, Tom lowered his head and assessed the damage report the elemental had sent to him.

It was a disaster.

He remembered what Everlyn had asked. How would he feel right at this moment if he had gotten a tier four and five spear skill? His head wouldn’t be bowed in sadness, lamenting the cost of the battle while looking at the remnants of his golem for one. Instead, he knew he would have been filled with excitement. Contract Binding just didn’t have the same effect on him.

“It’s done, Tom,” he told himself out loud. “There is no value to regrets.”

With a sigh, he started his own inspection.

First, he cracked open the spot the elemental had been in. The core that it had preserved was no larger than a backpack. The cage that he had fixed that morning remained intact, except for a couple of cracks that were just a matter of a few hours for him to patch up. Given his experience fixing more extensive damage on the same item it was an easy fix.

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That precious mana engine. His most singular, most valuable component that he possessed had been reduced almost to dust. He was pretty certain the consciousness behind his threshold bonus could not fix it. Recreate it, sure, but repair it? No, that wouldn’t work. If he tried, it would reject him and his threshold bonus would be wasted for that four-day period.

That was over a hundred thousand credits gone for ever. It had been an expensive battle.

A big shuddering sigh went through him and he checked on the other pieces.

Over half the stone was no longer usable, including effectively all the obsidian. Only the tier three basalt had survived in quantities that he could use in his next golem iteration.

He had thought that fighting the third wave was the obvious choice but between Golly and the contract skill, Tom was not sure that he, the major beneficiary had come out ahead.

Morosely, he picked up the intact basalt, the seemingly indestructible control orb and then pocketed the artefact which contained the earth manipulation spell that this time had survived. Everything else was gone.

Golly number two in that brief, brutal fight with the wyvern had saved human lives. It had hurt the larger beast and had proven its importance, but till he got another mana engine he might need to go with a different version for the time being.

With that done, he returned to the camp and even though he saw it as pointless he helped to construct the walls.

Everlyn found him when the construction was almost complete. “I’ve organised it.”

“And how did convincing everyone go?”

She shook her head. “Less than you wanted.”

“Who?”

“Me,”

He laughed. “Well, I knew that.”

“Michael, Thor, Toni, Harry, Jingyi.”

“Good job getting him.”

“Yeah, that’s going to piss Legen off the most.”

“And lastly Rahmat.”

That was a surprising name, but the fighter was definitely competent even if after the first day he had broken away from their group. “Surprised you convinced him.”

“I didn’t. It was actually Thor who sweet-talked him.”

“That’s not a skill set I associate with the big boy.”

Everlyn shrugged. “Him and Rahmat stayed friends. He asked, and I gave him the green light.”

“That’s great.” Mentally, Tom reviewed that list she had given him. “Wait, Sven’s not coming?”

Everlyn gave a negative shake of her head.

“But… I saved his life.”

“I know, but he was adamant about not coming. Raising the fact that you saved his life only hardened his resolve.”

Tom thought about the cursed bloodline. “You don’t think?”

Everlyn’s eyes went hard. Then she shook her head dismissively. “Sven, he’s not the type. Could you imagine him being the killer?”

“I can’t imagine anyone doing it.” Tom said darkly.

“It wasn’t Sven,” she stated, but she did not sound at all convinced.

“Him refusing is suspicious, and he was already under suspicion for getting an alibi on the first day.”

Everlyn shrugged. “I very much hope it’s not. Because if it’s him that’s one of the few people I’ll have a hard time reconciling my reactions toward. Anyway, I was just coming to say hi and update you before I departed.”

“You’ve been assigned a shift?” Tom asked the dismay in his voice leaking through. “What? Michael couldn’t abuse his position to get you off.”

Everlyn shook his head. “No, Michael likes to follow the rules and makes sure he never plays favourites. As far as I’m concerned that completely invalidates the point of having power.”

Tom chuckled at her outraged expression.

“So, yep, he gave me a shift. Someone needs to be out there to provide advance warning even if we have walls.” She sighed. “I’ll tell you what. I’m sort of sick of being told what to do and when to do it. I’m really looking forward to getting away from these people. I’ll be back in six, two hours after sunset.”

“Have fun Evie.”

She cheekily stuck her finger up at him and Tom returned to the job of finishing his part of the wall. Then he went to the makeshift eating area and collected an early dinner. They all knew he was departing the next day and one by one they came up. Tom was surprised by the focus he got and that no one tried to convince him to stay. He saw people sad to see him go and others personally terrified but everyone knew that with the event finished and no ability to set up a permanent camp the group was going to fracture. Some would survive, others wouldn’t but those who made it would be stronger for the experience.

Night fell and Tom prepared a place to sleep. He went through the same process as the first night, but there was no need for a lot of space. With a small amount of probing, he found a narrow crevice almost under the centre of the courtyard. He expanded it to give a tight two metre long entrance, which he would have to wriggle though on his belly to traverse, which then opened up into a cozy space that was long enough for them to stretch out and sufficiently high for them to sit comfortably. It was almost time for Everlyn to get back, so he hurriedly used his earth manipulation ability to make sand to lie on.

Everlyn found him just as they were finishing up.

They squeezed through and Tom activated his magic to close the entrance way.

“Spartan.” Everlyn whispered.

“Private,” he answered without hesitation. At least it was now that there was a metre of solid rock between them and everyone else. The air holes actually led down deeper rather than directly to the surface.

“With my aura we should be safe.” Everlyn glanced around with an initially critical expression, then her face softened into a happier one. “You know what! I like it. It takes me back to the simpler times in the tutorial.”

“Me too,” Tom admitted. “Nothing like sleeping in a nice cave, to bring back fond memories of days spent peacefully killing things.” He chuckled at that. “It’s especially good when I can share the cave with you.”

She blushed and looked away, and then when she lifted her eyes she was all business again. “Can we?” She lay down and held out a hand for him to entwine his fingers with. He did so and in short order was in her system room, sitting on the couch facing the fireplace. “Do you think you’ll find out the killer’s names tonight?”

“Yes,” Tom answered confidently. “I know what to target.”

“Failing to find them before…” She hesitated, bit her lip, and then looked up defiantly. “Was that… unlucky or… subconscious, or conscious sabotage?” She finished in a rush.

Tom thought about lying like he did the last time she asked this question before the longjoules and then decided against it. He shrugged. “I’m not going to lie. My conscious bias might have fed into the delay. Part of me didn’t want to uncover them till now, at least off and on.”

Everlyn shut her eyes. “Gita?”

Tom shook his head. “No. She’s not my fault. I don’t think there is anything I could have done to save her. Maybe if I pushed and used my questions that might have been enough. But while using just True Dreaming, I don’t see a way I would have got the data in time. The bloodline protected them. My focus was on catching them in the act, which was when they had the ritual defended. Till we knew there was more than one of them targeting them outside that moment didn’t make sense.” Tom hit his leg. “I keep regretting that decision. But it made sense!” he almost shouted the words. “Powerful emotions are more visible to precognition. Everyone knows that.”

“We do.” Everlyn agreed.

“That’s why I targeted the murders. It should have been when they were most exposed, but given the ritual threw up active anti-divination wards it was the wrong choice.”

She nodded sadly. “There was nothing we could have done. Gita was doomed.”

“Probably. I know I was hesitant to find the killers, almost blasé, but I’ve replayed my choices in my mind a hundred times.”

“So have I.”

“I never save her. No matter what, there is a chain of logical progression I had to go through in order to identify the weak link. My intent is irrelevant. The timelines don’t work. But now, tonight. I’m confident. We know what to target.”

“I hope it works.”

“So do I.” He agreed.

They left the system room to go to sleep, and he just held her as he focused on the simple desire. He wanted to catch the killers organising the murder. It didn’t matter if they did it verbally or via telepathy. His dreaming skill didn’t care. If they were exposed at any point to his True Dreaming abilities, a tier nine divination spell, then he would reveal them.

Tom slipped off to sleep, and the dream started.