CHAPTER 161
Tom returned to the real world. His nerves were jittery.
He now knew who the killers were, and it disrupted his usual disciplined ease of falling asleep. First attempt on his right side, then he shifted to his left to face Everlyn. She breathed in and out regularly, and he resisted the urge to brush her cheek. She was such a light sleeper it would wake her.
Eventually, sleep claimed him. In his last moment of clarity, Tom was thankful that True Dreaming was not activating like it had earlier.
He was sucked into a dream. In simple terms he was having fun.
He was with Everlyn, and they were delving deep into the underground. Just the two of them free from having to babysit or worry about anyone incompetent. The existing monsters’ head’s would explode if you jumped on them so that is what they were doing. Dancing across the heads and having them detonate behind them.
Complete silliness, but absolutely exhilarating. Then the texture of the dream altered. The one he was in felt less real, intangible. His conscious state shifted. Tom was suddenly aware of what was happening. He could feel the shift as True Dreaming pushed him into a new vision.
This was the second prong of the skill. The core oracle ability that acted in his best interests irrespective of his desires. The activation that could show him a treasure that another sapient had generated the opportunity to observe, but missed. There was a small flood of excitement and he embraced the experience.
He?
No, that wasn’t right…
She was gliding through the air. Far below, a temporary trial caught her eye.
It nagged at her.
A trial that was set up and ready to go, but the time to use it hadn’t arrived yet.
It frustrated her because trials weren’t supposed to behave like this, but this one was a special one.
One that she alone or close to alone amongst her people qualified for. It was exclusively for champions. The only way to enter was to be in the top on the species ranking ladder. You didn’t have to be first like she was. For her people, the cut-off was rank eight. The other inferior creatures might have a different acceptance point, but that hardly mattered.
There was a countdown. It had started at thirty-two days and had reduced to seventeen. She could enter it now but didn’t want to lose those days because the trial clarified that is what would happen. If she entered, she would be put into storage for that period.
Her? Stored? The concept was ridiculous; she would wait even if not being able to enter rankled her.
That trial was to pit the competition races against each other for humongous rewards.
Technically, it would be balanced between the races.
How that would work would be a mystery? Would a million inferior creatures be pitted against her? As if that would do anything, though she hoped that would be the solution as it would be fun. A few hours of sustained breaths and watching them scream agony. That sounded like an enjoyable afternoon.
Though… if there were too many it might become repetitive. Maybe a hundred thousand was a better number.
Alternatively, they could balance with something more nuanced. Make the other competitors strong enough to provide her with a challenge. That idea was enticing, too. Not that it mattered. Ultimately, it wasn’t a fair trial. She already knew this. Her god had addressed her directly and confirmed that all the other races were far weaker than ‘the people’ and no amount of balancing could change that fact. The fight found in the trial would be more boring than fighting the natives, but she would do it, anyway.
When she entered, it’d be easy enough to kill the champions of the other race, and that would put them one step forward. One step closer to their aims.
Out of the corner of her eye. She saw a creature and almost instinctively analysed it as the dumb monster plunged towards her.
It was pathetic.
Insulting with its pathetic strength. It barely reached the rank of thirty-eight.
She didn’t even bother to give it the respect of a clean kill just tracked its position and then unleashed a half a magic breath. The vapour coated it and with a squeal it veered away.
She kept flying, knowing that it would corrode the dumb beast to nothing. It was already as good as dead.
Tom woke up with a gasp.
Everlyn also reacted, but this time her bow didn’t appear. Instead, she patted him on the back and made soothing noises.
“What was it?”
“A normal oracle dream.” Tom stated partially in shock. “I’m trying to understand what happened in it. I was seeing things from the point of view of a…” He hesitated. “I think of a dragon, one of the competitor races.”
“We’re up against dragons?”
He paused and remembered the feelings from the dream. How the body felt. The wings, the arms, the innate knowledge that her claws could tear that monster to bits if she hadn’t found it more convenient to use her magical breath attack. “She only referred to her species as people and there was no mirror. But yes, I’m pretty sure she was a dragon.”
Everlyn hit the sand on the ground. “The news keeps getting better doesn’t it.”
Tom chuckled. “Its more complicated than that. She was thinking about a temporary trial she had located and was guarding. It was for champions of her race only. It seemed to be something to pit the competitor races against each other, but she was pissed off about it because she couldn’t enter it immediately but nor could she fly away and ignore it. Her GOD had told her she had to participate.”
Everlyn grimaced. “That’s bad. True Dreaming showed you that vision because it was relevant to you. You’re going to be offered the same trial.”
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“Yep. That’s what I’m thinking, too. But there was more to the dream than that. A native monster attacked the dragon.”
Everlyn looked confused. “Why did you say that like it was significant? Monsters always attack sapients.”
Tom shook his head, and she saw his expression and trailed off into silence.
“What?”
“The monster was rank thirty-eight, and the dragon didn’t even slow down to deal with it.”
Her eyes widened. “That’s…”
“Impressive.” He finished for her. “A single puff of its breath and that was it.”
Everlyn grimaced and looked pained. “I was going to say terrifying. Did you sense any weaknesses?”
“Does arrogance count?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, but not if it’s justified.”
“So, no arrogance doesn’t count. The dragon had been told by its GOD to do the trial and reap the rewards. The GOD was of the opinion that none of the other species could challenge it.”
“Thank DEUS for the vision, then. If we’re offered that trial, we refuse. There’s no point throwing ourselves against impossible odds.”
“That’s true but.”
She looked at him quizzically. “Whatever harebrained thing you’re thinking, let it go.”
“It didn’t feel like a warning. It felt more like a challenge for me. Be ready. Know what you’re facing type of dream.”
“No, no, no!”
Tom patted her shoulder. “You’re right, in a way. If I was offered the trial immediately, if it appeared here in this cave, I would say no without hesitation, but I suspect there’s going to be extra dreams and I’m sure they’ll provide guidance on how to navigate the problem.”
She looked interested. “Are you planning to supplement?” She asked. “I mean,” she continued, hurrying to clarify at his look of confusion. “Send active at the dragon to unravel its secrets?”
Tom paused at that question. It wasn’t something that he had thought of. The automatic dreams, the ones that came unbidden and couldn’t be controlled were in most ways more impactful than the self-directed versions. But the directed visions would allow him to discover key bits of information that would otherwise be hidden. In fact, Tom’s ability to ferret out the truth was greater than what any other competitor would have access to. He was confident that very few competitors could have gathered the resources to purchase a tier nine oracle ability, at least not without an entire community supporting them, and he was not directly competing against such a resource.
Could he do that? Could he use his true Dreaming skill to drill down into the strengths and weaknesses of enemies. Was it possible to weaponise his sleep? To delve into their consciousness to reveal their fears? And find their mistakes and hidden vulnerabilities in order to exploit them?
True Dreaming was a tier nine skill. To buy the skill outright would cost more than one hundred and twenty-eight levels.
Mentally, he whistled at that sort of expenditure. It was not trivial, that much experience in a lump sum would boost a warrior from level zero to possessing a third class. No one was making the choice to buy a Skill vs. that level of strength. His peers would have nothing close to True Dreaming, he doubted they could even defend against it. No way they could afford a tier seven anti-divination ability which was needed to guarantee blocking his Skill, though an occasional one might have stumped for or got lucky enough to receive a tier six version as a prize, but even that was unlikely. Unless Tom knew someone was hunting him, he would not buy anything like that until he was above level eighty and even, then maybe not as the cost was an extra ten levels. If someone was hunting him, would he prefer to be level ninety or stay at level eighty and grab protection?
The fact he possessed such a Skill put him way ahead of the power curve. Tom, in his planning had not factored in obtaining anything tier four for at a least a few years, which highlighted the ridiculousness of him possessing not only True Dreaming but Contract Binding above that level, not to mention multiple tier four earth magic spells.
He had a tier nine skill and had to stop himself from pinching himself to wake up from the dream. A skill that could become an assassin’s knife for him to use… the possibilities were endless.
“That’s an incredible suggestion.” Tom shook his head. “Amazing. I hadn’t even considered… I’m going to do it.”
She beamed at him. “When I was trying to sleep, all I could think of was your dreaming skill. Like it has served its purpose to discover the killer, which I guess means it was a success, but then my mind latched on to its tier… and then how much we knew about the killers, including their exact bloodline. Then I remembered you could force it to do something daily. That’s powerful like your golem threshold bonus. Both are ones you want to use every time it becomes available. They’re too powerful to waste, and then I had an epiphany. If you have an enemy, then it’s an ultimate cheat card and the more time you have to plan, the more you can tailor your attacks to their precise weaknesses. It sounds like this dragon.” She shivered slightly when she said it. “Is linked to you and it might be a good idea to see if you can uncover areas we could exploit in case we ever run into it. Even finding out how to run from it could be critical.” She paused for breath.
Tom nodded determinedly; a rocket lit under him by the idea. “Yep, I’ll do that. Imagine what the skill could do if I’m fighting a war, then I can find out what all their plans and strategies are.”
Everlyn laughed at that. “I presume that if you’re fighting a war, they’ll have safeguards capable of thwarting any level of divination.”
“Oh! You’re probably right.”
She snorted. “Probably?”
“Okay, they will. I’ll set my aims a little less grandiose, but by the stage that I’m strong enough to fight a war, it’s possible that my skill might have evolved a couple more times.”
She guffawed at that claim. Slapped the ground and she shook so hard that if they had of been on a bed, she would have fallen off it.
“Hey, calm down… Evie! It’s not that funny.”
She sat up and wiped tears away from her eyes. “Evolved? A couple of times?”
She lost it once more.
“Okay.” Tom said in frustration. “You have a point. I’ll probably never evolve it even once.” His more ambitious aims might be ridiculous, but there was a lot to the concept. “I can go smaller scale,” he continued. “If I need to break into someone’s home, then True Dreaming could easily get me all the codes, positions of locks and traps in advance.”
Everlyn wiped tears out of her eyes. “You have all this power, and your ambition is to take over my role in the team.”
“No. You can do the breaking.”
She giggled.
Tom glared at her. “I’ll just do some of the preparation work.”
“I agree it’s an awfully powerful ability. If you’re planning on evolving it.” She barely stopped herself from descending into hysteria again. “You need to make sure you use it every night.” She cracked a smile but avoided laughing.
Tom didn’t blame her. Evolving a tier nine spell was theoretically five hundred times as difficult as the time investment doubled for each tier level. That was conceptually. Practically the answer was that you didn’t evolve higher tier abilities. Each tier took twice as long and required more and more epiphanies before they would evolve.
“But Tom, we also have to listen to the message of the dreams. I’m not entering any portal when I know that we’re going to face a dragon that crushes rank thirty-eight monsters unless I know a secret that will let us kill it. And it having a weakness in its left toe won’t count. It has to be something that will let us land a killing blow.”
“I know.” Tom said immediately. “I didn’t last forty years in the tutorial by taking ridiculous risks.”
Tom fell back asleep and woke up with a wide awake Everlyn sitting next to him.
“Why are you still here?” he asked in confusion. Usually she left in the morning.
“I didn’t feel safe going out by myself.”
The surprise registered on Tom’s face.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m just a mom.”
“Of course, but…” he studied her perplexed. “You’re also a terrifying scout who fears nothing.”
She shrugged, then smiled. “I’m that too. Plus, you sort of sealed the exits.”
Tom blushed when he realised she was right. The only way Everlyn could have exited was by physically digging, which would have woken him immediately. She had sat there bored to look after him. “Thank you for letting me sleep.”
“It was my pleasure, Tom. Plus, I had a lot to think about.”
“Don’t we all.” He agreed. “So, how are we doing this?”
“We have our targets and our allies. We recruit our allies first. I’ll get them into my system room while you stand watch and explain the situation. We then lure the enemy one by one into a trap where we have overwhelming numbers. Their ten percent or twenty percent boost if they’ve got it up that high won’t help them.”
Tom hesitated. “You’ve got a more detailed plan than that haven’t you?”
She laughed. “The key will be the old fortifications and the conversation we had yesterday is perfect for that.”
“What conversation?”
“At the loot portal,” she explained quickly. “It’s an excuse to be there. We concoct the excuse that you need to start the process with a complicated ritual. Harry will help and that will give credence to the claim. Then bang, bang, we subdue them after luring them in one after the other.”