CHAPTER 175
The dream ended and Tom memorised what he could. From the Mus vision he knew details were important, even if initially it was hard to tell which lesson was the one to learn. In the Mus dream it had been the person’s mind-set that was the important detail rather than other factors such as strength and geography. That had let him treat Mus like a person, which had got him gifted multiple powerful evolution potions.
As he carefully catalogued each moment he had experienced, his mind kept repeating the same thing. You’re going to meet that dragon, and soon.
It didn’t even terrify him because there was no point thinking about a confrontation between him and her. Those natives had levels above a hundred and probably in the multiple hundreds. It was possible that each of them had been stronger than Mus and the dragon had destroyed them effortlessly.
What could he do against a sapient with that sort of power? Was the thought that crossed his mind.
The fact was that this creature had come to his attention from a non-directed True Dreaming. It was not something he had been searching for, instead the core skill had shoved it down his throat. That meant the dragon had either seen an object he could profit from or was relevant to him in the future.
It was not the first. There were no treasures for him to find. He knew what that felt like, and it hadn’t occurred in that first dream.
One day he would face this creature. He didn’t know how he could beat it, but he had to get ready because at some point they would fight to the death. Tom knew that as certain as he was that the sun would rise in the morning.
He felt slightly sick at the concept, but he mentally recorded the abilities that had been shown.
A powerful inspection skill, a desire to play with its food, a special attack that could only be foiled with teleportation. Long distance teleportation worked against that skill, but the natives had not proven whether five or fifty metres versions could foil it. She had considered that a short range version was sufficient to break the lock, but for the dragon, that definition could be two centimetres or a hundred metres. It was impossible to tell through the thoughts he had experienced and the twisted reference frame. With more exposure, Tom decided, with extra data points he might get future clarity on that answer.
Then there was a way she’d used her magic to stop the native from escaping. That flex of her will at a distance. A singularly powerful understanding of magic that would cause even more issues because it was a black hole of potentials. If that was turned on them, it could destroy even the most carefully laid trap. The ability to disrupt another’s spell from afar was a blank check in terms of threat.
Having stored away all the impressions that he could, he drifted off to sleep and a short time later a different dream took over.
This was not one he had initiated. That meant it was almost certainly important.
Its context was immediately clear.
He was in Keikain’s head.
A sinking feeling filled Tom. The issues associated with the killer were not settled. He was consumed with dread at what was about to happen, but he watched. He would gather the data and until he knew they were betraying him, he would do nothing. He would not act prematurely.
The surroundings were the cave from the previous night. He, or more precisely Keikain whose body he shared looked from Clare to Sven. Their privacy shield was in full action and they could say whatever they needed to. Everlyn and Jingyi both appeared to be asleep, which were the greatest risks of piercing the magic.
Tom, from an outsider’s perspective could feel the apprehension within the man.
Keikain licked his lips. “Tom screwed us.”
“No, the… G.” Sven actively bit back the word he was about to say. “No, it wasn’t Tom. It was the world that screwed us.”
Keikain felt like rolling his eyes at Sven. At least the other man had not been foolish enough to curse out the GODs, even if he had clearly considered it. “No, it was Tom,” Keikain insisted. “I told you we shouldn’t have sign that contract. We’re not moving fast enough, and he doesn’t possess the necessary urgency.” Keikain glanced around to check that no one was listening. He knew it was pointless, but he couldn’t help himself. The magic would stop the others and if the scouts were feigning sleep, he would not pick up on that, anyway. Thor who was officially on watch like Sven was at the exit monitoring the outside situation. “I have fourteen days. Did you hear me? Only fourteen and he’s treating it like an afternoon hike.”
“What would you have had us do?” Sven snarled. “Should we have brought along four or five victims for us to kill in order to keep you fed? Sacrificing humans wasn’t working, we were getting less and less from each sacrifice. Tom uncovering us and forcing us to come with him is honestly the best thing that’s happened in Existentia. It’s a chance.”
“He’s going too slowly.”
Sven shrugged. “We may or may not.”
“I not we.”
“Make it,” Sven continued. “At least we won’t have to kill any more humans.”
“You never had the stomach for this did you?”
“Kei.” Clare said in a warning tone.
A wave of anger went through the mind he was in. Keikain knew it wasn’t Sven’s fault but part of him thought that if Sven had been slightly more willing to experiment, to act quicker, sacrifice more people, then they would be better off now. “Stop protecting him. He’s pathetic. He agreed to something and then didn’t have the guts to go through with it.”
“I don’t like killing people. Making that purchase was the worst mistake I ever–”
“We ever made.” Clare interrupted harshly. “However, we’ve discussed this. We would all take back the choice if we could. But we can’t. We need to live with what we’ve got.”
“And with that stupid contract, it means following Tom.”
“We’ll keep pushing to go faster.” Clare promised. “I’ll help. I’m the weakest and if everyone sees me not complaining they will fall in line.”
“We have to go faster.” Keikain hit his leg in frustration. “We need to make him go faster.”
The dream dissolved and Tom lost himself in the standard pointless dreams that involved majestic impossibly destructive dragons and an epic quest to cross the mountains.
Tom woke once more to Keikain shaking his shoulder. “Please tell me you don’t have another site for us to raid.”
He remembered his dream and Keikain’s urgency. It was one thing to be told that if they didn’t find natives within two weeks that someone would die it was another to experience it firsthand through their mind. That extrinsic dread, that helplessness. “No, not this morning.”
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“Good, we’re leaving in five minutes.” Keikain shoved a bowl filled with porridge into his hands. “It’s cooled enough so you can eat quickly.”
The food was nourishing and eating banished some of the fogginess in his brain.
Soon they were crawling back through the fissure and they emerged into the pre-dawn light. It was a little too early to be setting off, but with the memory of the dream Tom took the lead. It was dark, but his Low Light Vision was sufficient for him to pick a mostly flat route for the others to follow.
Once it got light enough that they could place their feet with more freedom, Tom decided to seek their opinions. “I had another dream.” he told them and then described everything about the dragon and made a conscious choice not to mention the vision of Keikain’s meeting with his fellow cursed. Having explicit knowledge of how long Keikain had to live was important, but he doubted the other man wanted to spread it to the others. If he did, then he would do so himself.
“You don’t do things by half measures, do you Tom?” Michael observed.
“The skill is giving us a warning that’s all. It hasn’t made this anymore likely.”
“I know.” Michael jumped over a gash in the rock that was half a metre wide and went down two metres. It looked natural and Tom hoped it was, but he remembered those earth spikes and if something that threw those was walking around, then it was entirely possible that it had cut these chunks out too. ”But the conclusion of the dream is that before we can even consider facing this monster, we need an active teleportation spell or its instant death.”
“Correct.” Tom answered the healer. “Not just any teleport, either. Ones designed for fighting won’t work because they are too short ranged.”
“What’s the mana requirements for something like that?” Keikain mused, joining the conversation. “Hell, we probably won’t be able to buy them because they’ll all be level locked.”
“I haven’t looked.”
“That’s right,” Sven chortled, weakly. “You slept in.”
“Yeah, good one Sven. Jump on top of the guy who can’t do any better. I need over nine hours of sleep just because I’m weak.”
“Yep, that’s it.” Sven said with a smile. “Admit it. Tom has a weakness.” The other man briefly smiled.
“You need to address the exhaustion, Tom,” Michael warned.
“I will.” He focused on his surroundings and each step. “I’ll buy something at lunch. We need more information, and I probably have to see if True Dreaming can find a nearby target.”
Keikain perked up at that statement, but Michael’s lips went down. Tom knew he couldn’t please everyone.
Tom smiled sadly at the healer. “No choice.” he mimed the words.
Michael grunted in response. “This dragon sounds bad, but death can’t be a certainty or else you wouldn’t have got the dream. While it’s dangerous, we’ll probably get a significant amount of time to prepare… unless.” Michael smiled hopefully. “It was a warning to run as opposed to fight.”
“Its purpose was to get me to prepare.” Tom answered definitely. Michael was not the only one looking at him strangely.
“You sure about that, Tom?” Michael asked.
“Yeah, I am and I know I shouldn’t be… but.” There was a sense of certainty in his chest.
“An unfortunate revelation but also good.” Sven opinioned. “I don’t really see the problem of the dreams giving you conviction. You understanding the intent obviously comes from the skill and it just means that True Dreaming is even stronger than you realised. It sucks we’re going to have to fight a dragon, but presumably we were warned to make defeating it possible.”
“It treated three high class natives as plaything!”
“I didn’t say it would be easy.” Sven said with a laugh. “Just that we could do it. Knowing the weaknesses and the right tool could be enough.”
“We can hope.”
“There’s no point worrying about it.” Michael agreed readily. “If there’s a way to avoid the confrontation, we’ll spot it. Otherwise,” Michael hesitated. “You said it gave you the information to avoid its strongest attack, right?”
Tom nodded.
“In that case, it’s working to get you the tools to defeat it. You probably want to use it every night.”
“I know, but I’m not sure my vision from last night’s dream helps that much. It’s not like we can afford that type of teleport spell. Both in experience costs and then mana to use it.”
Michael laughed. Then wagged a finger at Tom. “This, rather than being a sleepyhead like Sven accused you of is your weakness. I too went through the tutorial relying on my own powers and disdaining any material aids. But in Existentia I’ve spoken to everyone. Learnt the different ways that they lived the tutorial. If you need teleports for a specific purpose, it doesn’t need to be a personal skill. There are artefacts, that can do it. Harry, with a prepared ritual circle and even one off snap sticks might do the trick. If we need emergency teleports, we can prepare for that more cheaply than you think.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Tom conceded.
“I think if you were more rested you would have realised it yourself.”
“Maybe,” Tom admitted. “But I know my strengths. Fate, planning a battle and then finishing it, is what I’m good at. I never resorted to trinkets. Probably a mistake now that I think about it.”
His foot slipped on some gravel and he went down. The entire ankle throbbed, and when he assessed it, there was a mild sprain. He healed it with four points of mana.
“Back on Earth that would have had me needing a splint.”
“Existentia certainly is different.” Michael agreed.
They kept going. Keikain pulled ahead almost forcing everyone to jog to keep up with him. Tom gritted his teeth and pushed himself forward. Sure, if they went this recklessly people were going to hurt themselves, but with three powerful healers they’d be easy enough to patch back together… As for exhaustion and muscle fatigue that too could be dealt with.
“Michael. Clare, make sure that you’re continuously healing all of us. That’ll keep everyone going and offset the lactic acid buildup and stuff.”
Keikain shot him a look. The new Tom who had seen the other man’s concern over timing interpreted it as grateful, though he could just as easily assign a surly overlay to it.
They continued on. The number of twisted ankles, grazed knees and bruised shins were impressive, but no one complained and with the three of them healing those sorts of injuries were only a twenty-second pause and the extra speed they eked out more than made up for those slight delays.
Lunch was eaten while walking, and the surroundings changed slightly.
“Another,” Clare yelled, throwing herself down. The mountain bird flashed over head and missed her. They had seen that one coming, but by the time Tom had got his hand up with a rock ready to throw it was gone. There was no crack of Everlyn’s bow, and it vanished from his sight as its magic camouflaged it once more. Unhurt and probably planning another attack when they weren’t paying attention.
“Damn things.” The prone healer mumbled as she pushed herself to her feet.
They kept walking with Tom scanning the air continuously. Since mid morning, the bloody things had been plaguing them. It was a type of mountain bird that would sweep down out of nowhere and try to attack you with icy talons that were devastating against their low ranked bodies. The way they camouflage themselves meant you only got a half a second warning once they came within range. Only four of them, Toni, the scouts and himself could actually strike back against them when they swooped down. Toni used her air magic with deadly effectiveness and was their only consistent weapon against them. The arrows of the scouts occasionally scored a hit as the birds attempted to retreat out of range after completing a swoop. Tom was on the next rung down. While he was successful at killing the occasional bird, most of the time he didn’t even bother throwing a rock at them. If he used his accuracy skill to improve his aim sufficiently to hit the bloody things, then the stone would fly so slowly that they would dodge. If he didn’t enhance his accuracy, usually he would miss and the times he didn’t it felt more like luck than that skill.
None of them could stop the creatures before they attacked. They were too fast, and they never attacked when someone was watching.
There was a blur of movement. Sven cursed, ducked and then fell. Tom saw a spray of blood from the man’s shoulder even as he slipped down a slight ravine.
“I’ve got him.” Tom yelled out to the others before he leapt down. He jumped from foot hold to outthrust of rock and then slid down the last big rock to land next to Sven. Healing Tranquillity kicked in and revealed that the fall had done almost as much damage as the bird.
“Can’t you hit them before they strike?” Sven groaned. The spell sword clutched at his shoulder where the talons had gone through a partially healed scar from earlier. That was an unfortunate placement. It meant that there would be a double dose of the lingering cold energy in the wound. It would be uncomfortable for Sven and not something that Tom could do anything about. If it was more serious, Michael with his new skills would deal with it, but Sven wouldn’t let them waste the mana on removing what was only an inconvenience.
Tom, grab the man’s hand and Healing Tranquillity combined with touch heal let him quickly remove the damage. The bleeding stopped instantly. The skin stitched together, the rapid spreading bruises on the thigh that would cause bruising and limit mobility vanished. The cold damage he ignored.
They looked up to see that the rest of the party had kept going. Together, they leveraged each other out of the little gully they found themselves in. By the time they were out, the others were already fifty metres away.
Sven audibly groaned in response. “They could have waited.”
“It’s not that bad. This might give us a chance to have a chat. Tell me Sven how are you feeling?”
The other man’s eyes darkened.