CHAPTER 176

“How am I feeling?” Sven replied with annoyance.

“That’s what I asked.” Tom answered evenly with his eyes on the fast-moving backs of the rest of his party. Most of him wanted to abandon this attempt to have the conversation, but he knew Sven needed it. Leaving was tempting, and all it would take was for them to jog to catch up to the others. He could even address the issue without going through this awkwardness by having a quiet word with Everlyn or Michael, and the situation would get dealt with.

He could do that, but he wasn’t one to abandon people who were hurting. Or at least he hadn’t been prior to the tutorial. Existentia gave him a fresh slate, so to speak, and Tom figured he should concentrate on being the type of man he wanted to be and not on what was convenient. That meant facing issues head on and having tough conversations when he needed to.

Sven said nothing, and they stood there in awkward silence.

“Sven, you don’t have to, but I thought you might appreciate a chance to talk to someone and to be honest I’m potentially the only neutral person here. I don’t hate you for Gita and Clare and Keikain have their own issues. Talk. Back here we have privacy.” Tom didn’t know if that was completely accurate, as either scout could probably get close enough to listen in, but he doubted they would.

The other didn’t move, which more than communicated his intent. Sven was going to take the bait. Tom wanted to groan, but he suppressed it. This was going to be bad.

“Talk?” Sven asked in a small voice. “Why?”

Tom shrugged. “I understand that you’ve been dealt a pretty shit set of cards. Sometimes talking about things can help you work through it.”

At least in the movies, Tom thought to himself.

“Nah, man. I appreciate you reaching out, but it’s unnecessary. I made my choices and I don’t have any problem with them.”

He felt like laughing and crying. The words, the mannerism that Sven had delivered the lines in had been perfect. If he hadn’t experienced the dreams, he would have been convinced that the other man truly didn’t care.

“Man. You know I regret taking the bloodline and being forced to kill people. I’m not indifferent to their plight, but I’m not the type to second guess my previous decisions and feel bad about them.”

“Sven, I know you. You care. There’s no way you’re fine with this bloodline.”

“What do you know? You don’t know me, Tom. You can’t say that crap to me. As far as you’re concerned, I’m a cold-blooded killer. You don’t know shit.”

Tom hesitated. Then patted the bigger man on the back. “There is no need to put on this act. I know the truth. True Dreaming shows the truth of people’s motives and thoughts.”

Sven licked his lips, an edge of uncertainty on his face. “You’re bullshitting me.”

Tom shook his head. “I’m not.” Despite Sven’s resistance to talking, the gap between them and the others had increased, which told him how the other man truly felt. “How are you feeling, Sven?”

“Couldn’t be better. Glad to…”

“Cut the shit.” Tom interrupted. “This is hard enough for me already. I like you Sven, but do you think I want to talk about fucking feelings. I don’t, but you need someone to talk to, so cut the crap and meet me halfway.”

Sven look down and plodded along beside him, setting a pace that failed to close the distance between them and the others. For a minute, they strode in silence. Tom could feel the tension building and he let it. Even an amateur like him could see that Sven was about to break.

“I feel like shit.” Sven finally whispered. “I was in the system room looking for a point of difference. It’s a common story. I died when I wasn’t supposed to and had no questions saved up. For four years previously, I kept a buffer of over a hundred questions in reserve, but I got caught in a puzzle trial. I couldn’t let a bunch of traps beat me, so I ate into those questions expecting to finish the trial and then take it easy for a while until I had restored them… well in the end I failed. Never got out of the bloody place.”

Tom said nothing. Most people had a similar story. He was one of the few who had perished in the tutorial somewhat deliberately. At the end, he had been hunting stronger and stronger enemies to commit suicide against without officially doing it. He had been more than a little crazy, but had survived a staggeringly long time. Pinkwing had died in the depths of winter and snow had begun to fall again when the monsters eventually beat him. Over nine months of crazily challenging his limitations, had at least driven some explosive growth.

“I died with only twenty questions.” Sven admitted. “It was bad, and I needed to find a point of difference with a few answers. I was naïve. I imagined Existentia would throw me straight into a war against a native species. If that was happening sacrificing some of the dying enemy wouldn’t be that bad… and it would give me strength.”

“I’m glad we weren’t thrown straight into a war.” Tom said quietly.

“I know. When I got the briefing on the surrounding nations, I felt like such an idiot. If we had landed on their borders, we would likely have been immediately overwhelmed and destroyed by their strength. Anyway, I was convinced the bloodline could work for me. The idiot that I am I didn’t understand fully what it meant. I only saw potential benefits, imagining no costs. I paid contribution points to trigger the conversation. Cost a pretty penny, but would come off the cost of the bloodline if we purchased it, so you know basically free, or at least that’s what I thought. Ended up in a spartan system room with Clare, Keikain, and a woman called Susie. It was then that I realised the true implications of a cursed bloodline. Ninety years of being trapped on this path.” Sven shook his head. “How many deaths would that be. Easy enough if we were fighting sapients every day, but we wouldn’t always be at war with easily identified victims.” Sven laughed bitterly. “That was the point that Susie raised. Then she bowed out. I should have done the same. I thought about it, but Clare was persuasive. Her argument was simple: you need a minimum of two to begin the ritual. Feeding without it wastes something like eighty percent of the energy. That means if there’s just one, you have to kill five times as much to hold the bloodline off.”

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“Really? That’s a restriction?”

Sven nodded.

“Wow,” Tom said. “I read everything about the bloodline, but I didn’t see that.”

“It’s in the fine print, so to speak. Anyway, Clare had done more preparation work than us. She told us she wouldn’t make the purchase unless two others were doing it because of the risk of losing one person and having to kill five times as much. She had also asked more questions about party sizes prior to joining us. I, of course, argued to abandon the idea. If we couldn’t afford to lose people, then it was too dangerous to continue.” Sven had stopped walking. “You know what she did. She laughed at me. On average, this will net me two times the number of ranking points as any other option I can take. Two times as many ranking points, so we need to suck it up. That’s what she said.”

“The lure of higher average ranking points.” Tom said thoughtfully. “I get the temptation. After all, that’s where my plan came from and how I’ve sold it to everyone else.”

“When your entire purpose of living is to get ranking points, it’s a very seductive line and Clare, when she wants can be very persuasive. I shouldn’t have let her convince me. But I did.”

There was another long silence as they picked over the rocks, and the gap between them and the others increased marginally.

Sven was still dragging his feet.

“Then when we got to Existentia, and I realised the situation. I spent so many hours crying in my system room. To have ended up in the middle of nowhere with the only sapients around being humans. I should have been stronger. I should have left with Susie.” He brushed away a tear. “I still remember her. She argued that if you weren’t a psychopath, it didn’t matter how many extra ranking points this path would get. You might help us place better in the competition, but you would destroy your soul by doing it, and that meant it wasn’t worth it. She was right. I wasn’t part of Jeffrey’s death, but I could have stopped it. I knew once I agreed to it… well that was the end of taking the high ground. That we were committed. I didn’t put my foot down. I didn’t insist that we steal thick covering for the three of us and run… head straight away from humans toward the closest natives. It would have been the right choice. The group had you to protect them… losing the coverings wouldn’t have hurt them… We could have got away without killing anyone. But the other two deemed it too dangerous. Both the likelihood of us making it through the wasps and after that we would still need to have found sapient’s to sacrifice. Better to wait and find out why the Oracle questions encouraged us to try this… but the oracle questions couldn’t predict Existentia. What happens if we gambled and our start meant we had already lost? What happened if every time we killed we cost humanity ranking points?”

“I don’t know.”

“One day… could you know… Use one of your oracle questions to ask?”

“Maybe.” Tom said quietly.

“It doesn’t matter. The cost of what we did will sit on me even if it ends up being ranking points positive. I felt responsible for Jeffrey, and then it was my turn with Tiny. We had to act quickly to take advantage of the chance to introduce a solid alibi for Keikain. It was horrible. I had to do all the earth magic work and then man handle Tiny to the right spot. Clare tried to help, but she has a magic build and for all intents and purposes it was me putting him to a position to sacrifice. I didn’t want to kill a human. I never wanted to… but I did.”

“It’s ok. We’ve all had to do less than desirable actions in the tutorial.”

“You’re better than that. Tom.” Sven spat his despondency switching seamlessly to anger. “You’re much better. You can’t equate anything you did there with killing someone. Killing a fluffy cute animal monster that would eat your face off if you let down your guard is not the same. I killed humans!”

“I understand.”

“No, you bloody well don’t.”

“What do you think we’re doing here?” Tom challenged him. “It’s true I’ve never killed a human, but I’ve struggled with the ethics of killing sapients. You know what was in the contract you signed. We’re not doing forced marches for the fun of it. There is a job to do when we reach our destination. When I act, I won’t have a bloodline literally forcing me to kill. I’ll be doing it on my own convictions. I’ll be killing sapients and I’ve spend fifteen years reconciling myself to that. I understand you better than you think.”

“No, Tom. You might think you do, but you don’t. It’s easy to find closure using hypotheticals. In practice when you’re killing, it’s different. We can have this chat in a couple of months. You’ll understand then.”

Tom decided the chat was getting nowhere. He had been hoping to make the other man feel better, but it wasn’t working. It was time to try something new. “You’re a valuable member of our team.”

“You’re not a psychologist, Tom. You can cut out the shit. I appreciate the effort and yeah maybe it feels good to have spoken some of this out loud, but I’m not going to do anything stupid, if that’s what you’re wondering. I’ll see this through to the end.”

Tom hesitated. “I’m not sure that I was worried about that. I just thought you might want to talk. What do you mean when you say something stupid?”

Sven laughed. “For your vaunted abilities, you can be very thick sometimes.”

This ducking around using weasel words was not productive. He had to force clarity. “You’re not talking about killing yourself are you? Why would you do that?”

“No, I’m not. Tom. It’s… You know when I committed blasphemy?”

“I know now that was your guilt over being part of Jeffrey’s murder.”

“It was.” Sven admitted. “It was the height of selfishness. I knew the punishment wouldn’t extend to everyone, but when I made that comment, I wasn’t thinking about anyone else. Didn’t even consider them. That was selfish.”

“I wouldn’t have thought of it, either.”

“Stop it.” Sven snapped. “Stop trying to be nice. It doesn’t suit you. I’ve made so many mistakes. It’s not worth pretending they don’t exist.”

Tom shrugged. “I don’t know if you have. I think most people in your position would have done the same. Plus, the fact you care matters more than you’re willing to admit.” Tom nodded to the group ahead. “I’m much more worried about them than you. I know you’re a good person. The other two are cold.”

“They’re not.” Sven protested. “They care, they’re just more driven than I am. Clare had toddlers. And Keikain’s a bit weird. I think he’s motivated for his grandparents. His mum was a druggie, and they brought him up. He feels a lot of love toward them. He’s not a psychopath.”

Tom winced. “Toddlers?”

“Yeah, that’d be hard, but for her it’s been almost twenty years. That would have dulled the pain. But it doesn’t quite work like that does it? You know what I mean. Even if you don’t remember the people, you remember the need to protect them, and that drives you forward.”

Tom thought of his little sister and younger brother. They were more concepts now rather than anything more concrete. “Yeah, I get that.”

“Those two have that drive in spades. They’re really quite admirable.”

“How can you say that when they pretty much forced you into this.”

“I made my own choices. I didn’t get forced to do any of them.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s ok. I can own my own mistakes. And the impact they have on others.”

Tom knew he was talking about Gita in particular. “I…”

“Don’t Tom. I made mistakes. I don’t need to talk about them individually. We both know which were the worse ones.”

It was like that was a signal and they rapidly sped up and caught the others.

“Thanks for the chat. If you feel like you have to talk again in the future… I’m always ready.”

“Thanks Tom. If I need it, I’ll make time.”

They continued on and near dark Jingyi appeared, looking grim. “We’re going to have to fight for our shelter tonight.”