CHAPTER 199

Everlyn stood and walked over to where she had been sleeping. “Finally. We’re free.” She began to pack up her gear.

“The problem of that watcher, the scientist, hasn’t disappeared.” Tom said.

She paused where she was rolling up her bed. “Is he still there?”

“True dreaming hasn’t shown me either way but,” Tom shrugged helplessly. “I think we have to assume he is.”

“We’ve discussed this already.” Michael interrupted. “We don’t have access to enough experience or credits to buy individuals skills to hide us from someone with the perception you mentioned. Especially in this environment and if they have a bird’s-eye view.”

“Apart from my ritual.”

Silence deadened as Harry said that.

“And if we do that I can’t stress to you all how inadequate the ritual is. It’ll work to stop us from being directly observed, but it won’t protect against any other senses. Smell, sound.”

“I can muffle the sound.” Everlyn said quietly.

“Dust we raise.”

“We know Harry,” Michael interrupted.

“It’ll also leave a visible trail afterwards. I mean the temporal and spatial distortions the ritual leaves in the air will hang around for hours. The watcher will know something went through ten minutes after we’re past. It’ll paint a target on our back.”

“We know, Harry,” Michael said in annoyance. “We know the downsides, because you’ve made sure to remind us of them often.”

“We’re going to have to use it, anyway.” Everlyn said. “It’s our only chance. We are in a dynamic part of the underground. New monsters must emerge all the time. It’s possible the ripples will be seen as one such creature. Better to leave that sort of wake than have the scientist observing and cataloguing us because,” Everlyn plucked at her tunic. “If they observe us directly, they won’t need to guess. They’re know we’re sapients.”

“Or we wait a few days more,” Tom suggested. “I might get some clues from True Dreaming to help.”

“I thought you already tried that.” Michael said immediately.

“I did, and it didn’t work, but if he leaves, for example, I’m sure that will be shown to me.”

“No, that’s a terrible idea.” Keikain said. “No more delays, especially for a maybe.”

Tom’s eyes narrowed. “How bad an idea is it?”

“Tom, let’s just say I don’t want to be in a position where I have to do what Sven did. I’m not going to go mad tomorrow or anything like that, but I don’t have time to waste. We need to get moving. Find a sapient,” Keikain grimaced at the glares he received. “I meant a terror race to supply sacrifices and to let us gain some breathing room.”

“Fine, we’ll do the ritual.” Tom raised his hands in defeat. “And then we run like anything and hopefully discover a way to reach the surface.”

Harry accepted the remaining credits and then disappeared into the auction house, with animation leaving his body. Two minutes later his lips became pink again, and a portal opened up in front of him. He shoved his hand in and yanked out several strange objects.

“The timing’s painful.” Harry told them. “Once I start the ritual, it will take me forty minutes to complete it, and then we’re going to have to go. If we stop or hesitate, it will break… yes, it’s bullshit.” Harry said family catching Michael’s eyeroll. “And yes, I know everyone knows this, but I don’t want mistakes. This ritual is both spatial and temporal. If we physically cross the ground, we’ve already traversed its future instances will interfere with its past ones. We need to prevent that. We won’t be forced in any specific direction, but we do have to keep travelling and not track back over our own path.”

“We’ll start it fifteen minutes before we expect the next pack.” Everlyn said finally. “It’s a guess, but that timing gives us the best chance of hitting a safe window. I think it’s safer to target moving just behind something rather than running in front of it.”

“What happens if the pack’s late?” Keikain asked.

Everlyn shrugged. “Then we run for our lives. The alternative is to wait till the next pack starts before kicking off the ritual, but then if the next ones are early or at least on time we’re going to have a pack up our bums, anyway. We need to hope that the regular cycle is kept.”

“Fine,” Keikain said. “If fifteen minutes is the safest slot, that’s what we’ll do.”

Harry finished all the preparations that he could and then sat down, looking nervous.

“Five minutes.” Jingyi said, sounding bored. The entire campsite had been packed away, and they all had packs on ready to move.

“Okay time,” Jingyi said, giving Harry permission to start.

Harry began to cast his spell. This was a long ritual and while the ritualist worked Tom watched the screen to the outside. The next monster would be coming through soon, and he was curious to see what they would be chasing.

Minutes passed.

“Come over guys.”

They went over to Harry. Now people were not looking at images displayed from outside with curiosity, instead it was with anxious gazes. They were leaving here in ten minutes and the monsters that they were hoping to follow had not appeared yet.

There was no stopping.

This was a single attempt thing. They no longer had the credits to re buy the regents. Completing the ritual and going was the only chance they had of avoiding the scientist above noting them and they all knew getting the attention of a civilisation as advanced as the one the scientists belonged to was a bad idea. Outcomes might range from nil to being killed, but it was the underground. They doubted any contact would be cordial.

“Link hands,” Harry ordered.

Tom did as instructed the small blade in one of his hands ready to make the cuts when asked. For this stage of the casting, a physical link was all that was called for, but in a couple of minutes’ time they would need to supplement with a blood one as well.

He was not the only one sneaking worried glances at the ritual screen.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Why hadn’t the monsters turned up on time? Tom hated this situation. He detested the struggle for resources and…

Tom scowled when he caught sight of Keikain. How much experience had those bastards wasted to pull their con with Sven? If Keikain instead of being underhanded had spoken to them about sacrificing the other man, then they wouldn’t have needed to spend all those credits on the ritual they had used to hide their evil deeds. If that had occurred, then they would have experience to buy an extra set of regents to restart the ritual later.

Their short-sightedness…

He stopped the internal rant before it got too far. That lack of trust, the requirement for that deception, had a hundred percent been required even if it was costing them now. It was painful. It cost them the chance to have multiple goes at the ritual, but he couldn’t truly fault the killers. They had done what they did to survive.

“Blood link now.” Harry ordered quietly.

Tom spun the dagger and created a cut on the meaty part near the thumb on both his hands. He actively prevented the wounds from healing and blood, ran down into his palm to mingle with a blood of Thor on one side and Rahmat on the other when he clasped their hands once more.

He immediately felt the tingle, and the magic infused in the ritual glowed around them. Energy spinning and twirling, and then it linked them. He could feel the spatial distortions thanks to his teleport skill. That ability reacted to what was happening and it let him perceive stuff that would have been invisible otherwise.

It was interesting and awe-inspiring, but more importantly Tom felt energy in the ritual mounting.

It was going to finish soon and the next monster pack…

There was still nothing on the ritual screen. It was twenty, maybe thirty minutes late, and they were committed to leaving even though the roaming boss level monster could appear at any moment.

At this point, it would be best if it didn’t come. If it was outside the cave when it was time for them to emerge, this was all for nothing.

Tom felt the tug from the ritual as it demanded mana and he started channelling he’s magic out. There was a minimum that they needed to meet for the spell to work, and that would suck them all almost completely dry.

Not only were they about to leave the cave and into the open, they were going to do it at a low point in their power.

Hopefully, they would get out ahead of it, and then there would be no problems. They would run in front of the monsters and even if it caught them well, by then they would have recharged their mana… but if it didn’t. If it came just as they were leaving. He really didn’t want to think about how screwed that would make them.

The spell finished with a crackle.

“Move.” Harry ordered, and like they had discussed and rehearsed they ran towards the entrance.

Everlyn led the way, Jingyi in the rear and Harry in the middle.

“Keep your hands linked.”

They knew it was not a hundred percent necessary. The ritual would sustain itself even if they dropped the connection, but maintaining the physical link meant the spell used less energy and so they would be protected for longer.

If they held hands the weird invisibility spell would persist almost twice as long as if they tried to run individually.

Also, if they ran individually they risked losing people from the rituals area of an effect all together. One slip where they got too far from Harry was all that it would take to permanently kick them out of the spell’s protection.

It was a ritual that only the desperate would attempt to use.

It was challenging to navigate the tunnel while holding hands, but luckily excluding the spot that he and Keikain had popped out to narrow the entrance to fend off the kobolds it was spacious enough that they could do it successfully.

They reached the outside, and Jingyi was already tossing the piled ropes off the ledge. They had purchased these early in preparation and attached them with Keikain’s growing ability to influence the underground rock.

“Oh god.” Jingyi hissed ahead of them, freezing.

“Keep going.” Harry yelled.

There was a pause and Jingyi jumped over the edge and they shuffled forward. Tom was holding two hands and Rahmat went first, slipping and folding himself around the rope so he could slide down using his elbows and knees to moderate the speed. Tom did the same and as he twisted he caught sight of what had caused Jingyi to hesitate.

The next pack had arrived. They were still distant, but for all intents and purposes it was going to be breathing down their backs.

Collectively, they squirmed down the cliffs. The major challenge was stopping himself from letting go of the other men’s hands. He got rope burns on his elbows as he did his best to stop himself from dropping in free fall.

Thor slipped.

Tom tightened the rope around his arms and felt it slip anyway, cutting and burning.

The bigger man below jerked to a halt with a gasp of agony. Tom saw that the rope was wrapped hard across his biceps and Thor groaned in pain as his weight made it dig into him.

A healing spell from Clare hit all of them and closed the wounds even as they kept moving, knowing they had no time.

When he landed on the ground, while he was pulling himself free of the ropes, he tried to interpret the nature of the creatures that he had seen coming around the corner. If you squinted, and were particularly naïve, you might have interpreted them to be a pack of antelopes.

However, too many years spent in the tutorial told a more fundamental truth. They were in the underground and looking innocent screamed danger far more than monsters with two feet long teeth. Plus, the area they were in was rank twenty, which sort of put a rather high floor on how weak they could be.

In his brief glimpse, there was no tell of magic around them that he could interpolate into a likely magic type. They had appeared harmless. They weren’t. They would either have deadly magic or failing that, mouths that could swallow a horse whole as they elongated beyond what the rules of physics could support.

There would be something horrific in their makeup.

The last of them got free of the ropes. Everlyn tugged on them so they fell down into a pile on the ground. She put the decay stone on top of the pile. In ten minutes’ time, there would be nothing left.

There was no option to try to hide or retreat.

They had to get moving. The temporal and spatial ritual would protect them from being visually identified, but anything physically crossing their path with some level of tracking sensors would notice them and the trail left would only become more visible as time passed. For now, the main risks were a question of smell, latent heat and scruff marks in the dirt. The ritual did nothing to obscure these other ways they could be tracked. It was a cheap blunt instrument that defended them from one specific threat, which was an observation from above.

They set off at a slow jog as they rapidly discovered that running while linking hands was difficult. As slow as they were moving, it was enough. If the monsters behind them did not actively hunt them, then their pace should be sufficient to stay ahead of them.

“The situation is not good,” Everlyn reported matter of fact through party chat. “The monsters that you probably all spotted when descending are called decay antelopes. They range in rank from nineteen to twenty-three and they’re faster than us.”

“Are you sure?” Jingyi asked.

“Absolutely certain, at least individually. The pack might travel slower, but they’re going to notice signs of our passage. They have an excellent sense of smell and when they transition to hunting, they’ll catch us.”

“Can we block our scent?” Michael asked.

No, Tom thought to himself. Michael’s ignorance sometimes surprised him. He was so grounded in some areas and obtuse in others. Masking your scent was difficult and took years of practice and high-level skills. No one in the competition could protect others yet.

“Jingyi and I, yes. The rest of you, no.”

“Then they’re going to find us.” Michael stated definitely.

“Plan?” Tom asked.

“I wouldn’t want to fight them head on,” Everlyn said. “That decay magic will be almost impossible to dodge and I think Tom they’ll overwhelm you too quickly for you to be able to delay them.”

“If we can’t fight, then it’s run or hide?”

“We could try to hide, but if we take a side passage,” Everlyn said. “And it’s shallow or already has occupants. Then we’ll be screwed.”

“And I can’t imagine we can outdistance them for long.” Jingyi reasoned.

“Correct.”

“If we catch the pack ahead of us.” Jingyi suggested. “We might be able to survive on the peripheral of a pack battle. If they’re fighting each other, we might stand a chance.”

“That’s suicide.” Michael said.

“Everlyn it’s the only option I can see working.” Jingyi stated.

There was a pause. “Tom?” Everlyn asked.

“Can’t run, can’t hide means we fight. I’ve run packs stronger than myself into each other heaps of times in the tutorial. Sometimes it was the only way.”

“I did the same.” Harry confirmed.

“That’s the plan then. Everyone drops hands. We need speed more than anything else.” Everlyn said finally.

“Agreed.” Jingyi declared. “Everyone else focus on running. Everlyn, do you think you can get ahead and draw the pack ahead of us back toward us.”

“On it.”

Tom dropped the hands he was holding and concentrated on running.