Chapter 217

Tom advanced alone, pausing for only a moment to order the elemental to stay with the main group. Everlyn went to follow, but a single look had her holding her position. He would not let this descend into a fight, and someone had to extend an olive branch first. That meant him walking forward by himself.

He reached the centre of the square and glanced left, right, and then straight ahead. “Are you guys going to join me?” His hands itched to summon his spear back, but he resisted.

There was a shuffling between the two teams, and Tom could hear hushed conversations. Everlyn, with her skills could probably eavesdrop, but he couldn’t. Instead, he stared boldly at the scary blond man. “It won’t hurt to listen for a few minutes.”

The shrewd eyes above the blond beard assessed him. Tom knew that the other man had noted the rank disparity. His lips turned down slightly, then up as he came to a decision. He stalked forward, took one hand off his axe while the other carried it casually and thrust the freed hand out. “I’m Phil.”

“Tom.” He answered by shaking the proffered hand. “Is that an Australian accent?”

“New Zealand.”

Tom screwed up his face. “My bad. It’s been more than a few years.”

Phil chuckled. “It was a good guess.”

Just then, two members of the soldiers’ team broke away from the squad of ten and approached. The woman trailing the first was clearly the leader from the collective body language. Tom unabashedly examined her. She was rank fifteen with her bodyguard being high sixteens. Both of them possessed attributes that exceeded his own. It was not surprising. This trial was limited to champions of humanity and his physical abilities were still impacted by his slow start.

The guard positioned himself between the blond man and his boss.

Phil looked frustrated. “Come on, guys. I’m not a berserker. I’m not just going to randomly kill people. And for goodness’ sakes, if I wanted to kill her the bodyguard wouldn’t change anything.”

“It’s ok,” Tom said soothingly. “We are all in the same boat. We’re all confused. I’m Tom and this is Phil.”

“Selena,” the boss woman answered. “And Jane.”

Tom did a double take and looked at the bodyguard and realised that he’d been mistaken. She was not a he as he had first thought. Instead, she was a tall, athletic woman.

There was a stir and a single person from the rag-tag group came forward. She removed her helmet to reveal short cropped black hair and some form of mixed descent. Exotic features that suggested an Asian, African, Caucasian mix of ancestors. “And I am Vidja.”

Vidja was rank eighteen. Curiously, Tom opened his fate to assess everyone around him. The blond man had about two-thirds of his levels and the others slightly under half. Given he was at two hundred fate that was impressive. It meant they were investing in the attribute. Not quite at a one-to-one level with the other ones, but they weren’t criminally neglecting it.

He would run classes later to try to convince them to increase their investment. There was a lot of information to spread to them. Though he would need to watch his title to ensure he didn’t go too far.

Tom cleared his throat. “So first I assume we all found a trial named Competitor Champion Race that had a set start time and that was only accessible because a member of the group had a high rank on the ladder?”

There were guarded nods all round.

“From that,” Tom continued. “I can conclude that everyone here is at the peak of humanity. Highly skilled and…”

“You said it wasn’t how it seems.” Phil interrupted. “Cut out the shit and get to the point.”

“Fine. I have a tier nine prophecy skill.”

There were gasps of surprise. Even Phil looked impressed.

“It’s a weird one which allows me to share past moments of sapients to discover information to benefit me. I only discovered the trial portal an hour ago, but I’ve known that this was coming for weeks. This trial has been set up as a death trap.”

The leaders of their separate groups glanced at each other. Tom was surprised that Phil looked thoughtful instead of dismissing the claim out of hand. The two women were less accepting of what he had said.

“You’ll need to provide evidence for that assertion,” Vidja said quietly. “I’m not claiming you’ve interpreted this wrong. But we’re in a trial which is designed as a race to the centre. From my impression of the setup, we’re unlikely to run into anything if we complete it how it’s intended.”

“The dragon is going to camp at the exit.” Tom blurted.

“Dragon. Sounds fun.” Phil said immediately.

“No,” Tom said hurriedly. “Not fun. Her rank is probably in the hundreds.”

“You’re not making any sense.” Vidja interrupted. “Slow down and explain more carefully.”

“The champions of three separate races have been tasked by their gods to ensure that the participants of non terror species are eliminated. They’re trying to cripple the others by eliminating their strongest.” Tom gestured around them.

“Terrors?” Phil asked questioningly.

“It’s what the natives call races that only want to kill, torture and enslave other sapients.” Vidja explained.

“You’ve met natives,” Selena asked in sudden excitement. “What were they like? We’ve taken over some old ruins, but there’s no actual natives for miles.”

“Weird,” Vidja answered. “At least the three types we met.”

Tom cleared his throat loudly. “We’re getting off track. If we’re going to defeat the terror races, it has to be together.”

“Do we.” Vidja said mildly. “Pray, tell me, how are the GODs giving this order.”

“Directly sometimes and by priest classes in others.”

“How many of these races are there?”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“I’m aware of four. Only two are terror races, one’s borderline and the other is innocent. In all case the GODs pretty much forced the participants to enter against their will.”

Vidja looked at the two leaders. “We can’t verify this.”

“I’m not lying! Ask my companions if you don’t believe me.”

Silence deadened but not of the shock type. It was more the sort of uneasy truce between strangers when a homeless man ranted about the lizard people hiding in everyone’s attics.

“Trust me this place is a death trap.”

“I’m not saying I think you’re lying. It just doesn’t seem likely,” Vidja said finally. “I don’t think SUPREME would first allow one of the competitor trials to be corrupted and even if he did, then the other GODs wouldn’t tolerate some minor human unravelling their plans.”

“It is a tier nine oracle skill.” Tom reminded her firmly. “And it’s not one of the standard ones! It has a number of huge downsides, which makes it strong at what it does. For example, when I evolved.” he hesitated, not sure he wanted to divulge his strengths to strangers. Then again, while he might not know them, they were fellow humans. Theoretically, that meant they were all on the same side. He should be able to trust them. Unless they boosted themselves by destroying the group they entered Existentia with, a small voice in his mind suggested.

Phil did not seem the type to do that, but nor had Clare, Sven or Keikain. Caution was necessary.

“And?” Vidja asked.

But ultimately he was worried about a dodge skill. It was not unique unless he talked about the fate and wound reducing aspects. Even those were not that big a secret. After all, they only had to watch his group fight, and Tom’s skill would be obvious. You couldn’t hide suddenly moving many times faster than you had previously managed. “When my dodge skill evolved, it didn’t develop as normal because dodge skills at higher levels have precognition and my tier nine skill as one of its downsides completely blocks me from having any other prophecy type skills.”

His explanation flew over everyone’s heads apart from Phil.

The high ranked man’s eyes narrowed. “Your dodge ability is above tier four?” He was smart as well as dangerous.

Tom very much hoped he was on humanity’s side and would play as part of the team. “Yes.” He answered honestly, meeting Phil’s gaze.

“And you claim it doesn’t have a precognition element?”

“No, unfortunately, that was blocked.”

Phil chuckled. “That’s a shitty version.”

Tom smiled too, then stopped and winked at Phil. “I’m not concerned it has other unique elements to compensate.”

“The dodge skill is irrelevant.” Vidja interrupted. “I want to know how certain you are of this information, and if it is truly a death trap, why are you here? Surely if you were pre-warned, you would have avoided it.”

“I’m here because when the trial appeared…” Tom shook his head, remembering. It had been such blatant manipulation. “When it appeared it sealed the entrance to the cave, we were in. We were underground, so there was no possibility of getting out. We would have been stuck there for months.”

Vidja’s eyes flicked to the people who had come in with him. “That’s not an explanation. We all went through the tutorial. None of us are a stranger to loneliness and with eight of you trapped there it would have been pleasant. So tell me honestly why are you here?”

Once more Tom realised he had walked into a trap of his own devising. He should have sent Everlyn to carry out this negotiation. He had already disclosed too much, and now he had to admit to even more.

“I purchased…” he stopped talking for a moment and glance that Selena the fourth person in this conversation but one who had been silent the whole time.

Her eyes glowed yellow.

There are many things that could signify, but the most likely in the context was some sort of truth telling spell. “In the contribution shop, I purchased oracle questions like what was available in the tutorial. I had two left,” Tom told them. Choosing a half truth to keep the knowledge secret. He definitely did not want any potential enemies finding out about that powerful resource. “I used one of them to determine whether it was worth coming despite the downsides.”

Selena nodded along with his answer.

“The downside being that this is a death trap?” Vidja clarified.

Tom internally frowned. Everyone here felt smarter than him and this line of questioning… He knew where it was going.

“Did you use one of your questions to prove it was a death trap?”

“There was no need.” Tom answered. “My true dreaming skill has already confirmed that it was.” Tom chuckled. “The question asked was indifferent to the level of danger. If danger went up, then our ranking point returns skyrocketed.”

“That’s a complicated question to structure.” Phil observed. “Lots of spots to go wrong.”

“It’s not like I’m an amateur. I did similar things in the tutorial.”

“So did I.” The blond man agreed.

“So did we all,” Vidja interrupted, sounding bored. “But I’m not convinced.”

“The question was workshopped by the entire team and turned into multiple pages of definitions. It was watertight.”

Vidja appeared annoyed. “Not your question. Presumably one of you is ranked in humanity’s top ten. I’m sure you structured it appropriately. It’s the death trap claim that I’m not convinced about.”

“Tom,” Phil said quietly. “Why do you trust this skill so much? And don’t quote its tier at me.”

He looked at Phil in surprise. Was he helping him or trying to do the opposite?

“It helped me find some treasure. Saved all our lives from a beast the size of a small hill.” Once more, Tom hesitated. “And then uncovered a nefarious plot caused by people buying things in the contribution shop they shouldn’t have.”

“What was the last one?” Selena asked. “It was true, but also not.”

He did not react to the confirmation that Selena’s glowing eyes were indeed a truth spell. “You’re right.” He made eye contact with the soldier’s leader. “The group I came to Existentia with had issues. There were five murders over the first six weeks until I was able to put a stop to it.”

“You had people killing others…Like a serial killer.” Vidja asked in disbelief.

“It was not pleasant.” Tom admitted. “And directly responsible for me getting my oracle skill. It was how we uncovered the killers.”

“Multiple?” Vidja asked.

Tom nodded.

“Wait.” Phil interrupted abruptly. “You didn’t buy the tier nine skill in the contribution store. Are you claiming you got it in Existentia?”

“Yes. I got it here. No one could afford something like that in the contribution store. Phil, we’re all aware of your strength. You must have done incredibly in the tutorial and on Existentia, but no matter how well you went you wouldn’t have been able to purchase a tier nine skill. Surely you saw their cost.”

“I didn’t look at dreaming abilities.” Phil said indignantly. “They might have been cheaper.”

“They weren’t.” Tom snapped.

“I agree,” Vidja said, supporting him. “I checked the cost of numerous precognition powers. They had the same prices as everything else. So Tom do you mind sharing how you got hold a tier nine ability at rank thirteen.”

“The murderers,” Tom explained simply. “We had to find them somehow, and I had a lot of auction credits and I spent fate and this popped up on the spectaculi auction.”

“You had multi-million dollars’ worth of credits?” Vidja asked doubtfully.

Tom shook his head. “No, originally it was only tier seven, and I only managed to afford it because of because of all the downsides. That drove the price way below what it should have been.”

“Downsides?” Selena asked.

The main one is the one that crimps the value of dodge.” Tom nodded to Phil as he said that. “Then we had a lucky encounter with a native.”

“What were they like?” Selena interrupted excitedly.

“Honourable. There was a transaction and part of the outcome was that I got an evolution potion that was able to push it to tier nine.”

“What trade goods did you have for that?” Vidja asked pointedly.

“The same thing that all natives want from new competition races.”

“And you gave it to them?”

“Did you?” He challenged straight back.

“We weren’t given a choice. We made the best out of limited options.”

“The three from my camp went voluntarily.”

Tom was gratified to see some pink in Vidja’s cheeks as she looked away.

“Slavery?” Selena asked.

“Yes.”

“No.” Tom answered and looked at Vidja challenging her.

“It was slavery,” Vidja said. “They can dress it up however they want, but that’s what it is.”

“No worse than being trapped working for a company because of a mortgage,” Tom told her. “At least that was the deal that we negotiated and I trust Mus to deliver on it. Again, not important. I haven’t lied about any of this. This trial was intended to be a death trap.”

“He hasn’t lied once.” Selena volunteered abruptly. “I’m convinced. He believes that it’s a death trap. As far as I’m concerned that’s sufficient for me to conclude that we need more information. We should bring everyone over and get the full story, interrogate his team, confirm that the events his skill revealed are correct. After we’ve got all the facts, we can talk more seriously.”

“We’re in a race.” Phil said quietly.

“Two hours probably won’t make a difference,” Selena retorted. “And if there’s a dragon with a rank in the hundreds waiting for you in the centre.” She nodded toward Tom. “You’re going to wish that you spent the time now.”

“Fine.” Phil said, sounding annoyed. “Two hours, then I’m out of here.”