CHAPTER 218

“This has to be worth it.” Phil grumbled and glared at Tom. “It better not take two hours.”

All Tom could do was shrug. “I think it should require half an hour, but people always have opinions.”

Phil snorted. “And questions. God, they fucking annoy me.”

Both Selena and Vidja had waved their groups forward, so he did the same to his own. As the other groups crowded around Tom’s heart sunk more than a little. His team was the lowest ranked of anyone here. Both groups had an average ranking of fifteen. He felt inadequate, like his team had failed to prosper as much as everyone else. That they were inferior.

Tom knew it was a knee jerk reaction and unwarranted. They had their progression crippled by the wasps, travel and then their trip through the underground, which was mostly hiding. With a fair go, his team would have matched all these others. Phil excluded, naturally. That man was built differently, and Tom was pretty sure that it was not a house of cards build. He was confident that the man wouldn’t have gone for the quick power and thrown all of his experience into class levels. He would have the skills to back up that ridiculously high rank.

“Your squad is awfully weak, Tom.” Phil observed. “I wasn’t sure… I mean I didn’t want to compare them against myself but even relative to these others…”

“I know. We had challenging starting conditions.”

“Are you only here because of this prophecy skill?”

“I’m here because I have a high rank.”

The other man looked at him evenly.

“And not from the prophecy skill. It granted relatively few ranking points.”

“So? Where did your success come from?”

“Primarily from titles,” Tom admitted.

“Does your prophecy ability help you to hunt them down?” Phil asked with sharp eyes.

Tom appeared offended.

“He earned the titles separately,” Michael interrupted. “On the first day, he raised his vitality by twenty-five percent.”

There were whistles at that.

“No, the majority are independent.” Tom continued calmly not sparing the healer a glance and ignoring the injection. His focus was purely on the dangerous Phil. “I earned my titles separately. They are not even indirectly associated as I got them before I got that Skill and the ones I got after were for different reasons. Hopefully, in the future, it can help guide me toward titles, but it hasn’t yet.” Tom mock pouted.

“I thought I would ask.” Phil winked. “And if your dreams can be directed like you claim, then it might be a profitable avenue to explore.”

Tom smiled at that. “It is now on my list for when I’m no longer in a life and death situation.” He waved his hand at the surrounding area.

Phil snorted. “Even for a weak person like you, this place is hardly life threatening.”

“Tell me that after you meet the dragon.”

Phil laughed, and then there was a pause in the conversation.

“How did you raise your vitality by twenty-five percent in a day?” Selena asked.

“As I said.” Tom twisted to face her and noted that her eyes were not glowing yellow. “We had extremely challenging starting conditions.”

“What?” Selena asked. “What was challenging?”

“Wasps.” Michael answered. “A couple of stings being sufficient to kill. It took us almost a month to fight our way clear.”

Vidja cleared her throat. “Enough of this useless chatting. We’re all gathered ready to listen. Let’s hear the entire story.”

With a deep breath, Tom quickly summarised the situation, talking only about what his dreams had shown him.

Lots of questions were asked, with Everlyn and Michael called on to collaborate everything Tom had claimed. He made a point not to mention the killers, or at least their presence in his squad. The other two supported the deliberate omission.

Phil stirred. “So, to summarise. We all need to purchase a medium range teleport. Probably with multiple uses. Then work out how to direct a ridiculous amount of force to one point on a dragon’s neck and then survive its wrath for a minute once we do that.”

“Effectively.” Tom agreed.

“Then there are three other races that you know about. Some sort of insect which will attempt to kill us on sight. A humanoid that might refrain from attempting to murder us despite its GOD telling it to and finally a psychic slime that is so good,” he said the word good with disdain. “That it would attempt to heal sapients even as they tried to kill it.”

“I don’t know if the healer’s are slimes. It was unclear, but mentally yeah that was about right.”

“Because you shared its senses, and they didn’t have eyes.”

“Precisely.”

Phil stood abruptly. “If anyone cares I’m going to fight the sprites… hate those shits.”

He walked away.

“Wait.” Selena called out as he retreated. “What about these threats?”

Phil stopped and glanced back at them. “What about them?”

“We need to coordinate.”

“No.” He waved at Tom’s group. “I accept these guys are believers… but there is nothing to do for now. Hopefully, we’ll meet further in, once there is an actual plan or at least evidence that he is right. I’m not wasting time now. I came because this includes a rank thirty-two challenge and I’m keen to go. This level.” He sneered. “This zone is too weak to test me, so I’m going to fight sprites and open levels to head deeper. The sooner I escape this crappy sixteen ranked zone the better.”

“Before you go,” Michael called out. “We need to set up communication via the auction house.”

Phil shook his head. “You guys should definitely worry about that. But I’m not willing to waste time searching through the listings.”

“You don’t have to waste your time. We’ll put CCRT_primary as part of the search term.”

“Michael was it?”

Next to Tom, Michael nodded.

“CCRT, how the fuck will I remember that.”

“It’s the acronym of the trial name. You can check that any time. Primary is because the dragon is here, so this is the most important of the trials.”

Phil shook his head and looked away. “We’ll see. I might check what you’ve learned. Probably won’t send anything back, but I’ll look.”

Tom panicked slightly as Phil once more turned away. Despite his concerns about how the other man got his strength, he was still not a resource they wanted to waste. “When you descend toward the centre, I’ll pay two thousand credits for information on rank changes and the strategy to complete each of the zones.”

“If it’s a bribe, it needs to be worthwhile.”

He bit his lower lips as he weighed how important this purchase was going to be. Knowing how many rings there were was critical for long term planning. “Ten thousand.”

Phil looked back and laughed. “I might write some stuff up for that.”

They watched as he disappeared.

“That was too much.” Everlyn said. “I’m not sure we’ve even got that many credits between us.”

Tom shrugged. “Of course we do. The lizards was worth more than that.” He checked with Thor who confirmed with a small nod. “We have the credits, and that sort of information is vital. If we can work out what we’re facing before going deeper, it’ll improve our chances of surviving.”

“We can share the costs too.” Vidja said. “Rotate around who buys off him and then re-submit it for a few credits for every other team to benefit.”

“Definitely.” Michael agreed.

“He was an interesting character.” Vidja said thoughtfully.

“Scary as all hell.” Selena said.

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“Yes, and not keen to talk about his background, either.” Tom observed.

Michael frowned. “Do you think there is a reason he was by himself?”

There was a long silence. Everyone was thinking about whether he had butchered his original group to get a head start.

“It’s probably his charming personality.” Tom quipped finally.

There were nervous chuckles all around.

“He is not a threat,” Selena finally said. “If he did what people are imagining, we’re all too low ranked for him to bother with.”

“Yet,” Vidja said darkly. “By the time we reach the centre we’ll be as strong as him.”

“I’m confident my team will be able to deal with him.” Selena stated positively. “We could probably take him now if we had to.”

They looked at her curiously. Privately, Tom doubted her team could match Phil. There was an aura about him that transcended his rank. Yet the arrogance was not surprising. Everyone here was on the top of the ranking ladders even if they had not discussed personal ranks explicitly. Given that fact, the confidence Selena had in her abilities was not a surprise.

“Are we done?” Vidja asked. “Because I’m itching to go kill stuff.”

“Not yet.” Tom answered. “We need to talk about fate.”

“What about it?” Selena asked with a sharp look.

Abruptly, Tom felt the restrictions of his title constrict around his throat. There were so many details of fate that he couldn’t say. Options that he knew but was unable to voice. “It will be the key to our victory.” he could feel his throat constricting as he tried and failed to make a grandiose statement about its potential. He immediately changed his tact, and the restraints relaxed. “I want to talk about the technique we used to survive in an underground area,” his voice croaked alarmingly as the effect of the title’s response hadn’t quite cleared. “Almost twice our rank,” he finished painfully.

He stopped talking and brought his waterskin to his mouth to take a sip to clear his throat.

“Community prayer.” Michael declared abruptly, coming to his aid.

A healing spell from Clare struck him, but did nothing to relieve the symptoms. They weren’t fully physical.

“Or at least what we called it.” Michael continued.

“Prayer?” Vidja asked.

“Before bed.” Michael said. “So to not to waste any fate regeneration before going to sleep we spend half of our fate pool on a community aim.”

“Same in the morning.” Keikain volunteered, “and then again at lunch, if you haven’t used any fate.”

“But no,” Michael continued that’s just its name. “It’s not a prayer as such. It’s a community expression of fate. We all agree on the imagery and words and then execute it at the same time.”

It was not surprising to see thoughtful looks between everyone that had gathered.

“And do you have suggested imagery for this situation.” Vidja asked.

Michael shrugged. “That we are able to kill the dragon with as few human lives lost as possible. We don’t all necessarily need to be identical. Just have the same theme.”

“Why wouldn’t you do something simple instead? Like, ‘survive the trial with as few losses as feasible.’”

“There is power in specifics.” Tom told her. “Michael’s suggestion was not great. A general image is okayish but if you direct it to a specific purpose.” He snapped his fingers, and there was a flash of lightning. “The impact is more. Our primary image should probably be to kill the dragon by exploiting the weakness in her neck.”

“Yes, I would do that.” Everlyn agreed immediately. “We need to close a hundred plus ranks. A few months of fate building might give us a chance.”

“Nope, I can’t.” Vidja said instantly. “I’m confident that you believe you’re telling the truth, but I won’t risk wasting fate by drilling down into specifics.”

“Tom’s not a liar and his skill is very real.” Everlyn argued. “It’s not just him. I’ve seen it personally, and it works. If he says there’s a dragon with a weakness in its neck, that’s where I’ll direct my fate.”

“Well, I don’t have the advantage of your personal experience. I don’t have that level of trust, so I won’t risk wasting my fate.”

“Hey girls,” Tom interrupted. “I appreciate the support Everlyn, but there is no point arguing. But I do have an observation if you’re going to do community sessions. ‘Or’ clauses probably aren’t the best and neither are the ‘and’ ones.” Tom said. “The moment you’re asking fate to do at x and z and y or a and b or whatever crazy job you want it to complete. Well, I suspect if that’s the approach you’re losing a lot of power because you are reducing the number of ways the fate can work to achieve your ultimate outcome. Obviously I have no research to prove it, but that’s what my gut is saying. Personally, our group will alternate between us all surviving the trial,” he waved at the wider group even though he had no intention of diluting his fate that much. He would only be including the people he knew in his own prayers. “And then the next time I use fate I will be directing it towards killing the dragon by landing a blow on her known weakness.” He looked at Vidja. “There is a spot on the neck two thirds down which is susceptible. That’s what we need to focus on.”

Vidja shook her head. “I want to believe you.”

“Then what?” Tom interrupted.

The woman shrugged. “When we see evidence. Once we meet these other races. Then we’ll adjust.”

“This is a huge place.” Tom said. “We might see no one else until we reach the centre.”

Vidja nodded at that statement. “You do understand how crazy your story is.”

“No,” Everlyn snapped. “It’s not crazy after the tutorial. With the magic we have, it’s not crazy.”

“It’s not independently verified.” Vidja said soothingly. “The community prayer idea is absolute gold. We’ll use it, but target it toward everyone’s survival. If the dragon is the primary obstacle to us escaping with our lives, then it stands to reason that some of our fate will be directed to killing it as well.”

“That’s bullshit! Look at the bigger picture.”

“Evie stop. Check out their body language, look at them. They’re not going to budge and fair enough. But when they run into the other races, they’ll learn.”

Vidja had the grace to smile. “You’re probably right. Now, are we fighting sprites or goblins?”

“I want to talk about fate too,” Selena interrupted.

“What do you mean?” Tom asked immediately interested.

“I’m happy to share this with any human we meet. There is a reason we got so strong, and it’s because we have special techniques to direct fate within fights.”

Tom nodded politely. He hoped this had a point. Even those who had been clueless had known to use it in the tough fights.

“Okay,” Everlyn said doubtfully.

“I didn’t say that right. We use fate in difficult fights because we’ve structured our entire build around the concept. It was Gil’s idea.”

One of the almost identically dressed soldiers raised his hand. “I did it in the tutorial, but what we came up with as a group was even better.”

“As a group?” Tom asked.

“We all have synergetic skills and spells.” Selena explained.

“Yeah, in the tutorial,” Gil said smoothly, taking up the explanation. “I just went for spells and skills with a high range of probable outcomes. Then, if it was a tough battle, I would invest a couple of points of fate into the ability. Instead of having the spell producing an outcome ranging from striking with the force of a toddler or that of a runaway train or anything in between I would invest fate. The range of possible results would constrict. That downside of striking them with a feather vanished. No chance of hitting an armoured monster with a piece of wet lettuce. Instead, the worst possible outcome was changed to that of the spell hitting like a head on collision with a car travelling at a hundred kilometres per hour. Increase the investment to fifteen points and then it would land like a runaway train or on rare occasions a full on meteorite.”

Tom felt like slapping himself. It was such an obvious use of fate, and he wished he had thought about it decades ago. Large parts of the tutorial would have become significantly easier.

“Selena took the concept one step further.” Gil continued.

“No Gil. That’s not accurate. The improvements came from group brainstorming on the first day.”

“Most of it was you.” Gil told her not at all intimidated by her rebuke.

“Are you going to actually tell us what you did?” Vidja asked.

Selena nodded. “We came up with a couple of enhancements. Once I got the experience, I purchased a trait called Bonded Military Squad. It had so many restrictions.” She rolled her eyes. “But it’s vital for our build. You need to be part of a formalised team for it to apply. There has to be dedicated ranks, professionalism, uniforms.” She waved at what they were all wearing. “And all members have to agree to join, but once that’s done, there’s an even sharing of experience when you’re on ‘duty’.” She made inverted commas around the word duty. It was clearly a formal term in the trait. “Doesn’t matter if the healer does nothing. They get the same experience as the fighters. Same as the scout, even if they are kilometres away. But that’s not the true beauty of it. As far as fate is concerned, everyone in the squad is part of the same organism. Fate stops being sticky so it can be applied to others and achieve the same outcome you get when applying it to yourself.”

“You can even use other people’s fate.” Gil said proudly.

“What?” Selena said, looking confused.

“Remember Margot’s squad. Their tank was knocked out early and then they ran out of fate and ended up using his.”

“I remember.” Selena said. “At least I recall the rumours. Was it ever confirmed?”

“Yes. They even checked the logs and proved it. They tried testing it, but the person had to be unconscious before you could spend their fate.”

“Well, there you are. The fate is non-sticky and if you’re knocked out your squad mates can use your own fate to save you.”

“That first bit, about it being non-sticky does the description really say that?” Tom asked.

Selena laughed. “Suggest rather than states but we’ve tested it. The thing works perfectly. I was expecting only a fifty to sixty percent boost, but as far as we can tell it’s a hundred. If Gil uses fate directly or someone else on his behalf, the range of outcomes from the spell remains the same.”

“Ok, so you as the leader have this trait. Then what?” Tom asked.

“Every squad has a couple of dedicated buffers of which one is standard and the other is a range-based focus. Two tanks and two healers both standard. And then we have Gill and Amy.” She waved toward the smallest member of their team. “They specialise in abilities that do damage.”

“Like what?”

“The bread-and-butter spell is chaos bolt.”

“Let me check,” he muttered and then, with a blink, Tom went into the system room and check the details.

Chaos Bolt - Tier 2

This Spell creates an unstable portal that is thrown from the hand. It then links to a random magical or elemental plane and sucks energy through it.

This results in a spell that can range from tier zero to tier four.

Cost: 18,000

Tom resisted the impulse to buy the spell and returned to the real world. For someone with his high affinities, moving away from lightning or earth was silly. Even if he could influence the ability to more frequently produce the tier four spell versions. Despite that, it would be better to find a lightning and/or earth spell with a similar ranged effect.

“That’s a great find.”

“We all have it.” Selena confirmed. “Gil and Amy have a heap of comparable abilities that they can bring out to target specific weaknesses in their opponents.”

“And two traits from the contribution store.” Gil interrupted with a proud grin.

“Yes, Gil does far more damage than anyone because of it. Amy is similar in that she has a couple of traits that sort of help. Which is why she got assigned the damaging role, but they’re nowhere near as valuable as Gil’s.”

“This is amazing.” Tom said, impressed.

“The squads were what allowed us to gain strength so fast and get to come here.” Selena confirmed. “We’ve been able to fight up five or six ranks since the start.”

“Why haven’t you sent this technique to the auction house?” Michael asked.

Tom glared at him. That was getting way too close to his restrictions, and he had already been warned once in the last few minutes.

Selena looked confused. “We did put it on the auction house. We produced thousands of primers. They were even bought.”

Michael nodded. “Must not have been one of the ones I purchased.”

“It was sold with a fate hack tag.”

“Hmm,” the healer said thoughtfully. “I’m sure I search similar terms, but never saw it. Just unlucky, I suppose.”

Tom imagined Michael was walking the same tightrope he had been forced into earlier.

“I didn’t either.” Someone from Vidja’s group volunteered.

Michael sagged in relief.

“And I check the auction house regularly. If there was something with the tag fate hack, I wouldn’t have missed it.”

“No,” Selena said in frustration. “You must have seen it. We were impressed with the exploit. We spent hours writing out those slips, and we made sure they were permanently in the auction house. Because it was so important one of us monitored the numbers the whole time to ensure they didn’t run out.”

“Didn’t happen,” the woman from Vidja’s team insisted.

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“You know what… I think I am.”

Both groups moved apart from each other, hands shifting to their weapons.