Chapter 219

The two groups glared at each other for a moment.

“Selena why don’t you use your truth spell.” Tom suggested. There was a pause as he felt the title assess his intentions. It had been primarily to stop a bloodbath, but also partially to help unravel the conspiracy for others. The title responded to the second bit, and it tightened around his neck. He was not going to risk death to help these people. “Actually, probably not worth it.” He walked back the comment hastily. The pressure loosened.

Selena’s eyes glowed yellow, despite his suggestion. “Say that again.” She ordered, addressing Michael and the girl from Vidja’s team.

Tom winced, expecting further punishment, but nothing happened. Too close, he thought to himself. I’m going to be more careful going forward.

Both of them repeated their claim that the manuals hadn’t been in the auction house.

Confusion flowed over Selena’s features. “That doesn’t make sense. Tom. Do you have any ideas?”

Instantly, those chains from the title rode up to stop him from saying anything that might allude to the restricted information. They gripped him around the throat and the only choice was to play it with a flat bat. He shook his head. “It’s not something I’m willing to speculate over.”

“Really, it seems important.”

“If we’re done, I’ve got some goblins to kill.” Tom said with fake cheerfulness, attempting to change the subject. The chains had dropped off in response.

Selena stamped her foot, her gaze flicking suspiciously from him and to the two others making the claims. “No, we’re not done. This doesn’t make any sense. Both of your groups claim our pamphlets weren’t on the auction house, but they were. Tom, you look like you know the answers.”

He stared at her. “I can’t verify what you’re actions were. I don’t have the power to confirm anything. It’s not like I even possess a truth spell to help and finally this is not a subject I’m interested in speculating on.”

“But you’ve got so much fate.” It was the same woman who had said that she’d searched for fate techniques. “There must be a reason for that. Surely you’re fascinated by the topic.”

The title which Tom realised must have been semi-sapient took the opportunity to remind him of its existence. He cleared his throat before trying to speak. His mind considered different approaches while he monitored the response of the chains. He felt like crying in frustration. A straight denial would get him punished because it would make him look suspicious. “Interested, yes, but not enough to waste time debating things. Phil had a point when he left. We have a fight. I’m glad I stayed because the way Selena and Gil are abusing the fate mechanism is incredible. Once I have experience, I’m going to incorporate it into my combat style.”

“You have a lot of fate. How have you abused it?” Selena asked immediately. “You must have something to invest so heavily into it.”

Tom would not mention Fates Agility, so if he said nothing it would create suspicion. If he stuck to specifics of what he had done so far, excluding the evolution potions, then he should be safe. The evolution potions were excluded because he felt like they were a short step away from focusing on skills directly. He waited for a moment to see if his approach would be objected to. Apparently, it was the correct approach because he couldn’t feel the presence of any chains. “Well, you already know about the community application.”

Everyone nodded.

“I’ve also used it in the auction house, to improve loot portal rewards and of course in fights.” Tom felt increasing restrictions on what he could say or speculate around. It was not angry at him, but it was prepared to choke him to prevent him from divulging anything more. There would be no accidental slip up. It was happy with him talking about past actions but not future ones. The key ability to influence skill growth was not something he had personally done, but after and possibly during this trial he was definitely going to use it for that purpose.

Selena’s eyes he noticed were glowing.

Tom swallowed.

He needed to choose his words precisely without mentioning the evolution potions. “I have some other ideas, but they might not work, so I don’t want to mention them.” He tried to look self-conscious. He was treading a fine line, but he needed to prevent suspicion from being raised, so the title let him say more than it would in most circumstances. “However, I have to admit that I missed the idea of getting spells with a range of different outcomes. That’s pretty huge and I’ll be using my fate pool for that going forward.”

“The method is not an automatic win, of course,” Selena said hurriedly.

Tom almost sagged in relief. Thankfully, she had not noticed him lying via omission. Her truth spell had failed to catch his evasive answers.

“Chaos Bolt will not automatically allow you to dominate every battle,” she continued oblivious to his reaction. “Mainly, because you only have so much fate. But to turn the tide in a close fight or to defeat something higher rank than you it’s an important tool to have in your arsenal.”

Tom grinned. “Don’t worry I understand exactly how valuable the option is to a fighter. If I use fate to maximise the damage from a spear strike, there is only so much it can do, especially against monsters with redundant critical systems. I might destroy one of its three hearts. But that won’t kill it. When I attack with the spear, my range of outcomes is physically limited by its dimensions. However, with a Chaos Bolt it could become a tier four attacks and then suddenly I’m vaporising the entire monster.”

“Exactly.” Selena said. “You also need to give the spells a chance to fail regularly otherwise the fate cost for a particular outcome keeps escalating. A couple of our parties discovered that to their cost.”

“Yes,” Tom agreed. “We’re aware of that in regards to loot portals. Now I have goblins to kill.”

Selena still looked like she wanted to ask questions about the missives, which was an excellent reason not to hang around.

Tom deliberately turned his back to her, and then quietly, they extracted themselves. There was only one logical way to go. They followed in Phil’s footsteps and climbed the steep hill that had been conveniently placed close to them. When they reached the top, they would be able to see more about the zone and plan their approach to killing monsters.

The first thing that became apparent was that they were in a trial.

A clear artificial construction.

Tom could see the barriers that had been put in place to define the zone. Around a hundred metres above them was a fuzzy layer of cloud, or more accurately a thin sheet of mist with blue sky and the sun beyond it. The problem was that it screamed death. It radiated information similar to the loot portals. When he looked at it, Tom knew it was a construction of the GODs and there was no passing it.

Their way up was blocked with magic and all the other directions were closed off by cliff walls that extended from the ground to above the cloud. They hemmed the zone in on all sides. It was sort of like being in the canyon, but also not because of the sun above them.

“I was expecting portals between zones.” Everlyn said. “Not physical restrictions.”

Tom grunted in response as he kept scanning the surrounding areas.

The zone was a mostly square setup with two extra-long peninsulas one at the top right side of the map so to speak and the other growing from the bottom left. The main square was about twenty kilometres end to end and each of the irregular added strips of land extended another fifteen.

“Interesting setup.” Everlyn said beside him. “I can see at least five zone doors.”

“Five?” Tom asked and searched for the doors that Everlyn had spotted, but the distance was too far for his eyes to spot them. “Given this seems like a physical mini-world I had assumed you would only get access to go inwards and the zones on either side. Why five?”

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“Because the GODs wanted it that way.” Everlyn laughed. “Seriously, I think the zones are deliberately irregular to enable each of them to have access to extra zones. There are two doors inwards and then.” She pointed in the direction of the two kilometre irregular extension from the square that they could see down. “Near the end of that is a door. Plus.” She pointed to the middle of each of the walls, which Tom would have expected to contain a zone door. “There are one on each side.”

“That’s good to know. We’ll probably be able to split up after this if we want.” Tom glanced left, then right, and this time took in the more subtle details of the scenery rather than macro stuff.

On one side was a relatively idyllic landscape. It had lots of trees, small hills with springs coming out the top of them, creating waterfalls further down and minor stretches of green grass. Then midway through the zone, that changed with a line of grass separating two apparently different biomasses. The secondary eco-system was still forest. However, it had a rougher feel to it. There were regular upthrusts of rocks, no grassy hills, dirty streams rather than sparkling waterfalls.

It looked depressing and right where you would expect to find goblins.

“We’re going that way.” Tom pointed at the hostile terrain.

“Absolutely.” Everlyn agreed immediately.

They set off as a team.

Unfortunately, without a second scout to bring them information they had to change their standard format. Everlyn instead of ranging a long way ahead was forced to stay closer to them and while she still used party chat, it was only over a range of thirty to fifty metres rather than pushing right to the edge.

They had been unsurprisingly positioned dead centre between the two areas and after going down the hill it was only a short walk before they entered into the sparse forest of the goblin territory. Everyone was instantly on alert.

The terrain did not suit them at all. The ground was treacherous, with roots looping out of the hard ground, ensuring you had to watch where your feet landed to avoid being tripped or twisting an ankle. It was also bone dry, which was about the worst situation you could get for sneaking, especially with their lack of skill. The surface was covered with thin dry sticks and leaves. Unless you focused for every single step, it was easy to land on either of the two hazards. The leaves would crunch underfoot and the sticks crack with an echoing sound. It was frustrating and the rest of his group was worse at travelling silently than he was.

They progressed as best they could, restricting communication to whispers over the party chat.

“Hold!” Everlyn ordered abruptly.

They immediately all froze. Tom was glad he had been using his spear as a staff.

“I’m coming to you.” Less than thirty seconds later, Everlyn turned up. “I have our first contact with hostiles. It’s a typical goblin cave with a raid party outside it.”

Tom was not the only one to wince at that information. Goblin caves were rarely over five feet in height and were usually significantly shorter. No one would be able to walk even close to upright, which made them a pain to clear.

“The goblins I spotted ranged from rank twelve to fifteen, but there’s bound to be a hobgoblim in the cave system with a higher rank than that.”

“Is the cave localised or does it link to a bigger network?” Michael asked.

Everlyn shrugged. “I don’t know, but there’s about fifteen outside the cave entrance. The battle plan will be to sneak between them and the cave. Keikain will guard the cave entrance with the intent to collapse if a major force emerges.” Her gaze switched to the earth mage. “I assume rock in the trial behaves like surface stone rather than underground?”

“Yes, surface.” Keikain answered immediately. “I’ll definitely be able to collapse the cave.”

“Tom will engage as many of the goblins simultaneously as possible while the rest of us will mop up any stragglers before helping Tom. Myself and Rahmat will make sure no goblins escape to run overland to try to get aid.”

There are nods all around and Everlyn set off toward their destination. “Walk exactly in my footsteps.” As she moved, she flicked the dry leaves and sticks away from each spot before putting her foot down. No noise was produced and afterward she had created a large space devoid of the materials that had made it impossible for them to move silently.

Tom followed directly behind her and was careful to place each foot exactly where she had. It was slightly annoying because he had to shorten his own stride to do so, but it was better than making noise.

With her help, the rest of them moved almost soundlessly. Everlyn probably because of her skills was able to flick the leaves away while barely slowing down.

She stopped and then held up her hand with all fingers out. It signalled that they were about to start the engagement.

Tom mentally prepared.

She counted down to zero and then took off.

Tom sprinted behind her. She leapt off an embankment, and he followed landing smoothly. His spear was out and ready, and in front of him was a standard goblin raiding party. There were no visible children or special classes, just a mixture of melee orientated fighters. Thor landed heavily behind him, and over a dozen sets of eyes turned to face them.

The others leapt over the embankment and, when he risked a glance backwards; he saw the cave at his back. Everlyn had effectively led them over it to ensure that their party was between the cave and the goblins. His team was positioned as planned between the cave and the enemies. He was at the point of the formation and closest to the goblins. Harry and Thor flanked him with Rahmat for once not on the front line because he had one of his smaller throwing spears at ready. If there were runners, he, along with Everlyn, would be able to take them down.

Satisfied, his eyes turned back to the goblins, and he scowled.

Stupid cowardly creatures, he thought dismissively. They were charging their position, but none of them were targeting him. Instead, they were splitting down the middle and running around him as they sought to avoid him and target the weaker people behind him.

Tom sprinted forward to meet them before they spread too much. His spear lashed out ineffectively as the goblins seeing him coming had no trouble dodging. He didn’t care; he was just getting into position. His mind mapped the locations of all the ugly creatures he was fighting against. He teleported to the side to avoid multiple attacks and then used his spear to block an axe with a blow hard enough that his arm shook from stopping it. Out of the seventeen zombies rushing his team, only five had targeted him, the closest opponent. Every other one had showed their cowardliness and focused on his friends behind him.

Lightning Enrage blazed outwards in response. The sparks flew out to their maximum range, burrowing into the goblin’s eyes, noses and ears and made them howl in agony. A goblin who had been preparing to strike him trembled in fear and unfortunately his spear was in the wrong spot, but he kicked it in the privates to take advantage of its loss of focus.

It doubled over with a second source of pain to worry about.

All the monsters cut off the screaming and turned to face him. Their eyes glimmered with hatred and growling to express their fury they charged him.

Tom smiled more than confident of his ability to deal with an infinite number of goblins at this strength level.

There was the crack of Everlyn’s arrows firing.

And then goblins were launching themselves at him.

They were significantly slower than the foes that he was used to fighting. It didn’t stop the ultra slow component of the black dodge ability from triggering. There were so many of them that the lack of space meant some of their attacks would tag him. Tom leant into the lesson that had gotten him the last level. He made sure not to dodge in ways that would leave him open to extra harm, and the new threshold benefit aided him immensely.

He was aware of the amount of damage each striking weapon would deliver. If he imagined shifting his arm a little closer to his stomach for the specific case he was focusing on, the degree of hurt decreased substantially. Previously, both positions would have been a hit and treated accordingly, but now he instinctively knew the differences between them.

The new threshold benefit was far more interactive than he had anticipated.

Sword still sliced into his exposed arms, cutting through his skivvy, but before they landed Tom knew exactly how much damage they would do. Often, his skin abilities that allowed him to resist piercing attacks meant they didn’t even cut him. Other times, a slight scratch was opened up. It was so minor that it wasn’t even worth using Healing Tranquillity to remove it.

He dodged and weaved and with over fifteen of them fixated solely on him there was no room to launch counter offensives.

Fate built up around him. He stopped taking damage. His spear could finally poke out and hit the opposing goblins. A slight investment into Power Strike allowed those opportunistic hits to significantly wound the goblins.

Abruptly, half the monsters suddenly broke off from attacking him and focused on the others. Harry was surprised by his opponent fighting back. He stumbled backward with blood dripping from his hand where an axe had partially caught him. Lightning Engage crackled out, and they swarmed back after him.

Tom spun and weaved. His spear went through an eye and the goblin fell dead. A single clean hit was all it had taken. He kept moving. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw an opportunity and spun while driving his weapon back behind him. The butt of his spear slammed into the trachea of one of the axe wielders. He felt the cartilage give way, and it collapsed before futility, clutching at its throat. It struggled to breathe and failed.

He swayed out of the way of an axe and then teleported straight up. Then gravity dragged him downward. The tip of his weapon tore through another eye. Then he spun, looking for enemies to kill, but there were no victims to be had. The others had successfully cleared up the rest.

Keikain was still guarding the cave focused upon it while Harry, Michael and Rahmat moved from corpse to corpse, stabbing each one to make sure the goblins were truly dead.

“The two that tried to flee overland I killed with my bow.” Everlyn reported. “Keikain?”

“Nothing ran from the immediate exit. Can’t really tell if there was anything deeper. If a goblin was listening from fifteen metres in, it would have escaped without me being able to identify it.”

“I assume it’s deep?” Everlyn asked.

“This entrance extends beyond my senses. I doubt it’s a localised cave.”

With a nod, she slipped past. “I’m going to confirm the situation.” The cave roof was so low that she had to bend so much she was almost on all fours.

She disappeared.

Tom kicked a nearby goblin and then used clean on himself. The entire fight had been relatively bloodless, and the spell immediately removed the couple of splatters that had caught him.

He went over to the cave, dreading the news that he was sure was about to come.

“It’s a Warren,” she reported almost two minutes after she had disappeared into the hole.

Tom sighed deeply, and he saw a grim expression on everyone else’s face.

“Like a lair version?” Michael asked immediately.

“Yes, one of those.”