CHAPTER 227

With the lair cleared and everyone having purchased what they needed, they left the chieftain’s room and backtracked to the feast hall. They then exited via the unexplored tunnel to the surface. As usual, Everlyn led the way as they fell into their standard cave exploration formation. She jogged away and Tom deliberately went slowly to give her a chance to build the distance she liked to maintain in these circumstances. Her job was to ensure that there were no unexpected ambushes.

Tom, with his new improved Earth Sense spell, actively scrambled through the tunnel on all fours. He had grown used to the motion once more, so hardly registered the discomfort. All of his attention was on the extra sensory framework he now had available.

It worked and as they travelled; he assessed the wonderful information it was generating.

They were in a trial.

What his spell gathered showed that. There was an overall lack of life in earth and soil. The absence was distinctive and quite different from what he had experienced since he got the spell including in the underground. While the rock of the underground had been solid, patches of soil or more usually seams of it had contained abundant life. Here the dirt was dead.

The lack of animals was most likely a positive as it reduced the level of data being dumped on him. Despite that, Tom was fascinated by what he could observe and feel.

Every step shifted a new section of the tunnel into the range of his sensing apparatus. He was aware of fault lines both in the walls, the ceiling and the floor below him. A moderate use of earth manipulation would partially collapse a wall. It wasn’t the first time that option had presented itself, and Tom noted the tactical advantage of being able to immediately create a choke point. If he timed it right, he could kill some of the goblins at the same time he cut off over half the tunnel. The stone roof above him was a different beast. Unlike the wall, it would require finesse to hit the right spots in order to bring the whole thing down. His new filter he had placed on Earth Sense told him exactly what he had to do and thirty mana could cause a rock fall capable of killing dozens of the enemy.

The information kept flooding into him. The original spell functionality was too active. He could feel the other feet behind him. Their position and he instinctively knew how fast they were moving.

Right at the edge of his range above him, was the forest floor. Given the incline of the tunnel that meant they still had another couple of hundred metres before they would reach the surface.

There was a ding.

Tom froze.

His thoughts whirled as he wondered briefly if it was an evolution, but that made no sense as he had barely started exploring the benefits that his tier three spell delivered. Then his brain caught up with all the stimulus that was being fed it. Everyone else had frozen at the same time that he had. “I got an alert.”

“Same,” Michael confirmed immediately.

“Can you check it out?” Tom asked quietly.

He glanced back at the healer and his face had become inanimate. A moment later, life returned to it.

“One of the sprite generals just died.” Michael reported. “Doesn’t change a thing for us.”

“Agreed,” Tom said. “We should push on.”

He was not surprised that Phil had already found and killed the general. In fact, Tom had expected it to occur hours ago. Either the sprite generals were hard to find or Phil was a completionist who had insisted on clearing every lair that he passed.

They continued forward. The tunnel they had been following that have been rising steadily suddenly levelled off. He kept going for twenty metres without the passage changing. “Everlyn?” He called into party chat, wanting to get confirmation that this was expected.

“Kind of busy.”

Tom decided not to quiz her about the tunnel. She had sounded stressed. Instead, he kept moving his group forward. The strange flat section returned to its normal upward angle after another hundred metres. When Earth Sense estimated, they were only fifty metres from the surface Tom stopped.

The actual rock and dirt over their heads at this point was less than two metres thick and Tom was confident that he could bring it down if he wanted to.

He didn’t instead he put a finger to his lips and turned to face the others. They caught his gesture, and he saw Michael duplicating it for people at the back. Then, with exaggerated slowness, he picked his way forward. This time, he focused on placing his feet firmly and not knocking any of his metallic objects against the cave walls.

They travelled at about a quarter of the pace they had previously achieved.

In short order, he was able to locate Everlyn via Earth Sense.

“Good try, but still too loud. I can hear you guys. Wait where you are.”

Twenty seconds later, she appeared in front of them. Tom was not surprised, as he had watched her the entire way.

“There’s a forward goblin camp out there. Two hobs, twenty regular warriors and no specialised units.”

“How do you want to play it?” Tom asked.

“You provoke them. Rahmat and myself will watch for runners. And everyone else kills without endangering themselves.”

“No one is going to accuse you of making overly elaborate battle plans are they?”

Everlyn smiled. “No, they won’t. I like simple plans.”

Tom squeezed past her and proceeded down the tunnel. He could both hear and feel the others following behind him. Casually, he drew his daggers. Thor, at his request had replaced the broken one from the earlier fight with an auction house purchase. The weapon he held was cheap, but against goblins that was good enough, especially now he possessed the Dagger skill.

He squeezed past Everlyn and took the lead. There was no pointing, waiting, or assessing the enemy. If what Everlyn had said was accurate, there was no need for finesse or planning. Tom paused when he reached the entrance. An observer might have thought he did it to allow his eyes to adjust, but his levels in Low Light vision meant that wasn’t required. Instead, he confirmed that no extra forces had joined the monsters he was about to face. His senses strained as he scanned the gathered monsters and confirmed that there were no specialists that he would need to more carefully counter.

There weren’t, so he dropped caution and sprinted at them.

It was glorious to break out of the dark confines of the cave and run into the sunshine. Tom guessed it was midafternoon and with the sun lowish in the sky and the nearby trees half the clearing in front of the cave was bathed in sunshine with the other half in shadow.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The moment he was clear and his feet on firm ground Tom began yelling. He closed the distance and leapt.

The goblins turned to face him. Their reactions were slow, and none of them drew weapons before his feet left the ground. With them all looking stupidly at him, he crashed down amongst them. Both daggers were planted into a hob’s neck and almost successfully decapitated it.

The rest responded. They picked up the weapons they had carelessly left on the ground and scrambled to kill him. He used his taunt and kept moving to land pain filled slashes on any of the monsters that got near him. By the time the others emerged from the cave, all the goblins were concentrating exclusively on slaughtering him.

Tom focused on ensuring their weapons did not touch him. There was the sound of Everlyn’s bow. He felt the earth spikes that Keikain launched from the ground and heard the whistling of Toni’s air blades. The melee fighters all charged in to help.

It was a brief but brutal fight. Tom stopped swinging as the last three goblins were torn down around him. Harry had a huge grin on his face as he extracted his spear from the hob he had stabbed in the back.

Barely breathing hard Tom assessed the battlefield both with his eyes and his senses. None of his companions had held anything in reserve. Those with magical options had used them, and the rest had resorted to their melee weapons. Casually, he manifested a spear and skewered a goblin that was playing dead under the corpses of two of its fellow monsters.

The fight had lasted such a short amount of time that was the only one that had hidden.

“Is that a chaos bolt.” Tom asked pointing. A goblin looked like the fingers of its hand had eaten through its palm.

“Mine,” Thor volunteered. “I didn’t invest fate in it and it produced a crap result.” He did not seem at all worried.

“Good job using it. Randomised outcomes are no good if you only use it when the shit is hitting the fan and you need a jackpot to survive.”

“We know.” Thor grumbled. “Selena made that clear.”

They didn’t bother looting the goblins, and Everlyn immediately took over and lead them to another lair.

With brutal efficiency, they cleared the camp above the surface. Then followed a long tunnel downwards. The layout was almost identical to the first though this one seemed to be slightly larger. There were three breeding warrens instead of two, and Everlyn true to her word made them clear it as a team. With a handy plug on his nose, Tom didn’t find it that unpleasant though he made a point of getting his air elemental to protect himself from stray splatters as opposed to actively fight. The feast hall was larger than the previous one and contained two spear gobs, besides the more basic hobs and warriors. There were also three extra caves leading from the central point. Two instead of one barracks and a larder that was filled with sprite bodies.

Finally, Everlyn gathered them in front of the last tunnel.

“The boss should be down here. Standard cave exploration formation.” They rearranged and then followed her. After descending for five minutes, Evelyn told them to hold position as she scouted the final challenge.

Three minutes later she returned frowning. “We can’t fight the boss. He is speed based instead of strength.”

“Do we skip?” Toni asked. “That was three breeding warrens.”

“Yes.” Everlyn answered immediately. “I don’t care how much experience it burns.”

“Not so fast.” Tom interrupted.

She glared at him as if to say, why are you interfering. I’m the strategist here.

He decided to ignore her. “We should confirm that Keikain and myself can’t collapse the roof on them. In the last boss room we could.”

Everlyn at least looked interested at that suggestion. “What range do you have?”

“My sensory range is twenty-five metres. Manipulation is only twelve. But theoretically, I can identify a weak spot and run forward and collapse it before they notice.”

“My manipulations is around fifteen.” Keikain said.

Everlyn considered the situation. “Maybe we can do something.” Her fingers tapped her thigh for a moment. “I’m going to escort Tom and Keikain forward and we’re going to investigate whether we can take them out.”

They snuck forward and Tom noticed how they were no longer making any noise. Everlyn’s ability was at play. They turned the corner and Everlyn stopped them by holding up a hand. The room they were targeting was in front of them.

Tom’s heart sank as he saw that the destination cave was large. It was a similar size to the feast hall upstairs. Fifty metres long and three or four metres high. The chieftain was on the far side of the room and beyond his range to sense faults. There was nothing he actively had to do to work out the faults present in the room. The variation to the spell meant he just knew. There was a weak spot right at the entrance of the tunnel they were in. Another off to the side that would collapse around an eighth of the space. According to Earth Sense, the other areas in his range were stable.

“Got it.” Tom reported in a whisper.

Keikain looked at him in surprise and without hesitation Everlyn made them retreat ten metres before she could talk. “And?”

Tom quickly explained the two opportunities.

“Can you show me?”

A second later, he was in an unadorned system room with her. It morphed into a map of the cave and Tom showed where the weaknesses were.

“And you can’t collapse the second one from the safety of the cave?”

Tom shook his head.

“But Keikain could.”

He checked the distance and nodded.

“We might as well see if we can damage them. I’ll use my bow to lure them forward or into the fall zone.”

Tom found himself in the real world and then a moment later, Keikain and Everlyn ended up as inanimate statues as she briefed him on the plan.

“Tom, if the chieftain charges us collapse the tunnel.”

They went back to the spot they were in earlier and Everlyn drew her bow.

Crack.

A spear gob that had been sitting on the ground eating a rib of a larger animal cartwheeled head over bum as the arrow struck it. Instantly, the goblins were on their feet. He heard them yell in what might have been a guttural language. They knew immediately where the attack had come from. All the shields were abruptly realigned toward the entrance. Tom’s eyes flickered between the chieftain, the shaman, and the closest goblins. He expected them to charge, but nothing happened.

They stood in an uneasy standoff for almost a minute.

Crack.

This time, the target was a goblin on the left. The spot of the roof that they could collapse was on the right and Tom knew she was shaping the battlefield. It was not a novel tactic. Tom had used it many times in the tutorial. It was effective against monsters that were a slave to their instincts, like goblins guarding their chieftain in a trial.

The goblin warrior she had targeted had its shield up in the right position. Unfortunately, it was only a small buckler and only covered its head and part of its chest. The arrow went underneath the shield and curved up unnaturally to go through the heart.

It stumbled. Then held its position. It’s shield dropping slightly to let its eyes peer over the top of it in order for it to monitor what they were doing.

There was another stand off. Tom counted to thirty before the goblin that Everlyn shot abruptly staggered two to steps to the right and collapsed.

There was a large puddle of blood where it had been standing.

Once more, he expected some sort of response, but nothing happened.

“Going to take out one of the bodyguards.”

Crack.

A hob next to the chieftain suddenly sprouted an arrow through its eye.

“Back.” Everlyn ordered.

They retreated and when they had got six steps, there was a wave of heat.

“Hold,” she commanded. “Tom, collapse things if they follow.”

They didn’t follow and after a minute, Everlyn moved them forward again. She fired and goblins died and every second or third arrow they needed to retreat to avoid being fried or frozen by a shaman attack.

The positioning of the goblins changed each time and offensively Everlyn always targeted the left and very soon the goblins had all migrated to the right and were under the area that Keikain was to collapse.

“Bring the roof down.” Everlyn ordered.

The earth mage responded and while if Tom was in range it would have taken seconds Keikain had to establish a connection to the spot and confirm that Tom’s analysis of the flaws was accurate. Three minutes later there was a huge rumble and Everlyn guided them on a retreat once more.

“Tom.”

“On it.”

Nothing followed them into the tunnel. They waited two minutes and crept forward once more. The cave had changed. The rock fall was extensive and obscured the chieftain’s position. There were only two goblins with a view of their cave.

Crack.

Then one.

Crack.

No one could see them. Everlyn measured the distances. “The rock fall might be enough. We can probably sneak close enough for you to check Tom. If the chieftain is in the same spot, we might get lucky and be able to collapse that section right on him. We might be exposed while collapsing the roof, but checking should be safe enough.”

“You said I wouldn’t be able to fight the chieftain.”

“Together, we can hold it for a few seconds.” Everlyn told him confidently.

“You’ve got some of your super form back.”

Everlyn nodded. “Eight seconds.”

“You’re not worried that this is too dangerous? That we’re taking unnecessary risks?”

She hesitated, looking thoughtful. “I think if they were sapient this would be different, but they’re not sapient instead they’re monsters. I didn’t see any of them with the skills to sense us move. With my sound dampening, the only way we get exposed is visually and the rock fall stops that.”

Tom glanced at Keikain.

The earth mage raised his hands. “Don’t look at me. I’m staying here.”

“We risk it.” Everlyn said definitely.