Chapter 236

Selena returned to facilitating the debrief. Her tone, her speed, her actions were unaltered in response to the announcement that effectively stated that continuing to fight in the zone was pointless. Tom was relieved that there were only five more people remaining to say their piece. He fervently prayed that she did not have a second stage planned. While the activity had been useful… and he could observe that it would help them coordinate better in the next battle. It also chafed against his instincts.

He knew how to fight.

Thousands… no more like hundreds of thousands of hours on the battlefield meant his personal benefits from listening to Selena and her squad painstakingly dissect the fight was low.

He had survived the tutorial for forty years. He already had a process to internalise the learnings from each battle.

Yet he had to acknowledge that formalising it like this for the team was useful, so he forced himself to sit still as the remaining parts of her squad expressed their opinions. With all the low hanging fruit having already been picked, they were nit-picking smaller stuff. His ears picked up when the debate turned to best practice during the cleanup of the play dead acting goblins. The mistake that was pointed out was that they had failed to maximise their training during the period. The fleeing isolated goblins would have been useful targets to fub their ranged spells on, but they had killed primarily with weapons instead.

Tom made a note of it.

The concept they raised was important to them, as his team was going to start to pursue a randomised outcome strategy as well. They needed to find safe times for when the luck would be against them. Plus, the idea of training skills at the end of battles when the sting was taken out of the enemy was best practice in any case. It was what he had done in the tutorial.

Finally, the last pointless debate finished.

Tom waited with a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.

Was it… Surely there wasn’t going to be a second part of this debrief.

None of the other squad had moved. They were regarding their leader attentively. He felt like jumping up and yelling to try to distract her.

She appeared determined and leant forward conspiratorially. “So, the first stage is over now. We need to go over each moment of the battle.”

Thor groaned.

Selena winked at him. “Just joking. We’re done with the battle review, but in the context of the quest completion we have to discuss, next steps. What are everyone’s views?”

“We can’t stay in this zone.” Everlyn said immediately.

“Obviously,” Selena answered and glanced at her bodyguard. “Jane?”

“We go our separate ways.”

“Is that wise?” Selena asked. “What’s your reasoning?” She was speaking to Jane, but had been covertly watching him the whole time.

Tom could feel his cheeks warming.

Jane nodded enthusiastically. “We can’t afford so much of the experience to be sucked away.” She shot an annoyed look at Tom, which caused him to wince. “I’m not saying the agreement to join here was bad. We needed the two teams to finish the lair quickly because of the time pressures, but our results would have been better if we were alone. It would have taken longer sure…” Jane stopped talking for a moment. “But with the narrow entrance, we could have reset as many times as necessary. We didn’t need help to complete this.”

“That’s the rub isn’t it.” Selena said. “Could we have defeated it? It was closer than you’re suggesting and could we defeat the next level up?” She was glancing around her team and there was a mixture of thumbs up and downs. “It’s unclear.” She concluded.

Tom said nothing. This, unlike the battle review, was a necessary debate. His group was obviously strong enough to beat this particular warlord. But the main chieftain in the previous lair had almost been too much. With a different monster configuration but no extra strength, the fights would become far more challenging.

“I disagree.” Jane insisted. “We could have beaten this room easily.”

“Definitely not easily.” Selena counted. “You’re actually in a minority who believe that.”

Everlyn stirred next to him. “I agree with Jane. If you were unable to clear this cave, there’s a simple solution. All you would have to do is farm some of the normal monsters around us to get an experience buffer. Then invest in skills tailored to counter the creature, causing you trouble. It may not have been easy, but definitely doable.”

“That’s true.” Selena looked thoughtful. “But the enemy here, while powerful, were goblins which humans hard counter. There are monsters theoretically weaker than the goblins which we would struggle with. High defence or mobility or magic they are all classifications that might be too much for a single team. I know you’re saying we can go purchase extra abilities to circumvent their strengths or exploit their weaknesses, but the wrong match up might be too much for us. Their might not be sufficient easily obtained experience to cross the gap. Tom,” she looked at him. “You’re experienced. What do you think?”

He startled slightly at being called out. “I don’t know. In the tutorial, I picked battles where we could win. We can do the same here.”

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“Can we?” Michael interrupted. “It’s a question of the ability to choose battles. If we enter a new zone which doesn’t suit us, will we be able to retreat?”

“That’s the crux of the issue.” Selena declared. “If there’s an option to retreat, then there is no debate. We split up. If we’re stuck in the zone, then I think for the next one, at least we should stick together. Tom?”

He hated that she kept drawing him into this debate. It was obviously an attempt to sideline Everlyn and Tom couldn’t work out whether it was because Selena hated her for some unknown reason or if it was in response to the scout being classed as incompetent in Selena’s mind. Tom met her eyes unwilling to play the game. “Not my call. I’ll discuss it with my team and get back to you.”

There was a crackle of energy and a loot portal appeared in front of the female healer from the other squad. She reached into it without hesitation and pulled out a scrap of paper, which she handed to Selena who promptly read it.

She smiled at all of them. “Good news. Vidja and her group will meet us up where we started. We will continue this discussion there.”

They got up and left the cave system. With the experience penalty in play, they chose one of the already cleared tunnels because they did not want to fight any more goblins if they could help it.

“Thor,” Tom said via party chat, trusting in Everlyn to stop anyone from listening in. “Did you see that communication?”

“Yeah, it went through with the agreed tag. I’m monitoring but I don’t spend as much time in the system room as them. When they’re not in combat, they have two of them alternating shifts. It gives them continuous coverage. They’re going to be able to purchase communication missives before us.”

“I saw.” Tom told him simply. “We’re not doing the same.” The others could choose to have two people assigned to the task, but his team only needed one expert on the auction house. He would prefer everyone else to have their heads up looking for enemies.

When they reached the surface and tracked through some of the undergrowth to reach the hill they arrived at, they found Vidja and her team were already there and waiting. Tom quickly counted their numbers and sighed in relief when he confirmed that they were all still alive.

Selena waved happily at them. “I’m glad you reached out. Tom’s team and I were discussing what to do next. Whether it was best to go into a zone together or split. Do you have an opinion?”

They met in the centre. None of the teams mingled, and Vidja and Selena hashed out a plan.

If the system allowed them to retreat from a zone, they would split up. There was no question about that decision.

If the option to retreat was blocked, then all three groups would combine into one. No one wanted to be in a situation where their team got an enemy or quest they couldn’t defeat and got stuck in a zone. Losing a quarter of the elites in the trial to such a setup would be a disaster.

After that was agreed, it became a matter of details. Exits were assigned. Tom’s team would travel down the closest of the weird off shoots while Vidjas and Selena’s would target the doors defended by the spites and goblins, respectively. Tom was happy with that because it meant that they would not need to fight to reach their exit. The other two teams would.

The first to arrive would put a note on the auction house and then they would progress through. They would then confirm whether they could retreat back to the current zone.

If they couldn’t exit, the other two teams would go to the same door and they would clear the zone collectively. After they defeated each zone, they would then reconfirm the strategy. Tom wasn’t sure what he wanted. In some ways, having the safety net of the other teams around was alluring, but it would cost them experience.

Their team had the longest distance to travel, but with Everlyn scouting fifty metres in front of them they were able to avoid the monsters. It was goblin held territory, but the fighting camps were nowhere near as dense as they had been when they were pushing in toward the main central area. Even without her guiding them Tom doubted that they would have ended up having to fight more than a few of the monster parties.

The exits the other teams were targeting were central in the goblin and sprite empires, respectively. Even if they had scouts as good as Everlyn Tom was sure they would be forced into multiple battles on their way. He was happy with his choice even if it meant more walking.

“I got the tier 2 skill piercing sword.” Everlyn declared suddenly out of no where. “No one can use it, so it’ll go to the auction house. How about everyone else?”

They all quickly cycled through, calling out their own rewards. They were all weapons skills ranging from high tier two to low tier three with the exception of Clare who had received the skill Deflect Attack.

“That’s a great pick up Clare,” Thor said enthusiastically. “Does it do what it suggests?”

“Yes. I want to use it…” she paused. “Unless Tom claims it. He is the primary tank after all, and if this will help him, then he should get it.”

“You should take it.” Thor insisted. “It’s what you need.”

“Tom, what did you get?” Michael asked suddenly.

“I was waiting for everyone else to finish. I didn’t want to miss anything. Give me a moment and I’ll check.

He pulled each stone out of his inventory and checked them before he stepped into his system room for just long enough to read what he had got.

Skill: Ignore Wounds—Tier 3

This skill enables the user to stop blood flow to a wound and have their balance automatically compensate for missing limbs. Can also bridge the gaps of biology. For example, it can allow a leg to perform to its normal level even if the user had lost some muscle or if a major bone is broken.

Affects only persist while there is available energy in the skill.

It was not intended to be a triage skill, even if it could stop bleeding and dull pain. Used appropriately, it was far more than that. When it was used, it could actually supplement the body to allow the user to ignore wounds that would usually reduce combat function. Having your achilles tendon severed generally meant you were dead in a life and death struggle, but with this ability you could keep fighting as normal.

There was no doubt that it was an impressive skill for whoever used it. And despite it being useful to Tom and him having received it from the loot portal he didn’t think he would be that lucky person. Unfortunately, they needed to use their resources to buff the team and strengthen humanity as much as possible as opposed to him focusing on just himself. Ignore Wounds strengths overlapped with his own. That hypothetical achilles injury during a melee would be lethal to most people, but Tom knew he could heal himself almost instantly.

When severely wounded, he could and had demonstrated an ability to keep going. That was one of the primary benefits of Healing Tranquillity and that overlap meant others would benefit more from this than he would. There would be no lack of volunteers willing to consume it. The question was who would it suit the most. The answer was probably Thor or Rahmat. Anything that kept you closer to peak fighting condition for longer was a boon when you were going toe to toe with monsters.

The first skill he had pulled was a good one.

Tom was excited.

There were another four more stones to go. Rewards were based on contribution and if others were getting tier three stones with their two percent contribution, then his overall reward should be at least thirty times higher. There was going to be a higher tier skill in there. He could as good as taste it. If it was as useful as this one, then it would be fate well spent.