CHAPTER 239—NEW ZONE

The conversation switched to gossiping about Selena’s group. Tom didn’t care. When a skewer was handed to him, he was grateful for the distraction and tuned them out. He wasn’t interested in speculating on other people and for some reason his team were busily gossiping about personalities rather than the more interesting tactics component. They were easily ignored as a result. The meat, on the other hand… it smelled divine. He tried to bite, but it was too hot, so he was forced to blow on it momentarily.

Then he scoffed it down. Keikain had bought spices because there was a light crust over the meat that was delicious. Tom’s mood soured as he remembered the earth mage’s speech, that he had thought Tom had been making a tactical error but had said nothing because he was scared of the power discrepancy.

That was a problem.

A single terrible choice and the then the resultant self interest aside, Keikain knew what he was doing. He was talented and a hard worker, just watching him cook their dinner that was clear enough. The technical skill he brought to his campfire cooking might even exceed Tom’s own and in every combat they had been involved in together Keikain had consistently made good choices. He was not someone to dismiss.

Tom groaned internally, already seeing the future. There was going to be a heart to heart conversation that he would have to initiate. Memories of the people the other man had killed filled Tom’s mind especially Sven. He didn’t want to extend an olive branch. Instead, he would have preferred to grind the man into the dirt beneath his heel. But ignoring the problem would involve him being coming a hypocrite because the mission always had to come first.

In a few days, he promised himself. Then I will address it.

The fireplace vanished as Keikain made the earth rise and swallow it. The final bounty, a stick full of meat each was handed out to all of them.

“We’ll eat those while travelling.” Everlyn told them and she took off.

They continued their trek under the ugly trees, crossing muddy streams, going up hills and occasionally walking in the sun where the scattered tree cover broke open. It was a windy course bypassing the goblin parties and two hours later they arrived at the door to the next zone.

Tom had been tracking their progress for over an hour and now that they were here, he went straight to the cliff face. Earth Sense was active, and he was surprised to find that it was natural sandstone rather than a magical altered substance like he had thought. The yellow brown stone had been a discolouration that had been visible all the way back to where they had entered the trial. It stretched fifty metres above them and was as long as a football field and from a distance it had looked perfectly rectangular.

But here, right at the edge, Tom could see that was not the case. Instead, it looked like a natural join and this close there was nothing perfect about it. The join was crooked and far from precise. There was nothing artificial beyond the macro impression that you got from a distance. They started to walk along the cliff face toward the centre where the actual exit would be.

Everlyn joined them when they were halfway there. “We’re safe. There’s no life nearby, no signs of tracks in over a kilometre.

Rahmat stopped abruptly and shifted into a fighting posture. “Is there a threat? A guardian?”

She shrugged, unconcerned. “If there is, I can’t spot it with my Skills.”

“If this was happening outside a trial. You know what we would think,” the spear man said his eyes now darting around suspiciously.

There was no need for anyone to respond. They all knew the answer. Almost subconsciously, they drew together. Tom was at the front with Everlyn. Rahmat and Thor each on a flank and Clare bringing up the rear.

They walked the rest of the way in silence, prepared to explode into violence at a moment’s notice. Nothing accosted them.

There was a cave, one that, unlike the goblins was large, artificial and straight. Everlyn’s bow came up, and she fired in a single movement. An arrow that shone brightly shot out from it.

Tom moved to step in front of her spear ready to face the threat. He didn’t know what she had seen.

His heart thudded in his chest.

The radiant arrow had hurt his vision despite his levels in the low light spell. If there was a threat, then as the tank he needed to get between the others and any enemies.

One of Everlyn’s arms reached out and blocked his progress. Tom immediately sidestepped.

“It’s safe.” She hissed while staring intently down the passage.

Tom evaded her arm and stepped into a position in front of her. His eyes had adjusted and were not affected by the flat of light. The tunnel was perfectly smooth and there were no visible enemies. The lightning wisp left his shoulder flew forward at his mental prodding to take a guard ten metres in front of them. It would hopefully spring any incoming ambush with its presence.

“I said it’s safe.”

“What did you just say?” Rahmat demanded. “It’s safe? Then what was the arrow? Did you kill something?”

Everlyn’s cheeks went red. “Umm… no… I wasn’t. It was an arrow to dispel illusions.”

“A what.” Rahmat paused momentarily. “We’re not at risk.”

She shook her head vigorously.

“You weren’t trying to kill something.”

“No. It was a dispel illusion enchantment. I should have said something before I…”

“Yes! You should of! You can’t do that sort of thing without warning.” Rahmat rotated to face away from the tunnel and hurried back to take position facing the forest.

Tom followed him. If that was where the threat was, he needed to be there too.

“Stupid, thoughtless.” Rahmat mumbled under his breath.

“I’m sorry.” Everlyn called out. “It’s a new skill in Existentia. But I used it all the time in the tutorial. It was instinctive and the right choice.”

“I don’t give a shit.” Rahmat snapped.

“I should have given everyone a warning.”

“Yes, you should of.”

“Easy,” Michael interjected. “She’s admitted to the mistake.”

“A huge one. Her arrow made us all focus on the tunnel. Something could have taken that opportunity to ambush us from the forest. It was dumb and moronic.”

“We get that Rahmat.” The healer told him quietly. “Everlyn gets it. We all do. Collectively, we need to improve our communication. To be honest, there’s a lot we can learn from Selena.”

“It’s not the first mistake she’s made.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“I just need you to get your head back in the game. This stupidity with Tom. You broke up with him. What right do you have too…”

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“Rahmat,” Michael snapped, warningly. “That’s enough.”

Everlyn’s cheeks had gone bright red.

“She is a scout. It’s an important job, and she has to stop making mistakes.”

“And you need to be more diplomatic.” Michael said quietly.

“Enough,” Tom said, deciding to take charge. He glanced curiously at Everlyn. Her face was pink, and she was not meeting his gaze. What had Rahmat meant? His heart rate had come down slightly, but was still elevated. “Let’s leave here as quickly as possible. The lack of a visible threat is making us all jumpy. Thor, can you check the auction house.”

The hammer user shut his eyes and entered the system room. He was only there for two seconds before animation returned to his face and a portal opened in front of him. Without hesitation, he shoved his hand in and pulled out two pieces of paper before immediately opening the second.

“Vidja beat us by ten minutes.” He read the piece of paper, which was only a couple of paragraphs in length. “The zone quest is one to assassinate a king. She has confirmed that she is free to retreat, and that includes after she killed a scout of the king. We can enter our own zone safely.”

There were relieved smiles all around. No one wanted to have to trek back.

“What are they fighting?” Michael asked curiously.

Thor shrugged. “It’s a species none of them have seen before called a WooCa. Apparently, it weighs about as much as a human, but is squat and low to the ground. Only knee height, but with extended arms that can easily reach a human’s neck. Anatomy wise it has a single main torso, no head, six legs each with only one limited movement joint plus the hip and the two long arms that originate from the flat surface on their back. Those limbs are deadly. They’re almost two metres from end to end with three elbow and two ball sockets joints. The arms are extremely flexible and hard to combat until you get used to their weird range of movement. Having listed all that, they’ve also written that they are pretty confident they can handle them.”

Tom tried to imagine the anatomy of the creatures as described but couldn’t quite picture it and it was not like he could ask him because he was pretty sure that Thor had shared the message effectively word for word.

“Well, that’s great news.” He said. “We’ve got a green light to enter our own trial.”

“And there was this,” Thor held up the second piece of paper. “The bastard charged twenty thousand for it.”

“Double what we offered.” Michael spat the words. “What a prick. He knew we needed that information.”

“I bought it anyway. It hurt, but I figured we needed to know.”

Tom took the offered paper and opened it up.

I charged extra because I won’t be writing another of these unless the pattern changes.

New zone is rank eighteen.

I got a warning message when entering that stated that you can’t retreat to a lower ranked zone.

That was all that he had written, but with Vidja’s note it was more than enough for them to extrapolate how the trial was going to work. It was identical to what they had theorised. He read it out loud and then handed the piece of paper back to Thor.

Thor grabbed it and produced his own pen and paper. “Need to tell the other two teams the good news.”

“That’s what we speculated.” Michael said. “Great news apart from the not being able to retreat bit.”

“That doesn’t concern us.” Tom said quietly. “We never planned on leaving the outermost layer early. We can read a lot into this. I think it confirms that there are eight layers. If the worst case occurs and there were only four layers, then the central zone will be twenty-four. I can’t see the GODs ending on that number. It has to be thirty-two or sixty-four.”

“To early to say.” Michael disputed him. “There are other ways to organise things. For example, later layers might increase the difficulty by four ranks or even more than that.”

“Fine. There is no point speculating.” Tom agreed. “Let’s get going.”

They entered the cave as a team in formation with Everlyn for her scouting and Tom for his defensive abilities leading the way. This passage, unlike the sandstone side rock outside, felt artificial to his senses. Earth Sense screamed out warnings because the stone had none of the imperfections that normal rock had. Not that Tom needed the confirmation the tunnel was perfectly symmetric and appeared to have been created with high-tech machinery that left everything flawlessly spaced and polished.

The perfect straight line meant that their destination was visible almost immediately to those with enhanced eyesight. A hundred fifty metres into the cliff the tunnel was blocked by a wooden wall with two large doors in the middle.

They approached cautiously, but it was very clear that there were no enemies to be seen. The doors were beautiful and elaborate, with the upper section covered in arcane symbols, while the lower half depicted a battle between sprites and goblins. All the characters were in miniature. The largest of which was the size of one of his fingers. The sprites hiding in the treetops while the goblins peered out from behind trunks and rocks their weapons very prominent.

“Tom, are you going to do the honours?” Everlyn asked.

After only hesitating for a moment, he stepped forward and placed his hand on the smooth wood. They looked like the type of doors that would open with a slight push.

The moments his palm touched the wood he was suspended in blackness just like what happened when entering a trial.

Words flashed into existence in front of him.

Zone Quest Completed.

Access to the zone: Highway Puzzle available.

Note this zone is a mixed objective and task zone. Completion of zone quests will require solving a series of puzzles, obstacle courses or riddles.

Once fifty percent completion of available quests is achieved, a random door to a side zone will be unlocked. An additional door will be made available every 2 percent after that. At sixty percent, both doors to the next inner ring of zone will become assessable.

There are 256 puzzle lanes and they must be attempted individually. If an individual fails, they or another can attempt the puzzle again.

This is intended to be a non-lethal zone, but safety is not guaranteed.

Tom dropped his hand and looked at the rest of the party.

“And?” Everlyn asked.

“To be honest, I think you should check yourself.”

They all reached out, touched the door, and emerged, looking perplexed.

“Not what I was expecting.” Michael mused. “But really, I don’t think we could have got a better outcome.”

“I would have preferred something we can fight.” Tom said.

“I hate puzzles,” Rahmat agreed. Everyone apart from Michael and Keikain clearly shared that sentiment.

“We could choose a different zone to clear,” Harry suggested.

Michael shook his head. “No, no, that’s silly. We need to give this a go. Intended to be non-lethal is a bonus.”

“Two hundred and fifty-six puzzles,” Harry said. “What happens if it takes a week to finish.”

“Well, that’s what we have to test.” Michael pointed out immediately. “An hour to assess the difficulty is an hour well spent. Remember, if we want to go to a different zone it’s what? A day’s journey? We have to travel from here between the sprites and goblins to the other offshoot. These puzzles might be super easy or impossibly hard. We have to confirm.”

“We do,” Keikain agreed. “And I’m with Michael. If we can get experience with little risk.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure how we can justify not doing it. I know Tom has too much experience to spend, but the rest of us don’t have our basic skill set in place yet. In many ways this is a great result.”

“If it yields the same experience.” Everlyn said quietly.

“There is only one way to find out.” Michael said. “Lets go.”

With a broad smile on his face, Michael led the way, touching the door and disappearing. After a moment’s hesitation, Tom did the same.

This time, he agreed to the prompt and was teleported inwards.

His surroundings immediately changed, and Tom took everything in. It felt like they were in the middle of a hollowed out mountain. Directly behind them was a door that was identical to the one they had entered along with four others that were similar but different. The tops were the same, but the bottom contained diverse images. Flanking the five wooden doors were two made out of crystal, which presumably led deeper into the mountain. These alternative doors had the symbols on the lower half.

“I can’t believe we’re doing a puzzle floor,” Toni complained next to him. “I’m good at killing not this stuff.”

He chuckled too. “Yeah, that’s my primary skill, too.”

In front of them was a massive circle it was hundred of metres across. Tom took it all in. There were eight rings of tiles all of them a different colour. The outer-ring had too many to count, but he was sure he was looking at a hundred and twenty-eight puzzles in that ring, sixty-four in the next all the way down to the final one that just had two.

The tiles were huge, almost the size of a small swimming pool with at its inner central point a single pedestal rose with a crystal. There was no question in Tom’s mind that touching that crystal would send him into the puzzle and there were two hundred and fifty-six of them.

“Look at the details.” Keikain said his eyes fixated on the closest tile to them.

Tom froze as he studied it. That shape was distinctive, almost square with the two peninsula coming off it, or at least that is what it would be if the zone had been surrounded by sea instead of cliffs. There were also topological features, including the hill they had started on. The exists to the other zone were there. Painted figurines that, if Tom had better spatial sense, he was sure one of them would align to the warlord they had fought.

The earth mage was walking forward his face filled with amazement. “If this is to scale… All the zones.”

“Apart from the last.” Michael said quietly.

Keikain walked onto the tile that represented the sprite goblin war and then he crouched down next to one of the painted images that Tom was sure was their warlord. “It depicts it with axes and one of thrown and getting larger. Do you know what this is?” Keikain leapt up with excitement.

“It’s a map.” Michael said.

“No, yes.” Keikain said laughing. “It’s like using a cheat to unlock your map in a computer game. I’m pretty sure it’s showing all the locations of interest.”

They spread out. For a moment, they did not focus on the challenge of the zone but instead on the details in the maps. Tom strove to understand what he was seeing. It seemed that each of the tiles was a map of the zone that showed both geographical features and the location of key enemies.

“Hey guys,” Harry yelled out from where he was standing on a tile four away from him. “I know what a WooCa looks like, and we really need to send Vidja a note. She’s going to want to see this.”