Chapter 242- A Little Direction

Tom kept working on his golem as the others circled in and out of their challenges. He saw Thor appear outside his latest challenge. He immediately massaged his forehead, a pained expression on his face.

Spying an opportunity, Tom waved him over and smirked once he got closer. “You’re looking a little worse for wear.”

With a theatrical grunt, the larger man collapsed on the ground next to him and then pulled himself into a seated position. He appeared slightly disgruntled at the lack of chairs. Tom wasn’t sure why he felt that way. After all, the tutorial had forced them all to be migratory. Tom had gone years without sitting on anything more convenient than a boulder or fallen tree log.

Thor massaged his neck. “It’s like being back at school. Some of those problems are nigh on impossible.”

Tom chuckled sympathetically. “What’s your success rate?”

“Five out of eight…” Thor glanced around. “At least the others are doing better. And Keikain, that bastard, completed all three of the challenges I failed, and I reckon first time, too.”

Surprise registered on Tom’s face. After the first challenge, everyone’s cycles had got out of synchronisation. They would finish their trial and then immediately walk along browsing available ones until they found one they liked. Tom hadn’t observed anyone exchanging anything more than a friendly wave and some encouraging comments. “I didn’t notice you talking to him…”

Thor grinned.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing… Nothing at all. You’re right I didn’t talk to him.” He produced a bundle of thin strips of blue cloth. They were belt thickness wide and maybe thirty centimetres long. “If we fail at a challenge, we put one of these on the pedestal. Then anyone else assigned to that puzzle type can give it a go. In my case, I know it was Kei.” Thor’s eyes narrowed as he glared back at the large circle that contained all the pedestals. “Because he just waved three blue strips at me and smirked while doing it.”

“If you failed, why wouldn’t you redo it.”

“Michael said not to.”

Tom considered that for a moment. “Fair enough. I imagine it’ll have features a place to stop someone brute forcing it by challenging it repeatedly.”

“That was the reasoning, and it’s good that Kei was able to complete it, but he looked too smug.”

“If he’s an issue…” He grinned and mock flexed his biceps. “Challenge him to an arm wrestle. It’ll shut him up pretty quickly.”

Thor laughed. “That would take me fully back to school. If the nerds annoyed me…” He chuckled at some private thought and his mood immediately switched to his more usual laid back happy attitude.

While his disposition was improved, Tom seized the opportunity to explain what he wanted to purchase.

Thor looked serious for a moment. “The trait stone auction has another eight hours to run, so I can’t move on the mana engine… but… wait.” He held up one finger and then his face lost its animation. He was only gone for a couple of heartbeats before life flooded back into him once more and a large portal immediately crackled into existence in front of him. Without hesitation, he reached in with both hands and pulled out an object that was only the size of a small microwave. “My god that’s heavy.” He placed it down with a thump. “One semi used Dust Storm Generator for you to play with. I was worried it might be purchased in the meantime and I had the credits, so I snapped up before we lost access to it.”

With a friendly nod, Thor stood. “If that’s all. I have more headaches to gain.” While pretending to be desperately massaging his temples, he walked over to where he had come from. Touched a pedestal and disappeared.

Tom glanced down at the rock in front of him. He had made great progress but his job was not just to make the golem. Now was as good a time as any to do his secondary task.

He pulled out his bedroll and laid down upon it and then, before forcing himself to go to sleep he focused on what he wanted to achieve. He could keep the request general, but he had a feeling in his gut that a proactive approach would be better. Practically, they only had a small amount of control of their progress, but there were some. Tom captured that desire. He needed True Dreaming to provide him with information that would shape the decision of which zones they would choose to defeat, and it was not to consider the influence or concerns of the other humans.

With his requirements clear in his mind, he focused and fell instantly asleep. True Dreaming immediately activated, and he found himself in another’s body.

All of Tom’s senses became muddled. The host of sensations striking him was confounding, and it took him a few moments to acclimatise and he totally missed the words being spoken.

There was a pause in conversation and he couldn’t even recall the nature of everything that had been said as he had arrived in the body. The silence stretched for a number of seconds and Tom focused on who he was so to speak, haunting. The way the person who’s mind he was sharing sensed the world was completely alien, but it was something he had experienced once before.

He was in one of the healer species and probably the same one as in the first vision. The certainty, the complete, unshakable confidence in its path was familiar. It matched his initial experience, and he suspected what he was feeling. That sureness was a distinctive, unique mindset, which implied it was the same person.

“Please honoured large one. The quest text is explicit, to survive we must kill. There can be no other interpretation.”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Do we small one?” the one he was in asked mildly. “Your summary is correct as things stand, but that does not define our path.” The subtext from the mind he was in was that if they died, then so be it. There was a sense of calm acceptance and faith that the internal nature of their species would not be changed by these external pressures.

“But…” the one begging its case, paused momentarily. “With all due deference, large one, I do not understand. These creatures are just trial constructs. They are not truly alive. How can it be against our path to not fulfil the intention of the trial. We merely enhance our offensive abilities and complete the quest without concerns. We have the experience to buy the spells and skills we need.”

“No.”

“Large one?” the address was said with a note of confusion. “What do you mean? When you say no, large one, what do you mean?”

The fear behind the question was almost palpable. The mind that Tom was sharing hesitated for a moment. It was a like a lecturer used to communicating complicated mathematical equations being stumped by an unexpected query. Despite all of its skill, it was not sure if it could provide an answer that would satisfy the little one.

There was a pause as it brought up the quest once more in its mind’s eye.

Zone Quest. Kill 1000 fornaca and the gates to other zones will open.

“Large one I don’t understand. We’ve already killed fourteen of them. We don’t have to break our rules. We don’t need to attack them. We just have to advance deeper into the zone and they’ll come to us and then, as per our path we may defend ourselves.”

“No, that is not an action of our path. They are not mindless.”

“Large one, forgive the interruption. We can not be held accountable if they attack us.”

“Little one, if we initiate their hostility then yes we can be judged and we will be found guilty. They are monsters, but they are almost sapient…”

“They are a figment of imagination… a creation of the trial.”

“Little one, remember your manners.” The mind he was in said sternly.

“Apologies large one. Are you sure fornaca are near sapient?”

The person, the large one in the conversation to Tom’s surprise considered that question in full. Tom was exposed to a barrage of memories and thoughts. Snatches of observation that were clearly shared with the mind he was in by others. The mind focused on the behaviours. They did not use tools however they wore clothes created out of well-treated monster furs to protect their skin. Not only where those skins treated they were cut to size and sewed together. Occasionally physically and other times with magic which suggested dedicated crafters. The battle tactics were reviewed. The reaction of one when its companion died and a host of similar scenes.

Tom pushed beyond that and to the best of his ability built up a model of the physical dimensions of the monsters. They had a single torso like a pig without its head that rested on four thick legs and eight thinner ones. When they moved, all twelve limbs were utilised until they engaged in a fight. At which point, it would move exclusively with its four stumpy legs while all eight of the longer fragile limbs would be applied to combat. First, they were pulled off the ground, then the arms would unfurl to reveal a solitary long claw, which was almost a foot long. Those eight limbs, when attacking displayed slightly less flexibility than a human arm. The shoulder joint equivalent was not quite as flexible and the wrist had far less movement. As for the face, it was situated on the front torso with the mouth being sunk deep, which told Tom it was not a threat.

“Small one ask yourself this: do they have language?”

“Large one please don’t mock me. The collective knowledge is clear that they do.”

“Then small one why is there a debate?”

“Because doing nothing is to die. We do nothing. We are as good as murdering ourselves.”

“That is better than sacrificing ideals.”

“Large one. SANATORES wanted us here. It wouldn’t be just to die.”

“I agree with you small one. I disagree with your solution. SANATORES must have a plan. She would not make us betray our ideals. Your suggested approach is not on our path. The fornaca are close sapient but they are monsters and that designation is a shackle on their behaviour. We know when you force it to notice you, then it, in turn, is forced to attack you because of its monstrous nature. If that is the case small one then approaching the fornaca is effectively attacking it.”

The small one in front of him trembled. The mind he was in understood the emotion. It of course, didn’t want to die and hoped that it bending the nature of the path would be sufficient to survive with ideals intact. Unfortunately, it was not. “Small one, have faith our GOD will not abandon us. She will have a plan that does not involve us breaking faith.”

The dream ended, and he felt himself slipping away into normal dreams.

There was an abrupt shift, and he was caught up in another True Dream. Tom immediately focused. This was not one he had directed, and he hoped it was not one about humans.

He was back in the humanoid creature that had not wanted to force his tribe to help him. He was in a landscape filled with short grass and was fighting a pack of tail less rodents. The mind he was in was not at all worried or perturbed by the situation even if there were scores of the monsters attacking. Tom got the impression that the person had just done something to rile them up deliberately, and now he just had to defeat them.

The creatures were slightly larger than one of the person’s feet and were shaped physically like earth boars. They had five horns. To large ones coming out of their shoulders, two tusks like the earth version and the fifth like a unicorn. They had four legs that ended in splayed talons as opposed to hooves and they charged relentlessly to try to knock the person off his feet.

The person fought mechanically. It bent at the knees and swung its heavy club weapon just above the ground surface to collect them. It was like it was specialised in fighting monsters smaller than itself.

The mind as it fought pondered its existence. It was filled with turmoil. He was here as he had been commanded, but he was sure his GOD had betrayed him. His skill sat like a lead weight inside his stomach and screamed that he was going to die. It was not certain but unless he broke his path, then that would be the end. All the talk from the religious fanatics made a lot more sense now that he was here. Not obeying them outside had been certain death according to his gut. But even here death still stalked. He had been sent here to die and somehow, somewhere in this trial was something strong enough to kill him.

He didn’t understand how that was possible, but the only time the lead weight in his stomach faded was when he considered disobeying the religious orders. When he contemplated not killing the competition. The thought was not enough by itself, but somehow it was a first step. His gut, the thing he trusted more than even GODs was guiding him on a path to keep him alive. It was not the first time the skill had risen so aggressively and it had saved him back then. He just wished the survival path was not so narrow and worse that the skill’s success was not dependent on others like it currently was.

Which others? There was none of his kind here, which brought him back to disobeying his GOD and not killing the other competitors.

He killed the monsters at his feet and wondered why the skill had chosen this moment to be so vocal. It made no sense to him there was nothing at all remarkable about the fight he was in.

Tom snapped awake, and he knew what they had to do. He had to find the two groups and make contact. The dreams couldn’t have been clearer.