CHAPTER 244 – MAKING CONNECTIONS
He entered the trial and found himself in another sand filled arena. Through this one was three or four times the size of the first. There was also no entry way just the dark, almost black unbroken stone stretching the whole way around. It was depressingly familiar and when he looked up, there was the blue familiar earth sky, fluffy white clouds and the yellow sun beating down upon him.
There were no enemies here yet, and he was fighting a dragon-like creature. He looked up and spun and sure enough he caught sight of a monster flying low over the wall. Its wings stretched outward to slow itself down, and it landed with a spray of sand. The fake dragon or the winged lizard, as he probably should consider it to be was just like in the drawings he had studied. It was taller than him, more than two times as long as it was high and while it was skinny its chest and legs were solid. It probably weighed four or five times what Tom did even if it had hollow bones like the birds back on earth. If it relied on magic as opposed to biological adaptations like flying animals on earth possessed, its weight could be twice that again.
Tom opened his senses to assess what he was facing. It was rank fourteen, and he forced himself to remain focused. Until he understood its full battle capabilities, he couldn’t afford to relax. Rank was only a rough tool for estimating physical prowess and the amount of magic they had available. Skills, invulnerable scales, advanced magics could all elevate a rank nothing easy victory to a sinister and deadly threat.
The monster roared, challenging him.
He approached cautiously.
All the pictures and the symbols scribbled next to them suggested this beast lacked offensive skills or spells and would rely on physical attacks.
He was still careful. Trials were usually honest, but not always.
The monster’s head lunged at him. He dodged, feinted an attack, swayed out of the way of its wing as it scythed over him and attempted to decapitate him, then he stepped to the side to avoid its claws. Clinically, he probed the creature’s defences and concentrated on evasion until his fate built sufficiently that his risk of being hurt badly was reduced to effectively zero.
Then he went on the offensive. A Lunge let him speed across the rock hard sand frozen by the skill and drive his Enlarged spear deep into its skull. Then he skipped away as the monster crashed to the ground.
It had been pathetically easy in the end.
The dead body evaporated away and Tom’s eyes swept the sky once more. Two shapes this time flew in and he assessed them before they landed. They were rank fourteen and when they hit the arena floor, sand flew once more.
He was already moving to attack.
The same strategy as before was applied. He bided his time and then unleashed a surprise attack. There were no one shot kills this time, but once he started attacking in earnest they died quickly. Then a wave of four appeared after wards the lizards reset to only one approaching but it was a rank higher at fifteen. The pattern repeated. Even in the starting moments of the fight, when he was at his most vulnerable they were not a threat to him.
Four fifteens were easily eliminated. Now that he had mapped out the patterns of their attacks, how far the neck could twist and how they utilised the tail he barely had to use his skills to beat them. The rank incremented upward by one once more. The four rank sixteens were no harder than the first rank fourteen. They died quickly, and a ding indicated that the trial had completed.
Tom looked around dissatisfied. He had used the engagement to advance his new spear skills, but now the fight was over there was little for him to do. Once more he ran through his kata’s for twenty minutes until he was ejected. The experience had almost been as annoying as his crafting. He glanced longingly at the inner ring challenges. It was possible that they would represent a decent contest, and he hoped they had quality scaling. If quantity was scaled further, it would only annoy him. His fate based dodge ability meant he was tailored for fighting large numbers of similar ranked enemies. Adding extra enemies did not make things harder for him, only longer.
Everlyn was on guard, and she was chatting away to a man that he recognised as belonging to Vidja’s group. Tom’s eyes immediately went to the doorway to the goblin sprite zone and he could see the remains of the previous trap scattered in front of the door. She, of course, had replaced the trap with a new one and was now entertaining the new guest.
Tom studied the scout. Dark hair and a bushy beard. He was slightly shorter than Tom but thick set with lots of muscles and came in at a rank of around fourteen, which was low for Vidja’s group. He walked up cautiously, his spear in his hand but he forced his posture to remain relaxed.
His hearing, or a sixth sense alerted the other man before Tom closed to within five metres. He spun and stepped to the side to keep both him and Everlyn in his vision. While his instincts hadn’t allowed him to let either of them out of his sight, a big grin was visible under the facial hair. “Tom, we haven’t been introduced. I’m Puma.”
“Puma?” he asked unable to help himself as he walked up to stand next to Everlyn. Who glared at him probably in response to Tom’s rude tone.
The man shrugged apparently unconcerned at the judgmental subtext. “Loved cats on earth and modelled myself on them in the tutorial. I’m all for explosive ambush tactics. Stealth to get me close… then wham.” He punched his own hand to emphasize. “Hit them hard from ambush with everything I’ve got.”
Tom grinned broadly at that description. “A scout that doesn’t use bows. I can get behind that.” They clasped hands and Puma tested his strength by squeezing. He grimaced. The other man was stronger.
Puma let go and beamed. “You’re a mage caster aren’t you?”
“I am?” Tom questioned, raising an eyebrow.
“You are.” Puma responded authoritatively while he mock shook his own hand as if Tom had hurt it and not the other way around. “Strong for a caster that’s for sure.”
“Are you sure I’m a caster?”
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“Yeah. I heard all about what you did in the warlord battle. Very impressive, and your strength is solid for a coward who hits from the backline.”
Tom tried not to frown at the news that Selena’s team had been gossiping about him. It felt strange to be an object of attention. “I’m a tank too.”
Puma laughed. “I know. I heard about that as well. This place…” he gestured at the tiles everywhere. “Is amazing. I can’t thank you enough for reaching out to us. It’ll make everything easier…”
“I’m surprised you were able to come so quickly.”
Puma waved the comment away. “Our team has an excess of scouts. I’m the best, but the zone we were in didn’t really call for a scout’s skill set so I came. And I’m not disappointed. This is a treasure, and it’s going to be well and truly worth it in the long run.”
“It’s the least we could do.” Tom told him. “We’re all on the same team.”
“I know that. Vidja knows that.” Puma smiled sadly at him. “But the jury is still out in regards to your vision of the threat at the centre of the trial…”
“But…” Everlyn prompted in response to the man’s hesitation.
“We think you’re telling the truth. We just need evidence.”
“It’ll come.” Tom promised, thinking about the healers.
“How?”
“The fact you had truth spells working while we recounted out experiences was that not enough?”
“Honestly. No, it wasn’t. We believe you believe it, but spending the sort of experience you’re talking to guard ourselves against a threat that might not exist is a different story.”
“Occam’s razor.”
Puma chuckled. “Occam’s razor works against you. Your team suffering mass hallucinations is the simplest solution. It sure as hell seems more likely to me than a GOD’s level conspiracy and that some of our competitor’s are unbeatable killing machines.”
“That’s a bit harsh,” Everlyn objected.
“I’m just being honest. Our logical halves are saying stay away from you, but the rest of us sort of believes it. We need more proof to get it.”
“You’ll get it,” Tom promised.
“How?” Everlyn asked.
Tom shrugged. “We’re going to run into the other races. We’ll form alliances.”
“I’m not sure. That, by itself, will be enough.” Puma said carefully. “After all, that’ll be you convincing them you believe there’s a threat. There needs to be something more tangible.”
“I’ll find out what the species are in advance and give you their descriptions. Hopefully, I’ll be also able to provide identifying features of the key individuals. Then when we find them, you can cross reference my historical description and know that my gift is accurate. Alternatively, I could dive into yours or Vidja’s past.”
“I think just the first would be sufficient.” Puma said hurriedly. “I don’t want you wasting your skill on useless crap.”
“I’ve already given the description of four.”
“Of which the dragon we won’t see until it’s too late.”
“And the insects too, probably.” Tom hyposthsised. “I think they will wait with the dragon to make sure we are all killed. I’ll get the details of the last two races over the next couple of days.”
“Is it that certain?”
“Yes,” Tom told him honestly. “The tier nine upgrade let me direct one dream a sleep to where I want them to go.”
“I think if you tell us the other species and hopefully identifying details of their leaders before we meet them, then that would be evidence we need.”
“It’ll be done.” Tom promised.
“Well, I’m glad we had this conversation.” Puma nodded. “Enough chit chat for me. I have to take some more pictures and go back to help my team.”
He headed off and Tom went to work on his golem. Vidja’s scout did not waste time. He was methodical as he went around using different crystals to capture key images. Thor joined him and handed him a damaged tier two mana engine and the rest of the materials that Tom had requested.
“I’m guessing you’re going to want to upgrade that as soon as possible.”
“Yeah, I am.”
Thor immediately went over to the inner zone door and changed the cloth that was draped over it, replacing the current grey with a brighter orange.
Tom tuned the other man out as he considered the next step. There was no rush to create the golem itself. It needed to be done before they left the zone, but if delaying its construction would improve the result that was what he had to do. The threshold skill was another matter. Now there was a concrete plan to create a golem and steps had been taken to construct one. He felt safer using it.
The weeks they had been travelling from spot-to-spot. Tom had deliberately not used the ability because he was sure that it would fail if he tried. The intelligence behind the threshold benefit had made it clear that it was designed to only work on parts of golems. It was not happy to apply itself to fix or upgrade components that might or might not end up in the golem.
The mana engine was heavy in his hands as he grabbed it. The damage was significantly less than the first one he had purchased. This one was actually generating mana. It was a mere trickle and far less than even a tier one mana engine would generate, but it was there. Because it partially worked, it meant it was a far easier fix than the first time around, but still beyond his skill. The question remained: did he need to create the golem before triggering the threshold benefit? or would his intention to use it in the golem and the reasons why he hadn’t already created it be sufficient for the intelligence to help him by siding with the spirit as opposed to the letter of the law? That mind he connected with, that crafter, with its incredible knowledge favoured perfection. The reason he was delaying creating the golem was because it would not be perfect if he did so with the broken engine. He just hoped the intelligence would recognise that fact.
Tom had been tempted when on the run to create a small golem and then trigger his threshold benefit to trigger the ability while they travelled into the mountains and then later underground. But the memory of how judgmental that intelligence was had stopped him. In the end, wasting four or five upgrades was better than pissing the mind off. The question was which pathway was the best now.
If he created the golem with a defective mana engine, its utility would be permanently reduced. The mind would judge him for that.
However, if he tried to trigger it now, it might reject the contact outright. An outright rejection and doing without a functioning golem for four days was better than doing a subpar job on creating the golem and suffering its scorn for evermore. He would have to trust that it would see his reasoning
“Thor is their way to get everyone’s attention. The more people around to help… the better the result I’m likely to generate.”
“I’ve already changed the flag.” Thor glanced pointedly at the zone door and the orange flag. “When they emerge, they’ll now check in before starting another puzzle.”
“Signal flags?” Tom asked in surprise.
“Yeah, we set it up while you were sleeping.”
Tom nodded took a deep breath and waited for the others to gather…
It was thirty minutes before everyone assembled, with Keikain being the last to emerge. He had been solving a puzzle in the inner ring.
“What’s with the orange?” the earth mage demanded when he got close.
“Tom’s fixing the mana engine.” Thor reported. He thought it would be best we were all gathered.
“For the uneducated,” Puma asked immediately.
“Tom’s got a trait that lets him upgrade a golem component every few days.” Everlyn volunteered. “Having extra hands can help.”
Puma looked him in the eyes. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Scout.” Everlyn offered.
“Anything social.” Michael said at the same time.
“I have many weaknesses,” Tom said smoothly glaring at Michael.
“You know, staring at me like that just proves my point.”
“Whatever.” His eyes swept around the gathered groups. “I don’t know if this will work. The engine is not currently part of the golem. Technically, the threshold benefit can reject my approach.”
Puma looked pointedly at the parts that were clearly already laid out to create a golem. “Why don’t you create it first?”
Tom hesitated. He really didn’t want to bother explaining things. “There are reasons?”
“The intelligence that helps with the crafting is a bit psycho.” Harry elaborated. “It doesn’t like shoddy work and I guess Tom figures that without a mana engine any golem he creates will be crap.”
“Exactly.” With a deep breath, he focused his energy and reached out with his threshold benefit to engage the intelligence that supported it.
He really hoped it would accept his approach.