CHAPTER 254 – TRAPPING EXITS
Thankfully, they were alone in the zone even if individually they were scattered in their various tunnels. While he didn’t think they would charge back and try to surprise them he was not discounting that possibility. “What’s the play?” Tom finally asked.
“Trap the entrance.” Harry said fiercely. “I’ll incorporate some attack rituals once it’s secured. They won’t get through unscathed next time.”
“Plenty of lethal stuff in the auction house, too,” Thor muttered to himself. “Fifty thousand credits should do it. Reuseable too, so we can take them to the next zone.”
“This is dangerous.”
“What do you mean Everlyn?” Tom asked immediately.
“They said they used an oracle ability. We need to be very careful until that’s neutralised. Even approaching the zone doors could be risky if they can see the moment and come for us. Time their reemergence to be right when we’re too close to avoid them.”
“We can set up under the protection of one of my lightning elementals.”
“I’m warded. They shouldn’t be able to sense me.” Clare said. “I know it didn’t work with Tom, but that was only because his ability was so overpowered. I can sneak up to the doors and lay the traps before they realise anything is wrong.”
Tom realised he was in the same boat. “My title protects me as well.” Tom reminded them. “It’s undoubtedly why they backed down. They couldn’t see either of our capabilities.”
“Are you willing to gamble your life on it. You’re only warded up to… what? Tier six skills?” Everlyn said. “It’s useful, but we’re not going up against natives at our level. These are the pinnacle of a competition race. Like Tom, they might possess something strong enough to pierce that level of warding. Splitting up is too dangerous and might be what they want. I say we keep it simple. We approach in force and get the traps down quickly…” she trailed off.
Tom found he agreed with her. While her approach was a little paranoid, the disaster scenario she listed was plausible, and he was over assuming the best of others.
“We’re going to need to buy something.” Toni concluded. “Great, just what the empty bank balance wanted: another expense.”
“Well, that type of safeguard is probably a prudent buy in the long term,” Everlyn said. “But yes, we have to ensure our planning at the very least can’t be spied on.”
“I’ve got a solution.” Harry interrupted. “I’ve just bought an oracle shield ritual from my class. Won’t help with the approach, but once we’ve secured the entrance. I can put it down and after that we should be safe. It costs a thousand credits each time, but that’s an expense we can afford and I’ll cast it every time we camp. It was on my list to purchase, as we were going to have to do it once the ranks of the surrounding monsters increased.”
Tom knew what he was talking about. They all did and were all as equally aware that he was lying. The monsters which hunted with karma or precognition were a problem, but one for years in the future. It was almost unheard of for such a creature to emerge under rank thirty and even above that they were very rare till they got closer to rank seventy.
“And I’ve purchased four man killer traps to put down.” Thor told them. “They’re fast deployment. Will only take a minute or so, to install.”
“Who the hell is putting something like that up on the auction house?” Toni asked.
Thor chuckled. “Man killer was my term. They’re intended for beasts.”
“We’ll gather and charge the zone doors all together,” Everlyn said finally. “Harry, prepare the ritual. Tom, can you provide elemental protection?”
“Of course.”
“The Elemental? how long can you sustain it for?”
“A minute, maybe two… It also takes about that to cast. I can’t summon in response to them arriving it has to be before.”
“Is this even going to work?” Thor asked, doubtfully. “It stinks. From what I’m hearing, you need us to get close to the gate and install the traps. While doing so, we won’t have any precognition shields on us and Tom can’t keep the elemental up the whole time. That means there is going to be a window where we have no protection and they will be able to divine that. Was their retreat even a retreat, or did they do so to exploit this coming opportunity to abduct us easily?”
“If they do, they’ll regret it.” Tom promised immediately.
“That doesn’t help me or anyone else who is abducted.”
Tom hesitated. Thor unfortunately was right. There would be a window that the teams setting the traps would be exposed. Then, if the oracle skill was super powerful… then, for that brief moment they would be exposed. But they were stressing about a threat that only existed if multiple unlikely conditions were filled.
“If we have Tom cast the elemental while protected by Harry’s ritual we’ll be fine.” Everlyn told Thor. “They might be able to see what you’re doing, but if they don’t know what Tom’s up to then they won’t risk doing anything stupid.”
“We hope.” Thor said quietly.
“I don’t see how we have a choice.” Everlyn said almost sounding defeated.
Tom didn’t want morale to plummet. “It’s not as bad as it sounds, Thor.” He told him. “We’re planning under the assumption that they have a high level oracle skill that they can use to pick the time when to attack. Even if they have a powerful precognition skill, which by itself is unlikely, they also need to have the right version of a skill because most of them won’t function how we are fearing. Then, even if all those separate bits line up they also need to interrogate it with exactly the correct questions to expose the window. The chance of all three events all occurring is almost non-existent. We’re looking at a one in a million level of risk.”
“Says the person who is first out of a million people.”
“Unfortunately, it is a lot less than that now. Unless you can lose ranking points the guy who used to be ahead of me died.”
“Which is why I moved to eleven isn’t it?”
“Probably.”
“Isn’t this a great day.” Thor muttered. “The blows keep coming.”
They consolidated their positions while remaining far enough away that they could retreat to the tunnels if the enemy came through. Harry put a ritual down around them that cost a thousand credits in reagents, but no one complained.
Both Michael and Keikain emerged from their puzzles and were briefed on the new state of play. Everyone contributed ten fate with a singular, common purpose. The fate was to help ensure that the traps would be installed safely and work as advertised for twenty-four hours.
With ninety fate invested, Tom doubted Selena’s squad would be able to brute force their way back into the zone without losing people. And if they invested the spoiler fate to attempt it, then that would backfire on them. He calculated they would need hundreds of fate to neutralise what he had seeded to get the traps’ working. That would reduce their reserves to near zero and gimp their fighting styling. It simple wouldn’t happen.
Everlyn studied their target gate with critical eyes. “All that remains is the last step. Everyone knows what to do?”
There were affirmatives from all around.
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She completed some elaborate and exaggerated stretches and then snapped her hands, and her magic bow appeared in them. There was a glowing arrow already on the string, but she had not drawn it back yet. “Good luck… and go!”
Everyone but himself and Everlyn took off toward the zone doors. Thor, Keikain, Harry and Clare carrying the traps. Michael and Toni ran to within twenty metres and then positioned themselves to launch ranged strikes. Rahmat ran straight up the centre and placed himself with a spear drawn right in front of the doors to engage anyone who emerged.
Tom began summoning a greater lightning elemental.
When he finished, and glanced up. The zone doors were still quiet. His elemental zipped along to be over the heads of the team, laying traps. It was positioned in case something went wrong and Selena tried to sabotage at the last moment.
The traps were placed, and everyone apart from Harry withdrew. The elemental vanished as its time ran out and Harry continued his job faithfully.
“Boring.” Thor said, smiling broadly.
“Just how I like it.” Michael stated.
Collectively, they almost sighed in relief when Harry was finally able to retreat away from the dangerous traps.
“We’re safe. Let’s finish the zone and get going.” Everlyn said.
Michael and Keikain left to continue their work along with Everlyn. She was tasked with completing the fighting quests Tom had run out of time to finish.
The rest of them stood guard. Spread out but ready to attack anything that appeared. Harry being forced to choose a less than optimal ritual and their current waste of time annoyed Tom. It was definitely a case of a self-own by the humans who were supposed to all be on the same team.
But they were safe, which was important. Tom almost hoped that they would come for them. If they did, they would be easily defeated. First, the traps would disrupt them and while their ranks were broken open, they would all strike to finish those who hadn’t been killed outright.
He would, he abruptly realised… he would kill. He wouldn’t hold back. That realisation made him sick to the stomach. Standing guard and being prepared to kill another human was not something he wanted to be comfortable with. That mindset brough to mind echoes of Sven, Clare and Keikain. They had not been evil, but a series of logical decisions had led them into a spiral of depravity.
Tom had been alone in the tutorial for a significant amount of time. There had been ample opportunity to daydream, and he had imagined how the competition would go. He had idealised what his fellow top million would look like. They were supposed to be better than him, both in surviving the tutorial and morally. He knew his flaws and his willingness to focus on results and the lines he could cross. The others who made it in his dreams did not share those flaws. They would all be champions driven to success by the desire to save humanity and rock solid ethics to guide their actions. A collective effort and self sacrifice would lead to humans winning the competition.
It was clear he had been wrong. In hindsight… Tom shook his head. He had been twenty and years of isolation gave him rose-coloured glasses. The word naïve did not capture the situation. It was a faulty memory and a complete absence of logical reasoning that had led him astray.
Now the answer was easy to articulate. The million best didn’t get selected for nobility. That was a ridiculous concept. They won through due to being best at surviving in the tutorial scenario… and what personality traits were best at being alone for twenty-plus years? What type of person would win then? Being a self-centred, narcissistic, introverted piece of shit was a great starting advantage. It was no wonder that such a large number of arseholes had slipped through the cracks.
And some good people, he thought, thinking of the rest of his team. Rahmat, Michael, Everlyn and probably Thor were all pretty close to the ideal he had created over those forty years. Especially those first two. They were both quality.
“I got it.” Michael yelled exuberantly from behind him. “First time too… Keikain?” There was a slight pause. “Don’t tell me you failed… you did. I knew it. I’m the champion. I’m going to have the highest contribution.”
“That’s only because I basically handed you the solution to the ring one puzzle.”
“Rubbish. I would have been fine without help.”
Tom glanced back and saw Michael give Keikain a solid, good-natured slap on his back.
“Don’t think you would of.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Michael admitted. “I still get headaches thinking about it.
“Even with you completing that one, I still might be ahead of you.
“Not a chance.”
Michael was clearly adding numbers up in his head, then he frowned appearing disappointed. “I’m pretty sure I’m ahead. But without that inner puzzle, you would have triumphed.” Michael looked towards them. “Come on, everyone accept the quest completion so we can get our loot and go.”
Tom waited until Everlyn’s face had gone animated and returned before he stepped into his system room, as it was important to space out the stronger members’ lack of availability.
There was text on the wall.
Warning completing this quest will reset all puzzles completion status to no. This means that if you wish to pursue a higher completion percentage, you’ll need to redo everything all ready completed.
Zones you have unlocked will remain available.
He accepted and then was then prompted for how he wanted resources allocated and he went with the standard maximise experience and the rest into collective loot.
Job done he returned to the real world.
“Shout out what you get.” Michael yelled out to everyone.
Tom observed as another wave of ducking in and out of the system room occurred. When each person emerged, they stated their allocated percentage. Michael got thirty-four, Keikain thirty. The rest of them were all between five and eight percent. Focusing on clearing the inner rings had clearly been lucrative for those with the abilities to do so.
“Tom?” Michael asked.
“It’s not important. I didn’t do much.”
“I have you on at least five percent just from the inner puzzles cleared.”
Tom thought about that. Each ring was worth the same for a full clear and the single ring three fight was probably equivalent to two percent of available points. While he had spent less time than everyone clearing the puzzles, he had predominantly focused on the inner rings. That meant, his contribution, if he had been doing it continuously would have been similar to Keikain’s and Michael’s not that there had been sufficient fights to do that.
He stepped into the system room.
Congratulations, you have cleared the trial with a 61.4% completion rate.
Experience from clearing puzzles 785,000
Bonus experience at the sixty percent threshold for zone quest completion. 200,000
Your contribution percent 7.1%
Experience awarded 70,000
Tom raised an eyebrow at that information. It looked like the zone’s experience was less than the goblin vs sprite’s zone like they had speculated. If they had of killed all the goblins that would have been two million experience and possibly twice that if they of gone after the sprites as well.
That was a lot more than what was on offer here, which was only one point three million of direct experience and of course the quest bonus. It was conceivable that this zone had a higher amount of experience assigned to the quest, but if that was the case it wasn’t obvious at the sixty percent completion level they had achieved.
He returned to the real world. “Seven percent. The raw numbers were a bit of a letdown.”
“Speak for yourself,” Michael said enthusiastically. “Three hundred thousand is transforming for me.”
“First chance you’ve got to buy all those skills you should have but aren’t critical.”
“Exactly. Now.” The healer pointed.
Tom followed the finger and saw the loot portal. “Why would you do that to me.” He complained good-naturedly. Now that it had been observed it couldn’t be unseen. It blazed in his awareness as he watched the zone door.
Harry was closest, and he jogged over. “Dispelling it now.”
The ritualist shoved his hands in. “Ouch.” Harry bit his bottom lip a pained expression on his face. “One of those.”
“What?” Everlyn asked immediately.
“The portal is healing me from the wounds I just received.” Harry appeared to be carefully moving his hand, clearly searching for a way to extract whatever was in there. After almost ten seconds and two winces, he pulled out a metal implement. “It’s a weapon, obviously.” Having been hurt in the portal he held the item cautiously.
Even from this distance, Tom could see that it was not designed for humans. It was kind of like a double-edged and pointed sword blade, which had four widely spaced groves in the middle, which was clearly where the intended user had been supposed to grip it. Sharp edges separated what Tom was thinking of as finger holds, even if they were over five centimetres’ distance from each other. It was not something a human could hold comfortably.
“We should have used fate.” Harry said, sounding disappointed.
“I thought about it, but concluded it was too dangerous.” Michael said.
“Same.” Everlyn agreed.
“I don’t have enough to use it, trivially either.” Tom offered, which got him a few curious looks. This Tom realised was how natives and the other competitor races must feel about loot portals. Unless you were in a trial that actively customised loot your return from most loot portals was likely to be junk to you. He imagined that there was a roaring auction house trade across nations to get objects that were useless to the race that found them to a race that could actually wield or wear the item.
Harry walked over, gripping the blade cautiously. “High tier five.”
“What?” Tom asked in surprise.
“It was the loot component associated with a million experience,” Michael said not sounding worried. “I expected something better.”
“Can we use it?”
“Not without a forge,” Harry said while placing it down in front of Thor. “A skilled blacksmith can probably change it into something useable by converting the central area into a handle. If that happened, we could use it kind of like a mini staff with blades on the end.”
Tom examined the weapon.
Latora Twin Dagger of Rot—Tier 5
This weapon is a single blade forged to be held in the centre. The edge is enhanced with both physical and magical piercing properties and upon contact with organic material will create a tier 5 rot effect.
“Don’t cut yourself by accident.” Tom warned before he could help himself. “I think a paper cut with would be lethal. Maybe not with Michael around, but for most people.”
“I’m aware.”
The sword was placed down, and Thor assessed it. “I know it’s worth six hundred, but no human’s buying it for anywhere near that.”
“Set a buy out of two hundred.” Michael said sadly. “Since it’s potentially life threatening for the blacksmith and wielder, no one is going to want to touch it.”
There was a blaze of energy, and the weapon vanished. They quickly organised. Extracted three of the four lethal traps while Tom’s greater lightning elemental hovered above them and his drone acted as a second guard. The traps were removed and they hurried into the flower zone.
It was time for the next stage.