CHAPTER 262 – DANGEROUS LODGINGS
With each step, Earth manipulation shifted the rock in rhythm. The armour flexed with his motion, at least sometimes. Often, the stone would remain unyielding and pushed back on his body, making it feel like he was trapped by solid brick walls. Occasionally, the jerkin would even shatter because of the force of his movements and a missed manipulation. When that happened, Tom had to repair it, which was more practice.
His efforts were only partially successful but providing he didn’t try anything elaborate the stone moved with him. Tom made a point of not leaving his consciousness permanently in the rock. Instead, it waxed and waned with Earth Sense tracking the materials when he wasn’t actively manipulating them.
He continued to walk while thickening and thinning stone as required so that it acted more like cloth than rock. The domain needed him to get the point where all surrounding earth could be controlled like it was his own muscle and what he was achieving was a long way from that.
However, it was progress; it was easy enough to see if this effort did not gift him with a domain it would still evolve what he was doing into something like Living Rock Armour. He did not like to assume success, but the pathway from where he was at to an evolution felt like it was a matter of time. In a way he was using a cheat. Earth Manipulation was a flexible spell that could be taken in many directions and the fact he could evolve it and then buy it back at the same ridiculously high level due to his Stone Golem was an extraordinary advantage.
He planned to exploit it to its full extent.
As he walked, his mind cycled through all of his abilities. Could they be consolidated into a single super spell or skill?
Throw Rock and Harnessed Meteorite were sides of the same coin. Well… sides of the same concept as the second was clearly more powerful.
Earth Manipulation and the higher Remote version were similar and then he had Living Rock.
The question was how to tie Earth Sense together with all the others. Was there a way to do that or did his domain just need to bloom from Earth Sense and Manipulation. Tom’s mind chewed on the problem as he trudged through the snow.
“Tom.” Harry yelled desperately.
His attention immediately snapped to the present. The stone jerkin he was wearing fell off him as he went to the leap to Harry’s aid. His spear was in his hand and Lightning Enrage was on the point of being triggered.
Harry was struggling against a six-legged version of a polar bear. One of its paws had knocked him flying. He had lost his weapon and was now pinned between some boulders unable to dodge to either side anymore.
Then Tom saw Clare. She too had responded to Harry’s yell, and she had immediately abandoned the three bears that the larger group had been fighting to sprint across and then crash into the one threatening the ritualist. A shiny ball of light surrounded her shield at the point of impact. That enraged the monster, and it forgot about Harry and focused on a rapidly retreating Clare who had turned the bounce away from the collision into a hasty retreat.
She was deliberately drawing it away but given the bears’ straight line speed that felt like a mistake. Then a spell shot from Michael’s hand and struck the bear where it stood by itself with no enemies nearby. A horizontal line of yellow pus spread from the spell’s impact and then there was a tearing sound, as it was torn almost in half.
It fell dead. Harry retrieved his weapon, and Clare returned to fighting the other two. It was clear the fight was over.
Tom retrieved his jerkin and rebuilt it around himself while they finished off the remaining monsters. This was the fourth time he had been called to intervene. Of those, he had only interceded once. It had been against a host of smaller ferret like creatures and his taunt had been required to prevent them from overwhelming the others. They had been nightmarish, and he had been unable to dodge most of the attacks. Fortunately, his armour and stone skin had limited the damage they could do to him while the others had defeated them.
They kept going as he struggled with his spell and Everlyn led them to a crevice in the side of the hill. “Can you boys make this liveable?”
Keikain and he looked at each other, and Tom shrugged. He was aware of every little detail of what she had discovered. It was twenty metres deep, three wide, and maybe thirty high. He walked the length of it to get a feel for what he was working with. This was a chance to train. “Keikain can I take care of this?”
The earth mage looked at him in surprise and then shrugged. “Go for it.”
Tom had been intending to save his fate to continue building the tidal wave to hit the dragon with, but this was too good an opportunity to let go. He spent thirty fate with a firm concept. The rock had to fall to create a smaller cosier space for them to live in. The spell needed to work as he envisaged without unexpected cascades.
He stood at the deepest point of the crevice and Remote Earth Manipulation hit the spots he had identified. Then he took off at a sprint for safety. As he moved, his consciousness struck each of the extra pre-discovered flaws, and twisted his magic just right. There was a rumble and a roar as all the rocks shifted and fell.
Dust billowed up.
A large chunk of rock fell right at him. He wished he could use a form of throw rock to deflect it, but that was an idea for later. Instead, his entire side turned to Living Rock.
The irregular piece of stone which was the size of a basketball crashed into him. He felt the stone around his shoulder blade crack and splinter and bits fall off but he tanked the blow and emerged into the outside. Behind him, the stone continued to collapse.
“Tom what the hell.” Everlyn snapped at him. “Everyone, get ready for a fight.” She was looking out, waiting for monsters to react to the huge noise he had created.
He ignored her and mended his shoulder instead. His mind was racing. There was definitely a need to evolve Throw Rock with Earth Sense into something that could deflect stone.
There was synergy there. Throw rock basically already did what he wanted. If he could tweak it to act on stuff not directly in his hand, then… Well that was step one and after that he would extend if further. First to act on minerals as well as stone, which was a small step, and then he would enhance it a little more to apply to metal. After that, he would be protected from arrows.There was a roar from less than fifty metres away. His spear appeared in his hand. That development would be his next project.
For now, it sounded like there might be enemies to kill.
As a group, they waited. Those first few moments between the distance roars and the actual fights were the worst. The anticipation was exquisite in how it wormed into his gut. They were unable to tell whether they were about to be overwhelmed or were facing a few isolated monsters. The first of the enemy reached them and beyond them there were no more roars to signify incoming threats.
Stolen story; please report.
Tom relaxed ever so slightly though he didn’t drop his vigilance. He had judged the risk of a massive swarm of monsters hitting them as low, but Everlyn’s concern made him doubt that judgement and he wouldn’t let anyone die because of his mistake.
A number of bears hit them and then seven of the blobs but none of the smaller swarming monsters or the giant boars. The team cleaned them up quickly while Tom waited in the back.
Everlyn rounded on him the moment the last monster died. “I know it ended up being a nothing burger. But that…” Her finger stabbed at the cave. “That was moronic.”
Everyone glanced at where the dust that had filled the air was starting to settle and was in the process of staining the snow brown.
“If there’s something out there, that’s nasty, then it’s better to know now than later.”
“No, just no. Tom.” Everlyn said in annoyance. “We don’t do this shit on a whim. We definitely don’t do it without consulting the scout first.”
“She’s right.” Rahmat told him before he could protest. “You wouldn’t have done that in the tutorial.”
Tom shrugged. “I might have. It would have depended on how well I knew the area… or how desperate.”
“You wouldn’t have done it in this situation.” Rahmat clarified.
“We’re in a trial where monsters’ ability to rove is restricted. They don’t respond naturally to stimulus. It was…” Tom stopped talking.
Rahmat shook his head with a grim expression and Tom realised the other man and Everlyn were right. He could justify what he had done, but it had been a bone headed move.
“But you’re right.” Tom conceded quickly. “We probably haven’t been in this zone long enough to have confirmed their behaviour. I didn’t know that there would be no response. But my guess was…”
“Tom!” Everlyn snapped. “Stop digging.”
He sighed. “Sorry. I should have communicated better. Now let’s see if it worked.”
Tom approached the area he had collapsed cautiously. His Earth Sense stretching out in front of him. The flaws and the structure of the hollow that he had left became visible. With every step that he took, he expanded the volume his skill could assess. As he had hoped, the resulting rock fall was structurally sound.
The space remaining was substantially more usable. The entrance to the cave was tight and head height as opposed to the fifteen metres it had been previously. Then after that was a long tunnel that would be more defensible than the previous situation where it had both widened and got higher and then finally there was a cozy cave complete with a narrow chimney chute that would let smoke rise but not let a lot of cold in.
“Worth it.” He told himself as he walked fully into the space that he had created. What had been a partially defensible, barely protected from the outside environment, structural feature, had been converted into something that looked like it might have been designed for humans.
The others followed him, looking hesitant.
“It’s completely stable.” He assured them.
“I didn’t appreciate the noise that this is impressive.” Michael stated while peering around, his hands tracing the smooth rock of the side wall. “How did you do this?”
“I pulled on existing fault lines. The order I did it influenced how the large chunks of rock fell. It took a lot of effort.” Tom poked the roof that was just out of reach with his spear’s end. “To get this chunk to slide to where it did. This is a giant piece of stone. Four metres thick at its narrowest. As a ceiling, we can’t get any better.”
“It’s very fortunate how everything’s dropped in convenient ways for you.” Michael said with a grin.
“It is.” Tom agreed not rising to that bait. “It was opportune the building blocks were there, but I’m sure if they weren’t there would have been something else I could have used to create a similar outcome.”
They ate and with the fire they had lit along with their body heat the place warmed up quickly. It was not warm, but taking the freezing edge out of the air was welcome.
He forced himself to go to sleep, and the True Dream hit a moment later.
Tom instantly recognised the mind that he was in. It was the humanoid who had chosen honour and tradition over following his sponsor GODs bidding. The mind was disturbed. Confusion and uncertainty swirled inside it.
It was in the midst of a fight and focused not on the battle but instead on its thoughts. Absently, he battered away a tentacled monstrosity. The strange creature had a hawk’s upper body, including its head and then a lower body that rather ending in legs and talons had hundreds of tentacles coming out of it.
The monster only came up to the humanoid’s waist and was reasonably easy to knock clear before its tentacles latched on. The simpleness of the fight explained while there was no focus on the battle itself, instead its mind was fixated upon the choice that it needed to make.
What to do?
When to do it?
And, of course, what could he trust?
Its gut, its special unquantified ability had not ceased its warnings since it had got in here. Entering the centre was a mistake.
Yet…
It was not that simple… he had a duty to grow and become stronger. A requirement to shake the foundations of this world to create an oasis for the rest of his race. In that context, staying stagnant in this trial was a ridiculous choice. There was no way for him to develop here because all the monsters were too weak.
Not to descend immediately into the middle to leave as soon as possible was a betrayal, but his gut told him otherwise.
Did that skill still work in this new world? Magic here was different, a different flavour, a twist upon what he was used to. The question was had his gut been broken? Or strengthened? It definitely seemed to be more active here than back in Home.
Another one of the strange creatures came at him. They were far larger than most monsters, but still weak compared to him. This time, when he swung the creature tried to dodge backward, but he used his skill to make his club longer and thicker. It’s attempt to evade failed because of the weapon’s extra length. It was squished effortlessly. The easily obtainable skills were definitely a plus for Existentia.
He stopped his pondering to focus on the problem that needed to be resolved.
His gut yelled slow down, but logic commanded him to go faster. There was something in the centre that threatened him, but maybe he would be strong enough to defeat it. He was pretty confident about that, but what concerned him was why would he wait. He wouldn’t be getting stronger and whatever was at the final exit could dig themselves in and fortify themselves more. There were so many examples where delays would strengthen his opponent and he couldn’t see any reason why waiting would help. Unless the creature grew weaker, the more that time passed… but for every creature like that there were two that went the other way.
Confusion filled its mind.
A third monster lunched at it this time. Just for fun, he launched a spear of telekinesis force at its chest. It worked as advertised, and the grotesque mockery of life was torn in half.
Monsters were easy to kill. The decision he had to make, however was hard. No more of the abominations were coming, which was a pity he needed to find more to distract him.
His gut ached.
The dream finished with Tom’s mind in turmoil.
He felt like an idiot because he had recognised what tile that monster it had been fighting was from. It was already at the fifth ring or fourth from the outside, if that was how you counted. It was already over halfway through the challenge, but with the knowledge of what the humanoid was Tom could draw a line back to where it started and those boars.
Monsters that had not been miniature like he had foolishly assumed but made to look tiny in comparison to the giant whose mind he had been sharing.
It was… larger than the usual fictional depiction of giants. Twelve or thirteen metres high, which was over five stories. On Earth that was unimaginable. Physics technically allowed it because the largest of the dinosaurs were taller, but they had long necks to give them that height. This creature didn’t, and it was four times the height of an elephant. That didn’t bother him. He was way past being cowered by stuff like that. He had fought larger monsters before. If he stood next to it, he would come up to just below its knees. It was a champion of its species like Tom, but it was far more powerful. Not only was it terrifyingly strong it had also possessed potent magic that was probably more devastating than anything he had available. Maybe meteorite could have done a similar amount of damage, but that spell was slow while the telekinesis spear had been nearly instant.
In his dreamscape he swallowed and before the confusing, befuddling natural dreams could take over fully Tom considered why he had received the vision. There had to be a purpose to this extra dream. Was it only to correct his assumption about size?
No, it wasn’t that.
There had to be a different reason. He already knew about the gut. So there was another clue, an action Tom had to take, but what was it. The soft beguiling clouds of dreams were tugging on his consciousness. He desperately clung to the memory of the dream. The events, the feelings and his promise to solve the issue.
Why? He asked himself
Normal, non-directable sleep claimed him.