CHAPTER 265 – DREAM SCOUTING
Tom’s breaths came in great big gasps. The implications of what he had witnessed, not that they were being hunted. The person… Jingyi.
It made no sense. The outcome, according to the dream was obvious. If it was a True…
He stopped that thought dead. It had been a True Dream. The memory of that malice. The joy the insect had experienced on seeing the human was fresh within Tom’s mind. It was not something his imagination could have conjured up.
The experience was too real and now that he was awake, there was no fogginess associated with the dream. It was crystal clear and his instincts told him that it was real. But Jingyi? that was the bit that made no sense. He had chosen to wait out the fight… Why was he in the trial? He was supposed to be safe, back in the isolated pocket of the underground.
“What is it? Tom?” Keikain who had been on watch questioned urgently. “Are we in danger?”
Everyone he realised was awake. They were all sitting or leaping up from their bedrolls. He had probably made some sound when waking up, or his sudden movement might have triggered their respective danger senses. They were up. Weapons at ready. “Jingyi?” he asked hesitantly.
“Yes, he entered the trial.” Keikain said, a puzzled and suspicious look on his face. “He sent us a note. Did you get a vision of him?”
“Here.” Thor produced said parchment and then commenced reading it. “I’m entering trial. Something is burrowing into the wall and getting closer. Given the rank of the underground I can’t stay here. Please recommend the best actions.”
It was an awful conformation of what he had seen in his dream. To escape one death, the scout had walked into another. They were all staring at him as his mind tried to unpack the pertinent details of the vision. “What did you tell him?” he asked to buy time.
“We said he wouldn’t be able to link with us, but should be able to catch Vidja,” Thor answered. “We gave him directions.”
“You’re worried about zones resetting behind us.” Tom said, his mind not really listening to the response. The memory of the bubbling joy that had filled the insect when it had spotted the running oblivious Jingyi consumed his thoughts.
“That was our fear.” Thor agreed. “We know the goblin and sprite didn’t reset and Vidja’s team has faced similar types of challenges. So a passage to her zone should be available and if it’s not, she’ll be able to collect him easier. Why? Did we give him the wrong instructions.”
“No.” Tom exclaimed and hit the ground angrily. “But it explains why he was heading into the sprite zone.”
“Tom,” Thor said. “What’s happened to Jingyi?”
Tom met each of their gazes. He knew they could see the water in his eyes. When he had everyone’s full attention, he sucked in his breath. “He’s dead.” Tom declared.
“What?” Thor stammered. “He’s a scout. The left over sprites shouldn’t have posed a threat to him. Even if goblins had taken over everything… He should still have been able to avoid them as easily as the sprites.”
“It wasn’t them.”
“Then what Tom?” Michael asked his face grim. He had clearly put the contextual clues together.
“The insects.”
“Are you certain his dead. Can we warn him?” Michael said urgently.
Tom shook his head. “They had spotted him already. They were going into the kill. Even if my dream was real time, he’d be dead by now. Killed while we talked.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m fucking sure.” He snapped at the healer. “I live their thoughts. I can guarantee that insect had both the strength and the intent to finish him.”
“Wait,” Michael said urgently. “Tom. Are you telling me that the insect champion is in the goblin and Sprite zone?”
He nodded. “They are.” How they got there he didn’t know, but he knew where they were and given Jingyi’s note came after he had gone to sleep, that dream had probably been occurring in effectively real time.
“No way. That’s terrible.” Everlyn declared. She was instantly in frantic motion as she pulled out a large map they’ve been using to trace everyone’s progress. Her face was wrought with worry. “If they are in the goblin and sprite zone.” She froze for a moment and bit her lip. “They’re too close and there’s to long. There are still days until this layer collapses. We’re all exposed.”
“What are the intentions? Tom.” Michael said intensely. “Which zones are they going after next? Are they hunting us?”
“Of course they’re hunting us. At least they’re hunting humans. You weren’t there. It was so excited to see a potential victim.
“Fuck.” Everlyn repeated. “Where did they come from?” Her hands were studying the zones.
“Better still how do these zones work?” Keikain asked from where he remained on watch. “We’ve speculated about it. But this makes the precise rules sort of important.”
Everyone was up and active
Harry stood and moved closer to study the rough map they had put together. “Do the zones reset when we leave them? Or once the quest is completed do they remain open for anyone or anything to pass through?”
“We know the goblin and sprite one didn’t.” Michael said. “And from a quest perspective, at least the puzzle did. Contact Selena.” he snapped, coming to a decision. “We need to know if they had access to other zones from the puzzles or just an exit back to goblin and sprites.”
There was a crackle energy in front of Thor. “I’ve sent a warning to Jingyi. I’ll check with Selena.”
“Too late for Jingyi,” Tom told him morosely. “Far too late.”
“Tom, you need to get back and get more information. Their intentions, their route, what they plan on doing next. Hopefully, the puzzle room protects us. If not, we might have to reconsider trying to save the healers.”
“I’ve sent Selena an urgent note,” Thor said suddenly, “and warned them to be on high alert.” He was working on another piece of paper, scribbling furiously. Presumably, this one was for Vidja.
“Tom, you have to go back to sleep,” Michael told him insistently. “Get us more data. Clare can knock you out if that’s necessary.”
He ignored the offer and laid back down. He had the skills to force himself to sleep, but before activating them he focused on what Michael had suggested. The exact information he needed to guide his next steps. Tom knew his shock had broken the dream too early last time. Maybe it had been due to finish, but his gut was telling him otherwise.
It had been a mistake to allow his emotions to influence his state of wakefulness. The smart play would have been to let the dream run to its conclusion. As a result, he might have to burn an extra charge of his force dreaming capacity but Michael was right, he had to get more information and given the threat to them and others he was on a timer. There was no way that vision had been just to inform him of Jingyi’s death. That was not something that he could act on, and the dreams were never passive.
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With what he needed clear in his mind, he forced himself to fall asleep and plunged straight back into the vision.
The fresh blood from the strange creature he had killed tasted exquisite. The coppery freshness made him mentally send his hive scrambling away from his kill.
It was all for him.
And there would be no sharing.
The flavour made up for the rest of it.
The fight had been a non-event.
Then the thing, one of the competitor species had died far too quickly. They were weak, which made it wonder how it was even part of this competition. Had a GOD shown their abdomens before even starting? All it had taken was for a leg to be pulled off… A lot of random squealing. Then it had perished shortly after.
It had only been a single leg, for goodness’ sakes.
A very, very disappointing outcome.
It was as weak as a Raot… Through when he thought about it the strange creature might have been evolved from the pest. From the taste, they had similar biology.
The insect grabbed an arm.
Lifted it to its mouth.
Sucked on the torn end.
Superb, slightly warm liquid rushed into its mouth.
It tasted wonderful.
Tom almost woke up vomiting, but he forced himself to endure and not accidentally break the dream like last time. There was still more to learn he was sure of it.
The insect remained in a state of bliss, slurping on the stump for ten horrific seconds before it tossed the drained arm to the others. Why eat meat when you can have fresh blood? It thought to itself happily.
This thing had been too weak, which meant there was guaranteed to be more. It was not strong enough to be here by itself. It was like a raot. Lots must have been placed here, and then, like the cowardly scavengers they were they would have promptly scattered in all directions. There was no more in this zone, but it was sure it would find more elsewhere. If only there was more time, it would have been a fun chase. As it was, its pleasure was going to be cut off. They had less than a day to locate and eat the rest. After that time it would seek to drop down a layer. The instructions it operated under were strict and it would not risk entering an unknown zone with less than three days remaining because of the danger of them being unable to solve the quest in time. There was no way it would allow itself to be destroyed by a collapsing layer.
As for hunting in the next layer… that unfortunately was not an option it had available.
After the sixteen days were up, its GOD had ordered it to head into the inner ring. The promised ally would be there and they would join. While she would be able to kill everything out there in a one versus one battle, the raots and creatures like them were a problem. They would swarm towards the exit and a single being could not kill all of them before some escaped. That is where its hive came in. Even if there were a hundred of raots attempting to escape, its hive would be more than capable of dealing with them.
But there would be less later if he could kill more now.
The insect, now it had a target, considered its progress so far and how it should hunt down the remaining enemies. Another day, that was all that it had available.
The last twelve days had been up to now an unfulfilling mad rush that he had thought would end in failure. But with the taste of the sapient on its tongue it had been worth the risk.
The insect, while thinking about its progress created a flood of images from Tom’s perspective. They were overwhelming in their quantity, and Tom desperately tried to extract the critical information from them.
The champion had travelled through ten zones in those twelve days. The longest had two days while the shortest, a quest to kill a thousand monkey like creatures had only taken two hours. Their speed had depended on the type of challenges they had faced. Straight murder was easy, but the more involved the puzzle aspect had become the more they had struggled.
Mentally, Tom catalogued the brief impression of the challenge each zone represented and whenever there was an appropriate memory the primary monster they had contained. He crossed checked what he knew from the tiles and constructed a map detailing their journey. They had started twenty-three tiles away from them, which made it clear the starting points were not spread evenly. The healers had been fourteen zones from them and an even distribution of competitor races would have everyone starting eighteen or nineteen tiles apart.
Satisfied that he had memorised the key information from that explosion of memories, he focused back on the insects’ thoughts. It was concerned about the most efficient next steps.
It was puzzling things out. The zone had been completed when it had entered. There had been no quest activated. What else did it know? There were the signs of battle that it had noted, not in the previous zone, but the one before. For that zone, the quest had to be fulfilled. That probably meant the raots had reached there and been defeated. Through how that could happen against such weak monsters was a mystery.
It grabbed the next chunk of flesh.
This time it was a leg. It started sucking on the end and was disappointed with the amount of blood contained in it.
The taste was still amazing but… not enough of it.
It threw the leg away to be eaten by the hive later. The rest of them were now off gathering information. He was a fighter and a leader, not a tracker, and it would eat while they found out what was happening. They would examine the zone doors and find out if there were traces of Roat going through them. If so, they would follow and if possible, come back and report what happened on the other side.
There was a risk if the raots had not completed the zone that they would be trapped, but it didn’t care. While it would be disappointing if he lost more than one or two ultimately they were disposable and it was never planned that they would leave the trial.
That was a reward just for it.
The dream faded, and Tom forced himself into wakefulness immediately.
It was the middle of the night, but everyone was still up. The only change between before and now is that someone had built up the fire and four people were on guard instead of one. The instant he stirred, all of Everlyn, Keikain, Thor and Michael were focused on him.
“What did you find, Tom?” Michael asked immediately.
Tom remembered the taste of the blood. It had been so exquisite. He wanted to experience that ecstasy again. Get back into the insect when it was savouring another kill. Would they all taste the same? It didn’t matter it would be wonderful. Conscious thoughts caught up with the ghosts of the insect’s opinions and their interaction with his biological pleasure reward centres.
The aroma of coppery goodness lingered in his mouth. The implications of the memories hit him. It was disgusting. His gut seethed and he spat to push out the taste. It was still there along with the memory of joy. His nausea got worse… it was abhorrent. He leant forward and vomited.
“Jingyi’s dead then,” Everlyn concluded. “Did you get any actionable stuff?”
Tom wiped his mouth took a sip of water and spat it out. The bitter residual of the vomit was disgusting, but at least it had expunged the ghost taste of copper. “Yes. I did” He went over the map that had been had laid out.
“Selena got back to us. She said the other doors in the puzzle zone were closed to her. Both her and Vidja are very concerned.” Thor volunteered.
Tom listened and then nodded. “The puzzle zone is locked. That means at the very least we’re safe. The others.” He could remember the determination and the desire of the insect. It was going to go after them. “As for Vidja and Selena … I…” The one thing his journey so far had taught him is that in many strategic areas the rest of the team were better than him. He needed their help to make the correct decision. “Let me share what I know.”
Quietly, he began to trace out the route the insects had taken. “It’s going to hunt the other groups.” Tom told them, grimly. “That’s guaranteed. The question we need to answer is which one and how successful it will be.” The path the terror race had carved, unsurprisingly had crossed a zone Vidja’s group had completed. Tom had known it would cross one of their paths. He just hadn’t known which team. He put his finger down on the zone that both groups had been through. “The quest in this zone had reset, and the insects had to re-complete it. They also noted the signs of Vidja’s group’s battles.”
“Was the quest the same or diminished? How many did they have to kill?”
Tom hesitated and consulted his memory. “I don’t know,” he admitted after a moment. “I didn’t get that information. What we do know is that the zone that reset is a kill quest. We have confirmed puzzles and ‘choose a victor’ zones don’t reset but none of us have data on gathering or mixed objective quests.”
They studied the map in question. Everlyn tapped her finger on it. “Selena is probably safe, as they’ll have to fight through two zones to reach her.”
“But under the same reasoning, Vidja is not.” Keikain said grimly. “The only resetting zone is one that they’ve already cleared. And the other two are ‘Choose a victor zones’ which we know remain passable to all after being cleared”
Michael’s brows furrowed. “We have to find a way to buy her a day.”
“If we’re lucky, the insects won’t follow her.” Everlyn looked hopefully at Tom.
He shook his head. He still remembered the joy their champion had got sucking the blood. That creature would pursue its victims as long as possible. “No. They’ll chase her,” Tom told them all, definitely. “They’re going to find tracks departing at four different doors. The puzzle room is closed. The scout that goes after Selena won’t be able to return to report because the zone would have reset, same as the one that follows Phil. In Vidja’s direction, there will be a path to follow and the scout will come back with that knowledge.”
“Unless they do the auction house trick,” Everlyn suggested hopefully. “Then they might chase Selena instead of Vidja.”
Tom focused on his memories from all the interactions with the insect champion. “I didn’t get the feeling that was possible. Either it hasn’t thought about it or they don’t have access to an auction house in the same fashion we do. The question is what can we do to help save Vidja.”
“She has a head start,” Michael said thoughtfully. “Four zones. Maybe they won’t reach her in time.
Tom shook his head. “No, they’re too fast. They’re going to catch her.”