CHAPTER 298 – WORKING OUT A NEW ZONE
Michael looked between both of them worry evident on his face. Everlyn was absolutely furious, while Tom was sure he just looked a little sick. The healer would have picked up on both of their expressions and his face reflected his concern. “Is it really that bad?”
It was a good question. It wasn’t that bad. The situation was salvageable, even if the quest requirements were well beyond their contingency planning.
“Worse than expected.” Everlyn told him. “Close to worst case to be honest.”
Michael’s nose wrinkled. “It’s only seventy stones.”
“Seventy?” Tom chuckled. “To get that number, we’re going to have to kill almost everything.”
“Everything… are you sure? They’re…” The healer hesitated. His emotions and thoughts racing across his face as they often did. “I thought we calculated that the stronger ones will be mostly semi sapient. It means…” his eyes shot to where the chosen waited.
“Most of our targets won’t be semi-sapient,” Everlyn answered absently, with the majority of her attention directed at the memory crystal that she now held in her hand. She had obviously gone past the shock into the planning and preparation stage. “Out of the bosses, it’s probably only the two higher-level ones where we have to worry about not getting support.”
“And some of the minor ones,” Tom clarified, remembering his own view of the map.
Everlyn glanced up and shook her head. “Maybe… we might be unlucky there, but hopefully not. We’ll see.”
Michael’s hands twisted together. “We have six and half days. Are you certain we have to clear the entire zone?”
“I counted the numbers,” Everlyn answered still focused on her crystal. “From Tom’s expression he must have as well. There are seventy-nine possible boss crystals and we need seventy of them.”
“Seventy,” the healer looked down at annoyance. “Means we need to burn down the whole zone.”
Everlyn smiled. “Nah just the bosses.”
Michael glowered at her. “That was self explanatory. And the harder fights, those against the stronger monsters we’ll have to do that by ourselves. We shouldn’t have got greedy. We should have gone down a layer immediately and used the extra time down there.”
She dropped the crystal to meet Michael’s gaze. “Don’t panic. I don’t think this is as dangerous as you believe.”
“The chosen won’t help against the big bosses.”
“I’m actually not too worried about those targets.” She admitted.
“Everlyn, even if we are fortunate these are rank twenty-two bosses. As is, we’re going to struggle.”
She waved the healer’s objection away. “No, they’ll be fine. I’ll scout them properly. With sufficient preparation strategy and pre-planning, we should be able to beat that level easy enough. We have experience to buy any specific items we need and if we can’t do it our current rank, then we rank up early. The boss fights will come toward the end and we’ll be able to deal with them. It’s more getting too and finishing the minor fights that worry me.”
“Ten major battles a day.” Tom mused. “If you think about it like that, it seems pretty simple.”
Everlyn arced an eyebrow at that. “Cart before the horse there. That many battles per day be trivial or challenging. It really depends on terrain and how fast we can travel between points.”
Logistics, Tom thought to himself. Yes, those could definitely complicate things. It was easy enough to imagine situations where the zone would force them to fight through a mass of lesser creatures to reach the major ones, even if the tile suggested otherwise.
They had already seen how misleading those could be.
“We need to plan this properly.” Everlyn declared. She shut her eyes for a moment and almost sagged in relief. “It’s okay. I think it’s going to be fine. The terrain outside is not as bad as it could be. Michael, Keikain I wouldn’t mind your advice for this.”
What followed was an annoying situation where Keikain and Michael continually popped into Everlyn’s system room in order to discuss strategy. The discussion between all three of them in real space was out in the open with the rest of the time being spent in one-on-one discussion within her system room. As a result, it was impossible to follow their strategy.
“We’re agreed then.” Keikain declared finally.
“For today’s sweep.” Everlyn clarified. “Tonight, we’ll adjust plans.”
The earth mage laughed. “Of course. But I’m telling you this is the best and after you see it working, then you’ll agree.”
Toni stood up from where they had all been playing a few quick rounds of poker. “What’s the plan, then?”
Tom looked at his eight and nine and tossed his own cards. Everyone else followed, leaving Thor on the big blind as the winner. The game was over.
The three strategists looked at each other, and it was Keikain who stepped forward. “We’re splitting up into two groups. Four chosen in one and the rest of us minus Everlyn in the other.”
“What’s she doing?” Toni asked immediately.
“Preparing for the harder fights.” Everlyn answered for herself. “While you guys kill some of the weaker threats. I’ll be confirming if specific strategies are needed against the stronger bosses.”
Keikain waited for Everlyn to finish before continuing. “The plan’s pretty simple. All of get together for the stronger bosses while we split up to eliminate the weaker ones. For today, our aim is to defeat twelve of the lesser bosses and two of the mid tier ones. Most of that will fall to the chosen. We have a route for them to follow to kill eight lesser bosses and also to be present when we engage in our fight with the mid tier boss.”
“The plan is looser than he’s implying,” Everlyn told them. “As always, we’re going to adapt as we progress. Rahmat.”
The spearman jerked in surprise and then got up and jogged over to Everlyn. They put their palms together while standing and then both of them lost animation. Then she repeated the routine with the second elder.
Tom stared at that in surprise. He hadn’t known that the chosen could be taken into the system room. It made the ability Everlyn possessed even more valuable and made him realise he should have bought his own version. Back then it had felt like a frivolous waste of credits, but seeing it in use he knew he had made a mistake.
The ability to communicate information with maps made from your imagination was invaluable.
With everything ready, they left the safe room entrance cave. Outside, it was both hotter and sunnier than he had expected. The sun smacked into him, just as bad, if not worse than the sun on a hot summer’s day on earth. He had a skill to protect him, but his hand still went up to shade his eyes and he squinted involuntarily. There were the familiar rock cliffs behind him, but in front of them leading into the zone proper he had about five kilometres of visibility before the very fine mist that was radiating off the ground reduced visibility to nothing. The landscape looked the same everywhere, a series of slightly rolling hills covered by plants. There were no rocks visible just the dense ground cover.
The air was humid as expected, but the sun was more of a surprise. He had thought he would be stepping out into a tropical jungle, and this was anything but that. Instead, there was dense vegetation that covered the ground. If it wasn’t for Earth Sense that could feel the packed rocky dirt half a metre below him, he might have thought that they were walking along the canopy of giant trees. It was a strange form for ground cover, which was nothing like grass. Rather, grass was replaced by an almost coral like bush each of which was the size of a washing basket, and they were densely packed together.
He tested his footing and found that, providing he put his foot down in the middle of each clump, then it was stable.
“I feel like every step something is going to spring up and swallow me.” Harry said as he took a cautious step forward.
“Harry,” Toni snapped, sounding horrifying. “Are you trying to jinx us.”
“No,” the ritualist replied while he wiped his sweaty brow. “No, nothing like that. It’s just.” he looked down and shivered. “This stuff it’s weird even for Existentia. It kind of wobbles like it’s alive when you step on and it’s easy enough to imagine…”
“Enough,” Rahmat laughed. “It’s not a disguised monster. My scout senses tell me it’s normal enough. It’s an innocent plant.”
“It just wants you to think that.”
“Rahmat’s right,” Everlyn chimed in sounding annoyed. “This stuff is natural and nondangerous, like a grass field back home. It might be alien to us, but I’m sure there are whole planets out there covered with these bushes and species from there get weirded out by our trees and grasses concept.”
They kept walking slowly and carefully as they adjusted to the terrain. After about ten metres, Everlyn waved, said a quick goodbye and then sprinted off, bounding away like she was on solid ground.
Rahmat paused and glanced back at them. ”You all saw Everlyn. Running on this stuff is easy enough. We’re going to have to do that too in order to reach the meeting spots on time.”
Then he took off. It was not lost on Tom how Rahmat switched to a rhythm where he led with his spear. The tip plunged a foot into the targeted bush before he followed with his foot. The scout made the motion look deceptively natural, and it was fast, stab, step, stab, step.
With a mock groan of protest, Tom broke out into a jog though he carefully followed in the scout’s footsteps. Placing his own foot down on the boot imprints that had not faded or been reabsorbed in the handful of seconds that had passed since the scout started running. With every step, his foot squelched in and sunk a handful of centimetres deep into the plant matter. Water frothed up and over his boot seams. It was unpleasant, but he would always take safety over comfort. Rahmat had already tested these plants and there was no way he would take a risk by forging his own way when a safe path was already discovered.
Squelsh.
It was repulsive.
Squelsh.
It was like he was running on top of a marsh land rather than along thick solid plants. But his boots were already filled with water, so splashing into the unpleasant pool no longer mattered.
The target Rahmat was running toward was obvious. There was one of the expected dam sized ponds of water and a small fake village built against it which was filled with a clan of sleepy kobold like creatures. Tom mentally recalled the tile layout and looked around more curiously. Now that he was searching for the feature, he could pick out extra examples of the watering holes right at the edge of his vision. The closest was probably four kilometres away, but distances here were deceptive.
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Rahmat came to a halt when they were about half a kilometre from their target. “These guys should be easy. We’ll approach to two hundred metres and then unleash a meteorite bombardment.” He glanced at Tom. “Is that the best range?”
“Umm, peak power is between two fifty and three.” He studied the positioning of the mock village. It was at the bottom of a hill, but there wasn’t much slope to work with. “Maximising elevation will also help.”
Rahmat reassessed and pointed at a nearby rise. “We’ll unleash you from there and then clean up any who survive.”
The scout took off again this time moving noticeably slower, and he led them down into one of the dips in the landscape rather than sticking to the higher ridges like he had on the way here. It was a basic stealth technique to reduce the sight lines and use natural obstacles as effective sight barriers. Ultimately, they were relying on their limited personal skills and the kobolds’ bad perception to remain hidden, but every little bit helped.
They reached the crest of the hill. Tom snuck forward in a crouched position. He no longer targeted the centre but instead went to the side. His legs sunk between the plants, never all the way to the ground but occasionally up to his knees and elbows. As a result, his belly was almost pressed against the vegetation.
Once in position, he rose himself slowly to his full height and then focused on the bombardment he wanted to create. All five of the missiles orbiting him went high to improve their trajectories and then took off in a straight line down toward the hamlet. They whizzed away, growing larger and hotter as they travelled.
A pair of kobolds, standing guard at the edge of the village immediately started hollering agitatedly in an attempt to warn their companions. The sleepy group in the centre began to stir. Two of them stood, almost like they were sleepwalking. One of the larger monsters who had only sat up rubbed its eyes and looked out toward where he was visible on the ridge, silhouetted against the blue sky. It was probably too far, but Tom was sure he saw its pupils widen in alarm when it picked out the missiles shooting at it.
Boom! Crash! Bang.
The five meteorites slammed home.
While he had attempted to get up high, they were only shot at a ten degree angle to the ground. Three struck and bounced like skipping stones off the surface of a lake, but the other two dug into the rocky earth their momentum arrested and all the kinetic energy was unleashed around them.
One stone slammed into a nearby hill, another landed in the water and released a cloud of steam. Chunks of vegetation went flying as a path three metres wide was dug out by the third rock.
Internally, where the boulders had landed, the devastation was worse. Shrapnel was sent flying from the two meteorites that had exploded. Shards of rock ripped an arm off a kobold. Another, one that hadn’t even risen from its sleeping spot had its head caved in. The destruction surrounding the impact site was absolute. None of those dangerous central kobolds survived. Some on the edges of the mock village were sent tumbling away, injured but hurt.
Rahmat nodded. “Lets finish them.”
He jogged forward with grim determination. Over a dozen had survived, but none from the epicentre where the more powerful of the monsters had been gathered.
The humans in disciplined ranks moved forward to engage. They killed the survivors most of whom were injured and disorientated without using magic. The moment the last was killed their bodies disappeared into smoke and a loot portal appeared.
Thor bent down. “One boss stone. Sixty-nine to go.”
Rahmat glanced around and then changed direction slightly. “We’re not finished.” Once more, he took off at a run.
The travel required concentration on where to place their feet, but they were making good time.
Tom’s Earth Sense went haywire, screaming about unexpected movement and monsters. “Incoming,” he yelled. Everyone around him reacted, and then the surrounding vegetation erupted.
Chaos bolts flew and a disintegration bolt slammed into a rat like creature that was sprinting at Rahmat’s feet. Tom’s instinct took over with the information from Earth Sense telling him where the enemies were. He rotated his spear and struck downward. Power Strike glowed around the tip and the monster that slipped up between two of the plants was skewered.
Another thought and his Spark exploded over the ground between him and the others. Six of the monsters spasmed as the electricity locked up their muscles. A lightning spear appeared and hurtled forward to kill a creature that was leaping for Rahmat’s back.
Behind him, Harry went down as the plant next to him lunged out to consume him. It wrapped him up in moments. Tom started to react but Keikain beat him. The earth under the spot the bound ritualist had landed was flexing and growing spikes to tear apart the cocoon that surrounded him.
Time for Tom slowed abruptly.
His alarms went off.
One of the three rat sized creatures that was leaping at his exposed back had transformed. A spectral pattern of an axe head surrounded it to create a thin, sharp, dangerous edge. His different senses were combining together to map the threat, and he got an impression of power similar to his own Power Strike and Enlarge that had turned the monster’s body into a deadly weapon that could cut through even his living rock.
Black Dodge was buying him time and producing damage readouts that would occur for different options. Despite the circumstances of the ambush, a thrill of glee went through him. This was an opportunity to embed his new skill into his actions. Channelled Mirror Reflect crackled into position where the monster was going to strike. His skills supplied an immense amount of detail about the direction, orientation and nature of the assault. It was more than enough to get a good modifier.
Options to evade the attack finished updating.
He teleported.
The kamikaze creature was flying through the now empty air.
Clink.
It was the sound of a mirror cracking.
The monster fell into two parts as approximately thirty percent of its attack was channelled back onto it. With its apparent crappy vitality, that was more than enough to kill it.
He spun on the spot and spotted an opportunity. His foot lashed out to strike one of the rats running past. He felt its bones crack as his heavy foot thumped it.
A three metre wide area of vegetation to his left exploded like fireworks had gone off amongst the plants as a chaos bolt produced one of its more impressive outcomes. The flames spread so fast that eight of the creatures that had been in the area were unable to flee.
They died.
Tom planted both his feet as he assessed the state of the fight.
Two seconds had passed, and the battle was effectively over the danger averted. His closest opponents were the monsters he had stunned. He spear killed one while Thor’s hammer mulched another.
Nothing was attacking anymore, the surviving rodents were fleeing having discovered they were over matched.
Time had returned to normal speed.
Five seconds had elapsed.
Keikain’s spell peeled the vegetation away from Harry’s body and apart from being angry he appeared unaffected.
Tom stabbed another of the stunned creatures. They were small and once would have been weird to look at. Like many things in Existentia, they did not possess a separate head as occurred with the standard earth body plan. Instead, they had a mouth near the belly and four eyes on the top of tiny tentacles that emerged from the centre of their back. The same functionality of the human head was present but spread. Eyes separate from mouth which were away from nose and ears. The brain would be in the central cavity along with all the other critical organs.
They were repulsive.
Thor’s hammer slammed down once more and then Tom finished off the last of the ones he had stunned.
There were no other enemies around them. They stood there a patch of ground still burning and all of them weapons out ready to kill anything that threatened them.
Nothing volunteered.
Rahmat poked around curiously and used two spears to open gaps to look at the earth under the plants. “Bad news, unfortunately. That was a targeted ambush.” He lifted up one of the creatures that had been impaled by his spear and studied it. “Low rank for the layer, but clearly smart.” He frowned and then looked around him. The environment, excluding the damage they had done appeared no different from anywhere else. There were no tell-tale signs that could indicate the presence of the ambush spot. “I don’t think this spot was special. I reckon they can attack anywhere, so we’re going to have to travel slower, so we’re not surprised again.”
Tom wanted to object on principal after all they had killed them quickly. His throat choked the words away, and it took a moment to identify why… he had been leaping to conclusions without thinking. It would have made him look stupid and lowered their opinion of him. It was easy to dismiss the monsters because they had defeated them so easily, but that could have been luck. If the one that had manifested that spectral axe attack had targeted someone else, they might be having a completely different conversation now. “Probably for the best.” He agreed.
The scout finished his exploration of the area and he started running once more. Tom looked for it but couldn’t see any reduction in Rahmat’s speed, but he was sure he had adjusted.
The next lesser boss was a collection of head sized birds. Rahmat stopped and studied them for a moment. “They’ll dodge your meteorites and as far as I can see they didn’t have the capacity to hurt you badly.”
“You mean, I’m immune?”
The scout looked at him flatly. “They’re rank twenty. No one will suggest you’re immune. But they don’t have anything that will tear you apart in a single blow.”
“Blessed of Sanatories, I will ensure you’re protected.”
“Elder, the best use for your power,” Rahmat interjected. “Will be to burn the monsters down as fast as possible.”
Tom grimaced, understanding what this fight was going to look like. He was basically going to be swamped and have to heal through the damage.
“Rahmat,” Tom interrupted. “Stop talking crap.”
“What? You know it’s true… against these the chosen’s power will be best used offensively.”
“I don’t like being the group’s punching bag.”
The scout smirked. “Then you shouldn’t have got so many tanking skills.”
“I became a dodge tank and I can’t dodge that.” Tom pointed down at the thousand birds that rested around the pond.
“No, you just need to weather the assault.” Rahmat’s face softened. “I’m sorry Tom your role will be to keep their attention long enough for the rest of us to burn them down.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“If I had the skills, I’d volunteer for the role…”
“Don’t give me that,” Tom growled.
“What it’s true.”
“It isn’t.” Tom hesitated. Rahmat was pretty honest in how he approached things. “Maybe you would, but you deliberately didn’t pick any relevant skills, so you would never be in this situation.”
“Well, I’m not an idiot. And you’re not either Tom,” he slapped him on the back. “It’s not like you bought stuff in the contribution store to shape your build in this direction. You got lucky advances that have pigeon holed you into this role. Otherwise, it would probably be me acting as the tank.”
“I know… you want me to run in there and spark lots to get their attention.”
“Exactly. Not sure your lightning Enrage will be needed, but a couple of blasts might be useful to encourage them to collapse in on you so our spells can do more damage.”
Tom took a deep breath to steady his nerves and sprinted forward. The others were following ten metres behind, but to the birds he was running at they might not have existed. Every head with their four beady eyes focused on him and him exclusively.
While they were staring at him, they were slow to respond and he was at the edge of the flock before the first of them launched itself upward. Then he was amongst them and his visibility in moments went to zero. They were all in the air and everyone of them rushing at him while squawking in indignation. There were thudding noises as the rocks spinning around him landed hits on the creatures. Tom kept running with a focus on the plan. He wanted to reach the lake sure if he could.
Another step.
Time had slowed to a crawl, and he launched himself sideways. It was not much of a dodge and it did nothing given the density of the monsters attacking him but dozens of creatures missed and fate spun up as a result. He dodged some successfully even if the manoeuvre left him exposed to just as many in his new location. His entire upper body was encased in living rock. The group was so dense that hundreds of claws scratched him but his healing was able to outpace the damage. He ran deeper into them and released Lightning Enrage. He wasn’t sure how many were focused on him versus the other’s because white bodies were everywhere. Initially, they had all come to kill him, but the ones on the edge might have peeled off to kill the others. He felt a shift in his mind as a meteorite dropped to the ground its energy depleted. Another went by swollen to four times its nearest size by the birds it had hit and then had stuck to it. While they were in orbital mode around him, they did not radiate any heat, so there was no burning or charring happening, just blunt force trauma.
There were flashes of light in his peripheral vision, and then abruptly the surrounding numbers thinned out. Vicious wind whipped around him and while the currents didn’t strike him they tore monsters from the air and threw them to the ground. An arrow shot past him. It doubled, one, twice three times, then four and five. A cloud of dozens of projectiles which removed a swath of monsters.
His mana had mostly been expended in healing himself, but as he spun, he realised that mana expenditure didn’t matter. The situation had changed. He was now successfully avoiding the birds. His spear cut off a wing and then the butt of his weapon brained another monster near his knee.
The air crackled as Toni’s spells shot through it and cut more from the air. His golem was spinning around like a rotating cage of blades. The birds were flying into it and getting shredded on an industrial scale.
In what felt like moments, the sky and space went from being filled with birds to half empty to a couple of stragglers to nothing.
They were all dead. There was nothing flying anymore.
The area for forty metres in every direction was blanketed with feathers.
He was barely breathing heavily. A hundred metres away Everlyn stood on the top of the hill her bow drawn but no longer firing.
The surrounding feathers were shifting and settling, then Toni sent another spells flashing through the air and this one dug through the carpet of feathers. There were brief cries of pain from down below. Not all the downed birds were dead, Tom realised.
He hated this sort of cleanup, but he lifted up his spear and prepared to finish the job.
“Let the others get the experience.” Everlyn ordered over party chat.
That was an instruction he was more than happy to be guided by. He dropped his spear to the side and waited while she bounced along the vegetation toward them. She likewise did not join in on the cleanup.
After about five minutes, they must have killed the last of the surviving flock, because the feathers disappeared and a portal appeared.
“How did the trip go?” Everlyn asked Rahmat.
“It was clean, apart from a single ambush.”
“Yeah, I ran into one of those as well. They’re annoying,” she agreed. “We might need to change things up to avoid them.”