CHAPTER 311 – A BROKEN PARTY

Vidja’s group was close. They only had to exit the main tunnel and then, with an hour they would find them.

“We have to hurry,” Thor insisted, balling up and crushing another of the notes he had received. “They’re dying.”

No one responded. There was no need. Everlyn who was leading them was already running down the wide open passage toward the exit. Surprisingly, only two more monsters had to be put down before they exited the dangerous stretch into the normal cave system. The tunnel they were in was only fifty percent smaller than the primary thoroughfare they had left, but the number of enemies dropped significantly.

Within fifty metres, Everlyn realised that and picked up her pace. They could afford to go faster now. After hours of fighting a much higher density of enemies, an occasional ambush where they got hit by two at once did not bother them let alone threaten them. Especially with how predictable they were now. All of them, humans and chosen alike, knew what spaces to block off to force the first teleport of the enemy to be a fatal one. Either into the kill zone of a chosen or his lesser light elementals would take it out.

Dodge, the first strike and not need to worry about them afterward was a pretty straightforward task for warriors of their calibre.

Ahead of them, Everlyn slowed suddenly. Her head whipped around, searching for something, and then stilled as she pointed at a hole in the tunnel wall. It was barely large enough for a chosen to slip through and was two and a half metres from the floor. Her face went partially inanimate for a moment, and then she frowned and shook her head. “Not this one.”

They kept going.

When they weren’t being attacked, they were sprinting now rather than jogging.

Once more, she pulled herself to a halt. They were at the intersection of multiple tunnels. Everlyn frowned, looking up at the ceiling at what might have been a cave or just an indent. “Empty!” Then she took a hard left and charged forward as quick as she could. They flashed down another tunnel. Then up a steep incline.

Clare stopped abruptly. “We’re in the right spot. Look.” Her foot prodded the familiar carcass of a shadow on the ground.

“Don’t slow down.” Everly yelled back at them. “We have to hurry.” She sounded stressed. Then she did a little squeal and acrobatically ran up a wall to avoid a shadow that pounced on her.

Fire and ice energies tore it to bits, but she was already well clear of it, continuing to sprint down the corridor. Nothing attacked them and Tom saw more and more of the depleted pathetic corpses as he sprinted.

There were also no more attacks. It was clear the monsters had been cleared from the area they were currently in by someone or thing else.

Abruptly Everlyn did another tight turn and almost threw herself down a five metre drop. The rest of them followed without hesitation.

The moment he dropped he knew he was not in a normal cave. Not only had the entry been tighter than usual the walls were smoother than the passages they had been going through. This had to be where Vidja’s group was, and then he spotted the cheap, crude, static wards that blocked them from progressing further.

It confirmed that they were in the right spot.

“Open up.” Everlyn yelled.

There was a pause while they waited for a reaction.

“We don’t have time for this.” She raised her bow a strange translucent yellow arrow glowing on the string. It was not one he had seen before and he guessed it had properties to break wards. She aimed at the centre of the magic barrier that was barring her way. “Last chance. Three, two…”

The ward vanished, and they could immediately see the corridor beyond that point.

Vidja was waiting for them. She looked rough with torn and dirty armour and nothing like the polished, deadly warrior she had been when they had stood across from each other in the first zone. Her entire left arm from the elbow down was missing. Tear streaks ran down dusty cheeks and she swayed on the spot as if she was about to collapse.

Instinctively, he examined the other invisible bits of her. He assessed the only thing that mattered, her strength. She was rank twenty-two, which was over twenty percent stronger than his team. If she wasn’t injured, she would likely have been capable of beating any of them, but given her state… her current lack of fate and her low mana pool, left her exposed. Tom would have backed any of his team to beat her in a one versus one battle. Why was she standing there alone?

Then it clicked. The wards they had been using to protect themselves were worse than he had realised. They hadn’t even been self sustaining, and she had probably been holding the position for days charging them, which was why her mana levels were so low.

Vidja swayed slightly and then pointed. “Please. Help them. Save them.”

Michael reacted immediately and he sprinted down the corridor with Clare and the larger chosen, following on his heels.

A middle went up to Vidja. “Can I heal you?”

Vidja rotated to pull the damaged limb away. There was an ugly scowl on her face. “No, not me. I’ll be fine. If you have any healing capacity, please save Bao.”

The middle did not back down. “They’re being looked after. The largest told me to heal you. Please let me.”

“Accept the help,” Tom ordered her grimly, and he felt his throat seize up as his blessing or curse or however you wanted to describe it activated. He rapidly rearranged what he was going to say. “The five who have already gone, gives them the best chance of survival. Another helping hand will only get in the way. This middle won’t be able to help save your friends. For now, getting you fighting fit faster is the best use of its time.””

Without being asked, Harry, Toni, Keikain, Rahmat, and the remaining chosen had deployed as a defensive line. Harry was already placing down a ritual to supplement their offensive capabilities.

Tom considered throwing down a lightning ward and then decided his magic might be needed elsewhere.

With a thought, the crowd of lesser elementals and his golem took up defensive positions in front of all of them right at the entrance.

That done, he ran down the corridor following the others. While he doubted he would be able to help, considering they had brought five healers better than him he wanted to see what was happening.

Vidja was jogging with him. The middle followed closely behind. It was attached to her by a leash of light that had settled on her arm. “Thank you for coming. You’re probably too late, but ……” Her voice trailed off with her unable to continue.

“We came as fast as we could.”

“I know…” She was crying. “Do you think they can save Bao?”

Tom looked at her sharply.

“What about Olive?”

She sniffled in response and Tom realised the truth.

They were too late.

Part of him wanted to lash out at Keikain for arguing for them to go slower. That had caused a delay and so Olive dying was his fault. If the earth mage had been present, if he had been standing right in front of him, Tom doubted he could have stopped himself, but luckily, that wasn’t the case. Screaming at him as annoying as he was, wouldn’t be right, anyway. The rush of fury faded. If they had rushed more, then potentially they would have all died. The earth mage’s cowardice may have saved all of them. Tom tried to imagine what nine shadows attacking at once might have looked like, which, if they hadn’t taken precautions, that’s the sort of force they would have faced.

Vidja sniffled next to him.

“There’s still hope if anyone can save Bao, it’s Michael, and the chosen.”

““They probably won’t be enough. Soetanto is the best healer I’ve ever seen, and she could only slow it.”

“Michael has specialised tools. We were rushing to get here and took thirty or forty hits on the way.”

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Vidja flinched. It was the look of a girl who understood how deadly even a glancing blow from a shadow could be.

“It was fine, obviously. We’re all still here and uninjured. Basically Michael has the power to directly destroy the curse and I can cut it out, well… that’s a bit misleading and oversells what I can do. I can only help if I get to the wound before its spreads…So I can’t help Bao right now, but going forward its different…” he stopped talking when he noticed Vidja’s expression.

“Cut the infection out? We can to see.” She waved at her stump.

Tom couldn’t help himself. “Why are you still missing that?”

She looked scandalised. “All the healing has gone to those that needed it.”

He smacked himself on the forehead. “Of course. Sorry not thinking.”

The tunnel turned, and ahead of them he could see the camp they had set up. Off to the side were two black withered mummified corpses and Michael and the chosen were gathered around a girl who, while still living, appeared almost as bad. Ethnically, her features were Chinese, but her skin was as black as the darkest African he had ever seen.

Tom went to step forward to help, but knew it was pointless. If it had spread that far, his powers would be ineffective. The three chosen had energy funnelling into her. Michael was crouched down destroying the infection and Clare and an islander woman were launching targeted heals on her vital organs, brain, lungs and heart. From the expressions, there efforts were not guaranteed to end in success. “Evie. Get Harry here.”

There was a slight pause as Everlyn whispered something over her party chat. “He’s on his way.”

Tom let his eyes wash over the scene. Vidja her arm regrowing was hovering near the dying Tian Bao, then there were the two corpses on the side and the other four members of Vidja’s team on the far wall.

A giant youth who was slumped over in a state of exhaustion with a blanket draped over his shoulders. He gave the aura of a barbarian because of his muscles and the massive axe next to him. Then there was a short guy who was somehow asleep and an African female who, for a moment he thought they were infected like Tian Bao, but it was only their natural skin colour. She was missing most of a leg and finally the fourth was another teenager who looked only fifteen. Sandy brown hair with hands adorned by numerous rings. He was favouring one side and there was an ugly hole just under the ribs.

Tom froze.

The small patches of skin around the wound that he could see were a familiar black.

“You’re all so battered.” He muttered to himself, but in sudden silence the whisper carried.

The giant opened one eye and shifted to reveal the stump at his shoulder. “We know. For our builds, this was a horrific match up. We stuffed up. We were experienced capped and had nothing to stop the curse.” He touched the smooth skin on the stump of his arm. “Apart from amputating. At least this is temporary. When Soe has time she’ll fix us right up. For those who got hit on the Torso,” the big man shook his head. “Only Gerald could slow it.”

“Why?”

“His traits were are all focused on body strength.”

Tom raised an eyebrow at that. The weakest looking person there had specialised in body traits. It didn’t make any sense to him.

Gerald’s eyes opened as he broke his meditative state. He threw the big man an annoyed glare. “All my traits? What drugs are you on Usko. I have one trait. Only one and it’s not body specialisation.”

“But it is a body trait.”

“Technically yes, but practically,” he looked Tom straight in the eyes. “Don’t believe a word of crap this bozo spins. The traits Directed Resilience. I’m a mage build and I mainly got it to lower my need to sleep. An extra four hours of practice a day adds up over the years and in addition to reducing nap time it has some useful utility aspects to keep me alive when I’m injured. That’s what’s helped here. But,” he massaged the brows of his eyes. “But it’s not strong enough. I’m losing.”

“That wounds from a shadow?”

“It is,” Usko confirmed. “If you believe it, he got wounded before all of us.”

“I can help.” Tom strode forward and sat down next to Gerald and placed a hand on the teenager’s wrist. It was thin and stick like. “You’re so young.”

“My body is… me not so much…” the kid looked sad. “I know. I had only just turned fifteen when it happened. After twenty years in the tutorial coming back to this.”

“Oh… I’m sorry. That must have been.” Tom remembered some of his own experience. If he had a choice he would have come back with a body five years olders, he could easily imagine how horrible it would be to be forced back to a fifteen year old body instead of a twenty year old.

“I was fine. I’m as strong as everyone else. After a few levels, your starting body doesn’t matter.”

The big guy laughed. “Don’t listen to him. He’s as weak as anything.”

“Give me five years and I’ll be crushing you in arm wrestles. I was a bull the tutorial.”

The teasing was good natured, and it was clear that both of them knew that Gerald’s bad base was holding him back.

““Plus, I’m not an idiot. I was fifty fifty in the tutorial and relied on strength as much as magic to destroy the monsters. But here, with this start, I’ve specialised in magic. Don’t think I can’t hold my own.”

“You? Hold your own? With what your piddling little magic spells.”

“Seven to your one.”

“I’m a front-line fighter. Of course, I’m going to need saving more often than you.”

“Seven to one,” Gerald repeated, smirking.

“Um..” Tom interrupted. “Lets not get sidetracked. If you let me in. I’m confident I can help.”

Gerald nodded.

Tom immediately activated Healing Tranquillity. He was instantly aware of what was happening in the kid’s body.

He frowned. He couldn’t help himself. “You poor man.”

It was worse than Gerald had been letting on. The infection may have started localised, but it had spread a long way since then. From a stab just under the left rib and what was almost a glancing blow it had expanded up and sideways to the heart, there his resilience trait must have stopped it because it had failed to infect the critical organ. But the successful and sensible defence there meant he had not been protecting elsewhere. The infection had spread all the way to the opposite hip and down to the knee on the closest side.

To put it lightly, he was in a bad way. “This must be painful. How are you joking so casually?”

Gerald shrugged. “What’s a little pain and what else am I supposed to do? Give in?”

“I can’t heal this.”

“After watching Soe struggle with the others. I didn’t think you could.”

“But I can help stop the deterioration until Michael is free to do the heavy lifting to fix you.”

Gerald looked him in the eye. “I’m not getting my hopes up, but I want to live. Do what you can.”

Just like he had done with the wasp’s venom Tom went to work. He created walls around the heart, ones that spread to protect both it and the lungs, and stopped the infection from spreading to the upper body. Then he blocked off the space above the knee and the other leg at the top of the thigh. Once more, he was glad this was an infection that didn’t travel in the bloodstream because, if you counted the hips and groin, Gerald had half of his torso infected and probably a quarter of his mass. If the curse spread through blood, there would be nothing he would have been able to do.

Gerald sighed in relief when Tom’s magic took the pressure off his own trait. Then they sat next to each other in silence. All of his focus and every point of mana that regenerated went into preserving the status quo. On several occasions he slipped, but after the first ten minutes of fumbling, it became easier and they collectively held the curse at bay.

Maintaining the multiple walls in another person’s body was intellectually painful. He had attention only for the task and nothing to spare for his surroundings.

Time passed in a sen state where he patched up gaps and reinforced the defences he had constructed.

Then the apparent pressure his defences were under began to lesson. The infection was no longer pressing quite so hard, and he found the imperative to continuously scramble to fix the gaps before everything was overwhelmed had disappeared.

Somehow, they were winning.

He opened his eyes for the first time in hours and was not surprised to see Michael kneeling next to him along with two of the chosen. His magic having already made a clear difference to either the potency or density of the curse.

He glanced around in a daze, half expecting to find out that Bao was dead and Michael having failed to save her had switched to the next patient who was not in such a dire state.

It was not the case. Tian Bao was leaning against the cave wall, eyes shut but her hands were in front of her with energy coating them. She was no longer black. Her skin had returned to what he presumed was her natural dark tan. “How long was I…um… in a trance.”

“About six hours on my count.” The healer answered. “It took ages to burn the stuff out of her. You bought time for Gerald. You did incredible.”

“Did I. You saved Bao. If I did nothing, you would have fixed Gerald up just as easy.

“Maybe, but possibly not. Gerald had given himself less than three hours to live when you came. He was losing control. He told us you stabilised him. At first, he wasn’t certain that the two of you could stop it from spreading. You were losing at the start and then harry put down the mana regeneration ritual and that’s when Gerald said that the fight turned. After that the spread stopped completely.”

Tom glanced down and sure enough a ritual surrounded him directly and then a larger one over all of them. “I guess my intervention means he will be fixed quicker.”

“No Tom. There’s no way I could have triaged two of them at once. You saved his life. Not bad for a man who was hellbent on being a tank.”

“Circumstances forced me. I started as a…”

Michael chuckled, and Tom shut up. He was only being teased.

“That’s good news.?

“You did great, Tom,” the healer assured him. “Give me another half an hour, then you should have a sleep.”

“I’ll have some hot food for you shortly.” Keikain called out from where he had jumped up to poke the fire and prompt it to burn hotter.

The barriers he had created in Gerald did not need his attention a hundred percent of the time now. Against the lower pressure, they were robust and rarely ruptured, and when they did, it was more a leak than a catastrophic failure. Tom kept them in place because they were helping Michael. While he did so, he ate the food that was handed to him. Unfortunately, he was drawn back into Gerald’s body too often to be involved in any of the various hushed conversations that were happening around him.

But he did manage to catch bits and pieces of them.

Thor was in an animated conversation with Usko. They were discussing the relativities between hammer and axe. Surprisingly it was not it was not an argument but an earnest discussion. They had both fought with each other’s weapons in the tutorial. The debate basically boiled down to whether the heavily armoured monsters were more dangerous than lightly armoured ones. The heavier the armour, the more valuable the hammer became. There was a certain level of armour where an axe became helpless but against non armoured or lightly armoured the axe was better both to create bleeds and shear off parts of the enemy.

They naturally had common ground. Both agreed vehemently that swords and spears were inferior.

Tom sympathised with their argument. He had always carried a mix of weapons for just that purpose and having Thor and now this extra brute so to speak around could only be helpful.

Vidja, Evelyn and Keikain were unsurprisingly in deep conversation together. They were almost certainly planning their route through the current zone. As for the rest of Vidja’s team, they were all sleeping.

Michael tapped him on the shoulder. “It’s not done, Tom, but you’re allowed to tap out now. Go lay down and get some rest.

Head pounding, he did exactly that.

“All of you are so wide awake. Why does Tom look so exhausted?” he heard Vidja ask.

“Because his precognition gift takes a lot out of him.” Everlyn said simply.

“And we need all the foresight we can get,” Keikain told her.