CHAPTER 314 – DEFENSIVE STRATEGY
Something hit Tom’s shoulder, and he woke abruptly. Like always, he attempted to restrain his instinct to lash out. It was a battle that he sometimes won and other times lost. Today, he beat his subconscious and caged the beast before he overreacted.
Harry must have sensed that he was awake because there was no second prod. He forced two deep breaths in and out as he stilled his thumping heartbeat and then fully in control he slowly sat up.
Food was passed to him.
“How did it go?” Keikain asked immediately.
He hesitated, not sure what was the best way to respond. Did he want to tell them? Was creating future tension and distrust with Selena’s squad worthwhile? Could this be a test of his leadership? Sometimes saying nothing was the greater part of diplomacy.
“You obviously had a dream. Was it a directed one?”
With a sigh, he massaged his temple. Staying silent was not going to be an option. Keikain had evidently picked up on his roiling thoughts. “Yes, and Yes. I’ll explain once we’re moving.”
A short time later, they were back fighting and between fights Tom recounted all the pertinent details from his dreams and held nothing back. The mixed views amongst the team, with the majority being on their side, all of whose opinions it felt like were more than offset by Jenny’s arrogance and belief that it was her divine right to rob the weak.
“She’s a bastard,” Thor proclaimed. “And the others aren’t much better for enabling her. I’ll put together a note about the wador that will stop them in their tracts. A couple of well-placed lies disguised as a warning can nip this in the bud before anything happens.”
“Maybe not,” Keikain said. “We need to consider this carefully.”
Different opinions were thrown around about the best approach to the problem. Between battles, they reviewed their signed contract. It was not as airtight as they expected.
Tom read the paper once more and checked the system room. There were too many items present that could be used to unwind it. Fifty thousand was all it would take. “This thing might as well not exist.”
“It’s the passage of time.” Thor admitted. “In two weeks its strength would have decayed sufficiently so that they can source material to break it, but if we were meeting them today, they wouldn’t be able to wriggle out.”
“I warned you that detouring…”
“Shut up, Keikain.” Toni snapped. Almost everyone else glared at him.
The earth mage raised his hands defensively. “We did the right thing, but it’s a fact that it was a costly detour.”
“Two incoming.” Everlyn shouted suddenly. “From straight ahead.”
He reacted instantly to sprint toward the front of the group. Clare’s ability let her tank one easily, but the long cool down on her skills meant that multiple enemies could overwhelm her.
Bang.
The noise of the collision of the first troll with Clare’s shield was deafening, but Tom did not slow or even check to see if it was a successful block. He had his own job to do. The second approaching troll had to be stopped. That was his role. Under no circumstances. Could the monster be allowed to charge the others. If it did… well, Tom doubted they had the shielding or movement ability to keep themselves alive. The trolls were a nasty monster because of their ridiculous damage potential. Clare was hopefully uninjured and able to look after herself, but if she was vulnerable? Then it was the job of everyone else to protect her while he delayed the second source of death. After all, whether she was dead, injured or unharmed the troll would have halted its charge, and it was up to the others to kill it before it could trigger it again. In moments, he was past the crash and hurtling around the corner.
Time slowed.
He recognised it as the warning that it was and leapt as high as he could. There wasn’t an opportunity to understand what was going to hit him, because he knew how fast the trolls could move and how unavoidable their attacks truly were despite his dedicated dodge ability. They were quicker than any arrow he had ever been shot with. He triggered a teleport upwards desperate to get out of the area.
It wasn’t enough.
Time had not reset to normal, and he was moments away from being clipped. His entire lower leg was at risk. Every bone in his foot, ankle, and leg up to his knee would be shattered at a minimum.
One more, he thought desperately. That was all he needed to escape. A quick teleport, one which he could twist to get his leg to move more than the rest of his body.
His mind pushed wildly. There was a click, and his body was in a new position.
Time sped up.
Boom!
The troll must have run into the wall.
Inexplicably, time slowed down once more.
What? His mind struggled to untangle what was threatening him and then he realised that he had jumped as high as he could and used all of his strength. That and two teleports… he searched for options, but there was nothing available. His only choice was to limit the impact and turn a spot the size of his hand to living rock.
Bum first, he collided with a low hanging stalactite.
Pain radiated out from the point of collision as the force went through the stone and into the rest of his body. By instinct, Earth Manipulation activated and the stone distorted and caught him.
He hung suspended from the roof, looking down.
The second troll had crashed into the wall and was pushing itself out from the slight indentation it had left. Tom was about to drop to stab it through the head when multiple chaos bolts struck it. One of them burst and became a sticky web.
Indignation flashed through him. If he had dropped immediately, those chaos bolts could have hit him and it could have been far worse than a mobility restriction outcome.
Crack.
An arrow blasted into the troll’s hip and severely damaged two legs.
The combined effects of that damage and the web made it fall to the ground. Tom wanted to scream at them for their carelessness, then his brain caught up with his emotions. They had agreed on plans and strategies for this situation. He had only woken up recently, but the fuzziness in his head from the directed True Dream was impacting him. Those chaos bolts had been the correct choice by the others. Tom desperately recalled the rules they had all agreed. With the monster disabled and only two trolls in total… It meant he was free to physically approach it. There would be no more chaos bolts fired unless it got back off the ground and had no people next to it. He dropped from the ceiling with his spear materialising in his hand. Power Strike and Enlarge let the thrust go straight through the troll’s head. It was a simple fact that he didn’t have the damage output to kill it without magic, but a one or two second stun was all he needed. Clare’s troll had been torn to bits and Thor was already running over with the hammer starting to swing. He hastily pulled his weapon back and then spun to face the opposite direction from his team ready to react if any more monsters were coming.
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There was a wet thump behind him and the sound of metal partially clanging off rock. With two months of fighting near Thor, he recognised the unique noise his hammer blows could create. Tom felt no compulsion to look. It was easy enough to imagine.
Thud, Whack, then an unpleasant squelching which sounded like Toni had joined in. He glanced down and fire elementals were buzzing around the troll to stop the healing fibres from doing anything. Not that they would have been able to have healed the monster with the extent of the damage that he could see. Half the head was gone, the chest cavity over their heart’s location was crushed and then Toni’s magic had torn a football sized gap slightly below the hammer blow.
“Good reactions Tom,” Everlyn said brightly. “And great job remembering our strategies mid battle.”
He instinctively went to deny the praise, but his throat contracted. He understood the message. There was no value in making himself look stupid. Subconsciously, he covered his mouth. “Of course, I did.”
She looked sideways at him and then at the twisting passage where the monsters had come from with a frown. “Bad news. Apparently, some of them have the ability to hide from my senses. It’s a passive trait.”
He nodded and remembered the troll charge and how he avoided it. “I need to check something in my system room.” He didn’t wait for approval instead he just entered it and stared at the text on the wall that had appeared automatically in response to his desires.
A sideways evolution option for Battle Teleport is available.
As the evolution has no detrimental effects, it has been automatically granted.
Skill: Battle Teleport – Enhanced (2) (tier 4)
This skill allows the user to teleport in any direction by between five and eight centimetres every three seconds.
The entire body is affected, and the base skill provides a minimal capacity to adjust the positioning.
Levels will unlock extra flexibility.
Benefit 1: Emergency Teleport. If life is threatened, up to five additional teleports can be unlocked. Each extra teleport used will be at the cost of skill level. If there is insufficient unbanked progress, then a level in the skill may be lost permanently.
Benefit 2: Additional Teleports. Moments of high stress will allow one extra teleport without penalty. To enable the additional teleport, a stress test must be beaten. Current stress levels have to exceed the decayed level of the previous utilisation of the added teleport. The previous stress level recorded decays linearly and will reduce to zero over a sixteen-day period.
Tom absorbed the nature of the two extra benefits. The primary skill had not changed, but if he was in trouble, it could do more. Benefit one would come at considerable cost given that it eroded progress toward making the skill stronger, but the second bonus was handy even if it was not something he could utilise regularly.
Both upgrades were useful though not earth shattering. They wouldn’t change his fighting style at all, but enough people had died recently that Tom was more than happy to possess additional lifesaving options.
More than satisfied with the unexpected bonus he returned to the real world.
“Anything I need to know.” Everlyn asked immediately, having clearly picked up on his hasty retreat to the system room and probably his self-satisfied smirk for however briefly it had lasted.
Tom mutely shook his head, and she didn’t press any further. She trusted him to tell her if whatever change he had got was important. The simple fact is that there was no immediate benefit to it, so there was no requirement to disclose it.
Thor’s hand landed on his shoulder. “Tom, as I was saying before we were interrupted by the trolls the old contract isn’t a deterrent anymore. My initial thoughts were wrong. Lying about the wador won’t work in practice. There is too much chance we’ll probably be found out and give away the fact we know what they’re up to. Instead, I’ll push to get another enforceable agreement in place before we meet again.”
Tom glanced at Keikain and then Everlyn. Both indicated their agreement, so he turned to Thor. “Sounds good.”
They continued exploring and getting closer and closer to their destination. Five battles and only a hundred metres later the scout froze.
“What is it?” Clare hissed.
Everlyn raised her hand for silence. “I have news and it’s not good. My remote scouting can now observe the main cavern, and it’s as bad as we feared. At least a hundred. More trolls than there were burrowers. That’s too many to fight directly. The environment is also stacked against us. The cave and the passages leading up to it all have low ceilings. At a minimum, that’s going to restrict Tom’s and Thor’s fighting abilities and do nothing to slow the trolls.”
Tom bit his lip and a frown creased his face. “That’s too many. I don’t see any way we can fight over three or four at once. We’re going to have to adapt the battlefield to suit us better.”
“Don’t look at me,” Keikain complained. “Against most land monsters, I could do it. Alter the earth to restrict them and funnel them into kill zones, but we all saw what happened when I tried. The shrapnel that troll created when it went through the wall nearly killed us.”
“Bullshit, it was nothing like that. It was only a few scratches.” Clare responded.
“Some of those wounds were deep and if they were in the wrong spot..”
She sniffed dismissively. “They barely counted as a cut.”
Everlyn waved her hands for silence. “Relax. We’ll just have to go old school and kite them. Draw them one at a time out of the cave.”
Tom remembered the early battles against the monsters and the high ceilings of the other altar caves. An idea occurred to them. “Actually, there might be a safe way to do this. If we’re clever, we can exploit their inability to climb.” He pointedly glanced up.
“Maybe…” Everlyn mused. “You have a point. The entire cavern looks like it’s designed so that the troll’s charge will allow them to defend the space. They can reach anywhere, including all the spots on the roof. It has low ceilings and lots of mini ramps they can launch themselves off. But a battle station near one of the cavern exits could work.” She looked thoughtful and then her expression became distance as she controlled her remote scouting ability.
“We can set up outside the cave.” Rahmat confirmed. “It’ll be two tunnel twists away, which is no more than forty metres. It’ll be perfect to set up an attack platform there.”
Thor shifted his hammer from hand to hand. “Like… I know the idea sounds good, but it’s going to take longer to kill them if we take physical damage out of the equation. It’s the only reason we’ve been able to destroy them so quickly.”
Rahmat shrugged. “That’ll slow us down a bit, but it’s really only you that is affected. Removing you will lower damage by thirty percent or so but on the other side we won’t have to wait for Clare’s skills to reset.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. It’s embarrassing, but my reaction was probably because I didn’t like the idea of losing out on experience.” Thor shook his head. “But that’s dumb thinking. This might let us speed up the fight and it’ll be a lot safer. I vote for us to do it.”
Everlyn smiled grimly. “We’re agreed then. Though it only works if they are kited out of the room. If they refuse to leave the cavern, we’ll have to try something else.”
“Nope, this is the plan.” Keikain interrupted. “It’s what we’re going to do. I’m confident that the combination of mine and Tom’s earth magic can carve out a spot in the main room if given enough time.”
Everlyn looked interested. “What timelines are we looking at? If we’re setting up adjacent to the cavern, I’m guessing it’ll take a day to shift that much rock?”
Keikain nodded. “It’ll take time, but not that much if they’re not coming out. Then we can get right up to the edge of the zone. Even with the need to hollow out more volume I’d say it would only be a couple of hours to build the protections high enough.”
“What happens if the rock is like the underground?”
“I can still manipulate it. Tom might not be able to but I can, which just means it’ll take longer to do.”
“Fine,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “As a contingency plan, it’s a pretty good one. Let’s go.”
They continued on, and then Everlyn slowed and halted. The height of the tunnel they were in was visibly reducing. She pointed at the ceiling three metres ahead of them. “This is the spot.”
Tom and Keikain went to work and half an hour later, they had a defensible position high above the floor. They found they could only burrow a metre into the physical stone before they hit underground style rock, which they didn’t bother trying to carve out. They had enough height as it was.
Safe and out of the range of the troll charge ability, they were ready to begin the offensive. The only question was whether they would be able to draw the monsters this far from what they were guarding.