CHAPTER 316 – TROLL CHAOS

While doubts about the necessity of his actions continued to plague Tom, he made himself available to receive a True Dream. It was not relaxing, and he was woken frequently by the sounds of battle but the golem’s movements rocked his makeshift bed nicely and he had skills that aided him to fall straight back to sleep whenever he stirred.

No earth shattering visions interrupted his restless nap.

A spear poked his back, and he snapped awake but held his position. Unlike what happened most mornings, he had not been in deep sleep, so it was far easier to control his actions and he had to because the body of his golem was in his face just ten centimetres above him. If he sat up like usual, he would have cracked his face. He wriggled and made the bed tilt so he could peer down. The tunnel floor was almost four metres below him, and Harry waved cheerfully. His spear at full extension had just been long enough to poke him. “Good news. Selena sent through a note twenty minutes ago. She’s set everything up and even rehearsed the ceremony. You can come down. There’s been more than enough time for a True Dream if one was necessary.”

“Really?” Tom raised an eyebrow. There was something about the energy the ritualist was giving off that made him want to tease a bit. “It doesn’t sound like it’s long enough. Given the stakes, don’t you think we should extend…”

“Nope. Your golem’s ceiling crawling speed is too slow. Stop being lazy. We need to speed up.”

“Do it Tom,” Keikain urged. “Remember the dreams are prophetic. They know you were going to wake up for good and they had a window to slip in if they were needed. Selena doesn’t require your help today.”

Tom complied, and together they forged a path toward the next target and to join back up with Vidja. As they slowly killed trolls, Tom pondered at how difficult their progress was at the moment. Without any special tricks at their disposal, it was going to take them three and a half days to clear the troll objectives. If they hadn’t possessed such perfect counters against the other three types of monsters, the zone would have taken most of the sixteen days they had available. That was a scary thought.

He checked his mana, but it was still over a minute until he could summon another elemental.

“Ambush!” Everlyn yelled her voice unusually rattled. “Clare, Thor in front, Tom behind.”

Her panicked tone caused dread to run through him and his heart rate increased as adrenaline spiked through him. He was following the instruction before he even consciously registered her orders. An ambush? What did that look like here.

Then in Earth Sense five presences made themselves known. Trolls but four more than they could easily deal with. Two were coming from behind, which were the ones Everlyn wanted him to delay, and three for Clare and Thor.

The trolls could charge every five seconds or so. If you didn’t disable them by knocking them over or killing them immediately after their first charge, you could rapidly get in trouble. A secondary charge when the team was bunched up and Clare’s blocking skill was on cooldown would be likely to be deadly. With all of them attacking, even if the chosen went all out they couldn’t burn five down that fast. If a troll got amongst them, then it could target any of them. Things were likely to swiftly spiral out of control.

It was too many.

He knew he was panicking. “Keikain get everyone off the floor!”

The warning was all he could do. Now he had to deal with the trolls coming at him. How should he do it? How could he, with his limited options stop the advance of two of them? Their charge was to explosively fast for his abilities to cope with. If he could trick them into attacking him simultaneously, he thought… Then maybe… but they wouldn’t do that. They would stagger their attacks and there was nothing he could do to override that instinct. Could he dodge one and pre-emptively attack the other?

That sounded ridiculous. What else?

Time ground to a halt.

Tom’s eyes widened. There was no time for thought. He leapt, teleported straight up… then… he tried to use his evolved skill, but the second teleport was not offered.

What?

His brain latched onto the situation. Without conscious direction he had activated Crystallised Moment, and all it bought was time to think. None of his available spells or skills were going to help him now.

Why wasn’t the ability activating? The troll was going to hit him. That was clear. A leg was in range and the damage output was seared into his brain. It would be converted into paste. But…the second teleport wasn’t enabled because his level of stress was too low…

How?

The situation was as dangerous as last time, but Tom acknowledged the reason for the discrepancy. Logically, it was ridiculous, but he was more relaxed than the previous day because this time he assumed that a teleport would be available.

But… It wasn’t… He tried to activate it, but the second teleport was missing. It wasn’t there for him to use, and Tom knew the failure wasn’t for a good reason……t was because his mind knew the possibility was there… Because of that knowledge the primal fear he suffered yesterday wasn’t setting in..

The psychology was beyond stupid, but it was real. You couldn’t force yourself to panic.

You’re an idiot he screamed internally at his subconscious… but no amount of internal wailing could change the facts. The conditions for the extra teleport had not been met and weren’t going to suddenly be resolved in the next fraction of a moment he had available..

All he could do was brace himself and prepare.

His foot and half of his leg turned to rock.

It was the only thing he could do. There was no avoiding the collision his only play was to minimise the cost of the failed dodge. Then the troll hit.

Tom felt his foot, the stone bit of it, crumble along fault lines. A chunk went flying away from him toward a distant wall, travelling faster than the speed he could generate with Throw Rock. Then the monster was past him.

Boom!

It crashed into the wall.

Tom was still flying upwards where his super strength had propelled him. Healing flowed toward his leg, to try to minimise future damage, but even as he sent it he knew it was too slow. Most of the damage was already done, even if the physical results hadn’t played out. The cracks spread with alarming swiftness. Small chunks of stone fell away from the leg and instead of only half of his foot being knocked off the disaster spread far beyond that, extending up past his ankle. The entire lower portion of his limb was gone.

His jump this time wasn’t quite large enough to reach the ceiling. Luckily, Earth Sense let him know exactly where the roof was and his upward velocity was not going to be sufficient. He wasn’t going to make it. He used another charge of Crystallised Moment and then in the instant of frozen time it granted him, he focused his power through Remote Earth Manipulation. Time started up and the rock from the ceiling above reached out like a hand and grabbed him and stopped him from falling back to the ground.

The multiple collisions of trolls slamming into walls were creating vibrations which were impacting the accuracy of Earth Sense. He couldn’t rely on it, so with a thought the stone supporting him twisted to let him see the other troll. He was way too high for it to target him and as a result, while it was running beneath him it was totally ignoring his presence.

Tom couldn’t afford that. He had to act.

His spear manifested in his hands and the rock holding him to the ceiling loosened and expanded like a bungee cord to lower him into easy attack range. Then he lashed out to try to hit the troll and maybe stun it with a headshot.

It might have been ignoring him, but its battle instincts were well honed to meet threats from above. He thrust again and again, but its four arms coordinated to deny him a significant strike. Blood flowed from minor wounds on the forearms, but with its ridiculous regeneration there wouldn’t even be scabs left in a couple of seconds.

It turned the corner.

He was running out of time and had to stop it.

Lightning Enrage sent sparks flowing out into it, but it kept going. He understood what was happening. Tom might be the highest priority target, but because it couldn’t reach him it went for the next and it was about to charge into the mass of his companions.

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His panicked thoughts connected with the golem, and it rushed forward to get closest to the tunnel turn.

The second troll disappeared from his sight, leaving small dust clouds rising from where its feet had been.

Crash!

The connection to the golem vanished.

Tom ignored the cost and focused on actions. The first troll was pulling itself out from the vaguely troll sized depression it had left in the wall and Tom couldn’t afford for it to get off another charge.

The stone holding him to the roof did the opposite and launched him down. He led with his spear and used his skills to get a head blow and stunned it. That bought him a second to finish it. Given the coming fight and the overwhelming odds that they faced, he needed to eliminate it quickly and permanently.

Remote Earth Manipulation flexed as his mana arced through it. The rock responded to his will, creating a maw of a terrifying beast. There was none of the beauty of Keikain’s earth shark ability, but Tom didn’t want pretty rather he demanded and prioritised effectiveness. It was like a massive primordial but unevolved monster’s front canines. From both sides, they ripped out of the earth, four teeth on each and each tooth was as thick and as long as one of his legs. The jaws closed, tearing through the centre of the troll and then because it was a free form construction as opposed to a granted skill, Tom had extra flexibility in what it could do. Under his directions, the teeth ground together, going sideways the way teeth couldn’t naturally do. The troll’s midsection in a line from its hair to its feet was reduced to liquid and the outside chunks such as detached arms and legs went flying in all directions.

For a free form spell, he was pretty proud of the outcome, but he didn’t stop to admire what he had achieved.

Without hesitation, he ran away from it toward his friends. It was beyond dead, but it had come at a cost. His entire mana pool had been invested into the spell, so if he needed mana, he would have to rely on his regeneration or his mana crystal.

It was only three steps for him to round the corner and see everything that had happened in the handful of seconds he had been absent. The monster that had gone under him was pulling itself out from amongst the wreckage of his golem. As for everyone else, they had followed his instructions. Between Keikain and the chosen, they had all been pulled up to the ceiling to fill a gap that the earth mage must have blasted out.

Boulders littered the floor.

Everlyn was healing Thor… blood was running out from his nose and the corner of his mouth and not a trickle, either. It looked deadly serious.

Clare had a mangled arm and been dragged off the ground by a chosen. There were four trolls alive and not one of them was stunned.

Two were looking at him and he knew that expression. He blinked stupidly and then reacted.

He leapt desperately for the roof. His magic flared and the ground under him provided a helpful push to speed his journey.

Too slow, time slowed, and his feet were just leaving the floor.

It was that blink. That potentially fatal moment it had taken for his mind to register what was happening.

Tom teleported up and used it to marginally improve his velocity.

Time was still acting like treacle.

At least two were charging him. There was no Michael as a back up healer. Thor looked mortally wounded, Clare was hurt. He had already lost a foot which meant… if he was hit more fully.

He did not want to consider the consequences. This was a potential death moment and while he had his life saving class skill, it was a random teleport. If it put him on the ground or worse, falling in midair, it was easy enough to see a chain reaction where his lightning escape method would keep putting him in danger until the charges ran out and then there would be no more chances.

He was in genuine trouble the realisation shocked him.

There was a click, and he knew his second teleport was available. Without hesitation, he used it.

Boom, Bang.

The loud crashed were two trolls running themselves into the wall having missed their chance to destroy him.

His hand touched the roof, and a burst of mana made it soft enough so that his fingers sunk into it. With an established hand hold, he pulled his legs up with his heart thundering.

Facts and figures went through his head. This was a disaster and safe on the roof he realised it shouldn’t have gone this way. Their instincts had betrayed them. The decision to send out the tanks to face them had been a mistake.

His eyes turned to Thor. He had to get over there and help him. It was like he was on monkey bars he swung across but kept his knees at chest level the whole time. His hand finding soft rock to grab as his magic controlled the stone.

Everlyn, while her magic stabilised Thor was shouting instructions. The familiar fire and ice of the chosen joined the air, earth and chaos attacks as the troll she had ordered targeted was ripped to bits.

His fire elements went to help out but a tug of his will stopped them. If they descended, they would be hit by a charge, and that wasn’t worth it.

Time was on their side.

Then he realised what he was thinking and mentally kicked himself again.

Why had he kept the fire elementals at the centre of their group?

It was a moronic decision.

They were disposable. Each of them was only worth five minutes of mana. They were basically free. Their battle formations should have placed them out beyond the humans in a position where they would draw the troll charges directly. Thor, Clare, him none of them should have been on the front lines.

As a group… no, it was more than that. They were responsible, but so was he. He was a person who should have known better; he had made so many mistakes that had come to a head here.

He reached Thor and engaged Healing Tranquillity and was aware of everything that was happening in the other man’s body. The heart had been shredded and chosen magic was fusing it back together and keeping the blood circulating while doing so. Everlyn was pumping general magic into him most of which was going to the brain. Clare had the same idea but had just started casting her magic, which like Evie, was focused on the head.

Then his magic made him aware of the state of Thor’s body.

Mortally wounded was understating what had happened and only the lightning fast stabilisation efforts of Everlyn and the chosen had kept him alive. It was a broken and shattered body and for a moment; he was swamped by demands. He could passively support the other healers, start mending broken veins and arteries, realign bones, re-inflate the lungs. The extent of damage that had been done to Thor was remarkable. These were not the injuries from a car crash, they were far more significant. It was more like he had been hit by a super fast train as a pedestrian while being dressed in a suit that stopped him from exploding into gory soup. The skin may have held out, but his internals had not been as lucky.

The bravery Thor had exhibited to face the trolls was impressive. He must have known that he didn’t have the skills to stop a charge, but he had stepped forward to save them, anyway. He had willingly put his body on the line, which was different to his and Clare’s situation. They had not been as brave. He and Clare had both possessed skills to keep them safe and had stepped up with the expectation of being able to avoid or mitigate the attacks. Thor had known he was going to get hurt and gone anyway and now they were in this situation.

With the life saving responsibility taken care of by others, there was not a wrong choice. Anything he attempted would be useful, but was there a superior option? Efficiency, Tom decided was the best path. He would target activities that the more general healing spells would struggle with. Often generic healing was blind to anything outside its immediate area.

The simplest example he could think of was a misplaced bone. If it was within a few centimetres of where it was supposed to be, it would be sucked back and repurposed. However, if it was beyond that radius that is where most spells acted stupid. When that was the case, one part of the spell would recognise a bone that didn’t belong was in the flesh and push it out of the body, while another would spot a missing piece of bone and recreate it from scratch.

With his superior knowledge of human anatomy, he was more than capable of guiding such misplaced fragments to the right locations. In fact, he had multiple first-hand experiences when he had pieced together his own shattered body.

Decision made Tom got to work. Under his control, the ribs popped back to the correct spots. Shards of bone slid out of the lungs and realigned to where they were meant to be. He gritted his teeth and started moving separated pieces of organs to their starting locations. A segment of lung about a quarter by volume had been torn away and was down in the stomach area. His magic caused abdominal muscles to squeeze, and the fist sized portion of organ was pushed up to where it was supposed to be. He loosely positioned it in the right spot and used his magic to inflate it to make sure the general magic recognised it for what it was.

He did not try to heal anything fully and instead he assembled the jigsaw without clicking the pieces together. Everything was shifted to the appropriate locations with partial crude heals only used when they were required to hold the objects in place. His ministrations touched the heart, reorganizing the surrounding material to make the chosen’s job easier.

Tom paused and wiped sweat off his face. Below him, all the trolls were dead.

Then he turned his focus back to Thor. The torso had mostly been patched back together, so Tom searched for the next most critical option. A quick check confirmed that the skull and brain didn’t need attention. Thor had managed to protect that critical area and limited damage as much as possible. Of course, ultimately physics won and there had been nothing he could do to shield himself from the internal scrambling and whiplash created by the size of the impact. The brain had been bruised, but the bones and joints were intact. Everlyn’s and Clare’s magic was dealing with the remaining damage.

His magic continued to regenerate, which let him realign the shattered bones over Thor’s right side. Further down he had to do an almost full hip reconstruction because it had been fragmented so completely and then he popped out a massive compound fracture on the femur.

Every time a point of mana became available, he used it.

Once more, he came out of the trance and found that he was now firmly secured to the roof. Keikain had created a mini hospital room on the ceiling, providing physical security to allow the healers to focus exclusively on the patient.

Tom kept working and finally there was nothing more he could do to help the man.

“I’m not taking one of those again.” Thor promised. “I knew they hit hard, but I figured if I met it with a full hammer blow it would slow it somewhat. I’m questioning the accuracy of my gut instinct.”

“It wasn’t accurate,” Tom agreed. “Against these particular monsters, I’m starting to think that all of our instincts are wrong.”

“I concur.” Everlyn said. “If we get ambushed, we all need to climb immediately. Defending on the ground was dumb.”

“It’s more than that,” Tom told her. “We’re also misusing the elementals.”

Everlyn’s eyes widened at the comment. She didn’t ask him to elaborate. It was clear she understood exactly what he meant. “You’re right, we’re all idiots. But we can fix it. We’ve all got excess experience we can use to buy our own summons. We don’t even need anything strong. For this, a tier zero will work as well as a three or four. All it has to do is absorb a single charge. Put them in the outer ring and position them so the trolls crash into the walls.” Her hands covered her face. “I can’t believe we’ve been so dumb.”

“Yep.” Tom agreed and then as he was no longer needed for the healing he dropped to the ground. A chunk of rock acted as a prosthetic foot and he hobbled over to remains of his golem. He would heal himself in full later.

He knelt down to examine what was left of it.