CHAPTER 317 – REUNITED

Tom’s knee landed on a sharp piece of stone. He grimaced lifted the knee and brushed the offending piece of rock away. It was a two centimetre long shard and his pants had actually mostly protected him. Other small pieces of his golem were everywhere. The troll with its charge had absolutely destroyed it and troubling for Tom an Earth elemental hadn’t been piloting it at the time. There had been no evasive efforts or attempts to protect the delicate components, so while the damage now seemed less extreme than some of the other times his golem had been destroyed there was more chance that the expensive internal inclusions had been broken.

What he found most troubling was that didn’t know if his decision to sacrifice it had even helped to protect the others. It was possible he had saved a life, but it was equally likely that everyone had already got off the ground by the time he had given the order.

Not that it mattered. It was done, and the golem was nothing special. At best it was a material possession he could rebuild with a bit of time, credits and effort.. It could be replaced easily enough.

While dreading what it was going to reveal, his hand reached out and pulled the first sliver of rock away from the core part of the golem. It was now just a highly tiered lump of stone with no magic animating it. With a thought, the rock vanished the moment he had it gripped properly.

He pulled out a few rocks and then recognised the first pricy inclusion. Crystal shards mostly held together with metal casing. It had been the best item in the auction house to deal with small flying enemies, the dust storm generator. A dust storm generator that had worked perfectly for the task it was purchased for. Now it was gone. At a glance, it was clear it was broken beyond the point it could be restored with its internal magic dissipated and forever lost. Carelessly, he tossed the useless pieces away behind his shoulder. There was nothing useful to be salvaged.

Were all the expensive components the same?

He pushed aside more stone. These were no bigger than a fingertip, and the force of the collision had even tiered down the rock. They weren’t even worth collecting as they were only tier one and useless to him. Probing fingers found the artefact that had contained the Earth Manipulation spell. Bits of it were twisted and there were cracks that looked dangerous but it was mostly intact. His mind probed the internals, and he sighed in relief. It was all superficial damage and there was a good chance it could be repaired without using his boon.

It vanished, safely stored away where it would be available when he needed it next.

He kept picking over the remains. The prison showed its continual resilience by remaining intact. It had extra dints on the outside but functionally it was as vibrant as previous. He wouldn’t even need to repair it. Then he found one of the mana engines. One look told him everything he needed to know. There was no path for its survival. The three pieces were thrown angrily over his shoulder.

Two hundred thousand plus gone just in that one object. It was only credits. It wasn’t vital, but those credits were something. If he was free to use them, then it might be enough to let them buy something blood line related from the auction house or a contract that Selena wouldn’t be able to wriggle out of. He shifted another chunk of rock and then sighed in relief. The control orb survived, as did the other mana engine. The wire was a write off, but that was cheap anyway and almost sixty percent of the stone would be reusable… and of course the spear of rot was still intact and he was careful not to hold that in his hand.

They had got off lightly.

Piece by piece, they were dropped into his soul storage. With his forty-three levels, his soul storage had expanded to be a little under a meter cubed. That was only the volume of a coffee table, but there was no wasted space for air, so in practical terms it acted as a space twice that. The physical volume of the stone he was placing into it was still going to be too much.

“I need to store it,” he glanced around at the others.

Thor sighed and came over and started packing away about half the rock. That the golem would be rebuilt was a given, but in this terrain, against these trolls there wasn’t a configuration that would be particularly useful so he would wait until he got to a different area. At some point there would be something like the burrowers or the shadows that could be easily defeated by a trick and then he would create a golem that could hard counter whatever the monster was, until then they could do without.

“How bad is it?” Keikain asked sympathetically.

Tom ignored him and he knew if his social skill could punish silence, then he would probably be rolling on the floor coughing at this point. Refusing to engage was not the correct response, but Tom couldn’t be bothered with him. Keikain was many things, but being sympathetic about a golem was not one of them. He was only being polite and Tom currently couldn’t give a shit about such stupidity.

Thor had almost died. He had been lucky not to be injured further.

“Terrible,” Thor answered on his behalf. “The real question is how much is it going to cost me. I bet you Tom asks for like two million credits to rebuild it like for like.” The big man chuckled. “Right Tom. Enron style accounting.”

Tom smiled, amused. “Well, I guess there’s seven to ten million in damage but… If I cut some corners, four should do it.”

“Only four. I feel like we’ll be getting a bargain. You’re so generous wearing the rest of the loss.”

“That I am.”

“More seriously?”

“Not as much as you fear. Most of the more expensive components were deep in the golem and survived.”

“Mana engines?”

“One of two,” Tom turned and pointed at where he had tossed the pieces. “Honestly, I’m sure a couple of boons could restore it, but…” He shook his head. “Not worth it. Especially since those boons are probably more useful on upgrading a tier one. We’re close to being able to do it without a boon and if improving another engine teaches us that skill. It means we can start selling tier two engines. That’s lucrative for us and strengthens humanity.”

“Was it too slow to climb?” Toni asked.

“No,” Everlyn answered. “He sacrificed it deliberately.”

“What?” Thor appeared affronted. “That totally nullifiers the warranty. Causing deliberate damage means the insurance won’t pay you out. Tom, you’re going to have to rebuild out of your own pocket.”

“Yes, I think it wasn’t the right choice.”

“No,” Everlyn shook her head fiercely. “No, definitely not. Sacrificing it was the right choice. The troll probably would have targeted Harry if you hadn’t.” She glared at Thor. “I know you’re joking, but I’m telling you right now that we’ll collectively pay any costs to recreate it.”

The big man smirked. “I never suggested otherwise.”

He went with Thor back to packing up the useable pieces of stone. Butterflies were fluttering around them. In bemusement, he raised an eyebrow at Everlyn who was clearly controlling them.

She frowned as her eyes flicked to Tom’s. “I thought I would show you. It’s a tier zero spell Butterfly Construct. They’re designed to sacrifice themselves and those pretty, glittering wings serve to infuriate nearby monsters.”

“A taunting skill in a tier zero spell?”

“Pseudo, but yes.”

He studied them. They appeared immensely fragile, without any abilities to help them evade an attack. “Can they even take a hit?”

“Nope, but when threatened, they’ll flutter more aggressively and randomly. That gifts them with a reasonable chance of dodging low ranked non area of effect spells and physical attacks.”

“And at rank twenty-six.”

She laughed. “Nope, they’ll get killed every time. Can’t move fast enough, but they’ bought for a reason and I think they’ll be perfect against the trolls. An effective first line of defence and if we’re swarmed again, they’ll distract the trolls while we climb out of harm’s way.”

“I can see that. How many can you summon?” If there were sufficient numbers, then they could enter the actual altar room and clear it all at once as opposed to painstakingly luring individual enemies out to kill. He could imagine standing in that cave while hundreds of butterflies made them charge into each other, all the while chaos bolts shot out, with the occasional one morphing into something capable of killing trolls by the dozens.

“How many?” Her nose wrinkled, and she pouted. “Only two but if we all buy the skill, that’ll be more than enough for the tunnel.”

They weren’t getting into the cave with the butterflies and if all of them had the spell. He hesitated. “That’s extreme. Over twenty is overkill.”

“Better than being dead.” Everlyn answered flatly.

They did as suggested and protected by a cloud of butterflies the speed they could travel increased.

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Another portal snapped into existence in front of Thor. As always, he quickly grabbed the note and checked its contents.

“Vidja?” Tom said hopefully before he could help himself.

Thor shook his head. “No, it’s another update from Selena… They’re keeping the ritual going, but there has been no sign of the wador.”

“And there’s really nothing from Vidja?” Everlyn asked.

“Hasn’t been one for hours.”

“And that means they don’t know about the summon trick, then?” He half stated and half asked.

Thor frowned and shook his head. “No, they don’t. They’ve been radio silent for over two hours.” His face went inanimate. “Nope, they haven’t purchased that note. They don’t know about it.”

They continued onwards. The butterflies were incredibly effective. They made the troll fights trivial… but the lack of communication.

Worry gnawed at him.

He glanced at Thor again, but there were no complaints there. After every fight, he checked the system room even if no loot portals opened to reveal a note.

It wasn’t like Vidja’s team to be out of contact for so long. They had been vigilant the whole time and especially after the insects. He usually wouldn’t care, but Michael was embedded in that team, and he was both a mate and a critical part of their group.

Was it possible that they were all dead?

Tom couldn’t stop thinking about the ambush where five of the trolls had hit them at once. How would Vidja’s team cope with something like that?

Would they survive?

Mentally, he reviewed who was on their team and their strengths. Nope, against an ambush like that, they wouldn’t stand a chance. It was easy to imagine all those trolls charging, the massive collisions, and the resulting mangled bodies, chests caved in like what happened to Thor, the corpses. If the trolls got in amongst them, it could be over in seconds.

He bit his lip, thinking about it, and shut his eyes. Michael had saved his life multiple times for him to be… It couldn’t be, it shouldn’t but…

“Tom, we’ll reach them soon.” Everlyn told him, reading him like a book. “They know to get off the ground… and it’s not realistic that none of them managed to escape and if one of them got to the roof, we would have got a message. Nothing has gone wrong. My guess is that something has come up and distracted them.”

The elder shifted to be right next to Everlyn. “Perceptive one. Your analysis is almost certainly correct. The chosen with them are still alive.”

“Can you get an update?”

“Blessed One, unfortunately we do not have a similar mechanism available to us. I can only sense their continued existence and nothing more.”

“Stop stressing Tom. They’ll be fine especially with chosen there to help.” She pointed out. “No matter what type of ambush hit them the chosen would have been able to save most if not all of them.”

“Observant one. I concur with your analysis.”

Tom growled in frustration. “Evie, you claimed that something might have come up to stop them from sending a note. But what could have? Nothing I think of makes sense.”

She shrugged, unconcerned. “It could be anything. They could have encountered a fellow competitor.”

“Not a chance. The inventor is not here and everyone else is accounted for.”

“I don’t know. A trial spirit, they might have got a time limited sub quest? They might even just be in a battle trance and not want to break it. I don’t know. I’m not the psychic one.”

“A battle trance for over two hours?”

“What drugs are you on Tom? You can’t possibly think two hours is long? You can’t be serious? In the tutorial, I had battle trances that lasted for days. I would kill one monster and then go onto the next, tempering my technique the entire time. If I did days I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d done them for weeks?”

She clearly saw the look in his eyes.

“See you did it too. I get your point. A larger group is less likely to all zone out for that long, but it’s definitely possible.”

Another hour passed as they advanced and effortlessly killed the trolls that approached them. Even when four attacked from the front at the same time, they had no issues defeating them. Everlyn’s words echoed in his head, but so too did the number of time Thor stepped into the system room and came out with a despondent expression.

He wanted to say something, but it was pointless and at best a slight negative to moral.

As Evie had said, they would find out. Statistically, they wouldn’t be hurt, but if they had been wiped out, there was nothing they could do about it. If they had all died, the only thing they could do was to check the battle scene and potentially discover the mistakes the other team had made. That was all they could do. Speeding up or stressing wasn’t going to help if they were already dead only risk their own lives. Also, the chosen remained unperturbed by the rising stress. To them nothing had gone wrong because the rest of their group was still alive. Logically, all of his fears were about nothing. It had only been three hours, which was not long enough to worry about.

Everlyn stopped abruptly. Instantly, they all went on alert and the butterflies spread out further. Even though it was stupid, he watched the walls suspiciously. Earth Sense told him there was nothing hidden but no sensing regime was ever absolute. There was always an ability out there than could defeat it.

Everlyn glanced at them. “Relax… there’s no threat.” Her eyes returned to being unfocused. Seconds passed, one, two… ten, twenty…

Rahmat cleared his throat. “Everlyn’s investigating and scouting ahead. Basically there’s a dead troll where this passage joins with another. It appears to have been dead for a little over an hour, but the important thing is that it’s part of a trail of bodies.”

“It’s evidence of Vidja’s group’s passage,” Everlyn declared as she broke her trance. “It goes for hundreds of metres in both directions. They’re heading straight for the next altar room. We’re close. It’ll take us… maybe ten minutes for us to catch them if they’ve cleared all the trash like it looks like.”

Thor did not look happy. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy they’re alive, but they better have a damn good reason not to have checked the messages. I can’t stand incompetence.”

They jogged forward at a reckless pace given their surroundings. Their summons ranged ahead, and no trolls accosted them. They quickened to a tempo that an Olympic eight hundred metres champion would have been impressed with. The only reason they didn’t go faster was because of how tight the tunnels were and the need to slow down before each twist.

Every thirty metres, they passed the troll corpses. Some had been carved apart by axe swings, others by strange exotic magic that he suspected was chaos bolts used in anger, one monster had a plant twisting through it and then there were the bodies with frozen sections which were at odds with other spots on them that were scorched or in extreme cases burns that went through bones.

Tom monitored them as he ran past, and it became clear they were becoming fresher. The blood went from fully congealed, to partially to almost looking fresh.

“Got them,” Everlyn called out triumphally while slowing down. “They’re all alive too.” At a slower jog, she kept them moving for another minute before she pulled up to a halt. “We’ll wait here. They’re in a battle up ahead. I don’t want to surprise them.”

Tom agreed with that approach, and they could hear the sounds of magic. From what he could determine, they were fighting multiple trolls simultaneously because from the extended sounds of combat particularly the bangs of something heavy and fast crashing into the walls it was not the work of a single enemy.

After thirty seconds, Everlyn clicked her fingers. “Just contacted Michael. We’re free to come closer.”

Two twists later they found them. Tom’s eyes quickly confirmed there had been no losses. They were all alive and unhurt.

Thor stomped forward right toward Vidja and Michael. “What the hell were you guys thinking! No messages for three hours. Not checking important notes.”

“I was told that nothing was marked urgent,” Vidja said her eyes shooting to Gerald.

“Yes, none at all.” The teenager hastily agreed.

Thor spun away and took a stride to get right up close in Gerald’s face. He stabbed his finger into the other man’s chest. “Three hours ago I put up a note which was titled a Method to improve battle efficiency against trolls.”

Usko shifted like he was going to intercede, but a single look from Vidja stopped him.

“You didn’t think that was worth looking at. Are you a moron? Do you think I’m a retard? What were you thinking? Did you read that title and somehow assume it would be useless.”

“Well… to be fair, your methods from the previous notes were basic. Our techniques were far more advanced, so I figured your improvement probably wouldn’t help us.”

“You failed to check! Do you know how arrogant that is? Or is it childish?” he turned to face Vidja. “Have you put a kid in charge of a key task?”

“No, you can’t say that!” Gerald shouted. “That’s unfair. We didn’t need to refine our methods further.”

“It’s true.” Michael said half-heartedly. “We’ve got an efficient approach.”

“No, Michael No! The problem is that you didn’t check. You don’t know what we had discovered. It might have been a tier zero spell that did nothing to humans but killed trolls at a hundred paces. Or what it actually was, which was a tier zero spell that made the fights trivial. Gerald’s childishness, his stupidity could have cost you everything.”

“No more Thor, you’re out of line.” Vidja interrupted her voice quiet, but it cut through the anger. “Gerald was fifteen when he left earth and while it has been him or me sending out notes, Olive had been doing the content management.”

The big man looked stricken at that link to the dead being revealed and he realised how badly he had put his foot into it. “I didn’t…”

“It’s okay.” Vidja stared coldly at him. “This trick we missed. Is it a miracle ability?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Thor glared at Keikain who had contradicted him. “What do you mean no?”

“Exactly that. The spell doesn’t help us kill them just manages the risk of the charge.”

Relief washed across Vidja’s and Gerald’s faces.

“No harm then. We’ve got a solution for that.” Vidja sighed sadly.

Her vulnerability, the lines of pain on her face and those of everyone else was clear. Tom mentally smacked himself and felt like doing the same to Thor. They were all loners, but her group had all suffered a significant loss recently. It was likely they were fragile and prone to mistakes.

“Illusions.” Michael volunteered into the silence. “That’s what we used, if they can still be called that. They’re boosted by a couple of talents to make them effective.”

“It’s a disposable scout we created before this trial.” Vidja explained. “It has weight and presence. That means it’s invaluable in these sorts of situations because it can set off traps and enrages animals which would otherwise ignore a mechanical contraption.”

“It took us about ten fights to start using it and it made the fights a lot easier. Usko stopped getting hurt with every engagement.” Michael explained. “You still need to coordinate aggressively to burn them down quickly, but it trivialised the initial few seconds, which made things a lot simpler. What was your hack?”

“Cheap summons.” Everlyn held out a hand and two butterflies formed on it and then fluttered over to land on Michael’s hair.

Michael frowned. “Yeah, that’ll do it. We should have read the note. These would have given us extra protections.”

They combined their forces and updated each other on their respective journeys as they approached the main cave. Everlyn described their previous attempt in detail. It was guaranteed to be safe, but was slow.

“The core of the strategy is solid,” Vidja declared. “But we can probably improve it on the margins.”

“How?” she asked flatly.

“Split the groups with the aim of ensuring each of them has sufficient output to burn one down. Then, we can have multiple teams working in tandem. It should allow us to do it two, three or maybe four times as fast.”

Everlyn didn’t even hesitate there was no need to do so. It was clearly the best plan. “Agreed. Three groups then.”

They got to work. Tom and Keikain set up the first attack station, then moved to the second where he stayed, and the other earth mage went to put together the last. They used the same technique as previously. Enrage one into leaving the cavern, burn it down and then rinse and repeat.

In a little under an hour and a half, they cleared the cavern, and they all gathered in it while Thor started slamming the altar with a hammer. Finally, the monstrosity cracked through the centre and their quests updated.

Thor stepped away and wiped the sweat off his brow. “One more to go and we’ll be out of here.”

Then, like he always did he micro entered the system room to check on his messages. Animation left his face and then returned. His eyes sparkled. A portal appeared in front of him. A huge grin spread across his face, and he thrust his hand in and pulled out multiple sheets of paper.

“I have news!”