CHAPTER 332 – A DANGEROUS PARTY

Michael was almost giggling in excitement. “And Tom you’re not getting away with skipping this either. Have your potion so you don’t spend the whole-time grumping about your headache.”

He gave the healer a mock salute and produced the potion that Everlyn had purchased for him. He had to admit it had definitely improved the quality of his evenings.

“Come on, guys. Stop looking so serious. Today we’re all getting drunk.”

“We’re in a war zone, Michael.” Vidja protested.

Good-naturedly, Michael stuck his tongue out. The healer was going all out to improve everyone’s mood, even if he had to provide the cheer by acting childishly. “We’re always in a war zone.”

“There were a hundred monsters trying to eat us less than two minutes ago.”

“And they’re dead now and we didn’t have to raise a weapon or cast a spell. The chosen took care of them and they’ll do so in the future. Now help me move the bedrolls to the side so we can set up.”

Tom tuned out the excited bickering. His mind was going in circles, asking questions it wanted solved. It was Michael’s offhand comment about the evolution doubling Rahmat’s strength. It kind of had, but the initial domain had done more. How much more powerful was the Rahmat of today versus the one from two days ago? How much had getting this domain boosted him? The scout abilities were, of course fundamentally unchanged unless the enemy was near sapient and carried spears. As for his second role, the one where he killed the monsters that attacked them the change there was far more pronounced.

Rahmat relied almost exclusively on his spear skills to do damage. Yes, he occasionally used magic to throw chaos bolts, but if you assigned people roles based on having magic or not, he was firmly in the camp of those who didn’t. For him, his spears were his art and Tom could remember every word in the domain’s description.

If spears were his primary way of delivering damage and they had been boosted so much then… that meant…

Mentally, Tom whistled in appreciation as he married the effects of those lines on his wall to the man’s combat style.

Rahmat’s ranged damage potential had increased by a factor of four as since he had gained the spectral spear skill it was what he was using almost exclusively to hurt opponents at a distance. Then there was what happened in his inner domain. Where enemies were within eight metres and where Rahmat of two days ago had been at his most deadly.

In that critical space, his spear skills were eight times stronger.

Only the skills had that bonus. Rahmat’s gains weren’t quite that extreme as the spear did physical damage and that wouldn’t change. Tom from observation knew he could resolve that uncertainty. How much did he rely on skills versus physical attacks? He asked himself. It had used to be an evenish split with a bias away from the physical. Whenever he used to fight, every motion had been amplified with one ability or another. So not eight, but a five times boost was a conservative estimate. That value could have easily been a six or even a seven. Plus, the phantom spear would add another three or four times improvement to what he was two days ago.

That meant his ranged damage had improved by a factor of four and his melee by ten!

Tom stared at Rahmat in a new light. No wonder he had been killing multiple worms by himself since he got the domain. And now with the evolution of the skill, tomorrow he would go up another level again when he got to use the upgraded abilities for the first time. It hurt to admit, but in terms of the ability to kill things Rahmat was now drastically better than he was.

“Earth to Tom,” Michael said. “What the hell were you pondering about? What ever it was it isn’t important. Shelve it and have a drink.”

He startled and took the offered cup.

The crystal bowl was a small space, but while he had been thinking, they had transformed it. The bedding had been piled on the edges to make a series of seats that ringed the central area. A couple of glowing crystals had been placed mimicking firepits without risking noxious gases, and a foldable table had been produced that was now covered with food that was nothing like their usual rations. The space was still small, but there was the capacity to chat on the edges and possibly even dance in the middle if you moved the table out of the way.

Absently, he took a sip of the drink. It burned going down, and some of it went up into his nose, or at least its fumes did. He forced himself to swallow and then half choking he spluttered and coughed helplessly. “What the hell!”

Michael laughed. “It’s reinforced tequila. Guaranteed to get, even someone with a vitality of rank forty, drunk. We’re celebrating Rahmat, doubling the fighting strength of the group. It’s a huge achievement, so we’re doing the party properly and made certain we got the good stuff to make sure the alcohol actually did something. Unfortunately, earth spirits just won’t work on us anymore.”

“And no healing the effects away,” Clare warned him sternly. “Pace yourself instead. The quantities available are limited in the auction house, so I don’t want you wasting any of it..”

Music started playing. Thor had set up the Existentia version of a portal music player. It was a metal and crystal contraception that was producing a composition that was kind of like jazz, but with a number of strange beats and instruments built in.

They all crowded around the table and snacked on the various delicacies that Thor had sourced and chattered about the food and the stress of all the fighting.

Cautiously, Tom had a sip of his drink. The burn was tolerable, and while it didn’t taste very nice, he could feel the warmth in his throat and the familiar feeling of getting a slight buzz.

The conversation got louder.

Thor and Usko started an arm-wrestling competition, which was funny until Vidja got involved and was able to trounce both of the larger men. That bit was hilarious.

“Rahmat you’re our number one fighter,” Michael proclaimed. “Don’t you want to show your power.”

“I don’t believe a spear domain will be of much help in an arm wrestle.”

Every one howled in laughter at the deadpan delivery. It wasn’t funny but… Everyone but Rahmat found it so. The man of the party was the only one Tom noticed who was not drinking. It was for religious reasons, a hang up from earth, but he was a good sport about them all getting drunk around him and was happily bouncing from conversation to conversation.

They kept harassing him and pretty soon he succumbed to peer group pressure and joined the game.

Usko beat him easily. The axe wielder stood up and waved his axe over his head. “I declare that I Usko is the strongest here!”

“Wait, Vidja beat you two minutes ago,” Toni objected.

“And me too, just before that.” Thor protested.

“Nope!” Usko shook his head vigorously. “Rahmat was our undisputed most powerful fighter, and I just triumphed in a classic competition of strength. The universe ordaining me as the strongest couldn’t be clearer.”

Everyone laughed.

Tom found himself drawn into the silly game and given he was toward the low end in terms of raw strength he didn’t expect to do well.

Thor threw the first match to him and mimed clutching his bicep like Tom had torn it. “Don’t challenge him guys he is vicious.”

Usko ignored the drama and the potential for hysterics and didn’t throw the game. “That’s two of the titans that I’ve triumphed over. I’m undefeatable!”

“It’s all empty words until you beat Vidja.” Thor told him.

“Arm wrestling is an honoured tradition for men, not women.”

Toni’s eyes went wide. “Oh, I really wouldn’t go there.”

Usko’s eyes also widened as he realised what he had been saying. He coughed theatrically. “As I was saying, I am the second most powerful behind the majestic Vidja.”

There was more laughing as Vidja was thrown up on Usko’s and Thor’s shoulders. Even with that, her head did not reach the top of the bowl where the howling wind would have made it a lot more unpleasant.

There were more mock battles.

He got drawn back in and Everlyn squared off opposite him.

“I can’t believe our party is so lame we’ve descended to doing arm wrestles.”

She grinned and winked. “I think it’s kind of fun. Do you think you can beat me?”

“No.”

“But I’m so light and dainty.”

“Weight doesn’t matter anymore.”

“You really don’t care if I get fat?”

“I meant for arm wrestling… It’s about your strength attribute…”

She was laughing. He stopped talking his cheeks red.

“I’ll go easy on you. Promise.”

“Like hell you will.” He grumbled but positioned himself to fight against her, anyway.

Their arms locked, and he struggled to push her hand down. She resisted and, despite throwing everything against her, his hand shifted slightly. It bent back, and further until he was at a forty-degree angle, he was losing. In contrast to his contests against the others where he had conceded once he reached this spot, he refused to give up. With his face going red, he dissociated himself from the complaining muscles and hung on desperately. He wondered what her attributes were. In all probability she had slightly higher strength than him, but arm wrestles had a large component of technique to them.

He struggled. He hadn’t lost yet.

She pushed his hand until it hovered just above the floor. Desperately, he strained and successfully shoved her back enough to reset.

“You’re showing a lot of resolve here. Is it because you don’t want to lose against a girl?”

He said nothing. Sweat streaked down his face, and the muscles in his arms were vibrating with exhaustion.

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“Tom, I know you want nothing to do with me.” The volume of her voice had dropped. She had moved on from the lighthearted banter where she didn’t care who overheard. “But I was wrong. When you made the choice about the murderers. I should have supported it.”

“It’s ancient history. There’s no point talking about it.”

Neither of them were trying to win in the arm wrestle both of them taking a rest.

“It’s not. It’s visible every time we interact. I’ve said sorry. I’ve admitted fault. Are you ever going to let it go?”

“Sorry doesn’t make everything better. That’s a childish fairy tale.”

Her eyes flashed in anger.

She flexed her muscles and his hand slammed down against the crystal. She glared at him. Tears were running down her face. She wiped them away. “I know sorry can’t alter the past, but can you please try to be nicer to me?”

“Nicer?”

“Yes. Stop treating me like you want to kick me all the time.”

“I don’t want to do that.”

The music had become louder, and Thor was dancing with Bao and being the centre of attention. No one was looking at them. They could whisper without the fear of others eavesdropping.

“We had something Tom. And I wish I had met you a year after the tutorial when we were more settled. Hooking up when we did, well, we were both too damaged to have a future. I hate what happened because we had a connection, a proper spark.”

“Had…”

“Have,” she corrected, “And that’s what I mean at the moment. It’s always about upstaging me. Belittling me.”

“Not deliberately. It’s just.”

“It happens every time. You’re a smart guy. I know you can see the pattern.” She pushed herself to her feet. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done this. It was the alcohol speaking. It’s humiliating.” She was flustered, the tears giving more weight to her words. “I shouldn’t have. Please don’t hate me.” She turned away and before she could take a step Toni intercepted her and had pulled her into the centre of the room where everyone was dancing. Their heads were close together as they whispered to each other.

No noise, of course, reached his ears, but you can tell a lot from body language.

Tom moved to sit against the crystal wall.

A brave smile lit Everlyn’s face, but it was very fragile. It looked like a single mistimed comment could shatter it.

He swallowed.

She was genuinely gorgeous, but the way she had turned on him was not something he should ever forgive. Did she have a point? Was he being too mean to her without realising it?

Michael sat on the chair next to him and clinked glasses with him. “You okay, mate?”

Tom nodded. “That wasn’t about me.”

“Breakups are hard and they’re worse when you’re forced to keep interacting constantly for weeks and months afterwards.”

“Are you familiar with our history?”

Michael took another sip of his drink. More, Tom suspected, to buy time to think than for any other reason. “I suspect I know all the important details.”

“Am I at fault?”

“Tom, I’m not going there. The two of you have handled things well. You should be proud of how you’ve dealt with the fallout.”

“She doesn’t think that?”

“You can’t have the type of intense relationship that you had with Evie and then continue afterward like nothing has happened.”

“She said I was being mean, vindictive. I don’t want to be cruel.”

“What do you want? Have you ever asked yourself that?”

Tom shrugged. He didn’t know. He spent a lot of time trying not to think about it.

“Yeah, I thought so. On a lighter note. When are we having one of these parties for you?”

“Tomorrow.”

“No way! Really!” Michael looked at him in excitement. “You’ve already gained a—”

Tom laughed. “No, no, I haven’t. I don’t know when I will. Maybe never, possibly in a couple of days, weeks, maybe months, once this is all over. It’s hard to tell.”

“Nope, I don’t believe you. I’ve seen what you’re doing with your earth magic. The intercepting projectiles from your armour and those new rocks you’re forcing to orbit you. Your progression is incredible.”

“Only because I cheat.”

“We’re all cheating, but you’re making the most visible progress. I’ve forced my close in axe skills up multiple levels. Natives would be shocked, but it’s nothing like what you’re managing.”

“But we’re not natives. I admit I didn’t spend any time in the tutorial forcing my earth powers like this, but forty-plus years of magic manipulation puts me way ahead of any other twenty-year-olds floating around out there.”

“You’re right. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that as far as magic manipulation goes you’ve got almost twice the experience of me and three times that of a lot of people gathered here.”

“Yeah, it helps, but the main thing is I cheat with fate. I get a combination almost working and then I throw twenty fate at it. The next time I try it the process works. It doesn’t create a new skill or give me a level because my earth magic levels are already so elevated.” He paused to try to put the concepts more succinctly. “That one success, that one perfect cast provides guide rails to help with my next attempt. There is no system aid, but having done it perfectly once I can practice until I can duplicate that feeling every time. It literally saves me days of repetition.”

Keikain who had been at the very diminished snack table came over and sat down next to them. “What are you boys talking about or were you just admiring the view.” He nodded at the dance floor.

All the girls were dancing to the weird music. They were laughing in delight and enjoying the moment. Even Everlyn seemed to have recovered somewhat, though she was still stuck to Toni.

“Definitely just admiring the view.” Michael said. “There’s no way I’d talk shop at a party. Tom, on the other hand he’s a loose cannon. He wanted to discuss the fundamental physics of chaos bolts.”

Keikain barked in laughter.

The party slowed down and Tom found a corner to sleep in.

Everlyn didn’t join him. She hadn’t left Toni’s side the entire time.

The world was swaying. Dreams, the spectre of sleep, rose to claim him. Bits of pieces of his day were played in slow motion. The way he was getting the stone to orbit and the improvement he had observed. At the beginning of the day, it had only been horrible disjointed movements compared to the almost smooth orbit he had managed by the evening. Occasionally, the hurt that was the whole Everlyn situation approached. That thorny bush he didn’t want to touch. When it got near, he recoiled away and refused to engage with it. It was a series of haunting, displaced fragments. A true dream swept him up. It was a welcome break from the mini nightmares that had been hounding him.

He was in the body of a mollusc of some type. There were no limbs as such, but a general ability to shape the flesh. Macro stacking of hundreds of thousands of instructions to individual spots allowed her to move. Admittedly, any locomotion achieved was slow compared to most of the sapients here, but she could move to where she was needed. The same process also allowed her to manipulate her flesh to create limbs to hold objects. It was ridiculously slow and for pretty much any task it was better to get another student to help, but in a pinch she was capable.

That wasn’t important. What mattered was producing plans to guide their creation of things for use in the tournament.

With the skills that her randomly assigned team possessed, they would be able to make some great items. As far as she could tell, she had gotten extraordinarily lucky in her teammates, but that fortune would only manifest success if she took advantage of it. She needed blue prints to give them. Her innate physiological talents allowed her to imprint any designed she could visualise straight onto paper. The mental effort that went into shaping her body meant her visualisation was stunning in its intricacy, or at least it was to Tom’s mind. For her, there was nothing at all extraordinary about it.

The design appeared on the five pieces of paper she had prepared. It was a magical nullification and stun ball.

The instant it was imprinted on the paper Tom tried to absorb what was written but its complexity was too much for him. There were five sheets created in moments to capture all the information of the entire process. If he had a couple of hours, he might have been able to grasp and memorise the wealth of knowledge, but he had only seconds. On the macro level, it was a sphere that would contain the inputs from multiple people. First, the shell and inner parts would be generated. They required the standard type of energy infusion that he had been doing with upgrading the items for the golem. Then someone else would create a ritual to put into it and then there was a final fusing process.

Wait, he should memorise something. how did they make the spherical shell? Tom forced himself to look at just that bit. It was a pre-crafted non magical industrial produced flimsy sphere, then hours were spent soaking it in tree sap, followed by energising with reinforced mind power, then given to someone else who had the ability to do heat tampering, then back to her to balance the energy… then…

The dream broke apart.

As the normal dreams took hold, Tom attempted to organise how this dream matched with the others and what he was expected to get out of it. If the answer was the crafting recipe, then he had failed, but he doubted it would be anything like that. It had to be something else, but he wasn’t sure what lesson he was supposed to learn. He desperately tried to recall the details on that piece of paper, but they slipped away from his grasp.

Something slammed into his gut.

Alarm bells went off.

He was under attack. With a roar, he exploded into action. A thought caused a spear to appear in his hand and a wrench of will made Spark electrocute the surrounding air, so that lightning crackled through it.

His mind tried to understand everything he could see and sense. There was no one near him, and a spear clattered to the floor. More memories from the previous day came to him. He was in the crystal bowl, and it was empty of a worm. In fact, everyone was gone and all the signs of the party and bedrolls had been cleared away.

“Sorry Tom,” Rahmat called out from above. “Was testing my new domain, and the poke was harder than expected.”

The spear that was on the ground levitated and shot upwards.

Thor jumped down and landed next to him to help pack. “Sorry mate. He promised he could do it properly. You slept through the first two pokes and then…” the big man shrugged helplessly.

“He put too much force into it.” Tom guessed.

“Something like that. It doesn’t help that you go from being unwakeable to fighting off a horde of monster in an instant.”

“It’s fine. No one got hurt.”

“I bet you preferred it when Everlyn woke you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean!”

“That you woke up normally for three days running. It must have been a good change to this.”

“Possibly, but it’s not going to happen again. Bad for both of us.”

“If I didn’t have Bao, I would volunteer in a heartbeat. I’d be willing to sacrifice myself to let you get some proper beauty sleep.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“I might have been willing. It’s nice cuddling up to someone at night,” he said with a laugh. “Trust me, us having to wake you as we do feels horrible. Even Harry. I know he turned it into a joke for a while, but no one likes seeing you react like that.”

They kept going another two days of grinding to finish the zone and then Everlyn guided them to the exit they were targeting.

Tom checked his experience.

Congratulation for collecting the required Earth Shards

Your contribution is 4%

Experience awarded 680,000.

The result was meh. On a per day basis it was substantially less than what they had got in the dragon realm, but it was sufficient to be able to keep up with the monster’s growth as they went down levels. At least for one more layer and after that, the giant would be there to help them.

After the usual lengthy walk down a tunnel, they reached the exit portal and then walked up until they arrived at the new zone’s safe room.

It was different from normal.

The passage had exited onto the surface of a flower that was forty metres across. It was spread and fully open, but from the edge of the petals a translucent force field extended. It was like they stood on a daisy, and then panes of energy coming from the edge of the petals created the image of a rose above them.

“Beautiful,” Toni whispered.

Everlyn ignored her and instead stared around with a thoughtful expression on her face. “This is totally not what I expected.”

They could see everything. The zone was a series of hills on the outside and a large flat valley in the middle. There was a reddish sky like you could get at sunset and lots of small clouds, which were dyed orange by the ambient light.

They only floated a couple of hundred metres up and there must have been tens and thousands of them. They were what the stylised picture on the tile had been capturing.

“Good news. It’s a gather quest.” Michael declared. “Thor, send Harry a note to bring the chosen through.”

Abruptly, one of the clouds flashed, and energy shot down and hit the translucent flower above them. The panes shimmered as they absorbed the power from whatever the beam was. At their feet, the flower seemed to grow a little more colourful.

“It was targeting us, not the flower.” Everlyn stated all business now there was a problem to solve.

“How powerful was it?” Michael asked. “I’m assuming the chosen shields can block that.”

“Sure. One or two they’ll have no problem with. If we go carefully and make sure there is only a couple of strikes per minute that will work. Any more than that will probably overwhelm their mana regeneration. Those shields they create are mana intensive.” Everlyn answered her face a focus of concentration. More hits were striking them as two clouds from hundreds of metres away targeted them. “That range is going to be an issue. If they can hit us from that far, the chosen can’t protect us. We’ll need a different solution.”

“I haven’t sent the note. Yet.” Thor said quietly. “Should I tell the chosen not to come?”

Everlyn shook her head. “We’ve got millions of experience to spend and a similar number of credits. We’ll be able to cope with this.” She was staring up at the sky and using her skills to assess the best approach. More beams struck at them, but the flower effortlessly absorbed the energy. “This is like the ghosts but instead of getting something to kill the monsters we instead need to defend against them.”

The petals had visibly grown almost ten centimetres while he watched.

“I’m not sure the auction house has anything for sale that can stop those beams.” Thor said doubtfully.

“I’ve got an idea to solve that.” She smiled. “But Tom’s not going to like it.”

“And what’s the idea?” Michael asked on his behalf.

She turned to face Tom and established hesitant eye contact. “How do you feel about creating a golem with a shield specifically keyed to stop these attacks?”

Tom stared at her in shock. He had already decided that if he made a golem he was never going to deliberately let it be destroyed. More rays were hitting the air above him and being absorbed. If he built something specific for this level, how would it be able to do anything in the future. Everlyn wasn’t talking about a general golem with a directed focus, but a hyper specialised construction that was good for only a singular purpose. He didn’t want to create a golem that would be useless going forward. “Hell no. We’re not doing that. There must be a better solution.”