CHAPTER 341 – QUICK PROGRESS
They threw themselves into completing the zone.
Much to Tom’s surprise it was fun.
Everyone else thought so, too.
Like most places in this new magical world, the amount of life that could thrive in a small area was impressive. Earth had cities like Hong Kong, with millions on a small land area, but they were sustained by farming operations happening across millions of acres in places as far off as the United States. Existentia was different. Such considerations were immaterial. A monster the size of a human could be sustained off natural growth in a plot as small as a backyard. Add a second layer and then there would be two monsters to contend with. The dweller kingdom felt like a sea of people and strange monsters that should have been nowhere near self-sustaining, but it was.
It also helped that the space they lived in reminded Tom of many places in the underground. Dense overlapping tunnels where you could chance upon another city hub just a hundred metres below your existing one. Tribes or clans piled on top of each other, separated by stone which did not possess that impossible permanency that the underground usually exhibited. At least the surface stone that Tom’s domain could reach. The fact they were underground but all the surrounding rock was manipulatable was transforming. It made Tom a king. His power in any tunnel was devastating especially against monsters that had a rank only thirty percent higher than him. In the larger wider caverns, he was not quite so overwhelmingly powerful, but the domain still enhanced his offensive powers by two or three times even there. Keikain was also elevated to become far more useful than a mere pawn.
There was a simplicity to their strategy for gaining contribution points.
They had maps, and it was a simple enough matter to find the location of a nearby tribe and then they would make contact.
Tom would approach the guards. Social Silence would force him to say the right things for the first minute, after which Michael would take over. The package of skills he had purchased when they worked together after having a chance to observe their targets was impressive. It didn’t matter if it was a formless blob, an eldritch horror or a creature with too many eyes or mouths. He would step in and chat with them like he was their best friend. Their designation of Judicial Champions also helped, but that title was not enough by itself to generate the favourable deals that he negotiated.
Then they would discover what nearby monster den was troubling the tribe and Michael would get a map, a dossier on the monster’s strengths and weaknesses and first-hand accounts on the tactics the monsters were likely to use in the fight.
The detail they were given was impressive, and it was enough for them to determine the best strategy to deploy. With their wide range of skills and overpowered abilities. They were able to destroy what the community of slightly stronger individuals, at least in straight attribute comparison had been incapable of. The monsters always had a vulnerability, whether magical, habitual reaction, or a sensory gap that they could ruthlessly exploit. When the quest was completed, they would go back to the tribe and be treated like heroes. The public would celebrate their success. Strange sounds would follow them, the cackling of hyenas, a series of musical notes that sounded like a piano or the clacking of stones together. Michael would translate the meaning. Sometimes it was joy or the veneration you gave a hero, delighted laughter and occasionally sadness. There were some communities that thought their loved ones lived trapped in the gut of the monster that had slayed them, suffering continual torment. When Tom’s team destroyed the monster, it freed their souls and their loved ones could finally grieve for their loss and put the tortured soul back into the rivers of resurrection. It felt like the work they put in was worth more than the vague satisfaction of clearing away threats and the trickle of experience they usually received.
It was fun and there was a continual flurry of letters between their two groups as they coordinated their efforts and ensured that each team was sourcing the components, they needed in the most efficient way possible. Everlyn’s team could source Energised Black Diorite, but it was easier if Tom did it directly in the quarries where his Earth Domain had turned what should have been months of mining into less than half an hour of walking through peaceful tunnels.
That was the other fun part of his job. As he walked, he stripped valuable metals, ores, and gems from the walls. Almost a third of the contribution points they were earning came from trading those valuables rather than monster hunting.
Thor grabbed another note from a portal that crackled into existence. “It’s from Everlyn. Her estimate to finish is a conservative ten days plus a couple of days extra to solve the points of power issues.”
“Tell her we can do better.” Michael said immediately. “If her team can pull their weight seven days plus one.”
“I’m not writing that. It’ll be misconstrued.”
The healer laughed. “I know. It was a joke. I think her estimate is pretty good. Not sure about the point of power, to be honest. I don’t think any of us have an idea how to solve that. We have to scout one of them as soon as possible to understand their defences.”
That hit the real issue flush on the head. Forcing all points of power to channel the same type of mana was the main risk to them surviving the zone. They needed more information on it, because all the other parts of the quest could be solved by repeating what they had been doing so far. That last one was more difficult.
A guide, one of the tribes young who was barely rank fifteen led them through the winding tunnels. He knew his stuff and despite that they stumbled onto monsters because they were everywhere. Four quick brutal battles later, they kept going, hardly slowed. Eventually they reached a massive cavern filled with wild boar like creatures. An artificial sun glowed above them and made the place feel tropical.
Michael peered down at the rough oval space that must have been four kilometres long and a hundred plus metres high. “And the king boar lives here.” There were clicks from the guide that they knew meant yes. “Too dangerous for you to accompany us. And there are monsters between here and your tribe. You’ll have to wait here. Keikain can protect you.”
There were more clicks of agreement.
The Elder moved to hover next to Michael. “Healing One, should one of us stay as well to boost the defensive power.”
“No, the king boar worries me more. We’ll need you there, and Keikain will be more than enough. Defensively, he is very strong.”
“Healer Michael. I don’t think all of us accompanying you is necessary. Maybe the middle could stay.”
“No. I’ve made up my mind.”
The full team, minus Keikain hunted the boar. The fight was fierce, and it seemed to possess a method to disrupt his Black Dodge ability. That troubled Tom, but there was a reason most tanks had both dodge and precognition. It did not happen with every encounter, but occasionally time did not slow as much as it should have. Luckily, his trait Intangible Avoidance still triggered and let him phase through the worst of the attacks. Despite that advantage, he lost an arm after the five charges had all been consumed. He had stayed in the fight longer than he should have for two reasons. One because it was almost dead, and he felt if he held on a little longer, they would win, and second, because of his allies. He did not want to imagine how many of them would have died if he followed what his instincts screamed at him and executed a tactical retreat. Fighting in a team had advantages but also some pretty severe negatives. If he had been by himself, he would have retreated into the cave floor well before a tusk had sheered his arm off.
Continuing to fight the monster had not been the smart choice. Tom warred with his internal self. He understood the decision to fight, the desire to protect his friends, but it was the height of foolishness. This was how strong people who should have known better died. Their lives thrown away because of social constructions trapping them rather than because they were inescapably caught in a true life or death battle.
The flawed decision, by chance, had worked out this time, but he promised himself that he would make smarter choices going forward.
Michael frowned as he watched Tom reattach his limb. “That was stronger than I expected.”
Everyone agreed. The intelligence they had gotten was flawed. It wasn’t the fault of the dwellers it was the skill that let the boar briefly negate black dodge that had created the difficulties. The locals probably didn’t use powerful defensive skills, so they would never have triggered the effect.
What they didn’t know they couldn’t tell them.
“I wish Everlyn was down here,” Michael muttered as they packed up to leave.
They returned to the exit, and Keikain greeted them with a sombre expression. The guide was dead and looked like it had been gored to death by a smaller boar.
When they backtracked to the tribe carrying the body, Michael was very blunt when the community had asked what had happened. “We tried to keep him out of the fighting, but he didn’t survive.”
That was all Michael told them. The same line without any deviations or embellishments.
There was no talk of Clare and Keikain meeting up after that.
Two days and nights passed with the same static dream occurring. There were no signs of the defences breaking or even struggling but the fact the undirected dreams kept going told Tom that eventually something was going to break. The continuous dreams exhausted him, but the memory of the wador made him happy. If it was the dragon, he was attacking…then… Tom could imagine it happening to her… It was a nice vision at the very least.
“Tom, Can I talk with you?”
He turned to face Thor. “Of course! What’s troubling you.”
“Selena is pestering me. The wador they haven’t made contact with her yet and she’s worried.”
He frowned. “It’s only been five days?”
“Two more than she estimated, and she’s nervous that the Jenny thing might have created complications. She thinks two days is too much and we need to be more proactive.”
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He hadn’t voiced it, but Tom knew exactly what the conversation was angling at. His head was already pounding with an exhaustion headache, and he had another eight hours of fighting to go. “How realistic was that first estimate? To my mind the best case was three, but there was no guarantee that they’ll drop everything to link back up with the humans. It felt like the inventor at a minimum would have wanted to reduce the Tree Wisp numbers to satisfy his quest.”
“Selena insists that you use a True Dream on it.”
Tom in his head reasoned out the possible timelines. Humans travelling full speed would have taken two days. The wador alone probably arrived after one and a bit, but they would still need to have convinced the inventor to play. Then finishing the quest and it was possible that inventor’s travel speed was lower than Selena’s. After all, he used his creations to complete most of the quests. It might take them longer than Selena had calculated to get back to them. “I’ll give them eight days, then I’ll start probing.”
“From now or when they split?”
“Yes.”
“Tom, that’s not an answer.”
“It’s the best you’re going to receive. I want to keep my flexibility and see what happens. If there’s a problem we can solve, then True Dreaming will show it, anyway. Forcing the issue only satisfies our curiosity.”
“They’ve done more than that.” Thor countered.
“They have, but the cooperation of the inventor and wador is a matter of survival. The undirected dream will show a path if an intervention is necessary.”
They continued on. Gaining the trust of the natives and then defeating what troubled them. They had another familiar map and were on the road once more.
Their latest quest had forgone a contribution points reward for the far more valuable prize of three magical keys. It was a massive pay out for a couple of hours of work, which the clearing out the identified bat colony represented.
The first of the so-called bats was dead at their feet. Yes, the monsters had echolocation, yes they had wings, but the translation of that to a type of bat was misleading.
They stared at the monster that the chosen had fried.
“Flying snakes,” Bao muttered to herself. “I’m perfectly ok with this.”
“I’ll protect you babe,” Thor said, swinging his hammer like he was knocking the little beasts out of the air .
Bao was still talking to herself. Sweat beading on her brow.
Michael nodded toward her. “Is she scared of snakes.”
“Phobia,” Thor unnecessarily reported. “A bad one.”
“Flying snakes are not snakes… they’re bats… the system describes them as bats. They probably don’t even have fangs…” She pointedly didn’t check.
“Bao is restricted to the centre.” Michael declared after a moment of consideration. “I want a chosen on dedicated shield duty on her and maybe put her in her own stone cell.”
There was a hum in the air as the chosen communicated and the middle moved into a sentry position behind her.
She had been about to break down, but the orders caused her to perk up slightly. “If I’m needed, I can fight.” She offered unconvincingly.
“You’re our reserve.” Michael said kindly. “Now to the important details of the coming battle.”
“I’m going to unleash my powers.”
Michael glared at Thor until he trailed off into silence. “We’ll let him use his new toy, but I want to set up like it will fail. Keikain you’re to construct the barriers as usual for us to hide behind. Tom will go forward and enrage them. Only once they’re all focused on him are you Thor allowed to unleash his shiny new sound spell. And Tom! You’re going to be wearing your noise cancelling earmuffs for this! No debates.”
He nodded, and the helmet with the specified functionality appeared out of his storage.
It had been expensive, but Thor figured that it was an important piece of equipment for Tom to have if he was using his new skill near him. And given how the fights worked, that was exactly what was going to happen. If everything went to plan, Thor was going to unleash it regularly with Tom at its epicentre. Though just as importantly, the item was relatively unique and there should be a continual demand for it in the auction house as lots of monster types used sounds. His professional expectation was that barring catastrophic damage it would hold its value. That meant that when they reached the dragon, they should be able to recover the credits spent to maximise their chances of purchasing the precognition blocker that they needed. It was free protection for a couple of zones.
He slipped it on, and the sound vanished. Tom grimaced in response. Somehow, he had forgotten about the downside of this particular piece of protective equipment. Protected from the menace that was Thor with his new thunder spell toy, he moved into position. Then squinted up. He was positioned in a narrow entrance that looked out on a long, high cave. The roof was covered with sinuous forms. He focused and tiny pieces of stone shot out from him as fast as Throw Rock had ever managed. As they travelled, they turned into Black Kaosgenite a tier three stone that was harder than most.
The small fragments of rock strafed over the gathered bats. Flecks of thick blood and flesh went everywhere, and they all hissed before as one, they leapt off the roof, and swarmed him. There were hundreds of them. It was like a physical wave of living squirming biting creatures slamming into him. Lightning Enrage exploded out. Thousands of sparks that would hopefully tag all of them, but against the swarm approaching he was not confident. Thankfully, the others had chosen amongst them and the aliens would hopefully be able to protect them.
Time slowed.
Tom shivered as alarms rang inside him. He attempted to dodge. He threw himself to the side and added a teleport to buy distance, but the approaching mass was too wide. There was nothing he could physically do to avoid it. His arms, legs, and head turned to Living Rock. It was an attempt to inoculate himself from any venoms the monsters had. They looked like snakes, so he had to assume they acted like them. His domain meanwhile consolidated his ever present floating rock to form thick stone over his torso.
Anything biting him would hit stone. That would have stopped anything on Earth, but it wouldn’t help him here. Tier thirty-six monsters could bite through metal.
The leading snakes’ bit him even as his spinning spear, and twisting body avoided most of the attacks. His skin tingled presumably from the echolocation. The sensation reached the borderline point of unpleasantness. It was not painful as such, but it made him want to pat down every exposed part of him. Then a deeper thud went through him, and a wind blast sent him tumbling. The swirling snakes plummeted out of the air to hit the ground and bounce. Some of them looked dead, others wriggled feebily.
Thor whooped in triumph and another thud reverberated deep in Tom’s bones and then another air blast slapped him and rolled him further away from the group. The secondary wave of snakes likewise fell from the air. A mix of dead corpses and stunned enemies, but mostly the former.
Fire and ice crackled around him. Thor waded forward, swinging his hammer, and Tom started to use his spear to punch holes in the heads that were still moving.
“That is absolutely awesome.” The big man shouted a massive grin on his face.
They cleared six more caves. Tom getting battered by the initial swarm and then Thor wiping out the opponents in seconds.
The entire colony of snake bats were eliminated easily.
There was nothing unusual about that result. This time, it was the acoustic magic that made the difference. Against other opponents, it would be something else. It was how they had defeated almost all the threats they had been directed against. They didn’t rely on strength, but rather they found a weakness and exploited it. Usually, one of them already had the perfect tool, but if not they had experience to spend and failing that, the auction house was available to purchase a hard counter to whatever monster they had to fight.
They kept going.
Most evenings they slept in civilisation, rarely in anything that could be called accommodation tailored for humans, but most tribes had an alcoholic beverage that they let them taste and a large open room that they could convert into a dorm of types. Their evenings were not unpleasant as a result. Sleeping inside a fortified encampment was pleasant. It was nice not to be continually on the edge in fear of a monster attack. Of course, sentries were put in place in case the locals tried to rob them, but that was a lower risk than a group of rank thirty plus monsters striking a camp they had built in the wilderness. Experience had taught them that not even stone walls could stop monsters that were this powerful.
On the sixth day, Puma led them to one of the largest cities. They were here for the simple purpose of seeing a point of power firsthand. The city was in a typical enough cavern, but it was immediately obvious that security here was a notch above the other places they had visited.
There were four rank forty slimes on guard at the entrance and a host of weaker subordinates all of which was above the thirty-six threat the zone was supposed to be pitched at. As Judicial Champions, they were granted immediate access, and they went straight to observe the point of power firsthand.
Tom stared in amazement at the physical structure that those couple of words of text had represented. It was constructed of pink crystal formed into an intricate three-dimensional sculpture of swirling tubes that felt like they should have been hollow. They couldn’t test that without touching the artefact, which was something that even with their official champion designation they were not given access to attempt.
It was majestic and according to their guide was an amplification engine. A small amount of wind magic was funnelled into it and the artefact turned it into a lot more. It was immensely powerful with it and the other point of power being responsible for the constant breeze that existed in the tens of thousands of kilometres of tunnels that the dweller population filled. How it did so was a mystery, but its function was well understood.
The construction was the size of a football stadium. Fifty metres high and a couple hundred metres wide in a rough square shape. It was far from solid and sometimes as he walked around it on the viewing platforms it felt like he could see all the way through into the centre of the structure. Tom suspected it was an optical illusion. There were too many of the swirling pipes, and they were too densely packed for such visibility to exist. It was a lopsided arrangement with thin crystal cylinders closer to the ground that grew steadily wider the higher they reached until, at the artefact’s roof level they flared out like a trumpet with a rim larger than a housing block. Some of the smaller columns at the bottom disappeared somewhere and merged into the larger ones, but Tom couldn’t see where.
They did a full circuit, noting all the security checkpoints, and then left.
Nobody said anything, there was no need. As they went through the streets, they all calculated how they would invade this place if they needed to.
To say it would not be easy was an understatement.
“It’s too strong,” Keikain finally said, breaking their silence. “This zone is supposed to be rank thirty-six. Why the hell are their rank forty sapients clustered together?”
The unspoken subtext was that a sapient was likely to be far stronger than a monster at a similar headline strength. Plus, with at least four in each group they would have set themselves up to cover each other’s weaknesses. These would not be monster groups which had an obvious vulnerability to exploit. They were sapients who understood their vulnerabilities and would have taken steps to cover them. Tom’s group could not defeat hundreds of them at once.
“I’m glad we’re on their side.” Michael said in response. “I’m thankful the dwellers have such strength.”
There was no evidence of listening ears, but the dwellers were not stupid. This was one of three core cities. It was special, so they would be under additional scrutiny here. Despite their official honoured status, Tom’s team looked like they belonged on the surface. There would be spies following them. Everything they said would be noted down.
He was glad they had chosen to go the diplomacy route. Them being given access to the inner workings of the city was an advantage, but even with that knowledge he wasn’t sure how they could invade this city and seize the point of power if that is what it was going to take to escape the zone. Everlyn’s estimate that it would only require two days to align the mana type flowing through the points of power in the above and below ground seemed unduly optimistic.
There was no way for their team to claim the city. They would be crushed like bugs if they tried. The only hope was a war which pitched the dweller elites against the same from the surface. If that happened, then the humans throwing around their insignificant weight at the optimal moment to help one side might tip the balance and enable a surprise victory.
The solution was out of Tom’s hands and in Everlyn’s and Michael’s.
He hated the lack of agency.
The tutorial had been easier. There, everything had been solved with violence. Sometimes admittedly with delayed aggression. There had been situations when he had been forced to do a tactical retreat in order to come back stronger at a later point. But his magic and physical skills had always been enough.
Here, he had to rely on others. It was almost enough to make him scream in frustration. He resisted the temptation and kept walking. Not a hint of his internal conflict reached his face. His eyes meanwhile drank in all the strategic information on their allies. Numbers, strength and choke points because while they were friends today circumstances might force a different outcome tomorrow.
No matter what they were compelled to do or sacrifice they would find a way to win. More than just their lives were at stake.