CHAPTER 354 – A VALUABLE REVEAL

This was a true dream which was lucky. If Tom’s physical body had been here, his heart would have stopped and there would have been a non-zero probability that his eyes would have been blown out by the spike in blood pressure. As it was, his mind or soul or whatever True Dreaming brought along did not cope any better than how his hypothetical body would have managed.

An outside force supported him and weaved together the bits of his soul that began to unravel.

That first glimpse through the senses of the mind he was in had not lied.

There had been GODs present, not a GOD as in singular, but the plural version.

The reminder sped things up, and he felt himself disintegrating only to have an outside force rebuild him with extra defences to protect his singular cohesion going forward. He was cocooned by a force far more majestic than himself and it hummed nursery rhymes to him, undoing some of the impact of what he had seen… um… what he had seen and would certainly see again, he mentally corrected himself because he was confident his location had not changed and he still needed to extract whatever knowledge this dream was supposed to bring. He was in another being and some but not all of its senses, Tom realised, were available for him to use.

How did that work? He wondered, while simultaneously hoping the question would not be answered. It didn’t take a genius to realise that some things were beyond your paygrade and raw knowledge had the capability to destroy you. Just seeing one GOD was enough to teach that level. Not to mention what a glimpse of multiple ones did.

Logic thoughts were not welcome. He definitely did not want to ask what mind he could be in that was somewhere where it was observing multiple GODs.

He tried to make himself small and rejected the option to use the different senses. He had no desire to offend a creature that kept this type of company.

“Relax child.”

He felt his soul start to unravel when he realised it was aware of his presence. It was like when he was in the dragon and her GOD had seen him and spoke to him and…

“Enough of that. I am not hostile to you. You are welcome.”

The words carried far more information than was captured by their literal meaning. The truth, as much as he would have preferred not to learn it was revealed to him. He was in DEUS’s mind. Not all of it, only a side section that let him see only a glimpse of her thoughts, as full exposure would destroy him. A tiny percentage of her conscious thoughts and a similar narrow band of her senses was all that she had made available for him to use.

There was no maliciousness in her. He did not have to fear her. She was trustworthy.

He accepted what she offered, and for a moment; he was seeing and hearing through her eyes.

Panic flared through him.

He was at the council of the GODs!

He was eavesdropping on the GODs and he knew what they did to punish the simplest of blasphemy.

What would be the response to this?

Before he could shut down, amusement radiated from DEUS. It effectively broke the spiral of self doubt that he had been entering.

“Your skill child is a dangerous one, but it lacks the power to break through into the thoughts of a GODDESS. Strong enough that I heard the slight tapping, which was impressive enough by itself. You’re here because of the bridge your skill built and because I opened the door. We’re not breaking rules and they’ll never know because the main part of me is mostly unaware of this partition.”

Tom couldn’t believe she was speaking casually about deceiving the GODs.

In his mind, DEUS burst out into laughter. “Why wouldn’t I think of them casually. They are at best, my peers and three of them I wouldn’t elevate that high.”

Tom’s brain shut down at that concept and he forced static to come up to shield himself from witnessing something his mind wasn’t supposed to experience.

“It’s okay little one.” Her voice was soft and enticing. “This is not your weakness. Mortal minds are not supposed to witness our power directly like this. Just try to listen to what is said. Given the nature of the skill that brought you to me, there will be something specific you need to hear.”

“Children.” SUPREME said suddenly. “We can throw accusations for ever but ultimately, we are only talking about the actions of a single mortal. If there was cheating, we need merely review the entire experience for ourselves.”

The connection he had to DEUS’ mind reminded him of a spider with its opponents caught in a web.

Tom suddenly found that he had context for the purpose of the meeting. This situation was caused by a mistake that he had made. GODs could see much, but an agreement between them meant privacy from observation was readily available. An option through ignorance that he had failed to pursue. To block the GOD’s sight, all a mortal had to do was to set up an active ward or have the conversations in a system room. This section of the meeting was because he had confessed to his plan without taking precautions.

I’m sorry, he started to apologise.

But she shut that down. She was the master manipulator, and everything was going to fall to their advantage. There was no hurry to finish this. No desire to take risks. Somehow, SUPREME’s words were what she had wanted to hear.

He checked the senses he had available.

He froze.

The GOD!

He, SUPREME, was looking at her… and by proxy because he was using the same eyes… SUPREME was looking at him!

Tom almost blacked out, but the escape was denied because the whole time DEUS’ soul was around his own. Comforting him and supporting his mind to stop it from crumbling.

He could feel the scheming. He could feel her adjusting her reactions to drive the outcomes she was after. She enhanced her stillness to project the right emotions even as inside she was quivering at what was happening.

“Well, are you going to share what we need?” SUPREME pressed.

DEUS’ mind was focused exclusively on how to extract the greatest number of concessions from this encounter. What she was giving up was already decided even if those gathered didn’t realise it. With a few leading questions and statements, it was easy enough to predict where they would draw the line, and that meant she could focus on ensuring adequate compensation.

“Sorry, child.” She was talking directly to him. “They’ll demand and receive most of your memories and from them they’ll be able to build a model to predict all the future choices you’re going to make. I can’t stop that all I can do is to ensure I get something commensurable in return.”

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She didn’t talk further, but he could sense her intention. She would aim to provoke the others and let their irritation drive the compensation she was after.

“Sorry, child,” she whispered. “This will be rough. I need them angry. Just try to remember that I’m going to keep you safe.”

“It is confidential.” DEUS said out loud to the room.

“See, she lies.”

“Enough FAMES,” SUPREME growled.

The anger, even though it was not directed at Tom was sufficient to drive him deep into his subconscious.

He could not…

The world…

It was…

They were speaking, and he knew logically that he should be listening to get the most out of this encounter, but SUPREME had growled…

Beautiful static shielded him from that world. What happened if SUPREME growled at him instead of one of the other GODs?

“You’re safe. Your reaction and fear is normal. You are doing great, better than we had any right to expect,” DEUS’ voice spoke straight into his soul and lifted him back into the conscious part of the dream.

“It is still highly confidential.” DEUs was speaking once more and her calm tone bolstered his flagging spirits. He could sense her smiling internally toward him, and that was magical. He felt whole and safe. The overwhelming happiness was so all-encompassing that it was difficult to concentrate on her actual words. He struggled against the feeling. He had to hear everything that was said. It was why he was here. Something was supposed to be revealed that was valuable to him. That was the crux of how the skill worked.

He needed to rise over the emotions, overcoming them to learn everything he could.

“It will reveal too much information about how he thinks,” DEUS said, parroting to them the warning she had given him earlier. “Potentially, even about humans as a species. Sharing the memory is fundamentally unfair, especially to address a false charge.”

Tom couldn’t believe that they were discussing him. The GODs gathered here wanted to experience everything he had in the tutorial. The situation was surreal.

“Hiding the knowledge is also…”

“No SUPREME. I’m not hiding anything. I’m innocent and have been wrongly accused. There are however alternatives that can satisfy all of us. It is my view that a fair solution would be to put the memory in trust and review it at the end of the competition. If I have cheated, the consequences can be determined at that point.”

“Unacceptable.”

“How is it unacceptable FAMES.”

Tom found himself collapsing internally in response to the tone of her voice. DEUS had sounded angry. The GODDESS he was in the mind of had expressed fury. That was not something his mind could cope with. Logic was irrelevant, even the fact he knew because of the soul connection that it was an act that didn’t matter.

He could feel the GODDESS comforting him and struggling to draw him back out of the hole he had retreated into.

“That was my fault. I thought with the soul bond you would realise that I wasn’t really angry and act accordingly. That was too ambitious, and I should have known better. As I said earlier a mortal under rank a hundred shouldn’t be able to cope with being this close to a true god. The fact you’re even partially functional is extraordinary and I shouldn’t have taken the liberties I did.”

Tom’s mind flipped and spun. That was wrong. She was taking responsibility and worse he was distracting her when she was in the midst of vital negotiations.

DEUS chuckled, amused. “I’m a GODDESS. I don’t have any issue with multitasking. I can run a thousand, a million, a trillion simultaneous conversations like this and not be impacted. You are not disrupting anything. Listen and learn.”

Part of him realised that she was in a middle of a speech and once more he hoped he hadn’t missed anything important.

“This time I have done nothing wrong. We’ve had the discussion once before about humans regarding the failure of the geas on fate techniques. This is another example of the spark, of genius, of creativity, creating something beyond your expectations.”

“Oh yes,” the derision almost bled physically out of FAMES words. “You showed a summary of their history and highlighted the times humans transcended themselves, made leaps of logic that were not otherwise possible. It’s a convenient point to lean on.”

“Exactly. You guys missed it, and that allowed me to create multiple mechanisms to leverage that trait. That’s why humans will win this race.”

“They will not,” MARKOS interrupted. “They are doing far better than forecasted, but they are weak. Ultimately, the power of my dragons will triumph. Your humans may seize a racial talent, but my people will do the same and we’ll obtain it the right way by destroying them utterly.”

“I have no doubt,” she agreed. “Potentially even within the competition based on what I’ve seen from your champions.”

“Enough,” FAMES thundered.

This time DEUS took even longer to coax him out of the hole that the scream had made him leap into.

“I’m sorry I’m not stronger.” He apologised the moment he had control over his conscious thoughts.

“You are plenty strong enough. This is not a situation a mortal mind is adapted to experiencing. Personally, I’m ecstatic that you’ve saved me a divine intervention. Plus, you being here and witnessing this has another advantage.” Her voice glowed with contentment. “Because you are seeing this, I can put the screws on them. Push for no contact, which I would be otherwise unable to do. After all, there is no point in getting a concession if you guys lack the knowledge to take advantage of it. Your little skill, the one that could, by getting you here, has solved that problem. I couldn’t be happier. Now focus you need to hear as much of the debate as possible.”

Once more he found her in mid conversation.

“You can’t have them. I will not willingly give you a road map to defeat my champions.”

“Willingly or not, you may need to supply them.” SUPREME said tiredly.

“Why is that necessary? The consequences can be determined later.”

“No. There is no balancing after the fact.” FAMES interjected angrily. “If they’re successful with this plan and you’ve cheated, the damage is done. Especially since you pointed them towards a species whose racial trait has synergies with their own.”

“As I said.”

“Enough DEUS. Give us the conditions you think are fair to share the memory.”

Internally, the GODDESS, or at least the fragment of her that she was sharing with him was happy. There was more to be done, but she had them where she wanted them.

“It shouldn’t be shared. SUPREME, how about you exclusively review the memories and confirm that I stuck to the letter of the law.”

“NO!” FAMES shouted.

The words crashed through him and he blanked out momentarily. This time, he rallied himself by remembering all those years in the tutorial. The mental discipline to raise above boredom and force inaction when required and those other times when he pushed body and mind beyond what they should have been able to tolerate to complete a task.

He could do this. He could hold himself together in the face of a GOD’s anger. It helped that DEUS was very happy with how the whole thing had gone. She had got exactly what she was after and was giving her final demands.

“Communication to everyone in the current trial is suspended. Location and specifics about Tom is never to be disclosed to a competition race. That includes the Rabotaca Wildlands as being a place of interest and finally all contact with competitors within seven day’s travel of Tom is reviewed by SUPREME to ensure these memories are not being abused.”

They all looked at each other as they absorbed those terms.

“Agreed.” Supreme said before FAMES could start a rant. “Everyone do you concur.”

There were flashes of affirmation around the table.

Tom felt it as she sent the information across.

She was laughing inside. “Child, protect yourself. They’re set to explode.” She told him. “They thought they were getting all your memories, but I’ve only supplied memories up to you asking the first series of oracle questions. It means they can only predict your actions to a ninety-eight percent accuracy as opposed to almost perfectly. It’s going to upset them so much. As for you, put Clare in charge.” She smiled sadly at him. “Brace, this is about to be painful.”

“It’s incomplete!” MARKOS ROARED

Tom felt like a nut caught in a nut crasher.

The dream shattered, and he snapped awake.

The dings of titles received went off but all he could think of was what that dream meant. He was no longer part of his team’s leadership. Every decision he made from now on would be compromised from a strategical perspective and he realised that included the choice that he would have made to give Michael leadership of them.

That was why DEUS had said that last bit.

She obviously knew that putting Clare in charge was going to stop the GODs from predicting their actions.

The memory of that meeting made him shrink inside. It was his second direct exposure to the attention of a GOD, and the previous experience which helped centre him. That, and the fact that DEUS had proven that she was on his side. But he remembered the horrors of the first encounter. This was not something to bear alone. He needed companionship. The presence of other humans. The reminder of why he was doing this and, of course the more practical consideration. He needed to share this with everyone else. Give them the new information and let their questioning of him extract everything he knew.

He opened his eyes, wanting to wake everyone and call a meeting, but unfortunately, they were not alone. The chosen were here, and the wador had a single eye open, watching him.

He ignored it and pushed himself clumsily to his feet. Then stumbled over toward where Everlyn slept. She stirred before he reached her.

“Tom, what are you doing?”

I need to talk to a human. He felt like screaming it out. Instead, he fell down next to her and half on top and then stepped into his system room.

Metal walls covered with titles greeted him.

There were at least three of them, but he was too agitated to even look at their names. Trembling on the spot and staring at his toes, he waited. Finally, the invitation came through and he accepted it immediately.