Chapter Nine: One Piece

The next morning everyone seemed in far better spirits. The familiars picked up on the mood, and cavorted a little while they ate breakfast. Tom attributed it to two simple factors: there had been no attacks during the night, and everyone had read Darius’ skillset.

It was one thing to know someone had healing skills, but reading one yourself, being assured of the strengths and limitations of it, was something else. Tom guessed everyone felt more relaxed, knowing there was proper healing at hand if needed.

Breakfast was dried fruit, bread and cheese. Sesame contented himself with a pot of jam. Markus’ lion and Meri’s wolf each got a small haunch of meat. The birds had filled up on rodents, and Sere had plenty of flies to hunt. The horses and mule were more than happy with the abundant grass. There was a reason the region was so famed for its horses. While they ate, they discussed small unit tactics with Darius, specifically, how he would fit into their small unit for the journey.

The monk picked up the basics pretty quickly. Tom was acting as their tank, and would provide crowd control with his familiars. Eli and Markus were also frontliners, with Eli having more damage and Markus having more staying power. Both contributed useful buffs to the team, though Markus, with his Ideal of the Team, definitely leaned more towards squad-level buffs.

Rosa provided the bulk of their damage, and was expected to be particularly fearsome in the dry, flammable, environment. Meri had decent damage too, though she was most useful for her utility. Her familiars offered all sorts of excellent abilities that could be used both in and out of combat.

Tanya was almost a non-combatant, but she had Triage, which would be useful when Darius was occupied elsewhere, and a suite of enchanted items that could help in a pinch, too.

They set out as the sun was rising, packing up the wardpoles as the light began to dance amongst the grass. The wind rose with the heat. The insects and small birds that made the expansive plains their home slowly started their symphony. The Proving Grounds woke around them.

Now, knowing exactly what their healer could do, and more importantly, knowing that he would actually be trying to act as a healer, the party was more relaxed. As relaxed as one could be in such a dangerous environment, at least. Though none of them were close to managing the delicate line between tension and flexibility that Darius and Tom had, they were much closer than the first day. It was a start.

Tom led the party. From Sesame’s back, he kept a watchful eye on the road ahead. He kept little pieces of attention firmly on his familiars’ senses. Sesame’s astute nose was growing used to the environment, and better at filtering out the ‘noise’. Sus and Sol watched the grasses to either side, their incredible eyesight trained for any movement. Sere’s few bodies, those not subbed, were scattered about the group, perched on mounts or shoulders, providing vision to all of his immediate surroundings.

Together, Tom and his familiars learned. They soaked in information, parsing it, digesting it, extrapolating and inferring. Tom found it was excellent practice. He was getting better and better at multitasking in this way, and his familiars were becoming more and more in tune with him in turn.

Tom also reached out with Hunter-Gatherer. It was still a slightly odd skill to him, even now.

When he had first manifested it, the extra information he had gained from suddenly getting an entire extra sense had crippled him, if only briefly. Being able to sense life, and concentrations of mana, was overwhelming.

The Deep was a raucous riot to the new sense. Everywhere, under every log, in every tree, inside every bush, everything teemed with life. And in The World, with life, came mana.

Deposits of it were everywhere too, in the forest. Natural treasures, mana-beasts, even simple features of the land, all of them contained mana in varying levels. Hunter-Gatherer only picked them up above a certain concentration, but even then, the amount of odds and ends he had found with the skill was staggering.

Refining the skill hadn’t been easy. Val’s ‘nice’ training had helped, and simple exposure and experience had been a massive boon, too. But it had still taken a long while before Tom had become comfortable with the new sense. It had taken far longer until he got to the point where he no longer noticed it.

But in the Proving Grounds, where the environment was so different, he was forced to admit he still had work to do in honing it. Perhaps a lot of work.

Trees were bright, titanic structures to his life-sense. Bushes around them were merry smudges. Creatures were clearly defined, like shadows in reverse, almost. Humans, and orcs too, were clearer still.

The Proving Grounds felt …flat. The grass, on an individual level, barely registered to the sense. The sheer amount of it, however, carried a peculiar type of weight.

It was the murmur of a crowd, the rushing of water through a river. It was ever present, ubiquitous, obscuring.

In the Deep, focusing the sense on a particular stimulus reminded him of walking through the Artisan’s district in Wayrest. There were many different sounds, all at different volumes. Some operated completely independently of each other. Others did not. Harmonies and discords competed and twined, escalated and ebbed, all at the whims of some mad, unseen conductor.

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Here in the Grounds, his life-sense put him in mind of sermons at church. The priest’s sermon was foremost, a unifying constant, yet occasionally you would hear a whisper, a cough, a shifting of weight, or rustle of fabric, gone before the origin could be identified.

There were constantly smaller flashes of life amongst the background noise of the grass: birds, insects, rodents, and other small creatures. Occasionally, he could sense concentrations of mana too, likely some natural essence that had gathered.

What he could not sense were any large predators. The fact that Rosa had also not been able to pick them up concerned him. He felt as though his life sense should bypass any way they had of blending into the surroundings, but he had also not noticed any of the previous attacks until the last second.

There was a piece to the puzzle he didn’t understand, but he was determined to figure it out. He let himself sink into his senses, scouring the surroundings with them for anything unusual.

Tom carried on in this way for an hour, maybe more, letting the stream of information from his familiars flow through him, deeply focused on Hunter-Gatherer. When the sun had fully breached the distant horizon, they gleaned a reward: a second’s warning of a predator.

“Left, ahead,” Tom said, loud and firm enough that everyone would hear him, but not shouting so as to startle anyone. He brought his spear up, Sesame responding to his mental commands and angling to meet the threat.

A lizard suddenly burst into motion, throwing the grass around it into disarray. It was longer than any of their mounts, large too, but its squat body and short legs carried it very low to the ground. Its hide was a bland sandy colour, blending perfectly with the terrain. It charged directly at Tom in his position at the front of their small column, opening its mouth to reveal a bright blue maw full of needle-like teeth. A viscous substance dribbled from its angry looking black and red gums.

Sesame roared. The thunderous sound echoed over the plains. A few of the shards of black glass struck the soft palate of the lizard, and it hissed and snapped its jaws closed in pain. It didn’t stop its charge, though, and the rest of the storm of rock deflected harmlessly from its ordinary looking scales. The lizard’s legs scuttled against the cobbles, bunched, and then it was launching itself through the air.

A shield snapped into being in front of them, hanging in the air. Tom watched through its translucent panes as the lizard smashed into it, and then its ignominious fall was occluded as the shield released a pulse of fluffy white light over them.

An instant later, the shield dropped, and Sesame sprang forward, pinning the lizard to the road by its hindquarters. It wriggled furiously, snapping and hissing, trying to bite at Sesame’s legs. Gobbets of viscous spittle sprayed over them.

Pain filled their bond. Sesame scrabbled backwards, releasing the lizard with the reflexive need to escape the agony he was feeling. Darius darted in, sword in hand. Eli and Markus were not far behind him, with Rosa manoeuvring herself to attack too.

Tom was trying desperately to calm Sesame, but the bond was too crowded with the bear’s pain and panic. He slid nimbly from the saddle as Sesame continued to back away from the lizard, making heart-rending moans.

Tom’s world narrowed. Tanya ran up alongside him, having dismounted too, and started working on Sesame with her Triage skills. Tom’s mind flicked through his spatial storage, both his wisp and his storage ring, searching for something to help.

Before he had left Wayrest, he had made sure to stock up on anything he might need. Both of his spatial storages were packed with supplies. But after the day he had spent with Harvey, there were some particularly noteworthy ones.

The small mountain of various alchemical products.

There was a benefit to the incredible versatility so many products offered, but a drawback in the sheer volume he had to search through. He had spent no little time memorising them though, and though it felt like it took far longer than it should have, he still quickly located the two items he needed: a standard health potion and a cleanse salve.

He passed the salve to Tanya, who was already working on Sesame’s legs where the errant lizard spit had struck him. Tom tipped the health potion straight down Sesame’s mouth, gently pulling it up and open to ensure he got it all.

He knelt by Tanya to inspect the wounds. The spit had made melted mats in his fur. Considering the general durability of the thick black coat it was highly concerning that it managed to not only penetrate to his skin, but so quickly and thoroughly.

Tom watched anxiously as Tanya applied the salve. He barely noticed as flashes of light flared behind him. Through the bond, he could feel Sesame’s pain, stabilising, but not retreating.

Suddenly, the pain receded drastically. Sesame’s breathing came easier, and exhausted thoughts began to trickle down the bond once more.

You did good, buddy. You’re gonna be okay, Tom reassured him. He took another potion from his storage and fed it to him, scratching his ears as he drank it, and then slowly drifted off to sleep.

Once the bear was fully slumbering, Tom could feel his health rapidly readjusting upwards. With the extreme regeneration in play, they simply needed to wait until the salve had purged whatever debuffs or poison he had gained.

Tom turned, and found Darius at his shoulder. Anger flared in him. He opened his mouth to yell at him, but Darius beat him to it.

“I killed the sandscale,” he began. “Not that it has done your poor Sesame much good, I see. I am sorry, Tom. Our first fight, and I have already failed in my role. I should have thought to be healing him instead of attacking.”

The fury in Tom ebbed. He remembered the initial shield that stopped its charge. If the thing had impacted them properly, both he and Sesame would have taken the poison. There was no guarantee Sweet Suffering would have activated.

“You fucked up.” Darius’ head dropped, his gaze fixed on the road. “But you did better than before. You stopped its charge with your shield, but then you lost yourself after. You need to be more present. Think of the team. You can’t charge in anymore.”

Darius looked properly chagrined. Then he gave a tight nod, and met Tom’s eyes again. “I will do better. I must do better.”

Tom believed him, but grimaced inwardly. He hoped there were no more close calls between now and then, but such was life in The World. He’d settle for making it to Horizon in one piece.