Chapter Eighteen: Hide n Seek
When Tom woke the sun was still high in the sky. He had no idea how long he had been passed out for. It could very well be the next day for all he knew.
I seem to be getting knocked out a lot lately, he mused blearily. Probably not the greatest habit to be making.
He turned and was immediately confronted with Sam’s lifeless eyes staring out of her contorted purple face. He recoiled and bashed the back of his head against the boulder behind him. He cursed, then a lance of fear went through him as he realised the amount of noise he’d made. Tom froze, listening intently for any sign he’d given himself away.
He heard nothing, and gradually began to relax, grumbling internally about his aching head. He fished a mushroom from his pocket and downed it for the buff to health regeneration.
Fuck that’s useful, he thought. I could get used to being an Idealist.
He was distracting himself with inane thoughts. Manifesting a second Ideal was more than he could have ever hoped for. He was elated. His body felt even stronger, even heartier than before. If he could get back to Wayrest, he would return triumphant. His father would be proud of him again. Tom could choose whatever path he wanted in life.
On the other hand, he had gotten Gad killed. The first soldier had eaten a highly poisonous mushroom because Tom hadn’t thought ahead. The soldier escaping with them had panicked and been recaptured and he wasn’t strong enough to protect or save him. And now, he had gotten Sam killed with his hasty decision to hide under boulders in a forest - a choice place for any manner of venomous creatures to hide too, if he had been thinking straight.
It was all his fault, and now he had four deaths on his conscience. The practical part of him knew that dwelling on them would only get him killed as well though, and he needed to return to Wayrest and give them news of the orc infestation brewing in the Deep, and that they had somehow been able to manifest Ideals now too.
It was a heavy burden. He was alone, and still over a month’s travel from Wayrest if his best guess was correct. Any number of dangers lay between him and safety, not least an undetermined amount of orcs that may or may not still be hunting him..
He was an Idealist though, at long last, and he was no stranger to suffering. He would prove he could carry this burden. If he failed, Wayrest would fall.
He considered what to do next. He was confident he could find enough food to survive out here, now that eating poisonous things was no issue for him. Water was never a problem. He was less confident about defending himself from the creatures of the Deep, but he had a sword, at least, and his new skills should help him fight, or allow him to escape when he couldn’t.
I can move much faster now too, without anyone slowing me down, he thought, and immediately felt guilty.
Maybe I'll find some other survivors. If I do, I'll help get them out of here alive, he added, as if the addendum could balance a cosmic scale of such things.
I’ve got no idea if the orcs have just carried on now that they caught the soldier, or whether they’re still hunting. They could be ages behind me, or just in front of me now, he realised.
There was nothing for it but to get started. Before he did, he sent a command to his wisp, Status.
Ideal One (Classic): Suffering.
Skill One (Classic): Agony (Active):
Mana cost: Low.
Cooldown: Short.
Range: Moderate duration.
Damage: Low.
Damage over time: Moderate.
Inflict pain on target. Damage is typeless.
Skill Two (Classic): Sweet Suffering (Passive).
Debuffs and poisons are negated, and instead give an equal and opposite buff. Buffs last for as long as any debuffs would have. Immune to disease and damage-over-time effects.
Ideal Two (Classic): Silence.
Skill One (Classic): Hush (Active).
Mana cost: Moderate.
Cooldown: Moderate.
Range: Medium.
Duration: Moderate.
Apply Silence debuff to target. Puts caster to sleep if self-targeted.
He pondered over his status for a while, considering how he could use his new skills and how they would affect him and his fighting style.
He tried to remember some more wisp commands. After some fumbling, he got the right one.
Request [Silence]? he thought.
Information requested: Silence (debuff): Any targets affected by Silence cannot make any vocalisations. Targets cannot use abilities or skills while Silenced. Abilities or skills in use when Silenced are interrupted. Lower effectiveness with greater power disparity.
Powerful in the right circumstances, but quite niche, he thought. It wouldn’t be often he’d be fighting other Idealists, but it would certainly help against mana beasts on his way home.
Tom had been lying in the crook between the boulders for Goddess knows how long now. He made his decision. He needed to move. He reached out and gently closed Sam’s eyes before he left. Her skin was waxy and cold.
Was I truly unconscious for an entire day then? he thought, concerned. I suppose the orcs will be further away at least.
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He pushed the branches out of the way and crawled out from underneath and between the boulders. He stretched, and was surprised to find he didn’t have any cramps or aches or niggles from his stay in the tight space.
Me manifesting again, or that muscle relaxant and painkiller poison, or both, he decided. He debated looking around for a scorpion to kill and take with him but chided himself for a fool almost immediately.
If I need to put myself to sleep now, I can just Hush myself. He marvelled at the thought. Being an Idealist is more incredible than I imagined.
He took a careful look around the rocky slope, making sure there were no orcs nearby. There weren’t. He gathered the branches back up and arranged them in front of the hidey-hole again. It felt wrong to leave Sam exposed to scavengers, and he’d rather not make it easy for any orcs to find her either.
He found the sun in the sky and checked his bearings, then headed south and west, up the slope again. The day was warm, insects buzzed about and Tom could hear small animals skittering about on the rocks. A bright gold lizard, basking on a nice flat rock, darted away as he passed.
Tom felt strange. It was the first time he had been unaccompanied in over a month. Before that, even when he had been by himself, there had been people nearby. It was a fact that you couldn’t escape in a city. Now, for perhaps the first time in his life, he was alone - truly alone.
The other units on this Reaping would be returning to Wayrest now, or in the next few days. A few would have already returned, for one reason or another. There was likely not another human within several weeks’ journey of him, unless by some chance a Hunter was in the area. There were not many of them, less than a hundred, and the Green being as big as it was, the chance of it was vanishing small.
Well, thought Tom derisively. I guess I'll be getting a feel for the life of a Hunter over the coming weeks.
With that, he began to run.
And just as he reached the bottom of the other side of the slope, and began making his way into the more densely wooded area on the other side, he heard a faint howl on the wind.
His wisp gave a soft pink pulse, A body! To me! it translated for him.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was nearing nightfall, and Tom hadn’t heard any more orcs except for that one, faint, howl around midday. He had still ran faster than he ever had before, even so.
Alone, and with a pick of Ideals, he flew through the forest. At one point he disturbed a great flock of some screeching, crow-like birds that dropped a great cloud of what appeared to be ash as they took flight in a flurry of black wings and feathers.
Tom immediately changed course, veering more west, just in case the birds drew any scrutiny.
As night neared, though, it appeared he had been lucky.
Tom began to cast about for somewhere to sleep for a few hours. He couldn't afford to stop for long, and needed much less sleep now as an Idealist, but he was still human at the end of the day.
He didn't know if he would always have the time to rest, and felt it best to take it while he could. Exhaustion would get him recaptured as surely as slowness.
After looking for a while, Tom settled on climbing a big tree. He clambered up with only a little trouble and situated himself against the trunk on a nice, wide branch. Sleeping on the ground was all well and good with one hundred people and a watch throughout the night, but he wouldn't wake in the morning if he did it alone. As it was he was still planning on sleeping as lightly as possible; there were still plenty of arboreal predators in the Deep.
He managed to get somewhat comfortable and, relatively assured he wouldn't fall from the branch while he slept, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
~~~~~~~~~~
Tom awoke with a start. It was pitch black, his neck had a slight cramp in it from where it was resting against the trunk, and one of his legs had fallen asleep.
He began a massive yawn, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and almost fell from the tree when he heard soft, guttural growls from below him.
Sweat began to prickle his neck as he strained his ears. He thought he could hear faint footsteps in the undergrowth. Sounds that could just as easily have been some small animal going about its nightly routine suddenly took on a much more sinister note.
He sat for what felt like an hour, straining with all his might to pick apart the sounds of the forest. His newly strengthened Idealist senses snatched confused fragments of noise from all around. Unused to the new strength of his hearing, he couldn't tell from how far away they were exactly.
A low sound like a heavy gauge saw being dragged through wood came floating up from below. Ice water sluiced through Tom's gut.
Orc laughter! he thought, jerking and almost falling from the tree.
He began to slowly bend around the branch he was perched on, peering through the night to try and see the forest floor. Between the light and the intervening branches it was more or less impossible. He thought he saw shapes stalking through the murk, but it could have just been his brain conjuring movement to match the sounds.
He sat, listening, with frayed and ragged nerves, until the sun came up the next morning. There were no orcs below, and Tom hadn't heard so much as another whisper of one for all the hours he'd sat awake.
He tried his best to work out his knots and cramps before slowly descending from the tree. Bird call sang through the air as green light tilted through the canopy.
He lit upon the ground, dropping the last few feet with a soft crunch. He stretched like a cat, savouring the feel of earth under his feet.
He oriented himself south and west again, and began to move, but immediately stuttered to a halt.
Footprints… he thought. Far too large for a human, with clear divots from claws at the tip of each toe, they stood crisp in the soft loam at the foot of an elm.
Heading west. They've tracked me, he realised.
Tom immediately started directly south. He needed to get as much of a head start as he could before they realised they'd lost the trail and doubled back.
Again, he ran.
~~~~~~~~~~
Tom was pursued, a hare to a pack of hounds. He spent the next two weeks running, hiding in mean, meagre little holes, and running some more.
He lost count of the number of times he was almost caught. Twice, an orc came so close to where he was hiding he could have reached out and goosed them.
Once, he was spotted as he crossed a stream and only evaded them because he fell into a hole covered by dead fall. The orc hunting party knew he couldn't have outrun them, and were searching the area inch by inch, until they were driven off by a titanic, earth-aligned bear and its adolescent cubs. Tom gratefully took the distraction provided by its earthshaking roars to flee once again. Within a day though, they had circled back and found his trail.
The orcs were not the only danger. Tom also ran into several mana beasts as he fled. One afternoon, he was chased for an hour by a troop of monkeys that howled fire down at him as they swung around in the treetops.
He blitzed straight past an earth sprite, only escaping due to them taking much longer than a wood sprite to coalesce.
An injured, half starved tiger with green fur ambushed him with a disorienting snarl that made his vision blur. Tom was forced to waste precious time killing it as the sound of orcish howls behind him grew steadily louder.
His nerves were worn paper thin. He caught snatches of sleep where he could and gobbled down whatever slightly edible looking things he found as he ran.
The orcs were relentless. Over and over, Tom avoided being run down by the pursuit. He made it three weeks before he could no longer rely on his estimation of time. The days and nights began to blur.
His life became three simple facts:
He was hunted.
He was evading capture by the finest of margins.
And sooner or later, he would slip.