They entered the main hall, and Tom saw Dimitri supervising as always. Deliberately, he elbowed Kang harder than he should have to get his attention. The other reincarnator shot him a curious look, as opposed to an annoyed one.
“Race you to the bubbles.” Tom challenged him, and then took off.
He stretched himself into a full-out sprint, and could feel Kang following close behind him. He didn’t know what Bir was doing and didn’t care, as he only needed one person to provide him cover.
“Stop running!” Dimitri shouted.
Between him and his destination there were people, chairs, tables, a construct trundling along cleaning the stone.
He made his decision.
The deviation was subtle, a slight step to the right so that his shoulder collided with Kang’s pumping arms. Then he overcompensated on the resultant recoil. Flashes of how to avoid falling and recover went through his mind, and he overrode those instincts. He had been pushed off course, and, rather than shortening his step, he lengthened it.
His foot landed on the edge of the construct. Physics and body mechanics took over. The uneven footing made his ankle twist. It gave way. His knee automatically collapsed to protect the joint, his balance was shot, and he was spinning and falling uncontrollably.
The stone floor filled his vision. His instinctive but poorly-braced arm took the brunt of the landing. He heard a click, then the arm collapsed, and his chin smacked against marble.
Tom saw white, his brain registered pain, and, rather than to push through the otherwise deliberating bodily reaction with his willpower, Tom stepped into his pseudo-system room.
The sound was muted, but he could tell his body was screaming. Through the screens, he watched Dimitri pick him up. Completely by coincidence, he had fallen just metres from the other man. He observed the glow of healing magic, and presumably some soothing words were being said. For Tom, less than twenty seconds passed as he stood in the metal room watching the magic of his title, watching himself perform a master class in acting. From one of Dimitri’s offhand comments, he knew the other man would be doing something similar. He had confided that for normal kids he stayed in the moment, but for reincarnators that was too weird.
A little over a dozen seconds in his own retreat was over two minutes in the real world, and Tom decided that was enough. He took control of his body.
The first thing he discovered was that there was no pain. The arm and chin had both been completely healed. Dimitri put him down next to his friends. The pat on his back was firm, as though the other man didn’t want to be doing it, but understood it was necessary.
“There, there, I’ve healed you. There’s no need to cry. If you ever need me, I’m here.”
Tom glanced at Dimitri. His eyes were blurry because of his tears, but there was a clear wet patch that Tom was pretty sure included snot on the chest area of the man’s top.
He was a good man.
Before he could think about that further, Bir grabbed his arm:
“You hurt? Ta are you hurt?”
“No, he’s fully healed,” Dimitri told her.
Kang, having picked up on the deliberate nature of the collision, didn’t even comment.
They played bubbles for thirty minutes until dinner was served.
Two nights later, Tom fell asleep and had his internal alarm clock wake him in the middle of the night.
He stirred and sat upright. It was nearly pitch-black in the dorms, and he stepped into the system room briefly to check the time.
11:35pm
That, he decided, was late enough. It was Extentday, and he had a date.
He snuck out of bed with his hand touching the tarnished necklace around his neck. The moment he did so, he could feel the option to trigger it. It was a source of safety during what was an inherently dangerous activity.
The corridors were deserted, and when he reached the dining room, the metal door was wide open.
With a big grin, he hurried down the stairs and into the main cavern; then turned right. Thick fabric blocked his way, and he pushed through the heavy cloth. The force of his passage caused a bell to tinkle ahead of him. He tensed briefly before reminding himself that the noise was expected. Once he was through the entrance, Tom stood quietly and counted to ten. It was pitch-black. There wasn’t even a thin seam of glowing fungus to give his eyes a chance to work. The cloth, in addition to being thick, had to be enchanted to be so effective.
Nine, ten…
Smiling in anticipation, he pushed through the final two curtains and emerged into a dimly lit room, but, given the previously complete lack of light, he still recoiled slightly at the brightness. However, that didn’t stop him from scoping the room out. He was relieved to see that it appeared empty, but since there were not one, but three further alcoves, it was possible that someone could have slipped into those while he was waiting in the previous section.
With no time to waste, he rushed to the potion section. It was a flat table, where the positions of the antidotes matched the lair entrance tunnels in the main cavern. There were pictures and descriptions of the monsters that filled the lairs. Curiously, he scanned what else was available. Until the next session with Dimitri in six months, he was happy to focus on the bats as agreed, but learning more to plan future adventures was sensible. There were images of two different bats. The second one was located on the far wall from the alcove he was in, as opposed to four entrances away, so there was no chance of confusion. In addition, there were giant insects, spiders, snakes, mammals, and more exotic threats including a tentacle monster, some kind of slime, and an image that he thought might have been representing a ghost. He grabbed four of the antidotes tailored for his bats along with a general all-purpose one, as well as a powerful healing potion. It paid to be prepared for the worst.
Without wasting time, he jogged over to the weapon rack and snatched the two smallest daggers. Due to his diminutive size, they were actually slightly too large for his hands, but they were the best weapons available, and, as he had found out in his previous encounter physically, the bats weren’t very tough, so they would be more than enough. A belt and sheaths were quickly strapped to his waist. Then he grabbed gloves, a scarf, and a full coverage helmet in the armour section. There was no need for any additional armour, because the standard enchanted clothes they all wore had already proven themselves capable of stopping the bats’ attacks.
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The final result didn’t just appear ridiculous - it was farcical. If he so much as moved his head the helmet would slide and cover his eyes. If he was going into a serious battle, he wouldn’t have even considered wearing it, as the regular loss of vision was not worth the extra defence it would grant. However, given his purpose, having a helmet blocking his sight was not that big of an issue, and, at the very least, it would protect his eyes from physical damage.
Preparations done, he fled the room. He knew that the older children would be taking advantage of the lair system, and he wanted to limit the chance of running into them.
When he emerged into the main cavern, there was still no one in sight. Thanking his luck and with his helmet under the crook of his arm, he hurried down the same tunnel as before.
Tom pushed his pace as fast as he could without exhausting himself. The healing magic he had developed, not to mention the addition of armour and weapons, meant that he was materially better off than when he had explored this place for the first time, but Dimitri’s warning echoed in his mind. The community fate that had shielded him last time would not protect him today.
He was on his own, and there was a real risk of death.
At that thought, he used half of his fate pool, as previously planned, expending it with the singular aim of helping him survive the night.
Then he kept walking, and, abruptly, the smell of the tunnel changed.
Tom immediately froze and took two steps backwards until the smell vanished. Safely out of the lair, he wrapped the scarf around his neck and secured his helmet. Then, with only a little frustration, he got both gauntlets on, and a naked blade in each of them.
He was ready.
It was time to hunt.
He took deep breaths and reminded himself of why he was here; then activated the Dampen Senses component of his ring.
Hesitantly, while being blind and deaf for all practical purposes, he stepped forward, deeper into the lair. With sight and hearing constrained as they were, he did not know what was around him. His precognition skill flexed in the background, producing mana that he sent unstructured into his brain, hoping it would help kickstart the process. As much as he wanted it to help, he wasn’t sure how the mana worked, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to try, at least until he got injured and the magic would have to be applied to more pressing needs.
His senses strained, searching and attempting to identify the approach of any enemies.
He took another step.
Then a third one.
This stepping into the complete unknown was a harder challenge than he had expected. He wanted to lead with a searching hand, but that would defeat the purpose of the activity.
More steps.
Fear told him that the wall must be right in front of him.
He turned and hesitantly stepped forward on the new trajectory.
“Shit, this is hard,” he whispered. It had only been a couple of minutes, and he was already disorientated. This, Tom acknowledged, was not the weirdest thing he had ever done for power, but it was close.
Something hit his shoulder. He cursed and slashed uselessly at the air. The bat had not held on, and by the time he responded it could have been anywhere. His heart rate increased.
“You’re armoured,” he reminded himself. He stood there, waiting, fearing the next moments. Would it attack his head? Or his ankles? Or burrow through the scarf on his neck?
He stepped to the side decisively. There was no way to tell if that had been the precognition helping, or merely a senseless movement. He split the air once more, savagely and randomly, swinging in a potentially pointless fashion with both arms.
Then he returned to the resting stance. Where was it? Had it gone to get friends?
Something smacked into his glove. It held on, scrambling, trying to cut through to the softer flesh and failing. He tried to impale it with the knife in his other hand, but it flew away before he got close.
Was that a squeak? No, it was only his imagination playing tricks.
He kept moving, swinging wildly, erratically to drive it off while pretending he was being guided by his mysterious ability. The first bat had been patient, and this one apparently was so, too. It was testing him: hitting his helmet, landing on his knee. It thumped into the middle of his back and didn’t let go. He could feel its teeth trying to tear the fabric and, instinctively, Tom understood that it had worked out that this was his weak spot.
Battle instincts switched on, and he rolled to either squish it or dislodge it. The bat chose to survive, but the loosely fitting helmet went flying. With a curse he scrambled to recover it and it took all of his self control not to reduce the amount of dampening his senses were enduring.
Real, unmitigated danger would drive his skill development, and he wasn’t about to reduce his handicaps the moment something went wrong.
A bat slammed into his head.
Pain flared. His dagger hit it as it flew away. He had no idea whether it was a mortal blow or not, but he for now he didn’t care about the weakened bat. It had tagged him. He was now on the counter. Heal Cut sealed the wound, and one point of precognition mana into Purge Foreign Substance told him he was infected.
His time down here was now limited.
He took an antidote potion before replacing the helmet. Within the pseudo system room, he set the timer up, and then he continued walking. It was just after midnight, so he could safely spend a full four hours here.
The presumably wounded bat had either fled or died, because it didn’t come for him again. His excess mana regeneration fully healed the cut and replaced the small amount of blood he had lost.
He kept going, blindly.
Another bat, or possibly multiple ones, harassed him.
He rolled into solid stone and groaned. His entire back was going to end up bruised from that one collision.
A bat got under the flap of his glove, cutting him, probably to the bone. Tendons had been severed, because one of his fingers wasn’t working properly. Tom frowned. Now he needed to visit a healing crystal on the way to bed to fix that.
Time passed.
An additional antidote was used.
A random swing of his arm gutted a bat.
He ran into a wall and had to sit for a minute to recover his composure. The occasional squeak was audible over the Dampen Senses restriction; however, he didn’t change its levels. The infrequent audible clues were not enough to guide even his defensive reactions. He pressed on and tried to force himself to take longer steps rather than the cautious ones his fear had forced him to default to before.
A moment later he went over a lip of stone, fell, tumbled head over heels, and, with more parts of him aching, regretted his inability to do anything but try his best. He strove to maintain the longer strides anyway.
There was more rolling on the ground, both because of uneven footing and the bats learning to hold on to places his daggers couldn’t easily reach.
He stabbed his arm by accident, and had to pause for almost half a minute to close the wound. The spells he possessed were not efficient. Touch Heal would have let him fix the injury almost instantly, even with his current tiny mana pool.
He used Purge Foreign Substance regularly to track the progression of the venom pumped into him. The potions were effective for thirty percent longer than expected.
Tom allowed the antidote to deplete completely, and then neutralised the next bite with Purge Foreign Substance. The experiment was completely successful.
In the next run, he wouldn’t take the antidote pre-emptively.
More walls where there was supposed to be empty space smacked him. He was surprised by the number of times it was his knees absorbing the force of the step. It was possible, he mused to himself, that he might need to consider protective armour there. The bats were persistent, with each new one requiring around thirty attempted strikes before he got lucky and hit them. Tom couldn’t tell if that was a result of random chance, or if his high affinity was helping him out.
The smell suddenly changed. Between one step and another, the stink of ammonia vanished. Experimentally, he stepped back and wrinkled his nose. He checked the time, and it was 3:20 am.
It was time to go.
He had wandered back to the start, and the familiar upward sloping tunnel greeted him. With his helmet off and his senses returned to normal, the tunnel almost seemed well lit.
It had been a good first training session. He returned the gear to the right spots and then collapsed once he reached his bed. It had been a success, and after a couple of hours of sleep he would face the new day.