Multiple fires burnt in the courtyard. The flickering flame lighting up the entire area around and sending dancing shadows on the surrounding walls. The prison that Keikain had created had its door firmly shut with guards on the outside. Tom could only imagine and quail slightly at how those few people left trapped must be feeling. The usual groups each ringed the own camp fires with everyone declaring their primary allegiance. He spotted the remnants of Jeffrey, Legen’s posse, Joline’s sycophants, the healers minus his group around their own fire and then closest to him, his own friends.
Everlyn waved him over and then immediately passed him a plate full of meat. “Eat.”
He shovelled it into his mouth. “Second dinner is excellent. Hobbits were onto something.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Charming. Didn’t your mum teach you not to talk with your mouth full?”
He finished chewing and swallowed. She was joking about him eating with his mouth open. Not because he wasn’t, he had been, but because he knew she was only pretending to care. “How long?”
She patted his leg. “It’s been dark for half an hour. Is it done?”
“Yes. Good enough to sleep in?”
She got up. “You eat. I’ll be back in a moment.” Curiously, he watched her as she descended the steep steps, and popped out a minute later. “Can you seal the door?”
“Yeah, I can roll the stone into position. It will take about two minutes.”
She looked at the dark space that led into the created bunker and appeared impressed. “For a few hours’ work, that was extraordinary. I wish I had been able to do that in the tutorial.”
Tom laughed. “Me too.”
“And you made a toilet?”
“The stream was there, so why not.”
“Hurry up and eat. It’s bedtime.” Michael said good natured from behind him. “We’ve all been assigned to the dawn shift, so we need to get to sleep soon.”
Tom waved at the dark stairs. “Go for it. Me and Golly will be down in a few minutes.”
“Golly?” Everlyn asked.
“Golem’s a mouthful.”
“And Golly is not?” She inquired in disbelief.
“It flows off the tongue better.”
“I’m sure we can come up with a more palatable name tomorrow.” Michael suggested sleepily.
Tom laughed. “Golly might have different ideas.”
Michael shook his head. “You’re terrible Tom, absolutely terrible.” With a snort and with the other following, Michael disappeared down into their little bunker while Tom finished his evening snack with Everlyn cuddling into his side.
“Golly,” he heard Everlyn mutter under her breath. Then she snorted. “You’re an idiot. ‘And that’s Golly turning those skulls to red mush.’” She proclaimed like a sports announcer.
“Awesome right!” He grinned at her.
She laughed. “Yeah, not too bad. They’re just teasing.”
With his meal finished, he washed up the plate and then walked down the stairways with bright light now radiating out from it. One of them must have purchased the light spell. Not that he was complaining, as it allowed him to see firsthand what he had created.
Next to him Everlyn whistled appreciatively.
There were two sets of triple bunk beds, a small gap in the wall that led to the toilet, and it looked nothing like a natural cave. The fusing process he had applied gave the walls an impressive marbled effect.
“Posh,” Michael said, and he put a hand on the surface of the beds and pushed. “What’s this? It’s not stone?”
“It is? Sort of,” Tom answered. “My version of a waterbed. There’s a flexible thin layer of rock on top of a thick earth water slurry.”
“Will it break and get us all wet?”
“Nope. The slurry is closer to clay so won’t go through the cracks. It won’t last without magic and will be harder in the morning, but if it’s refreshed each evening, it’ll be almost like sleeping on a mattress.” Tom explained proudly.
“If your nickname wasn’t useless, I would find that explanation reassuring. It almost sounded scientific,” Sven joked.
Everyone laughed.
“I meant to say that no ones else’s bed will leak. Yours Sven… well you know if you call me useless I might attempt to live up to the nickname.”
“It was a joke… and it was funny.” Sven glared around at everyone, as if daring them to dispute him. The fact they had all laughed, including Everlyn meant that there were no takers.
“It’s not nice to say that about him.” Everlyn said into the silence. “You should be more considerate.”
“Don’t give me that,” Sven groused. “It was innocent and you all know it.”
“We’re all here, so?” Michael waved at the door. “Are we shutting that?”
Tom got to work manipulating the stone so it would settle into position.
“More seating room next time,” Thor complained.
Tom looked around the room and nodded. Unfortunately, the distance between bunk beds was too narrow for chairs, so everyone was standing awkwardly in the central area. They couldn’t even use bed alcoves as impromptu seats because the space between them meant that if you sat on it, the top of the bunk above pressed into your shoulder blades at least on the four-bed side.
“Sorry about how cramped it feels. I’m sure I can improve it in time, but I was sort of on the clock.”
“Umm, Tom,” Michael said uncertainty. “I should have asked before you did that. But did you tell the golem to patrol around the outside of the fortifications?”
“I did, but I restricted it to stay outside. If anything gets inside, it won’t come in after them. Too dangerous. It also won’t attack humans or anything that looks like one.”
“Great.” Michael said. “I guess we should assign beds.”
“Top,” Harry said instantly pointing to the side with four of them.
Claire jumped into a bottom bunk, staking her claim non-verbally.
“I assume the double bed is for you two.” Michael asked as he pointed to the unclaimed bottom bunk that sunk deeper into the rock than the other beds more than doubling the room.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Of course.” Tom answered.
“Fine.” Michael’s eyes washed over all the claimed spots. There was only one left. Michael sighed dramatically. “I guess I’m getting the other top bunk above the love birds. Yay for me. Everyone try to get to sleep. We’re setting guards. Myself and Harry are first up, then Sven and Claire finishing with Thor and Toni.”
“What Everlyn and I are not on duty?”
“Not tonight, but,” Michael wagged his finger in their direction. “We’re all in the same room, so behave.”
“Understood.” Then he turned to Everlyn. “Don’t worry I’ve set up some screens. They’ll provide great sound proofing.” He said in a staged whisper everyone heard.
Everlyn blushed. “No.” she said, burrowing her head into his shoulder to avoid the stares.
Tom felt his own cheeks go red. He really shouldn’t have said anything.
“Tom. If I hear strange noises, then I’m never letting you off guard duty again. If you want your beauty sleep make good decisions.”
Everyone laughed and Tom wanted to make a quip that is what the sound proofing was for, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it.
They swung their thin bed mats onto the bunk bed and Everlyn and he climbed into the bed. “I’m still putting the screens down.” He told her. “For safety.”
Once more, the earth flowed down, sealing them in. Once the basic structure was in place, he spent some extra time refining it by drawing on his knowledge from doing construction on earth. He had done sound proofing… admittedly once… and he had only been the gopher boy of the teams who did the work, but the fundamentals were the same. Packed stone. Then an air gap, another layer of stone, an air gap, and then the last wall. The air was key that was what stopped sound. Vacuum, of course, was better, but this should work too. The setup would make it weaker if anything attacked it, but it should stop sound dead. He had already completed similar modifications in the bed above them and the sides.
Next to him the silhouette of Everlyn shifted. His low light vision was barely working, supported by a bit of residual fluorescence in the wall. The silhouette held a thin stick in her hands.
Crack.
Light flooded the small space he had created. Everlyn was smiling while holding a stick whose end glowed brightly. It was a glow stick, and they were ridiculously cheap in the auction house.
“Let me,” Tom offered, and she handed him the stick and he stuck it into the roof above him. It was bright and annoying, but stone flowed so that the light had to bounce up off the ceiling before reaching them.
“Better.” Everlyn agreed with impressed noises. “Makes it cosy and pretty,” The roof glittered above them. “Did you put in the crystals for me?”
“Of course.” She looked at him suspiciously.
“What? I did.”
Her expression told him she knew he was lying. She bounced up and down on the spot. “This mattress is amazing.” The bed mats they had placed down helped cushion her but the rock itself giving just the little amplified the impression of softness.
“Beats a rock floor, and why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m trying to work out whether delaying going into the system room or cuddles would annoy you more?”
“That’s mean.” Tom considered what she was suggesting. “You’re planning on sharing your gains from the challenge trial?”
She nodded.
“You know I want to find that out, but cuddles wins every time.”
Everlyn laughed and kissed him. “Cuddles only. We are not doing anything vigorous. Privacy is important to me and while I’m sure you believe this place is soundproof, I don’t want to take the risk.”
“No one will hear a thing.” he promised.
“How confident of that are you.”
“If we try to be quiet at least thirty percent.”
She laughed throatily. “Its… Come on I’ll share the bow, then we’ll see.”
He closed his eyes.
Everlyn Louise Campbell has invited you to her personal system room.
Do you wish to accept the invitation?
“Accept,” he said instantly and appeared in her true system room completely with a roaring fireplace. His eyes sought Everlyn, and he found she was dressed in a conservative dress. “You look beautiful, but hardly titillating.”
“I didn’t want to give you the wrong impression. I’m tired. First, let’s discuss what you got, or at least show me your stats.”
“Show full stats with changes.” Tom ordered.
All the details flashed up on the screen.
“You’re level fourteen,” Everlyn said in excitement.
“I’m still not the strongest in camp. My rank has only just hit ten.”
“Well, that rank ignores your ridiculous fate levels?” Everlyn kept reading. “I can’t believe you got a tier four spell to skill level of sixteen out of that challenge trial.”
“Yes, you can. Because you have as well.”
She looked away, smirked. “Maybe.”
Everlyn promptly brought up the titles and read them. “That legendary title is pretty damn good.”
“Enough of this.” Tom said in mock anger. “Show me what you got. Or else I’ll make you miserable when we get out of here.”
“How?”
“I’ll think of something.”
“Try anything, and I’ll tickle you.” She beamed at him, then clicked her fingers. “As you know I focused on developing my bow skill. I gambled everything I could, including going over the eight thousand experience, and threw all my fate at it.”
“Really?”
She winked at him. “I have the sneaky traits. My large reserve of minutes I had saved up through my trait to transform and power myself up gives me a tremendous bonus in this sort of thing. Then there was my archery experience. I had multiple archery skills above a hundred in tier zero equivalent, and my technical skills are impressive because I used to fire almost a thousand training arrows a day in addition to combat experience.”
“What are training arrows?”
“It’s a spell you can buy to create different arrows. They don’t do any damage, but until they hit the target, they behaved like the real thing.”
“I used something similar to train touch heal.”
“Did it involve hurting yourself?”
Tom glanced at his feet.
“Why would you do that?”
He met her eyes without hesitation. “Because at some point I would be here and I would have allies.”
She frowned unhappily at him.
“My proficiency saved Clare’s life.”
“I know. I wish you didn’t have to go through it.”
“I made my choice.”
She smiled sympathetically. “In hindsight, it was a right one and I know lots of us made similar ones. Myself included. Anyway, all those added up to a huge unmeasured advantage so I would be crazy not to bet it all.”
“You asked about the scoring system.”
Everlyn nodded. “Before I even started I was way ahead of my competitors and with so many stacked advantages, I figured gambling was the only way to go. The gamble paid off. These are the skills and spells I received.”
Archery: 64 (Tier 1)
Power Shot: 64 (Tier 2)
Poison Arrow: 32 (Tier 2)
Multi Arrow: 16 (Tier 3)
Explosive Shaft: 12 (Tier 4)
Elemental Arrow: 12 (Tier 4)
Tom searched for the tier four ability at sixteen, but couldn’t find it, and it took him a moment to find what he was looking for. “Can I ask why did you put your highest bonus tier skill into a tier two ability?”
Everlyn shrugged. “It was the threshold bonus.”
Threshold bonus 64 - Removes the channel time so Power Shot becomes instant cast and reduces mana cost by a third.
“It’s not a cheap spell,” Everlyn continued. “But in twenty levels when I have more mana, every single arrow I fire can be a Power Shot. Can you imagine?”
Tom could indeed imagine that. It was not quite what his harnessed meteorites could do, but a good archer who didn’t have to worry about arrows could fire over a hundred shots per minute. If everyone was a Power Shot and Everlyn had support to physically protect her, she could destroy battle groups massing in the thousands. Or land them on the same point and carve a hole in something far more powerful than what she was.
Tom whistled in appreciation. Then he considered what her proposal would actually look like. “That would be incredible… but.”
“What?” She was smiling at him her face radiant.
“You will not have the mana to sustain that. Just like with my throw rock I can only launch forty rocks with my reserves and that’s only if I’m topped up to start with.”
Her look went predatory. “You got me?” She clapped her hands and bounced up and down on the spot for a moment. “I got this.”
Title: Mythical Endurance Archer. When an identical attack spell or skill is used within one second of each other, the mana or stamina cost is reduced by 10% each time. Awarded for: Outstanding performance in the first Challenge Trial (Rank 110) attempted. Unique Title. Competition Rank: 1st, 1000 Ranking points, 20,000 experience.
Tom processed that ability. Trying to get his head around it. Power shot was a channelled ability that for its mana was incredibly potent, but it was slow to be used, taking almost three seconds per shot. The time to charge usually meant the mythical archer would normally not apply, but that sixty-four threshold bonus changed everything.
It made Power Shot instant.
That allowed her new title to apply to Power Shot. Every time she cast the Spell, the next arrow would become cheaper. After ten, it would only cost her a third of normal and another ten would reduce each shot to an eighth of the usual price. After she had chained enough, it would cost less than her natural regeneration. Then she could sustain it indefinitely.
Tom’s eyes widened as he imagined her carving a hole into a monster with hundreds of arrows. “That’s incredible.”
Everlyn beamed in pleasure. “I purchased Imbued Arcane Arrow a two second channel spell but tier zero so a lot cheaper to cast. I tested it today, and it worked. Five minutes.” She held up a hand. “Every arrow imbued with arcane energy. It reduced a boulder to rubble. The synergy works.” She was almost jumping up and down in excitement.
“And the bow?” Tom asked, knowing that she had deliberately kept this from him.
“That little thing.” She waved a hand dismissively, and the bow appeared in her hands.
“I bet it’s from a title.” Tom guessed.
Everlyn pouted at that, so he knew he was right.