With a slight hitch in his step, Tom exited the portal, the craziness of the trial swirling within him. He had been an idiot. He had pushed too hard; taken risks he shouldn’t have. Then again, trials rewarded risk taking, and he had certainly done that and the ring on his finger made it worthwhile.
He glanced down and rotated it. The fit was tight and while he couldn’t pull it off, it spun easily enough. It was plain and almost skin-coloured. Unless he actively concentrated on it, Tom wanted to look around.
Powerful and hidden, it was a wonderful combination, especially given the circumstances of its acquisition.
Forget the tier, the skill it came with was intriguing, and the more impressive the foe the stronger it would become. It was an artefact that he would be likely to keep till the end of the competition. To spike someone’s fate, to strip them of any protections that swirled around them. That would always have value.
Humans could actively spend fate, but other races had their own exotic advantages. He was sure many of them would generate chosen ones, heroes to defend them. While the species might not realise it, their armour that let them achieve greatness would be a field of fate. But if they ran into Tom and he used this ring on them for a period, they would just be a person. Any species that relied on community fate as a shield were vulnerable. Anyone who depended on fate-enhanced objects. There were so many examples where this ring became stronger than an equivalent-tiered weapon. Even mundane applications, such as reducing a monster’s fate to zero, would let his own fate act more effectively and allow Tom, in the short term, to fight monsters that, rank-wise, he had no right to consider being prey.
The temporary portal behind him clicked and disappeared like it had never been there, and it took the oppressive air away with it. Tom breathed in deeply. Warm, dusty, and completely normal air. The only evidence that the portal had even existed was the camouflaged ring on his finger and maybe some missing time.
Quietly, he retreated in the direction he had come from. His support team was waiting, and they did not seem like they were concerned with his actions.
“That took a while,” Michael said. “We were about to come looking.”
He shrugged, trying to play it cool. “I wanted to get a feel for later.”
The healer nodded. “I’m sure you made the right decision.”
Tom’s head almost snapped over to check Michael’s expression before his judgement kicked in and made him walk back to the shelter. It was better to pretend nothing had happened. If they knew, they knew, and there was nothing Tom could do to change that. “We should see how the shelter is going.”
None of them followed him, and Tom internally sighed in relief as he made it back to camp.
Tom knew he was not the person out there with the most social perspective, but even he could sense how tense the wider group was. The stress was getting to everyone. Tiny was trying to organise a way to let all who wished fight the wasps. The traders were finding avenues to practice their skills, but it was heavy going, because of the psychological trauma that everyone had gone through. He knew for a fact that there had been multiple fights already.
If people fought over the order in which they got served dinner, Tom didn’t want to imagine what their response would be to Tom using a temporary portal without telling anyone. Jeffrey’s death, if anything, made that threat even greater. At least Jeffrey would have directed his followers to calm everything down. Without him… who knew what was going to happen?
His arrival back resulted in people pouring out of the cramped tent and spreading around him. They were well away from any hives, but wasps continued to attack Tom and died to the wisp he had summoned.
“Ouch.” Sven cursed abruptly and slapped his neck. “Stupid wasps.”
“Wear thicker clothes or get inside,” one guard snapped at him. “We can’t afford to waste healing.”
The guard was ignored, as Clare, looking almost as frustrated and unhinged as Sven, hit him with a healing spell. While the protocols meant Sven shouldn’t be outside, someone being stung occasionally was no cause for alarm.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“I hate this.” Sven stamped his foot in fury. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
“Stop overreacting,” Clare snapped frostily with a warning, looking at him. “It was only one wasp sting.
“I don’t want to do this.”
“Sven.” Clare interrupted again, her voice having a warning tone.
“What?” Sven practically spat the words at her. “Are you happy with how this turned out?”
“None of us are…”
He laughed bitterly. “Sometimes I think we’ve been betrayed.” He kicked the ground. “Dumped here, tricked.”
“Sven.” Clare warned him again.
“I’ll control myself. I promise, but…” He struck his leg hard. “It’s unfair. It’s as if I’ve been sent to Hell, as opposed to being part of a competition. These,” he waved angrily out at mounds that surrounded them. “This hostile plain. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Tears were running down his face. “If I had known… I wouldn’t have.”
Clare walked up to him. “It’s okay. We’re all in the same spot.”
He recoiled from her and stumbled away. “But we’re not. I would have made different choices if she hadn’t tricked me.”
“Sven.” Clare’s voice was scathing.
“No. Fuck you, and Fuck DEUS!”
Absolute silence deadened. Not just in their immediate circle, but the entire group.
“You shouldn’t have…” Harry stuttered.
Tom looked around, wondering if anything was about to attack them. A scattering of people made the symbol of a cross, which, if DEUS cared, could only make things worse.
Sven deflated. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that… I was angry… frustrated. And I know, that you’ll get us through this,” he continued, peering at Tom, “but being stuck here by ourselves, I mean having to fight through the wasps, is unfair. I imagined we would start off fighting bunny rabbits or rats. Something tangible, and then slowly build up to dragons.” Sven looked around worried.
Tom came to a decision. If there was a retaliation, there was nothing they could do about it. DEUS was not always a benevolent goddess, but more to the point, the other GODs were the problem. They had interfered with the arena trial he had just completed. All those theoretical accounts of blasphemy being judged harshly would be enforced… Probably.
Tom’s eyes still flickered, searching for a threat that he knew was there and then at Sven. Blasphemy!
Tom shivered.
DEUS had taught him the lesson early, like he was sure she had taught everyone else. Then she had relaxed her enforcement because she had taught him to watch his tongue. Tom knew she didn’t care because in his system room in front of DUX he could say anything; but in the real world, different rules applied.
Sven knew he had screwed up. The usually good-natured man looked small and withdrawn. He did not look like someone who wanted to be alone in their thoughts. “Sven, you thought we would fight bunnies?”
“Or equivalent.”
“Did you know the first thing that I fought was a bloody rabbit with a horn?”
Sven visibly forced himself to cheer up. “That’s actually funny, Tom. You got one of the standard easy critters to begin with. Not me. I had to fight a boar.“
“Wait,” Harry interrupted, barely holding in a chuckle.
Tom’s ears picked up. Harry’s reaction, so close to what Sven had said. That seemed incongruous.
“What colour was it again?” Harry asked with a smirk.
“Pink.”
“And did it have any horns or tusks or claws?”
“No!”
“How about magic? Did it make the ground sizzle with every step? Was its fur aflame? Or super fast?”
“No.”
“Ahh, I guess it was a giant coming up to your shoulder.”
“No.”
“Your waist?”
“No.”
“Your knee.”
Sven hesitated. “Maybe.”
“So, we have a small pink, un-tusked, non-magical boar. I wonder if there’s a more common and descriptive name for an animal like that?”
Sven shook his head vigorously. “Nope.”
Tom suddenly realised what Harry was getting at. “A piglet?” he asked in disbelief.
Harry burst out laughing, and Sven refused to make eye contact with anyone.
“Harry?” Sven inquired suddenly.
“What?”
“What was your first fight?”
“Frogs.”
“Giant ones?” Sven asked with a similar mock concern that Harry had possessed when grilling Sven about the boar.
Harry put his hands together to show a size slightly larger than a baseball. “Technically, I guess you could describe them as giant frogs.” He winked at Sven, who appeared to be annoyed that absolutely no one cared that Harry’s first battle had been against frogs.
They chatted, and the structure went up around them. Once the roof and most of the sides were set up, he was sent outside to ensure no wasps got accidentally caught within the walls and roofs they were putting up.
In the distance, dark clouds were gathering. Tom glanced at the cloth construction, then up at those clouds that looked like they had banked up kilometres into the sky. If that hit them, he was not sure the shelter would survive very well.
Harry moved up next to him. “That came up fast. I hope this isn’t because of Sven’s blasphemy.”
Tom looked at those clouds.
In his mind, there was no other explanation.
He had made the mistake two months in. Stuck within a cave until he had trained enough to fight his first bunny without risking death. A cave where his only source of sustenance was mushrooms that gave him cramps, and to drink, he had to lick the wall. Eventually, those conditions had made him snap, and DEUS had done her thing.
It was absolutely the worst pain ever, and she had changed the world to enact it. His mushrooms had taken on a blue tint between one second and the next. The feeling he had when he saw those mushrooms change was exactly the same as what he felt, when he looked at that storm.