It was the first time on Existentia that he was attempting a tier four spell. He fervently wished he had fate to spend. Twenty points invested right now would make him feel better.
If this spell failed… then when they went outside it would be their pathetic low ranked selves against natives. Without the elemental, they would all die..
Even with the spell… well it might be best not to think about it. At least if he emerged with a greater elemental that would be something no native could have predicted. A tier four summons against enemies expecting to face weak humans… It would even the playing field.
Combining his new titles.
Lightning Mystic: All lightning damage inflicted by yourself or a summons does 50% more damage.
And
Friend of the Elementals: Cost of elemental contracts reduced by 50%. By doubling initial mana cost, any elemental summoner spell can connect to a tier above the spell’s usual tier.
And his new spell
Summon Lightning Elemental (Tier 3)
Summon a lightning elemental at any tier up to three. Cost depends on spell skill level and tier of elemental summoned. Total cost of spell is only forty percent of equivalent general elemental summoner skill.
Spell level 8 benefit: Duration of summons doubled.
The spell should only allow him to summon up to tier three, but his title Friends of Elementals would allow him to exceed that and upgrade the summons.
That would boost it up to be a greater elemental and then the titles would kick in. The two material reductions in cost made the attempt a possibility. First forty percent by using the specific spell and then the general fifty percent from the title, which meant he was only paying thirty percent of the normal cost. The spell level benefit that would double the pathetic tens of seconds he could summon it for and then Lightning Mystic title and his Child of Elements trait would both activate, adding fifty percentage to damage each and double the power of said summons.
It would be lethal.
If it worked.
The spell form rotated in his mind, guiding his steps.
Theoretically, there was nothing to fear, as Spells were supposed to be more science formula than witches’ brew. However, the target was an elemental and you know what was said about filming with children or herding cats or something like that. Basically, don’t.
Twenty fate would have solved the fear, but no point crying over a lack of milk. All he could do was to follow the working and hope. His rule of thumb in the tutorial was to budget to pay twenty percent overs if you were desperate for a summons to work. He lacked even a percent of margin to include as a bribe.
He followed the spell with his mind, doing exactly what the inserted knowledge instructed.
First, he had to punch into the greater elemental plane. Tom prepared the steps and the spell form resisted when he targeted tier four. It was only designed for up to tier three and it knew it. His preparation before he had done nearly anything began to fall apart. Then his title took over with a flood of both knowledge and incredible complexity. That simple line about upgrading a tier contained more complexity behind it than his mortal brain could comprehend.
The title was not done. It was still there, guiding the spell adding to it. Tom felt it add an illusion to make him appear stronger in the rare case the elemental tried to determine what was trying to summon it. Other bits and pieces to confuse the target, a touch of fate, because how else could a level four possibly contract a tier four elemental?
The title hummed as knowledge and down right dirty tricks flowed down to make the near impossible into the probable with the least expenditure of actual resources possible. The mirage it was creating was beautiful.
Tom had been using the most basic, slowest approach to minimise mana expenditure. What was being produced was nothing like that. Instead, he knew to any elemental who saw it this would be a clinical quick summons from a being far more powerful than the elemental could imagine. The title had basically replicated what he did with his summon wisp spell. With that simple spell, he had made his entrance as flashy as possible to awe potential contracting partners. The title did the same just smarter.
Despite what was being added after the spell left his mind, he continued to focus on the economy of magic. As per the instructions on maximising efficiency, he built up an intense ball of electricity on his side. Concentrating it until it approached the density of the area he wanted to reach. Then he used it to create a pinprick hole. There was no tossing his awareness in and choosing what he was contracting. Instead, he dropped an offer through the space like a fisherman with bait on a hook and if an elemental took it, then he would have his summons.
There was no guarantee that they would care.
No certainty that they would accept. The spell just gave him the opportunity to make the offer and if he was being honest with himself, the overture was not particularly appetising, with the critical exception regarding what his title did. Those changes gave him a chance.
An upcoming lightning summoner with solid traits and Skills to support the elemental was his personal largest selling point, and the Title made that even more so. The mana levels on offer were terrible. That the elemental might not be needed to expend any effort was a trick, guaranteed work for low risk. The chance that an enemy faced them and the elemental could be required to unleash everything they had was bad. Getting out into Existentia was good.
It was a line ball decision for any specific elemental and he could only leave his bait there for a few seconds and if he got nothing, then eighty mana would be wasted, right before they faced what was potentially a life ending threat.
The instant the energy he was gathering reached the right intensity, he spent all seven of the fate point he had regenerated since entering the God’s trial. It was nowhere near enough. Twenty points were not twice as good as ten. It was more like five times better. To use seven fate in an attempt to influence a greater elemental? It would barely affect an errant thought. At best, it might mean that one or two would notice the small bait that he was tossing in. Get one to have a look that would otherwise not have done so.
It would work or it would not.
If it was successful, then he would have a greater elemental for twenty-three seconds.
It might not sound like long, less than half a minute, but that was an eternity in combat. Especially when facing a summons that could move near instantaneously from one victim to another. The firepower that a Greater Lightning Elemental represented would make a raiding party of rank twenties regret the decision to attack…. Well, maybe not. It was quite probable that they wouldn’t survive long enough to realise their mistake.
Through that tiny pin hole to the lightning plane that he had created, Tom felt an elemental touch the contract and accept it.
Tom’s mana flooded out, and then it manifested itself into Existentia. A ball of electricity as large as a human and every single hair on his body stood on end and it released a heat that was like a mini sun had been created in front of them.
This force of nature was there ready to help him and obey him, but when he transitioned out of the trial and if there were enemies, the scene would be chaotic. Having a bazooka meant nothing if it was never fired. He did not have a missile launcher what he had was better. He possessed a sapient force of destruction, a slavering guard dog, so to speak. All that he needed to do was to let it off the leash… and maybe direct it slightly.
There was the familiar mind to mind connection between Tom and the elemental. He marshalled his thoughts and created a logic framework. A series of instructions that he wanted it to follow. Ones that would let it react the instant they left the trial. If anything attacks him or his party members, then the elemental was to destroy them. If there was any shield containing them, then shatterit. If there were alien races, and all humans were dead, then kill them. If neither of those occurred, then it was to get intelligence on everything within a hundred metres of where they emerged from. After that, wait for instructions.
Next to him. Everlyn vanished, followed by Keikain.
Shit, too late.
Tom reached out and tried to leave the trial, cursing himself for getting the timing wrong. It was only a second, but if anything happened to them before…
The familiar lurch of being sent through the portal occurred. One moment in the slightly oppressive cave and then the next instant he was elsewhere.
Warm sunshine on his skin, a somewhat chilly breeze, the grass curling between his toes, squinting against the unexpected brightness. Chimes were going off in the background muted because he was expecting a battle situation. Tom brought the spear up while assessing what he was facing. He had appeared four metres from the trial, facing straight toward the camp. Humans surrounded him all of them searching for a threat with weapons up and prepared to fight.
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The lightning element in full battle mode shot twenty meters up into the air ready to strike down anyone who threatened its master.
His eyes flickered, searching for a threat. There were no visible enemies or standing allies instead bodies slumped on the ground, having fallen like puppets with their strings cut. The borrowed elemental senses told him they were unconscious and not dead.
Then the elemental acted. It crackled through the air, leaping from wasp to wasp and destroying everyone of them within fifty metres of him. If the contract length wasn’t so ridiculously short Tom would have been furious at the waste of energy, but then that was his fault. After all, it was just following his orders.
Find hidden, he ordered through the link. Or dead. There was a pause and electricity spread over everywhere within two hundred metres of him. All of his hairs including those on his head stood up caught in the static electricity.
The elemental sent the image to him. Thirty humans around the trial over half had arrived after him. They were awake, angry, and had weapons drawn. Then further out almost fifty more bodies were prone on the grounds.
Where? He blasted the question.
The elemental shared his senses. The bodies lived. He could feel the flash of electricity as their nervous systems functioned together. Most of them were concentrated in two spots.
Give me visual, Tom thought.
There was a click, and he was looking down from above.
There were only a dozen visible bodies. For a moment, he was surprised, and then understanding flowed through him.
Shelters, he realised. Most of the unconscious humans were in the shelters. Almost like it was reading his mind the visual being sent to him was overlaid with electrosight and he could see through the fabric to the spread out bodies. They must have been knocked out, Tom decided even as the elemental continued to obey his orders to search for an enemy.
Extra data kept flowing.
Wasps were everywhere, but Tom already knew that and the elemental let them be. After all, it knew that Tom did not want it to attack them. The senses of a greater elemental were impressive when it stretched out its power like this. It could feel a single wasp moving and it used a static electric charge that swept over all the surrounding land. That charge, he knew instinctively would pierce most obfuscation methods. Invisibility would be helpless against it, as would illusions as the energy physically went through areas rather than relying on something as easily evaded as physical light. Even most stealth would fail against it. Unless, of course, they were a higher teer than the greater elemental and if their opponent had skills that powerful… then resistance was futile and they might as well give up..
The scan finished.
There were no hidden threats. Apart from humans, the only objects of interest in range were six hives. Theoretically, they could hide things, but neither Tom nor the elemental thought that was likely. Unfortunately, short of absolute destruction, there was no way to confirm. The summons was restricted by the nature of the hives just like Spark had been.
Despite the unconscious bodies and the portal lock, there were no hidden enemies.
We’re safe. You’re not going to be needed, he thought to the elemental.
“Understood,” it told him.
A nearby hive detonated.
Stop! Tom ordered. He did not want the elemental to expend its energy unnecessarily. The miniscule experience he and it got did not justify the cost and if the elemental thought it got ripped off, it might make it harder for him to create contracts later.
A second hive exploded along with the elemental, giving him a mental raspberry. Overall, it had found things interesting, perplexing and confusing as well, but it did not feel negative. There was nothing else for it to do, even if it had four seconds on the contract.
Tom agreed with it. “Dismissed.” Almost a hundred metres away he felt the energy of the elemental spin together and collapse at a tiny spot as it burst through to its own plane of existence.
Keikain looked at him and then over towards the distant blasts. “Is that a problem?”
“No enemies hidden or otherwise for hundreds of metres in every direction. The explosions were the elemental amusing itself and taking out some hives.”
Tom’s words were overheard by everyone. It was like a valve being released and the tension dropped away. Not fully, of course. Not a single weapon was sheathed. The preparation to fight did not change, but they all relaxed ever so slightly. Now if a monster appeared amongst them only the closest to it would brain it rather than everyone in the group attacking it simultaneously.
Cautiously, they moved outward from the trial. Lots of people went individually, trained by the tutorial to rely only on themselves, but Tom was heartened to see small clumps forming. There were three pairs, a group of three and even a foursome who moved together. That last group moved as a true team shifting their posture to protect each other. Everlyn touched his arm. “We should help.”
The other three had stayed with him. Everlyn was a given but Keikain and Sonya had been more uncertain. “Agreed.”
Tom chose not to fall for the panic that most other survivors had fallen into, but marched forward briskly. There were no threats weak enough for him to worry about. If anything was out there, he was less than a bug, so there was no point slinking around. He went up to a body no one else had approached. There were only eight visible bodies, as the majority were in the shelter’s safety. Tom leant over and placed a hand on the girl in front of him. Slipping his fingers under the tightly woven bandages covering the face to get skin contact.
He knew they were alive, but nothing else.
The moment he contacted her skin, Healing Tranquillity kicked in. He was immediately aware of her condition. She was healthy, but a foreign energy circled within her. Tom’s healing spread out his consciousness and he attempted to chase down the strange energy and corral it. Despite his experience, it struggled against him. There was no way to get a grip on it, suction too failed. His tool set did not contain a method to burn away impurities like the energy deserved, but just like he did with the venom he could create a wall that it could not pass. Then, once he had a barrier, he pushed one side of it. The construction shifted through the girl’s body, remaining impervious to the energy, and forced it to be driven in front of his wall. Till it was pushed right out of the girl’s foot and the instant it left it dissipated into the air, dissolving away to nothing.
She stirred and looked blankly up at him. “What, who, um??”
“How did you fix her?” Everlyn asked immediately. “It wasn’t something normal healing could do was it?”
He shook his head. “No. I had to use a specific technique. Probably not repeatable by anyone else.” He guessed she already knew as she was studying Qui, the pudgy Chinese man from the first day where he worked helplessly to revive someone. “There was some sort of strange energy in her and I had to expel it.”
Curiously, he checked his mana and groaned. He was as good as empty courtesy of the elemental. It had taken four mana to heal her and given his current generation rates that meant he could wake five people every minute.
“What?” the girl he was kneeling above asked more clearly this time.
“You were knocked out,” Everlyn told her smoothly. While she explained what little they knew, Tom focused on listening in to the shouted reports as people reached the unconscious bodies.
“Alive.”
“Same here, but I can’t break the spell or curse.” Qui called out to everyone else.
The calls of those who had been trapped in the trial yelled out the same. Alive, but they couldn’t be roused. Unfortunately, for now, the job of waking people would fall on him.
“I need to go wake up others.” Tom got up His eyes searching for the closest person and then he jogged over to them. Everlyn moved to comfort the confused girl.
At the next person, he used exactly the same technique. By the time the man stirred, Tom was already moving away.
He deviated and roused Andros. If he had a choice between reviving strangers and people he knew, it was an easy enough decision.
Andros woke with his hand, grabbing his dagger in a single movement and drawing it. Tom didn’t care. He had retreated out of range. Andros looked around suspiciously. Searching for an enemy, Tom jogged away. He made a beeline toward the shelter where most of the people were. His eyes continually scoped the surroundings, and he was pleased that sentries had been set up.
Six people had taken upon themselves to provide security, and Everlyn of course, because she was almost always alert. More so at the moment. Her eyes were darting around even as she comforted and quizzed the girl he had woken. With her on the case, even distracted and out of position he would have put money on her being the first to identify any threats.
Two bodies were prone on the ground between him and the shelter. Tom couldn’t ignore them. He knelt down next to the first.
His mind dived in. For whatever reason, this victim had a huge amount of the strange energy in him like he had got a double or triple shot. There was no way Tom was waking him back up soon.
“Argh!”
There was a chilling scream from the other side of the shelter.
Tom leapt to his feet and got ready to sprint while calculating his resources. Mana was nearly zero, which left him with just his spear. Practically speaking, if there was a threat he was not a good person to meet it head on especially since half the people who were awake would be unquestionably better fighters than himself.
Plus, everyone was sprinting toward where the scream had originated from.
The best way he could contribute was to get more people into the fight. He abandoned the man with extra sleep energy in him and walked over to his companions and grunted once he made skin contact.. This guy had almost none of the evil foreign energy. Once more, he engaged with the man underneath him. He created the wall and shoved the foreign energy out of him. The process burnt more mana than Tom was comfortable, only five but it meant he had only just enough for a decent Spark.
Spark irrespective of his low magic levels was a dangerous spell. Even if the others had mocked him for it once his skill levels and his latest title kicked in it was equivalent to most tier three lightning spells on a damage per mana ratio.
The crafter stirred, and Tom got up and walked away. He did not know him yet and didn’t want to be bogged down explaining the situation. Curiosity got to him and using the excuse that the bulk of the unconscious people had to be in the shelter he let his steps take him in that direction.
“Stay back.” He recognised Bob, the cop’s voice and that tone. A feeling of dread filled Tom. There was only one reason he would say that.
Someone was dead.
Why hadn’t the elemental highlighted it?
Even as he thought about it. Tom realised the answer. He hadn’t asked it to identify any dead bodies just to find enemies, and that is what it would have done.
With a curse at his oversight, Tom jogged faster toward the shelter and the area behind it where the scream had come from. If it was another murder, and he sort of knew it was, he wanted to see the crime scene first hand. He had to check for fate, compare for similarities with Jeffrey.
If it was a second murder… one where they had gone to the expense of locking the trial then… there were going to be more. If he hadn’t asked that question, Tom would have dropped everything and run, but he had the security of DEUS’s foretelling, so he didn’t need to flee. For now, he might as well stay with the group. His experience gains were still good. He had a framework of a team identified to help him. He was targeting an elite squad of ten and had almost settled on all positions.
It was still in his interest to stay even if people were going to drop like flies.
“Stay clear,” Bob demanded again. “We need to preserve the evidence.”
He ran around the shelter and almost ran into Everlyn. “Evie,” he asked. She had come straight away and been here longer. “Do you think your skills will pick anything up?”
“Yes, an undisturbed crime scene. We’ll find something. I was waiting for you to get here.” She stepped forward with determination, like a moth drawn to a flame. Her helmet was on and she was studying the ground intently. She was already searching for clues. Bob went to intercept her, but she evaded his grasping hands and pushed the ex-cop away. “I need to see, and I will not pollute the evidence.”
Bob sagged slightly and let her pass.
Tom peered around the cop’s shoulder.
Then swallowed heavily when he saw the corpse
It was Tiny.
Fuck! He had his flaws, but… Who would kill him.