Tom turned a carefully neutral expression on his face, although inside he was seething.
Jeffrey stood there smirking. “Stop dawdling. Get over here, Useless. We’re assigning groups.”
Conversation across the entire group had stopped.
Everyone was watching the confrontation.
“Hurry. You’re already the weakest here. Don’t compound it by delaying us.”
There was laughter, and he was pointed at by a scattering of people. Tom walked forward and his foot slipped out from under him. It was like sliding on a banana peel.
He windmilled and fell hard on his back. His breath was blown out of him, and he lay on the dirt for a moment, looking up at the dome above him, trying to recover before moving again.
“For goodness’ sake, put some points into agility.”
More people laughed at Jeffrey’s joke.
Touch Heal.
The magic swept through him and repaired the damage, but still breathing slightly heavily, Tom got up. His cheeks burning, he wanted to hit something, but he focused on walking more carefully instead. The hard-packed clay was firm under his feet. How had he slipped on this? Mentally, he replayed the moment. There had been a loose layer of dirt on top of the shield, and a lack of friction had been his undoing.
Surreptitiously, he glanced back, and he could see a small section of the wavy blue shield was exposed.
Bad luck?
Tom swallowed. His mind analysed everything he could.
When Jeffrey had first called out, all the conversation had stopped. Almost the entire group had turned to face him. If he was on Earth still, he would have described that response as eerie. He was not on Earth and had emptied his fate points.
Tom looked up and saw Jeffrey grinning gleefully.
The clues all suggested one thing. He had! Tom was sure of it.
“Hurry, Useless. It’s not slippery.” Jeffrey kicked the ground to demonstrate.
Now over forty people, half the gathered crowd were laughing. Tom’s cheeks burned hotter. It was humiliating, and he understood exactly what was happening. Maybe this was his punishment for doing the same to others at school. But he had been fifteen then and had felt terrible about it afterwards and privately swore never to be that sort of bully again.
What was Jeffrey’s excuse?
Tom’s social standing had just been savaged to purchase a small increase in Jeffrey’s.
And…
The arsehole had used fate against him.
That was what made him furious.
Being a bully was acceptable. For humanity’s sake, Tom was more than willing to roll with the punches. But it was not only words. Jeffrey had squandered what was arguably the most valuable of all attributes maliciously against another human, and not a small amount, either. That slip and all those eyes focusing on him was a costly expense. More the second than the first, which gave away Jeffrey’s hand. Influencing fate to cause Tom to fall flat on his back was easy. Manipulating other humans with presumably full pools of fate to be watching at that exact time would have taken a significant expenditure. Too many eyes had found him before anything happened. That was expensive. Mentally, he remembered how nearly everyone had been looking at him. Definitely unnatural.
“Stop being so cautious.”
Tom plodded forward. The damage was done, and if he rushed, something told him he would take another tumble.
Clare was next to him with a hand on his elbow. “Are you okay?”
Tom shook his head to warn her off. Clare was amongst their top three healers. Her position would be unlikely to be diminished by association with him, but there was no point tempting it. As for Tom, this was fine. A bit of social mockery would be a holiday compared to a diet of cave drips and mushrooms.
“Thanks for joining us.” Jeffrey said loudly when Tom finally reached where everyone was gathered. Tom discerned that the response was muted. Jeffrey was losing them, and unfortunately the small man noticed, because with a last up-curl of a lip Jeffrey looked around the group, effectively dismissing Tom from his mind. “You’ve all been assigned teams. Sadly the GOD’s barrier doesn’t let us see a lot of what’s out there. When the dome falls, I want us arranged and ready to defend against an attack from any direction. Fighters, healers, then ranged attackers, with the crafters in the middle. Once we can see our surroundings, we will assess what to do. Our focus needs to be shelter and water. There are clumps of trees out there. We want to harvest them and process them. We’ll make a spear wall for immediate protection, and then we’ll expand to meet the community’s requirements: safety, water, food, and then shelter.” Jeffrey counted the items on his fingers. “Once we’ve met that, I’ll consult with you all and then we’ll put together some more permanent civilisation plans. Now, defensive locations.”
“Wait,” Michael interrupted.
Tom was amused to see the quickly hidden flash of annoyance on the face of the petty bully who wanted to be chieftain.
“I think it’s worth reminding everyone of what’s at stake here.” Michael had walked into the centre talking with the casual confidence of someone with a lifetime experience in similar circumstances. He was turning as he spoke, making eye contact with as many people as possible. “After the gauntlet, tutorial, trial or whatever you want to name it, there’s a danger of thinking that you’re invincible and you’ll respawn. It’s imaginable, as we’ve all experienced it at least once. But none of us healers have a resurrection spell, and I doubt any of us could have afforded life packs. Maybe in the future, but not yet.” There was nervous laughter all around. Tom smiled too. The cost of those packs had surprised him. It had been significantly larger than what they were priced at in the tutorial, and even then, purchasing one was months of grinding.
“Maybe that’s what Useless did.” Jeffrey called out.
Another round of laughter.
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Instinctively, Tom assessed the man mocking him. The low-level ability was always running in the background even if he failed to consistently pay attention to it.
Stronger, faster, more vitality, equivalent magic, weaker fate.
What?
He checked the impressions he was getting. Compared his own fate pool against everyone around him and Jeffrey was the only one lower than him.
Weaker fate?
Jeffrey’s was lower than his own, and Tom, without checking, knew he only had a single point in his pool. His regeneration was not fast enough to have any more.
The idiot had emptied his pool to score some extra bully points. No one else could tell. It had taken Tom years to bed down the ability, and he did not start trying until his fifth year, and then it was a further two decades till he had mastered it.
He had learnt it was important because as he ranged further, the answer to his Dux questions had disparities. Often, there were identical monsters that received different answers. Careful examination of the situations and then precise questioning that had revealed the monster’s current pool of fate when compared to his own was the distinguishing difference.
They were wild animals, and their pools fluctuated just like humans. If they had recently used up their allotment fighting something else in the forest, then Tom would find them to be an easy kill, but if the pools were the same level as his or higher, it was a different outcome.
Tom internally shook his head. When that happened, he would often lose. A smidgen of luck in a fight could turn a battle around. When those slashing claws missed instead of landing, that was the difference between a dead monster or a running Tom.
That had been another epiphany to Tom. Fate was not just useful for influencing random loot drops or the types of monsters he might meet in an unknown location; it also helped within individual fights. Absolutely obvious in retrospect, but he had been blinded by Fate’s more active uses. That was why the gamble to empty his fate pool on the mound had been a line-ball decision. He had crippled himself for the current day, hoping to leverage it into a massive advantage tomorrow.
Jeffrey now, when fighting normal animals would suffer from bad luck. If he got into a one-on-one fight with a high-ranked animal that would normally be a challenge, instead of it being difficult, the fight might be impossible. Just like fate could work in the humans’ favour and swing a line ball fight into a no contest, if the monster had more fate it could pivot sharply the other way.
Jeffrey was sneering at him. “Is that what you did, Useless? Were you so scared of dying that you bought extra lives?”
More laughter because the fate Jeffrey had spent was still in play, but Tom was confident that he could turn things on the other man now. Even with his rusty social skills.
“Enough,” Michael snapped, glaring. “Tom did not do that.” A ripple of energy radiated out from Michael and into Jeffrey.
Tom cocked his head at that. That was, to his senses, three, maybe four points of fate. It was quite possible that he was not the only one who could read fate pools, and Michael had worked out what was happening and stepped in.
Three against zero could hit like a brick.
A look of alarm plastered itself over Jeffrey’s face. One hand went to his chest just above the belly and the other to his mouth.
A loud burp ripped free.
Tom hurriedly suppressed a smile. If Jeffrey caught him, then Tom would go from a useful tool to an enemy, and that was not something he wanted.
Another burp burst out and Tom pinched the inside of his arm to stop himself from reacting.
Instant karma was a bitch. That embarrassing burp was the difference between a full pool versus an empty one.
Michael continued to appear unconcerned. “Jeffrey, you’re wrong. I’ve spoken to Tom, seen his skills, and while I disagree with his approach, Tom is definitely min-maxing, and spare lives would have been a terrible expenditure. He’s focused on one thing only.” Once more, Michael was getting the attention of everyone as he talked. “One thing only.” A single finger held up. “The same one as the rest of us. This is not a game. Yes, we can die, so we need to be careful, but we also have to accumulate ranking points. None of us want humans to rank below four!”
There were murmurs of agreement across the group.
“If you’re not throwing everything at getting stronger, every bloody minute you’re doing it wrong.”
“I think we can all agree with that,” Jeffrey interrupted Michael with a fake smile having recovered from his unexpected indigestion. “This is what is happening, one,” Jeffrey pointed, “Team Two.” He pointed to the opposite side and then distributed the numbered teams around the circumference. “Ten.” Jeffrey indicated the spot where Tom had dumped his fate points.
Once more, Tom was forced to hide his smile. “Everyone move to your spots and get to know your teams.”
“Wait!” Tom shouted.
“What Useless?”
“Tom?” Michael asked.
“We need to guard from an attack from every direction. Right?”
“Obviously Useless, that’s what,” his arm waved around. “I just did.”
Everyone’s eyes were once more on Tom, and someone had not cheated to get them there this time. They were luckily neutral. “I’m not saying it’s likely, But.” He pointed down at the ground.
There was a long silence.
“Oh god, he’s right,” an Indian woman exclaimed. “In the tutorial, a worm burst out of the dirt and tried to kill me. There was no warning.”
“I got killed by giant ants erupting from under my feet,” Number 24, the spell sword that had been talking to Clare and Number 2 earlier, yelled out.
“Me too.”
Jeffrey did not know how to respond.
“If we pull teams six and seven back, they can protect the crafters,” Tom suggested hurriedly. “The other teams can spread out to cover for them.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“Yes.”
“And if there’s no attack from underground or,” Michael pointed up. “Then one of the reserve teams can quickly help if an outer team is getting overwhelmed. I never did much with military history, but from what I remember, armies always kept a force in reserve to plug the section of their line that was failing.”
Tom smiled. Maybe he could weather Jeffrey’s animosity because the rest of the team seemed to be sensible.
“Excellent suggestion U… Tom.” Jeffrey corrected himself hurriedly. “Everyone move. It’s dropping soon.”
Tom walked over to the spot his team had been assigned. When he got there, Number 24, the magic spell sword who had been talking to Clare earlier was kicking the ground where he had slipped. Clay dust spread back over the wavy blue shield and then the warrior did a little jump and landed on the spot. He slid a couple of centimetres. “Whoo.” He noticed Tom looked at him. “You got unlucky, man.”
“Yeah. It took me by surprise.”
“Doesn’t help that you’re so weak,” the spell sword studied him. “Well, with every attribute.”
Tom grimaced at that accusation. “No, it doesn’t, but I built myself to get stronger over time.”
“Me too,” the man confirmed.
The man was on the weaker side of the humans, gathered at least when Tom weighed the man’s strengths. He felt equivalent to around a rank six, which was ridiculously low for the group and explained why he was in group number ten.
“Yep,” Tom agreed neutrally. “What special skill did you purchase?”
The man jerked at the question. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re here and you didn’t spend your points on attributes or gear.”
The focused suspicion faded somewhat. “Oh, I bought a fate spike. Randomly gets fate on my side when I’m fighting for my life.”
“That sounds powerful.”
The man looked guarded. “I think it might end up being a gimmick, but,” he shrugged. “I figured I should take a risk because on the description later on it’ll become super impressive.”
“What, you bought it blindly? Didn’t you have questions left?” Dux’s unspent questions had rolled over to be available in the contribution room when they died for the final time in the tutorial.
The man smiled for the first time. “No, I did. I asked, if I looked for another twenty minutes, would I find anything that would suit me better. Sophia said no.”
“Sophia?”
“My guide.”
Understanding filled Tom. “That’s going to be confusing. My one was called Dux.”
“You’re right that’ll lead to confusion,” the man said with a sympathetic tone. “Unsurprisingly, I was not ready to die when I got taken down, and I only had six questions.” He shrugged. “I bought the spike when it was clear I wasn’t getting anything better.”
“What is it, some sort of trait?”
He hesitated slightly. “Yeah.”
“Damn, I wish I noticed it. I’m Tom.”
“Sven.”
They shook hands.
“Did it specify how often it triggers or the number of fate points it grants?”
“Unfortunately, no. We can discuss more later.” It was obvious the man did not want to discuss it. Tom understood that, despite them all being on the same team, it was hard to share private parts of your build with others. Number 24 patted Tom in a friendly manner on the shoulder. “Hey, everyone, I’m Sven.”
The entire group turned and focused on them.
Tom looked around the team that he had been assigned to fight with and smiled. He liked what he could see.