Tom’s eyes turned to face Kang.
The empty space where the danger sense bracelet had been drew his eye.
Perhaps, more had occurred at the start of the fight than Tom had realised. Had Kang actually used his get out of jail card to save himself from the light statues, and as a result, had been helpless when the ranged opponents entered the fight? Was that why Briana had been forced to save him? Once more, he replayed the scene in his mind. What had happened? What was the exact positioning, and what could have caused the problem?
There had definitely been a stick figure at the entrance of the tunnel. Kang had been fighting in front of Briana and Eloise. The creature would have been prepared to fire on the trajectory that could hit the most people. Kang, with his quick step and bracelet, should never have been at risk. Unless the bracelet had already been lost, that is; but his experience was telling Tom that wasn’t the case. His friend had not been hard-pressed. He should have been able to swap a new bracelet in within a second. If Eloise could do that, then the reincarnator was certainly capable, and it was something Tom had seen the boy practicing. Warned as he was, he should always have been able to step to the side; the enemy attack would have followed him, but the group had proven before that these attacks could be dodged.
So, Kang would have been safe; however, where the spikes hit the wall, that location and its flight path would have been shifted, as the ranged stick monster would have attempted to hit the moving Kang.
Tom’s eyes widened and horror was etched on his face as he stared at Kang. He didn’t believe for a moment that Kang had lost his danger sense bracelet earlier in the fight. For him to have gotten through so many hours of fighting without using them even once and then requiring it not once, but twice, within a couple of seconds… it was nonsensical, especially given where he had been standing relatively to the girls and the shooter. He would have been left with no good choices. Dodge left, and Eloise would have died; dodge right, then Briana would. Do nothing, then…
“You didn’t?” Tom accused him a shocked voice. “Please, tell me you didn’t accept dying to save someone else.”
The other boy did not respond, but he didn’t need to. The angles were clear, and the behaviour profile of the ranged stick figures was well known by this time. The missing danger sense bracelet was the last bit of confirmation. Kang had seen the attack, and had chosen the easy path of self-sacrifice.
Tom felt like breaking his knuckles on the other boy’s nose. He suppressed the rage as best he could.
“Why?” he asked in a mostly-even voice.
Why? He screamed inside his brain. He was thankful that the artificial anger was not jumping on board the situation, and he knew why it wasn’t. This wasn’t an injustice - it was just a terribly selfish mistake, and one he wasn’t sure could be forgiven. They had had the conversation. It was Kang who had spoken about the need not to make the choice he had.
Acting in ignorance was one thing. This was far worse. The other reincarnator had ignored the danger sense bracelet to prevent Eloise from dying.
Kang looked away and was unwilling to meet his eyes.
“Why?” Tom demanded again almost shouting the words. “Why do something so dumb?”
“I froze up.”
Tom slapped him before he could control himself. Kang was still wearing a metal-lined helmet, and he was sure he hurt his hand more than the others boy’s face, but the fury in him couldn’t be denied.
“Idiot, if you die we all die! I can’t beat this floor by myself.”
“I’m sorry; I froze up. I didn’t mean to do it.”
“That wasn’t a freeze-up. That was idiocy.”
“Why are you yelling at him?” Eloise demanded. “He’s hurt.”
Tom reassessed Kang. There was a bit of fresh blood, but relatively little of it, considering what they had just faced. If Briana hadn’t been as injured as she was, Tom would be rushing to heal those wounds. As it was, she deserved healing more.
“It’s okay, he has a right to be angry.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“He does,” Kang repeated. “And I promise you, it won’t happen again. I panicked, and I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Tom wanted to scream and yell, but Social Silence locked his throat. He compelled himself to take a deep breath, then remembered all the warning signs that Kang had displayed. The stress, the way he had soldiered on desperate to save them… He had his heart and soul in keeping them all alive, so Tom could see why he had been willing to sacrifice himself for Eloise.
Despite his anger, Tom forced himself to see things from his friend’s perspective. It was easy to imagine Kang’s internal turmoil in the moments after the bracelet warned him of the danger. He had less than a second to react - a couple of back forths, should I, should I not, and then boom! By then, the time was up, and it had been too late to evade. It was stupid, and not something he expected from the best of those selected for the competition, but he could see the chain of events that could have brought them here.
“I understand. A mistake was made, and now we move on. Give me six minutes to stabilise her and patch you up, then we’ll retreat.”
Kang frowned. “Why is she still unconscious?”
“I knocked her out so her movements wouldn’t interfere with her healing.” Tom explained.
“And… will she be okay?”
Tom said nothing.
“Tom!” Kang insisted. “Is she going to be okay?”
He shook his head ever so slightly. “The spines were poisoned. I can patch the injuries up, but I can’t heal that.”
“But you said that you can burn away venoms and poisons.”
“I wish,” he spat out angrily. “I can usually do that. But if it’s too high-tier, such actions are beyond me. This stuff it’s nasty. All I can do is isolate the spread.”
“Is she dying?” Eloise asked, sounding horrified.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“No, but she’s going to be in a continuous pain until we leave this trial. The injuries won’t carry back to Existentia, so finishing these floors is how we’re going to fix her.”
His piece said, he then ignored the other two and focused on healing Briana as efficiently as possible. It was likely to take him over half an hour to heal her to the extent of his abilities, but, for now, he just needed to get her up and walking.
His patch job complete, she finally stirred.
“I feel funny.” She poked her stomach. “This place feels funny.”
“It’s because I’m suppressing the pain.”
She looked at him with wide eyes.
“When you saved Kang, you got hit by the stick figures’ spines. They poisoned you.”
“I’m dying, then?”
“No,” he interrupted, frustrated at how everyone’s mind went in that same direction. “You’re not dying. Why is everyone assuming that? While you’re going to survive, you’re injured, and you’ve also have been poisoned by something that’s too virulent for me to burn away. While you’re awake, I’ll be able to dull your pain, but the degree of your movement is going to be restricted. We’ll probably need to get you used to that before we go in together.”
“For ever?”
“No, only until you leave the trial. That will fix you, and any adult healer would have the capacity to do it as well. I just don’t have the power to help you yet.”
She tentatively got to her feet, and they picked their way back to safety via the brightly lit rooms. The journey was dull, like most of their time here was. Each battle on the way was trivial, and they clinically destroyed the scattering of enemies they ran into. None of them (thankfully, given Bri’s state) were even close to becoming a challenge, and Danger Sense had returned to its background level, telling Tom that the environment was as benign as it appeared to be.
It was broadcasting the same message it had since they had entered the trial: a moderate warning about the likelihood of impending death. More for the others than for himself; however, after what had happened, he understood how close to a fatal mistake they had come and what the threat that Danger Sense had picked up on actually represented. It was real. What would happen if two ranged stick figures attacked them? The first would burn the bracelets, and the second would pick them off without fail.
The idea was terrifying, but then again, they were trapped in a dark hole trial. Even six-year-olds knew what that kind of trial was, and the threat it represented. This sense of impending doom, this real chance of messy permanent death… what else could they have expected? Besides, it was not like they could do anything to avoid it, now that they were trapped here. No matter how dangerous it was, tomorrow they were going to have to go back onto the killing floor. They had to finish what they’ve started.
At least, Tom thought bitterly to himself, all the fighting they were doing had gotten him an award. He remembered the ding, and he was going to check on it at the first opportunity, but only if he had privacy - on the very remote chance it was something that others shouldn’t see.
Finally, they exited into the safety of their common room.
“We’re not doing another one today.” Tom told them.
Brianna was walking with an unsteady gait… because a fist-sized ball of her intestines had been converted into the metallic plastic-type substance. She was six, and it was like she was infested with a tumour. The funny thing was that the transformed tissue still mostly acted true to its original nature. The intestine pipes worked, even if the infected areas were not going to be doing any nutrient absorption.
Carefully, he started healing her, and focused on fixing everything outside the infected tissue.
Kang hovered over them his hands twisting in agitation. “I’m sorry, Tom.”
“You did your best.”
“It wasn’t a deliberate choice. I froze up.”
“You don’t have to justify yourself, Kang. I said I understand.”
“But you don’t. You’re not meeting my eyes.”
“I’m trying to heal Briana,” he snapped back.
“You tell yourself that, but we know...” He shot a glance at Briana, Eloise having had long since run off to her safe space, and then moderated his word choice. “We both know better than that.”
“Please, don’t fight.” Brianna, who was laying on the couch, begged uncomfortably. “I knew I was going to get hurt when I saved him. A bit of pain,” she smiled wanly. “It won’t kill me.”
“Plus, even if I had died, you had your trump card, right, Tom? It’s not like I was dooming everyone.”
Tom glared at him. He did, and the spear would have allowed him to kill light statues. However, Kang hadn’t known that, and, if he used it, there was a good chance it wasn’t going to be available for the next floor. Notwithstanding the fact that Eloise had seen her own butterfly spear break. She might still get suspicious about the butterfly-like dragons on his new one. He had tried to differentiate the designs, but his artistic talents hadn’t been up to the challenge. The spear still looked the same, especially if you squinted or saw it out of the corner of your eye. It wasn’t going to stand up to long-term scrutiny, though.
“You do have a trump card, don’t you?”
Tom inclined his head in agreement and sighed tiredly. “Yes, Kang, I do have one. And yes, I’m very upset about you. There is no need to mince words. You screwed up. That doesn’t mean I don’t understand why you did what you did, but it does mean this...” He waved his hand to indicate the space between them. “This neediness is unwelcome. Can you give me some space? I need to check my status.”
“What about Briana?” Kang started, and then stopped talking while staring at her. Briana had fallen asleep, helped along by his magic. “I guess you’ve dealt with her. Fine, you can have your privacy. Make sure to tell me if you get anything important?”
“Will do.” He watched Kang leave in a huff and when the door slammed shut, he spoke up. “Adam, can you give me the wireframes of the pain reduction spell?” On the table in front of him, a series of wire frames appeared. He needed to relearn the spell so he could keep Briana’s agony to a minimum. Its mana cost was less than ten, so the free cast every six minutes was going to be vital when they worked at clearing the floors. If he had to rely on Touch Heal for the same, it was going to impact their fighting-related efficiency too much. A dedicated spell solved that issue. “Thank you. Can you also privately share what skill I’ve just earned?”
Another set of pages appeared.
When you scrunch it up, it will self-destruct.
“Thank you,” he said quietly as he read the supplied information.
Congratulations, you have met the prerequisites to be rewarded the Skill.
Skill: Fateful Repositioning (Tier 4)
This skill is an Earned Skill.
Given this denotation, you will be restricted from discussing or communicating the steps undertaken to acquire the Earned Skill. Now that you are aware of the mechanism, it is acceptable to attempt similar feats to Earn alternative skills, but you will be permanently blocked from any Earned Skill or Spell if you have gained a prior knowledge of the steps required to be awarded it. Given the rules, researching this topic is not recommended.
The prerequisites you’ve met to earn Fateful Repositioning are:
- Use technical skills to stave off a certain death when falling.
- Sustain crippling injuries multiple times to supercharge a movement.
- Suffer over forty severe injuries when repositioning.
- Demonstrated a technical proficiency of at least 20 in acrobatics and dodging.
- Create beneficial randomised fate effects a 1,000 times when undertaking a forceful repositioning.
- Do not possess the acrobatics, dodge, or any similar skill to aid body control.
The details were different, but comparable to the last earned skill he had gained. The most significant change was that this one was tier-four instead of tier-one.
His eyes drifted further down the page.
Skill: Fateful Repositioning (Tier 4)
When repositioning within combat or in a dire situation, your movement attributes are boosted by 50%. The body will also be capable of performing feats that are not technically possible according to the physics of the universe.
When this ability is used to change local physics, two points of fate are generated: the first one to aid the repositioning, the other one as an undirected reserve that gets allocated to a random beneficial use two seconds after creation.
The ability will automatically activate in combat, and can be activated outside of combat once every ten minutes.
Tom read the description. Once and then again.
Then he triggered the ability and tried to flip over backward. The world blurred, and he somehow landed on his feet, perfectly balanced. Then he initiated the main human trait, and he could feel that undirected point of fate hanging in the air, available to be twisted in any direction he wanted. With a simple thought, he directed it towards the prayer he had been saying every day to make the final floor easier.
“Oh fuck,” he whispered. “That’s...” he stopped talking. The skill had effectively more than doubled his fate pool. It would let him generate six fate per hour, and, if he used it regularly, that would add up to over eighty fate in a day.
It was…
“Fuck, that’s good.” He said quietly under his breath. “Wow.”
It hadn’t come for free. He had been working on this for over a year, and they had been in intense combat for a couple of weeks now. Getting an earned skill was not a surprise, but getting one this powerful… that, in his opinion, was special.
He looked at the page again, and then realised there was another sheet behind the first one.
He remembered the trumpets that had gone off with the ding.