Chapter 91

“We can compare experience if you want,” Everlyn said eventually. “But I’ve got combat skills now and you know my bow. Long term you might lose.”

“What is that?”

She ignored the question.

“Weak as piss,” the grumpy man from early said, kicking one carcass.

Everlyn looked at him. “No idea,” she whispered quietly. The two of them had taken out over half the pack. If they were not here, the man would not be blustering quite so hard.

“How’s your leg?”

He flexed it experimentally. “Perfect. Only took four mana to heal.”

“The wolf caught it hard. What Spell? Metal Limb, Earth Defence, Stone Skin?”

“The last.”

“Aww, you got the crappy defensive version.” She patted him on the back.

“It’s tier two and saved me from becoming a chew toy.”

She rolled her eyes. “One of the advanced crappy versions?”

“Why would you say that?”

“Stone skin is good when you’re weak, but you need to evolve it to tier five before it becomes a straight buff without downsides.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I’m a well-read girl.”

He rolled his eyes.

“No really,” she continued at his look. “I’m very well read. After the third year in the tutorial stuck on an island, I figured I would eventually get here and I bought manuals and memorised them.”

“Manuals?”

“Yeah, sort of a compendium of skills and spells that detail what they can do without actually teaching them.”

“Given how little contribution points stretched that was smart.”

“Yes, Mr. I declined two million evolution offers because I worked out it was a trap. Do you really think we’re all that dumb and we wouldn’t have our own tricks?”

“No. If anything, I expected more people like me.”

She patted him on the back sympathetically. “I know. It’s a bit of a letdown.”

Tom looked at the man still cursing out the wolf. Yes, he got injured slightly. Still, the reaction was overblown by another one of them who was permanently scarred by the trial.

Everlyn snickered and then stopped herself and glanced around guiltily before appearing relieved that no one had heard. “You’re so bitchy.” She whispered to him.

“About Stone Skin, is it really that bad? I know it has limitations, but wouldn’t that mean it’s stronger elsewhere?”

“There are situations where Stone Skin is the better tool.” Everlyn agreed carefully.

“That’s not a glowing endorsement.”

She shrugged. “It is what it is. Which is a spell I would never voluntarily purchase. On paper, all the other versions beat it. Stone Skin’s only shining light is the ability to be unaffected by low-level piercing attacks. I don’t think I’ve ever been concerned about grazing attacks.”

“Harsh.”

She shrugged again.

“Plus, I wasn’t given a choice.”

She patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. “Can’t have everything go your way.”

Clare abruptly cleared her throat. “Okay, it’s pretty clear there isn’t anymore. Let’s move. I want them field butchered and everyone but the scouts to carry one back to camp to sell.”

There were grimaces all round. Tom immediately moved to bring the corpses in. Lacking a good knife if he wanted to help it had to be with the manual labour bit. Each corpse weighed a little over forty kilograms, which was dense for their size, and the tails, when alive had looked about a metre long but dead they stretched two metres, which probably explained how they had intercepted his spear that first time when he had thought the tail was not a risk.

He dropped the carcass next to Everlyn who was cutting into her wolf’s stomach. A long cut and she reached her hand in and pulled out the guts. She looked at him suspiciously.

Tom shrugged helplessly in response.

She shook her head and scooped more organs out. “We’ll need to get you basic gear soon.”

“I agree.” Tom said finally. “I’m proficient with arm length daggers.”

“And battle dressing?”

“Sure.”

She handed him her dagger, and he cut into his own wolf. The fur was stiff and bristly, but his various upgrades meant he didn’t feel it.

Curiously, he touched Everlyn and pumped healing into it. For a moment, he got a sense of the slight cuts on her hand.

“Thanks,” she said brightly. “Their fur is pointy.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t want to make a throw rug out of it.”

She laughed. “Unless it was as a gift for someone you didn’t like.”

Tom shook his head at that thought. “I’ve toughened up. The fur didn’t cut me at all.”

Experimentally, Everlyn grabbed his hand and pushed it hard into the rough fur of his wolf. Once, twice, she yelped and released him before holding her own up. A red drop formed on one of her fingers. “Got me.”

Tom healed her without comment.

“Your piercing resistance is impressive.”

“Yep.”

“Did you know Stone Skin scales off your skin’s piercing resistance?”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“No, I mean really my skill isn’t terrible anymore.”

“Fate blah, blah. Let’s see how you…” She nodded at the wolf.

Tom made the cut. A stench greeted him, and he sighed in annoyance. He had perforated the bowels.

“Bad technique.” Everlyn had shifted her wolf to allow the blood to drain out. Carefully positioning fingers behind the legs where the hair was not as sharp.

“I’m used to higher physical attributes and a host of Skills to help in this situation.”

“It’s also only rank thirteen. I’m sure you’ve butchered bigger relatives.”

“It was agility I was referring to.” He used his two hands to open up the cut, thankful that he didn’t need to worry about the fur. His hand plunged into the slimy interior and he started scooping and pulling the entrails out.

“You pierced intestines and the stomach?”

“Thanks Miss Expert.”

“My pleasure.” She wrinkled her nose. “It stinks.”

Tom ignored her and with all the organs out he shifted his wolf into the same position as Everlyn.

“Can you store it in your storage?”

“One.” Tom admitted and Everlyn’s processed wolf vanished. He had a lot of space in the soul storage till she started putting stuff in there. A few stones, his spear and a bulky wolf pushed it to its limit.

“Let’s go,” Clare yelled out.

Bending his knees, he manhandled his wolf onto his shoulder. Blood ran into the gap at his neck and then down both his back and front. Unpleasant but Clean would take care of it quickly enough. They started to walk, and he was thankful for his points in strength. The deadweight on the shoulder over uneven ground was a struggle as it was. He wouldn’t want to be doing it when he was any weaker.

A stressed Michael met them at the entrance. Tom noted he did a quick count of their numbers.

“There’s been another one hasn’t there.” Clare challenged immediately.

The head healer and the pseudo de facto commander nodded.

“Who?”

“Mac.”

Clare’s face fell as she processed that name. “My patient?”

Michael nodded.

“But I just got a spell to restore him.”

Michael gathered the woman in his arms. She looked distressed, but something felt off to Tom. Maybe it was her attitude earlier when they had been healing him out of all the people in the camp. He had been pretty sure that Clare had a low opinion of Mac. The most likely explanation was that she would have been distraught over whoever it was.

Tears were running down Clare’s face. Tom had not expected that from an ex-nurse who had to have been exposed to death. It was probably culture shock after being alone for so long in the tutorial. Why DEUS had chosen solitary trials was a mystery to Tom. It was, in most ways malicious torture, but he knew their objectives were aligned. DEUS wanted what was best for humans because that was what was best for her.

There had to be a reason for her choice.

“Now that you guys are back. We need to have a meeting. I need at least two volunteers to be on watch.”

Tom raised his hand.

“Not you Tom.” Michael snapped with a smirk. “You need to suffer with the rest of us. I meant from the scouts.”

Everlyn looked torn, then turned to Tom. “You might hate this shit, but I trust you. If there’s a vote, you have mine.”

Everlyn raised her hand along with two other scouts.

“There’s no vote.” Michael told them, looking at Everlyn. “At least not yet. Everlyn to the western wall. You two to go to the south to relieve Shen. She’ll move to the east.”

The scouts nodded. Michael was clearly pairing them with people they were comfortable with. Tom wondered who would be on the western wall, but he guessed Evie would tell him later.

“Can Tom and I check the murder site first?” Everlyn asked.

Michael nodded. “We think it happened just after you guys left. As far as we can tell, Tom was the last person with him. And no, you’re not a suspect since you all left at basically the same time and he was alive then. Two minutes,” he told them.

Tom and Everlyn hurried to the healing tent.

Bob had clearly been around when the body was discovered because the crime scene was immaculate.

They both paused when they saw it. Mac, the fighter who had lost the bottom bits of his legs, lay on his back like all the other victims. The same expression of pain, the claw-like fingers and the patch of designer created dirt.

“Look at the soil. It’s smooth like the first crime scene, not coarse like the second.”

“Significant?”

Everlyn shrugged.

Tom knelt down and touched the very edge. “I wonder why the murderer makes it so soft.” He ground his fingers together and the fine soil drifted to the floor. “Out on the plains, I thought it was a simple spell on soil, but here everything is rock. He created this soil.”

“How deep does it go?”

Tom hesitated and looked at her, a sinking feeling in his stomach. “For the last two, did we really not check that?”

“We’re not cops,” Everlyn said. “And it only occurred to me here because it’s on stone.”

Tom used Remote Earth Manipulation to sense the nature of the rock. “It’s about a hand deep.” He frowned.

“What?”

“There’s a ritual carved into the rock under the body. How did Bob not find this?”

Everlyn shrugged. “He was just a beat cop. So what are we looking at? Whoever this murderer is casting a ritual? And the soil is probably part of it.” she theorised. “With your new earth spells could you make it this fine?”

Tom lowered his head. “Of course my skill, Remote Manipulation is an almost two hundred equivalent and I have an affinity over ninety.”

Everlyn looked impressed at that affinity number.

“Still, starting with this rock, it would still take me a minute or two.”

“You’re saying the murderers were here for a couple of minutes, maybe longer?”

“Yes. And then there is carving the ritual and killing the person.” Tom got up and walked around the oval of smoothed over soil. He studied the soil, attempting to see if anything was out of place.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to see if part of the ritual might have been carved into the soil as well, and then wiped out with a simple wave of magic.”

“And…”

He shrugged helplessly. “I’m not a magic investigator or rune specialist, but it feels like there might be some lines.” Tom carefully used the spear to trace a fine line that corresponded to everything he was sensing. The soft soil parted perfectly.

“We’ll get Harry to have a look afterwards, but I’m not sure your lines add anything.”

Tom did another circle and there was more structure than what he had captured but he couldn’t get his head around it and whenever he focused closely on it, the patterns got more varied. “Nope. Can’t see anymore.”

“Not surprising. The murderer will cover his tracks. But he had hit, three times when you’ve been away. It’s almost like it’s deliberate. I wonder if there is some fate effect that they’re worried about?”

“Michael would have noticed it this time if it was. He can sense fate, too.”

Everlyn nodded like that was obvious.

“It’s not Michael.” Tom told her.

“I didn’t say it was. His alibi is pretty solid. I’m just talking about the pattern of doing it when you’re not around is curious.”

“And who they hit,” Tom acknowledged.

“This is fate related.”

“Definitely,” he agreed without hesitation. “It screws with fate big time.”

Everlyn cocked her head. “Was anyone near us when you talked about being able to sense fate?”

It was Tom’s turn to look confused. “I don’t remember and it has come up a few times, which means people know and then they gossip. We’re not getting a lead from that. How about you, are your super senses getting anything?”

“It feels the same as last time.”

“It’s eerie. How do you kill someone three times in this situation and get away with it?” Tom complained.

Everlyn frowned. “By doing it a different way each time. Jeffrey was at night when there weren’t guards out, Tiny was after a mass sleeping potion and spell and now Mac was in the middle of an armed camp.”

“It’s almost unbelievable.” Everlyn agreed. “I’m not getting anything else.”

“The ritual circle is engraved in stone. It’s not going anywhere. We said two minutes and we’re well past that. We should get to our spots.”

“I agree, but,” Everlyn said quietly. “Lets keep this new knowledge to ourselves.”

“Bob?”

“Definitely not. Just us and Harry. I don’t want them adjusting.”

Tom considered what was being asked. It went against his natural instincts, but Evie was right: keeping this secret might give them an edge. It would give the perpetrators a chance to make a mistake, and they might even research the ritual and design something to trace it back to who wrote it. “Fine, I won’t report it. Are you going to be safe? I mean, if we split up, because I can ditch this meeting.”

Everlyn smirked at that. “How altruistic of you. But your concern isn’t necessary. It’s hard to sneak up on a scout and I’ll keep a wall against my back and stay alert. How about you? Can you summon an elemental to watch your back?”

Tom nodded. “Can you guard me for a moment?”

He didn’t even bother confirming with Evie. He trusted her absolutely. His mana was recharged, and he had thirty in his mana crystal, and he focused on summoning a lightning wisp. The contract came together instantly, and he instructed it to watch his back and make sure nothing surprised him.

Everlyn nodded when she saw the lightning elemental floating around his head. It was trying to hide its presence, but her eyes saw more than most people.

She kissed him. “Thank you. Don’t take any risks and stay safe.”

“You too.”

He went out to where everyone was gathered, and Everlyn went up one of the many internal walkways to get access to the top of the walls.

“Thanks for joining us, Tom,” Michael called out. “Did you learn anything new?”

Tom nodded quietly, then shrugged. “Nothing new.”

“Okay everyone, we’re here to discuss what’s going to happen. First, you’ve all heard the rumours. I’ll supply details of the murder, then articulate my position and then whoever wants can give their’s, after that we’ll work out what we’re doing.”

Internally, he groaned. He wished he could be up on the wall with Everlyn or failing that swapping spot with her, so he did not have to listen through this.

“We’ll stay here for however long it takes.” Michael continued. “And I encourage all of you to talk.”