Chapter 10: Chapter 10

Tom studied the insect. With its energy drained like this, it did not feel like such a big deal.

“Are you certain? Tom.”

He looked up in surprise at the fact that Everlyn had used his name.

She arced an eyebrow at him. “While I’m sure we can heal you. Deliberately subjecting yourself to the poison feels a little extreme.”

“We need to know.” Tom told him. “I need to know whether I can survive if lots sting me.”

“I’ll monitor.” Everlyn considered at Sven, Andros and Gina. “After this, can you all please tell everyone what we just learnt. Useless, I’m ready to save you.” There was a teasing smile on her lips.

He stuck out a tongue and her entire face transformed as she grinned. She was radiant, with flashing white teeth.   

The insect stirred. Tom forced the stinger into his thumb. 

There was a sharp pain. Healing tranquillity instantly kicked in and he used the time it granted to suppress the healing. It was not beyond the realm of possibility that Dux telling him to try that trial was for this moment. He remembered the end.

 

It was too late to turn back. Once he had passed that half- way point, Tom had known that this time it was success or nothing. The rot had grown to be too much for him. It had long spread from his forearm past his elbow and was almost at his shoulder. Both of his arms were affected.

His legs were not any better.

With a grimace, he abandoned trying to hold the rot back in his arms. It was all or nothing, and they were not needed for walking. Instead, he focused on his legs. Over the countless tests, Tom had learnt he could not confine the rot, but he could both slow it and direct its infection path. He concentrated on shaping what part of him would be sacrificed next. He couldn’t allow it to cannibalise the muscles in his legs. A barrier protecting them formed and a pathway to his hips was offered instead.

Tom ran faster. His right hand fell off. He had long since lost feeling but it was unexpected and almost made him stumbled. It landed behind him with a wet splotch. Bones disintegrated and a literal cloud of dust puffed up.

Faster. That was the best he could do. Use that horror as motivation to speed up. The spreading rot on his legs had infected vast swarths of skin and soon it would start breaking like wet tissue paper.

Suddenly, he saw a room in front of him. Tom blasted healing at his legs, trying to keep them functioning at the last moment.

He stumbled. The passage ahead widened. He was there, a little further, and he would reach the healing pool. His breaths were laboured because of the damage to his lungs. One foot after another, knowing if he slipped without arms he might very well never get up.

He felt the weaken bone in his shin give way and he tipped forward on the edge of the exit room. The wavey light of the healing pool directly in front of him.

He was falling and would never reach it. Tom plunged forward and ended up floating in the endless void. He did not panic. This was the staging area that occurred before and after trials.

Was he successful? Or did he die right at the finish line?

Trail completed successfully–Rank D.

Relief flooded through Tom. He did not even care about the terrible rank. It had not been in vain since he was going to get something.

Touch Heal has been upgraded for:

• Now grants the ability to isolate areas of the body.
• The seed of Healing Tranquillity has been granted–Complete further trials or raise Touch Heal to grow.
• Touch Heal has been increased to 45 from the starting value of 42.

Tom read those dot points and was not impressed. All that struggle for such a crappy dividend. It rankled.

Stand by to be removed from the trial.

Good Riddance, he thought even as he stood once more in the cave his hand on the dull green sphere. His entire hand that had not been turned to dust.

It was over.

 

Tom rolled his eyes at that memory and to think he had been disappointed with those two first rewards.

Ludicrous.

Either would have been a terrific prize for a D performance. Forcefully, he focused on what he was doing and dropped the insect back into the energy draining field now that he did not need it. His thumb was stinging.

“Was that deliberate Useless or just clumsy?” 

Tom looked at Everlyn in annoyance. “You know the answer and stop calling me Useless.”

The agony intensified, and he waved his hand instinctively reacting to the rising pain.

She quirked an eyebrow. “Hurts.”

“Yeah, the struggle is to not purge the venom immediately. Harry?”

The ritualist startled. “Yes.” 

“Can you put down your mana ritual?” Tom pointed to a spot closer to the centre but next to the status fields. Harry nodded and hurried away to start the process.

“When I call you Useless, don’t think of it being mean,” Everlyn said. “Well, I am being mean, but not to you. You should consider it as a term of endearment.”

“Because that’s how it’s normally used.”

“No, just how I use it?”

Tom grimaced and waved his hand once more. It hurt.

“What’s happening?” Michael asked, coming over to join them. 

“Tom’s doing an experiment.” Everlyn answered. 

Michael grabbed his wrist and studied the thumb. “It looks painful. I can heal it?”

“I can to,” Everlyn said. “Like Useless I have Touch Heal.”
“You heard that,” he grumbled.

She laughed. “I think the entire group heard it.”

“Should I heal you?” Michael asked him again.  

“No. This humble Useless has Touch Heal and would not like to inconvenience you unnecessarily.”

Michael smirked. 

The alchemist rolled his eyes. “If we’re done. Can I?” he nodded back to where it had come from. 

“Go,” Tom waved him away. “Thumb’s going numb.” Healing tranquillity was fully engaged, and he tracked the flow of poison. It was slow till it hit the bloodstream and then sped up. “Bad news it goes through the blood.” The first tendrils reached his heart while most of the venom was still pooling in his thumb. When he tried to move the limb, the muscle at the base of the thumb was already paralysed. “Fast acting. I’ve lost the use of my thumb.” He held up the offending digit and poked it to demonstrate. “I’m getting some impact on the heart and lung. For others, a single sting could be lethal.” Mentally, he thought about its potency and how different levels of vitality would affect the spread. “I’m estimating that every ten points of vitality over forty will let you resist an extra sting, going to every five once your vitality is above eighty. Anyone above two hundred vitality is probably immune at least from heart failure.”

“None of us are near that.” Everlyn said quietly. “But you knew that. How confident of this are you?”

“Ninety percent.”

With a thought, he purged the venom.

Everly turned and Tom realised that a small crowd had gathered while he had been monitoring the poison.

“Rules. If your vitality is under fifty, get medical attention immediately. Under sixty can take one sting before getting healed. Over sixty can two. If you feel faint, then get healing, anyway. Go.” they all turned and ran. “Now,” Everlyn was addressing him. “Why did you grimace when you got rid of the venom?”

“It took a full point of mana.” 

“That’s pretty efficient isn’t.”

Tom shrugged, not sure what was the best way to think about it. “The cost is too high.” He kicked the ground. “I can’t go out and attack the hive because they can sting me faster than I can heal.”

Evelyn thought for a moment. “I wonder if you’ll build up immunity.”

“It’s possible,” Tom agreed. “Then again, maybe that is not a concept that exists. Outside of a Skill or a Reward I never noticed gaining immunity to anything. But who knows? The rules are hardly the same as what was on earth.”

“I don’t know either.” Everlyn lapsed into companionable silence. 

Two more insects buzzed past and Tom whipped his spear at them. They darted in and out of the draining areas as he moved and kept whipping the piece of wood to stop them stinging. 

Then they lost energy and fell to the ground.

Tranquil healing slowed everything down and he purged the sting on his face and the three on his legs. “Great, they can even sting multiple times.”

Harry had finished his ritual and Tom shifted inside the space to improve his mana regain.

Tom nudged the other man. “You should go kill those three.”

“But you brought them down.”

“Your magic, you earn the experience.”

“Do it,” Everlyn told Harry and then nodded towards the centre of the camp, where Jeffrey and others were gathering. “I’m going to make sure they don’t decide to do anything stupid. Useless,” she chuckled at using the term. “You should stay here. I think your presence at the war council will cause good old Jeffrey to blow his stack. Actually, that might be fun.” Then she shook her head. “Maybe after we’re past this crisis.” 

With a friendly wave, she sprinted off.

Harry, at his urging squished the bugs. He had staff and on the hard clay he had to launch multiple strikes before they died.

“1 experience for contributing to killing a rank 1 Trodaga Wasp.”

“3 experience for contribution in killing a rank 1 Trodaga Wasp.”

“2 experience.” 

Tom mutated the voice with a thought. He was definitely going to make a habit of digging into his logs in order to fully understand the system. After all, he had been warned it might be changed at the margins, but he did not need continual prompts. 

“Harry, how much experience were you getting?”

“Seven to eleven. Why?”

“Experience is split. I’m receiving a couple of points for luring them into the traps.”

Harry came over and stood next to him. “That’s great.” Then he nodded back to the crafters. “What are they doing?”

The rest of the group was filled with frenetic activity. Crafters were pulling out spare clothes out of bags and using them to cover exposed skin. “Covering up. You should do the same.”

“I only have this robe.”

“You need to get something better.” Tom said uneasily.

“You’re wearing shorts.”

“But I have the mighty Touch Healing spell.”

Michael who was standing near them chuckled. The careful organisation of fighting groups that Jeffrey had put together had fallen apart. It was an eerie environment. All of them had come expecting to be fighting monsters larger than they were and instead the threat that greeted them was insects no bigger than an earth bee. 

Zap.

Harry jumped beside him. Tom pointed to the smoking insect corpse. 

“Ouch,” they glanced back towards the centre. A young woman was ripping off the scarf she had wrapped around her ankles. A small shape was thrown clear it wobbled, oriented itself and then zoomed away head towards one of the nearby mounds.

A feeling of dread filled Tom.

Bees on earth could communicate sources of food. They had a dance that could lead the rest of their hive to a tree full of flowers by communicating all the key details, distance and direction, and the size of the food source. There was no way the insects here would be dumber than those on earth and… there were no large animals. The bugs were the dominant life form and when that insect reached its hive, then the thousands of insects in the hive would know about them. 

Tom was pretty sure that the humans were going to be considered as a food source. That insect had escaped, which was disappointing. It would have been good if they could have hidden the human presence longer. Not that it mattered. There were so many bugs that it had always only been a matter of time till one had seen them and then slipped away. “Make another one,” He ordered Harry, before he pointed to a spot bordering both the draining and the mana recharge rituals. “Hurry, I think everything is about to go to shit.”

The woman who had been stung was being healed. 

Tom hesitated. He wanted to yell for everyone to consolidate, combine resources to create an area the bugs could not get into, but the leaders were already arguing and considering Jeffrey’s early treatment of him over half the camp was against him. Anything he said would be counter productive purely because Jeffrey and his little cohort would argue vehemently against it. 

The arguing continued and when he glanced towards the mound that single wasp had shot off toward, he was sure extra wasps were already popping out of them. 

Zap.

Two more insects died. 

Tom ran out of the mana recharge towards the crafters. “Does anyone have protective gear to give to Harry?” He pointed at the ritualist. “Gloves, helmet, pants? Please we need him out there casting?”

A young man with old eyes glanced at what Tom was wearing and then at Harry who was drawing on the ground preparing to use his magic. He pulled off his gloves and tossed them over. “Make it count.” Then he started pulling off his pants. 

Embarrassed, a warrior pulled off a full helm. She was female and plump red lips trapped his gaze. A face that would have given Dux on the first day a run for her money. He yanked his eyes away. He had spent too long in the tutorial. 

“Thank you,” Tom said to both of them and ran back to Harry who had just finished his latest ritual and was standing in the middle of the mana regain area. “Not there,” Tom repositioned him right at the edge of the circle and right next to the energy drainage area. “This way, if they attack you they’ll spend half their time being knocked unconscious. He shoved the pants, helmet, and gloves at the other man.

“What’s this?”

“Put it on.” 

Zap. Another body hit the ground. That one was from the mound closest to where his team had started, but that was not the hive that Tom was focused on. His eyes went to the lump of dirt that a single wasp had fled to.

His fear was being realised. There was definitely a black cloud forming above it. The fact Tom could see it from eighty metres away with unenhanced eyes told him everything. The only reason he could see insects that far was if there were hundreds of them coming. “Hurry,” he yelled headless of the damage it might do.

The leader’s meeting had broken up.

“Put fortifications.”

“Hurry.”

“Centralise.”

Thankfully, they were doing the right thing. The entire camp was frothing with frantic, anxious defensive attempts. Everyone was shouting orders. Earth walls were being raised to create the beginning of fortification. Bolts of cloth intended for crafting and others purchased for bedding were being brought out and strung up. Individual tents were taken apart to act as part of a communal wall. Everlyn was amongst them moving the centre of the defence closer to where Tom was so the edge of the structure would be flush against the rituals Harry had already put down. That would better protect one side of the construction. He was glad Everlyn had understood the value those drainage areas were going to bring.

People were using swords to dig into the earth to create impromptu earthen walls. The earth mages were making progress and had switched from raising the walls directly to reinforcing the amateur barriers that were being set up. The otherwise almost useless dirt was turned to rock under their magic. Others took a more direct approach. Tom saw backpacks being converted into helmets. Those people could no longer see, but at least the insects wouldn’t be able to bite them. The entire group of almost a hundred had collapsed together and were disappearing into the tiny shelter they had created. There wasn’t going to be sleeping room for everyone.

The only people left outside were the small crowd around him.

Everlyn had grabbed the arm of another girl and brought her over. They were putting helmets on. Bandages were wrapped over ankles and hands, making them look a little like mummies. 

“Toni is an air mage.” Everlyn patted the girl. “She hopes that she can force them into the drainage rituals.”

Tom nodded absently his attention caught by the dark cloud that he was observing. It was expanding, getting larger. 

The first major wave of the enemy was coming.

 

 

Chapter 11

Tom watched the coming cloud with dread as he tried to work out a plan. This tiny enemy was nothing like what he had predicted.

When he had planned his build and hatched his strategy to make a difference, he had workshopped in his mind what these first couple of days were going to be like. He had expected there to be tools like Jeffrey and then smarter people like those currently around him. His imagination had placed him as being one member of a larger machine. A tiny cog within the group, doing his bit to contribute from the relative safety of a sizable population. His weakness being offset by the admiration that his work effort would draw. Everyone in the top million would appreciate someone grinding their way to power.

There were supposed to have been a hundred plus dedicated fighters around him. The entire group stranded not on this desolate plain but within a forest, jungle or mountain climate. There would be threats like boars that the others could take down and that would cause an immediate flow of materials. Food, pelts, into clothes and they would have time to chop down trees to create shelters. By sunset on the first day, Tom had expected for the group he was with to have both food and shelter along with a growing sense of belonging to a community that shared the same aims as everyone else.

He was supposed to get the opportunity to grow into his build without being in mortal danger. Others could protect him till he got strong enough to influence the world and weigh the scales in favour of humanity. 

That was not happening.

Instead, the majority were throwing up barriers and huddling away while he the person who had invested the most in the future stood outside to meet what was coming and wondering if he could develop resistance to the insects or if his mana reserves would keep him alive once they started stinging him. If he did not have Touch Heal, then he would be amongst those hiding because the simple fact was that any two stings from those hundreds of insects would be enough to kill him. With the add-ons he had earned to touch healing, he was hopeful he could do a lot better.

Behind him, the barriers were not up, there were gaps everywhere. 

“We need to buy them time.” Toni said bravely. “I’m going to attract them to us.”

“What?” Harry said in alarm, but it was already too late.

Toni had her hands up and she pulled a chain out of her robe. It had a purple crystal on it and even without identification they all knew it was a mana store. The palm of her other hand was held flat, pointing up to the sky, and then a twister of wind emerged. For half a second, it was small and almost indistinct and then more magic tore into it and it became a raging force of nature that rose four metres above her.  

The wasp cloud was now close enough that he could see the individual insects within it. There were thousands of them maybe tens of thousands. So many that they could hear the buzzing and they were targeting the still open structure that the others were trying to build.

Tom’s respect for Toni sky rocketed. If that cloud got into the shelter, dozens would almost certainly die. Potentially the entire group would be wiped out and so Toni had come despite the personal danger to turn them aside.

Sweat running down her face she tilted her palm, and it looked like tech effort was akin to shifting a mountain.

Crack.

You are reading story Fate Points at novel35.com

The whirlwind left her hand not as a self contained twister but a shearing wind. It ripped past the gaps in the tent just as the leading insects in the cloud dove downwards. Despite being resistant to wind, they got blown off course. The gale kept going, sweeping around the mass of bugs like a twenty metre wide hand that then squeezed its fingers into a fist and compressed the cloud, trapping the insects before tossing them to the side. 

Toni collapsed and the hand of air that had briefly seized the horde of insects dissipated. It had done its job and the cloud instead of being directly in front of the gaps was now positioned so that Tom and his group were between them the shelter.  

The buzzing intensified as the insects stabilised their flight from where the air had thrown them. Not a single one looked damaged and then en masse they swarmed toward him. 

Fear clutched his heart. He knew how potent their venom was, but just like Toni had bought the other time he needed to do the same. 

Please DEUS, he hated himself for giving the prayer one because of what the GODs collectively had done and two because her powers were restricted, anyway. There was no divine intervention coming to save him. Instead, there was Touch Heal, Spark and his mana crystal of which some combination of them had to be enough to stop the insects from getting into the shelter and keep him alive.

The vanguard of the swarm reached him. Only a few and all Tom could do was to futilely wave his spear to persuade them to retreat. He did not dare to use his mana, as every single point was going to count. He felt spikes of pain on his leg and face. Healing tranquillity kicked in. 

It was not just this group that they needed to worry about. It was all the surrounding insects. They had fought back and escape these plains, which meant he had to acquire immunity to their venom. The poison was too virulent for the group to flee while getting stung. “Don’t heal me unless I’m about to die.” Tom ordered.  

A wasp got into his mouth and stung his tongue while he was talking.

Tom suppressed the instinctive reaction to spit it out and instead used his tongue to move it to the side.

He bit down. It was briefly like biting a hard-boiled lolly. For a moment, the structure held and then it shattered under the pressure his bite was exerting. 

Within his mouth, he shifted his tongue. Frist to press it against his teeth then against the roof. Multiple spot hurt showing that insect had got off more than the one sting. His legs were aflame, his face burning in numerous spots. 

Tom checked his mana. Twenty in his personal pool and just under seventy in his crystal. 

The rest of the cloud must be around him, and he still needed to stop them from spreading out and getting into his tent. 

Forty mana. Tom decided it was a lot to channel through the Spark spell, but he hoped it would fry enough of the insects that they wouldn’t get into amongst the other. 

Please generate enmity. Another useless prayer that he hated to resort to. 

ZAP!

His control of the simple spell was almost unsurpassed. Every day for forty years he had practised this spell for hours to turn what at in its most basic form created a small static electricity effect into something far grander. An actual weapon that could be employed against the small and massive alike. Forty mana was a lot more than the basic Spark spell used, combining that with his efficiency, and you a nasty surprise for the unwary.

Tom’s skin was covered with insects, and that’s where the spell started. Not from his tip of his fingers but from every bit of exposed skin. Then it spread out like a wave and fried the insects that were biting him. Then to the ones flying nearby. His immaculate control forced it to bypass his companions, and it expanded in a glittery web of fine wires. For an instant, a sphere of electricity around two metres wide surrounded him.

Every insect inside or which touched it died.

For a moment, he was not getting stung, and Tom smiled.

Then the venom from the hundreds of stings seconds earlier spread. Tom let himself fold over and lie on the ground, knowing that even without future attacks he was going to struggle to heal through the damage already inflicted. 

Harry’s mana ritual surrounded him, which would help, and he had the mana to purge the ninety-three stings that healing tranquillity had identified. Though he suspected that there were more, because some must have overlapped. While he could purge those stings, his instincts warned him that was not the right choice.

Immunity.

His mind reminded him of the thousands of hives they could see from where they stood. The cloud had come from one hive and it might not have been all of that queen’s workers. You did not need to be a genius to realise that most of the group that he had emerged on Existentia with was incapable of fighting these insects. What could a blacksmith do? How about a sword fighter? Let alone a berserker type and even most elemental classes would be helpless. They were resistant to flames. It was only someone like him with his lightning abilities that could do damage.

This threat was one of timing. In a years’ time when everyone had rounded out their abilities sets, this situation would have played out differently. At that point, a handful of people would have insect killings spells and multiple individuals would possess lightning and even the melee fighters might have developed some of whirlwind style attack which, while not designed for wasps could at least be slightly effective against them.

They were not there yet, which meant it came down to him. He needed immunity so he could use his limited magic and Spark to kill the insects instead of having to dedicate it all to heal himself.

Tom made his decision. He hoped it was right, but he had to give his body a chance to develop natural immunity. He abandoned his extremities to focus exclusively on his brain, lungs, and heart.

Time seemed to slow down as Healing Tranquillity helped him. 

Life support.

That was all that mattered and anyone who had watched medical drama’s knew what the vital organs were, at least in the short term. Keep them going and he would survive, especially in a land of magic.  

He focused inwards, but even with time slowed it was alarming how quickly he was losing control of his muscles. One after another succumbed.

The die had been cast.

There were no second chances, no do overs, his only choice was to endure.

As he fought through the mounting pain, he fervently hoped that his fate dump had been enough. They were vulnerable to lightning, which was good, but he also counted on fate to have also mutated whatever venom they used to a form that he could gain immunity to, given the constraints of his allies and his mana pool.

Any other outcome meant that fate had failed and his group had been doomed from the start. 

His mana ticked down steadily. Dimly, he heard screams around him. Everlyn bullying Harry into creating another ritual circle. 

Regularly shouts for healing. 

He tuned them all out. He had his own internal battle to fight.

His own mana dropped to single digits, so he started drawing on the crystal.

Its reserves went from almost thirty to fifteen, and he switched back to his personal mana. Only five points had regenerated.

His power was fading too quickly. The amount of healing was outpacing his regeneration. 

He wondered if he was still getting stung or if someone had dragged him into the shelter. He could hear voices, so some people remained alive but his brain was too addled to understand what they were saying. There was no pain because he could no longer feel anything, but he existed in a dangerous fog. He had long since lost feeling in his skin and there was so much venom already in his system he couldn’t tell if incrementally more was being added. 

There was an endless tide flooding through him. Encroaching on his territory. 

His mana kept dropping. Did he need two lungs?

Nope. 

He pulled back his defences. Left lung and heart. That was it.

Breathing, heart beating.

Tranquillity slowed his heartbeat. 

It was unnatural, but it was needed. Twenty beats a minute just enough to preserve his life and it had the extra advantage of slowing the spread of venom via his blood. 

The crystal emptied.

His personal store ticked down. 

Only four mana left. If it declined to zero, he was dead. 

It dropped to three.

Everlyn was screaming. “Harry needs a healer. Harry needs a healer.”

There was the sound of a hammer hitting the ground. 

Back to four as regeneration gave him an extra point, then down to three again as he had purged the venom, slowing the heart. 

“Good job, Thor.” Sven said cheerfully. The others were alive, and it almost sounded like they were in control. 

“Watch the markings,” Everlyn yelled.

There were sounds of running.

“If you’re not doing anything useful, then get to shelter. We can’t afford to waste the healing.” Everlyn was yelling.

A flash of healing rushed into him right over his heart. It was not particularly well directed and petered out almost immediately.

For a few long seconds, he did not have to do anything.

His pool increased to four. 

“Crazy bastard,” he heard Michael say. 

Everything blended together. His mana ticked down and then Michael or Everlyn would hit him with a brief flash of healing that would let him recover some more and then it would tick down again.

By the feel of the magic that touched him, other healers were involved, but there was never any sustained healing. Just abrupt flashes over his heart. It was like they had worked out his strategy and were only trying to supplement the key areas. Their approach had done enough. His mana pool had stabilised. 

“They fucking love him.”

“Like when I was with my wife. Mosquitoes all went for her. I would never get bitten.”

Tom knew they were talking about him, but there was nothing he could do. All of his focus was on staying alive for a few moments longer. 

“We need to move him.”

Mana ticked up to six. With the regular bursts of healing, he was making some progress. 

Hands grabbed him and he felt himself being carried. Extra venom flowed through him.

Five, Four, Three, Two.

He stopped moving. Still lying on the dirt. 

Another blast of healing hit him.

“Not Useless after all,” Jeffrey’s voice reached. “He’s like one of those electric lights that fry the bugs in the backyard.”

“Piss off, Jeffrey, you’re not wanted.” Tom heard Everlyn snap and if he could of Tom would have smiled in response. 

A tick up to three.

The venom kept flooding in. There was so much of it, that whole immunity thing was looking more unlikely. The venom in his internal senses remained as potent as ever.

Michael’s focused healing hit him.

“Shit. The buggers got me. I need healing.” Sven called out.

Mana ticked up to four. For a while he had felt like he was stabilising, but he seemed to drift backwards.

“Harry, get another energy drain up.” Everlyn shouted. “There’s too many. He’s being overwhelmed.”

“Reduce the amount of exposed skin.”

“They just get under it and keep stinging him.” Everlyn was yelling at someone. 

“I need a healer.” It was Jeffrey this time. “Rob got stung. He needs healing. Michael.” Jeffrey was insistent.

“No.”

“Do you have mana?”

“Tom needs it more,” Michael answered back calmly.

“Rob’s dying. Don’t you have an oath.”

“Get someone else.” There was another flood of energy as Michael healed his heart. 

“Why are you healing Useless? Rob’s dying.”

“PISS OFF Jeffrey,” Everlyn yelled. “Use your goddamn eyes. The only reason we haven’t been overwhelmed is because Tom’s acting as a lightning rod for them.”

“Useless is a lost cause.” There was a pause as Jeffrey was yelling away from. “Michael, Everlyn one of you… why aren’t you responding…”

Silence.

“Its to late,” an unknown female voice said.

“Damn it.” Jeffrey cursed. “Rob’s dead. That’s on your Michael. We’re going to have a long talk later.”

The argument was both heartening and horrifying, but Tom was glad that Michael and others had kept him alive and by the sounds of it he was struggling so badly because he was continually getting healed.  

“I gave an order,” Jeffrey was yelling right near him. “Why didn’t you listen.”

Tom felt more healing flood through him.

It let his mana tick up to five.

“Because you’re an idiot.” Michael said coldly.

“I’m an idiot. Rob was rank nine, and he’s dead when you could have saved him. Useless is a three.”

“Four,” Michael retorted. 

“So pathetic I can’t fucking tell.” 

“You’re getting in the way,” Everlyn snapped.

“Get him out of here.” Michael yelled.

There were sounds of a struggle which faded away.

There was a blissful silence for a while.

“What do you think Tom did?” Everlyn asked quietly.  

“Don’t know,” Michael answered. “Cast some spell to aggro them. All we can do is keep him alive. And kill as many as the insects as possible when they come into sting him.”

“It’s weird how once they’ve landed that they’re so vulnerable.” Everlyn mused.

“It’s Harry’s rituals,” Michael said authoritatively. “They’re sapping the insect of energy.”

It felt like the waves of venom were getting stronger. Tom tuned everyone out to focus on the fight occurring around his heart and lung. His mana yo-yoed. 

Four, three, four, three, two, three.

It was all about the drift of numbers. He could hear people talking, but he no longer understood what they were saying. He was delirious. The only thing that mattered was stemming the spread of poison. Brain, heart, and lungs, he repeated the mantra. It was all that he could focus on.

He was moved for about the thirtieth time. Then his body felt heavy.

“Good. Keep him warm,” Michael said.

“Is he still alive?” Everlyn asked nearby.

Michael laughed. “I can’t heal corpses.”

“I don’t understand how?” Everlyn continued. “His vitality is under forty.” 

“I very much doubt that’s still the case.” Michael said quietly. Energy flooded his heart.

His mana ticked up to seven. “As for how he is alive. I don’t know. Tom only knows the most basic spell, but is incredibly efficient with it.” There was a pause. “Did you see how his leg flops? Completely paralysed. All he’d doing is keeping his heart and lungs working.”

Tom tuned them out once more. 

His mana reached seventeen, and he started directing his energy to healing the rest of his body. Bit by bit, the spaces he controlled expanded. The other lung, neck and mouth muscles. More and more undirected healing hit him. At least three people other than Michael were contributing regularly now.

“How are you feeling, son?” Michael said from above him.

“Thirsty,” he croaked.

Water was trickled into his throat. He choked on it. “Easy there.”

Tom opened his eyes. He was under shelter and it was dark except for a couple of wisps of light floating nearby, allowing him to see a small amount.

He shut them again. He had stabilised. “I’m going to check notifications.”

He retreated to the system room.

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