Chương 15: 14-Picnic

Bob prepared some coffee as the Losers gathered for a war meeting. They were still in the cave where they had faced Akiros. Billy's loot power had caused the corpse to disappear when it spawned the magical talisman that had saved Jenna's life. Bob was grateful for that, as no one cherished the idea of sharing living accommodations with a rotting wolf head the size of a minivan. Billy had buried Orun four days ago at a secluded spot.

He was decent like that, Bob thought, giving some final dignity to the man who had nearly killed his girlfriend. Jenna went on: "We can't just leave the Vorians in this situation. Balance will not let them become extinct, as he needs them for his little power games, but he will not let them win either. It means an eternal state of war if we do not stop it."

"Was he really making them gain levels again?" Billy asked.

"I think not," Jenna answered.

"Most of these Reclamation teams must be mixing real Einheriar with at least one of Balance's champions. I think those tales about sudden gain in levels must be caused by Balance's powers in action."

"The Tribulations were winning the war when Balance intervened," Jenna went on.

"That is why the Reclaimers did so well at the start. Balance was actively helping them to compensate for it. I think poor Raelgar and Bila were becoming too good at their jobs, helping tilt the scales the other way. That is why he had Orun kill them."

"Everything was a trap," Bob thought aloud.

"Everything. That fiasco in which the Reclaimers flattened a whole abandoned village was probably engineered by Orun, as was leaving unexpectedly in the midst of the night. They wanted us to hunt Akiros to serve as bait for Dawn. We have been playing Balance's game all the time."

"I can't fail to notice the fact that Dawn did not come," Jenna added.

"She either has a lot of faith in our abilities or does not need us as much as Balance thinks."

"We don't know that, Jenna," Billy added.

"The whole fight was pretty fast, and you were unconscious most of the time. There is a chance she simply could not reach us in time."

"But I was dying, wasn't I?" Jenna said savagely.

"She put me in that position and left me there to rot for three days!" She breathed deeply, getting herself under control.

"Sorry," she told them as she looked at the ground.

"These people need their powers," Bob finally said.

"We have to do what we did in Belona—give them symbiotic dungeons so that they may level again."

"And Balance must go," he added.

"It's not only about payback. He will never allow any side to win. Vorians need a victory."

"On Earth, the System came with an MMO. In Voria, the Coven used a radio serial, Return to Valhalla. It was built much like a metastory, as in Peter Longfellow's work. It was about ordinary people listening to a radio serial called Return to Valhalla, which gave them incredible powers. Doran told me his grandfather was activated after listening to a chapter in which a character with his same name gained powers."

"We need a specific dungeon," concluded Billy.

"One with tags suited to the Vorians, much like the Progression dungeons worked for the Imperials." Billy winced just after saying that.

"Bad example, I know."

"How many AP do you have left, Billy?" Jenna asked.

"A little over two thousand, Jenna. Got some of them back with Silver Linings when I exploded Belegrin's form inside Akiros."

"You killed a Tribulation from within. I am surprised that you did not get a new achievement. You got one when you pulled that stunt against Rathemoth, which was only a corpse-camped beast," wondered Jenna.

"Oh my god," she suddenly realized.

"You forgot to check your screen." Billy turned seven shades of red.

"I did get an upgrade," he finally said, as he showed them the screen. Achievement Unlocked: You Have Very Good Taste. You have been eaten for the second time. By a Tribulation, no less. You are becoming an acquired taste, and your Essence Digestion passive is enhanced to Advanced Essence Digestion. Advanced Essence Digestion: From now on, when respawning in a shape not your own, you will gain triple the number of essence points until you have paid its price. Learning the Ropes is not compatible with this choice.

Activating one will temporarily deactivate the other.

"Good news for you too, Bob," Billy added.

"The Vorian Centaur form I gained has a new Pantean Skill, Bow Mastery." Bob felt incredibly excited when he heard this. During his teenage days, he had always wanted to be Gandalf, but Robin Hood was a close second.

"Back to Earth, Bob," Jenna sharply told him.

"It is clear we need many more achievement points if we are going to create a new dungeon tag. How are we doing on experience tonic, Bob? This is a locked system. Billy is going to need Alchemy to get AP."

"We are good, Jenna," Bob told her.

"I used these last few days to create a new batch. I had a feeling we might end up needing it." Bob had spent their last month ranking up as many perks as possible, doing so by taking tasks inside the Secret Mountain that awarded him contribution points and sped up his activation. He had enhanced his Perk library, replenished his alchemical stock, and regained some reputation with the Sect in one go. He liked to carry all his stock, plus some simple lab equipment, inside his Mind using his inventory perk.

Alchemy was the second most powerful tool in his arsenal, and he intended to get the most use out of it. They finished breakfast and spent the rest of the morning corpse-camping. It was good to do that again in the company of his friends. The zone was now Essential-free. When they had killed Akiros, the Pull had stopped working on his claimed Essentials, and they had gone mad.

Bob had seen a small group of them in the distance: the centaurs and their riders attacked and killed each other, and then the survivors continued the process: centaur against centaur, rider against rider. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Only one grievously wounded hag survived the fight. She went looking for more opponents, screaming madly, before falling dead no more than a couple of hundred feet from the place the fight had taken place.

Bob almost felt sorry for her. Then he remembered Lana and her kids. They had to corpse-camp common animals, something that had become a staple with them.

"Billy, before we start, wouldn't you like to try that loot power again? Get a feel for what we can use it for?" he asked the Everlasting. Both Jenna and Billy agreed it was worth a try, and they gave it a go with a common rat.

"It can only be used once, as it destroys the corpse," Billy explained.

"It is pricier than Corpse-Camping, too—each charge costs 10 AP. The more powerful the monster, the better the loot." They decided to corpse-camp a beast five times and then use a loot charge on it. When the rat fell on its fifth incarnation to one Palooga ball expertly thrown by Bob, it was the size of a small car and looked like something out of a horror movie directed by a cat-lover. Its body shimmered briefly, then disintegrated, replaced by a pile of goods.

The three Losers ran eagerly, like children checking on Father Christmas' work.

"Oh, my god!" exclaimed Jenna.

"This is absolute crap." The loot mountain consisted of twelve high-quality fur coats, a lot of preserved meat in the form of sausages and charcuterie, and many exquisitely crafted ornaments made of bone. The only items with any possible combat application were a couple of bone daggers. Billy examined them and declared that they were just knives made of bone, with no magical powers whatsoever.

"What were you expecting exactly here, Jenna?" Bob asked her, puzzled.

"It is a bloody rat, after all. The magic worked with the materials we gave it."

"I really, really wanted a magic sword," Jenna said wistfully, playing with the talisman hanging from her neck.

"A magic sword," Bob repeated, mystified.

"Have you ever seen a rat carrying a sword inside its body, Jenna?"

"You have not played many video games, have you, Bob?" she answered.

"Both of you are right," Billy intervened.

"I think mutated animals just grant loot that could be made out of their bodies. Akiros was made of pure essence, and that gave the power a more flexible source to work with. Do not get accustomed to high-level loot, though. That talisman is fairly powerful, but it came from the slaying of a Tribulation."

"Besides, it is not as bad as you make it sound," Billy added.

"Those fur coats seem high quality, and the charcuterie could make for good travel rations. Hell, we could even get good prices for most of the bone mementos," Billy added in full scavenger mode.

"Billy," Jenna added, pained.

"Those sausages are made from rat, for god's sake. Would you really eat them? On second thought, do not answer that question," she said, suddenly remembering that he came from a prepper background.

"I have to kiss that mouth now and again." Billy was blushing furiously. For the second phase of their plan, they decided that Jenna would play tank while Billy assumed Centaur form and peppered the corpse-camped beasts with arrows, as Bob observed the proceedings. The new form of Essence Digestion would allow Billy to recover spent AP quickly, and then he could switch to Learning the Ropes and improve the centaur form without spending AP.

The centaur was based on a level 12 Einheriar—three more levels, and they could choose a new Competency, hopefully unlocking another Skill for Bob. The centaur had a couple of passives enhancing bow attack speed and precision, an active power that replenished his quiver with more arrows, plus some fatigue resistance and athleticism perks that allowed it to run and jump with greater force when carrying a rider.

Bob unlocked Bowmanship on the second beast and spent the better part of the morning crafting a bow and a few arrows. Once he finished, he gleefully joined the fight, taking tonic to increase the speed at which he ranked up his perk. Never Out of Ammo (Bowmanship 2): Any arrow you shoot will teleport back to your quiver once it hits its target. Bob smiled as he saw the arrows he had just shot reappear in his quiver. Some broke on impact, but most could be used again.

This one was a lifesaver, as his small number of arrows was his main limiting factor. From that point on, the fights took much less time, as they fell into a familiar pattern: Jenna taunted the beast and positioned the animal so that it showed its side to Billy and Bob, reducing their chances of hitting their friend. They quickly turned it into a pincushion, and they repeated the process from the start. It only took Billy a few kills to hit level 15.

They stopped so that he could choose one among the offered competencies. There were only four possible choices: Spear Mastery, Herbal Lore, Magical Item Proficiency, and Torture. Bob suggested Herbal Lore by elimination, but it turned out to be based on Tastecraft, so it did not really unlock any new skills for him. They kept at their grisly work until the sun set, then resumed the following day. There was a relaxing, almost liberating feel to their task.

Bob realized that it was the first time since they had started pursuing Dawn that they were not operating under a time limit—corpse-camping felt more like a holiday than a chore. Billy's AP tab and his bow perks kept increasing. Bob followed a similar pattern to the one he had used when studying other weapon skills. First, a passive that increased his general ability with the weapon. Bowmaster (Bowmanship 3): Adds 30% to Body when using a Bow.

His arms seemed to act on their own once Bowmaster was active—he only had to think where he wanted the arrow to go, and his body did the rest of the work. He decided to create other perks that took advantage of the properties of the weapon—bows were an interesting option: they lacked the close-combat power of spears and the medium-range efficiency of Palooga balls, but they clearly excelled at long range. He took advantage of that.

Death Arrow (Bowmanship 3): When shooting an arrow, treat your target as if the distance between you and it were one-tenth of the actual range. He nocked an arrow and aimed it at a distant tree. Suddenly, it was no longer distant; it was no more than 30 feet away. He hit the target dead center. He doubted a military sniper with a modern rifle could have done a better job.

He then went for an area of effect perk: Arrow Storm (Bowmanship 3): Your arrow divides in mid-air, attacking all targets within 15 feet of your original one. His arrow shot into the air and divided in mid-flight, turning into a deadly rain of projectiles. He ended with a convergent perk, which used abilities from other skills as a prerequisite: Flame Arrow (Bowmanship 3): Your arrow ignites in mid-flight, setting anything it strikes on fire. Requires Air Friction (Palooga 3) He decided not to test that one.

Not in the middle of a forest. Then, the sun set again. Billy already had nearly 20, 000 AP and had leveled his Centaur form to rank 27.

"How is it going, Billy?" Bob asked him, tired but satisfied.

"Did you get new tricks for that beast?" Billy growled at Bob, much to the latter's surprise.

"I am sorry, Bob," he apologized." Learning the Ropes carries some risks: as long as I do not raise the form beyond the level recorded in my Akashik Library, everything is fine. If I surpass it, the model's thoughts and personality begin to merge with my own, much like when I return as a Core."

"You are feeling centaury?" Bob asked, surprised.

"Starting to," Billy admitted.

"At this level, it is still manageable, but it becomes overpowering above level 70. That is why I have never leveled Belegrin or the Alchemical Master beyond level 70—their thoughts would overpower my own. I would become lost in them." That gave Bob some food for thought. He had never considered the consequences of Billy's powers. The more he thought about it, the more he felt he had gotten the best deal in their group. Bob fell happily to sleep that night.

He was exhausted, but he could have reinvigorated himself by rotating his cultivation base; Jenna offered to do the whole watch, since she was also beyond needing sleep. Bob accepted, feeling grateful. There was something profoundly refreshing about true sleep that magic simply could not replicate. He let sleep take him, feeling satisfied. It was good doing a training montage with his friends. It took him back to the earlier days, when they were still discovering their powers.

He woke briefly as he heard Jenna move around in the camp. She was sniffing around, trying to locate something by scent. She lifted a bundle of clothes they had obtained from the use of Billy's loot power. Billy had hidden something under it.

"I knew it!" Jenna exclaimed as she triumphantly raised one king-sized rat sausage in her hand. Bob smiled and went back to sleep.