The others had not yet recovered from whatever the monster had done. They sat on the couches, their heads in their hands, for a few more minutes. They didn’t look miserable or anything like that, but more like they hadn’t fully woken up yet.

  Kang stirred eventually, looking up groggily. He seemed to recoil slightly as he registered his surroundings. “Where am I?” he squinted at Tom. “What happened to you?”

  Tom patted his ruined armour, then glanced pointedly down at the dried blood caking his right arm. “You got knocked out. I won, but it was a closer run than I would have liked.”

  There was a long silence as the other boy absorbed that.

  “Is that your blood?” Eloise asked in a small voice. “Or the monster’s?”

  Tom sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose. He briefly considered how to spin things to prevent her from getting unduly alarmed.

  “It’s mine; it couldn’t be the monster’s, because it bled gold.” He smiled crookedly at her. “It got a lucky hit in, and it wasn’t that bad.” He lied hurriedly. “Trust me,” he winked. “It looks worse than it was.”

  “Tell us what you’ve faced.” Kang demanded.

  He took a moment to think about how much to confess, what was useful to explain and what would prompt Eloise to become hysterical about what they faced. “It was a single monster, and it looked kind of like a flying carpet with claws.”

  “A what?” Briana asked.

  “Oh,” Tom scratched his head. “It’s something from a fairy tale from earth. A Disney movie. Think of a big blanket that if it stretches out, it could fly, but it can also roll itself up to become smaller and move super-fast like a striking snake.”

  Kang shrugged. “Sounds weird to be sure, but there are lots of monsters that match that description. What could it do?”

  “It had shields that blocked my remote lightning attacks.”

  The other boy winced.

  “That advantage let it close to melee range. I was lucky enough to stab it with Power Strike’s shield breaking functionality. That disabled it for long enough for me to sneak Spark through. The creature was vulnerable to lightning and so got stunned. I cut it up with my dagger and killed it after about twenty seconds. The stun might have worn off anytime after ten, but by then it had been cut up too much to threaten me anymore.”

  Kang was looking pointedly at the dried blood on his arm.

  “That was one blow. I dodged this,” he touched the conspicuous slashes through his armour. “But I couldn’t avoid the arm strike.” He wasn’t going to admit having been so desperate and over-classed that he had resorted to a crazy gamble to trade blows in order to win the fight. “Its speed is a problem. I was lucky to get a glancing blow in with my spear. If I hadn’t, we would have all been dead.” And in a timeline without his tier-three dagger, that was exactly what would have happened. “I can’t beat the floor with my existing skill set.”

  Kang stilled but maintained eye contact. “What are you saying? I thought you had a trump card.”

  “I need Remote Power Strike.” He admitted. “And it’s not a want. It’s a need. If I’m going to beat this, we need to wait until I get it.” The tier-three spear was not, probably, the answer all by itself. In the latest encounter, it would have done nothing, because he failed to land a blow before the creature was on top of him. Of course, that inability depended on how strong the spear’s movement buff was, which was something he couldn’t test in training - only in battle. For obvious reasons, he hadn’t had that opportunity. If it was twenty percent, then he wouldn’t be able to consistently tag them, but even such a low buff would somewhat even the fight between them. If it was stronger than that - and he doubted it was, given the description - but if that bonus reached forty percent, that was going to let him win one-on-ones. However, he had no doubt that, once he got deeper into that valley, he was going to have to defeat multiple enemies at a time. At that point, he was back to needing the ability to stun them at range.

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  Kang assessed him, searching for the truth of his words. “We only have two weeks.”

  “Less,” Tom acknowledged. “I’m very aware.” He shot a glance at Briana and wished he hadn’t when she flinched away. She knew that they were talking about her no matter how much they tried to disguise their language. “We have to have completed the floor by then.”

  “And we’re going to be knocked out every fight, aren’t we?”

  “Maybe not. You might develop a skill.”

  Kang snorted. “Maybe, but…” He shook his head. “The gap feels too large. And Existentia is never that nice.”

  “Sorry, I don’t have a way to help with that. But there’s a chance the attack is visual-based. Some mind effects are like that.”

  Kang’s eyes snapped around at that. Then he looked thoughtful. “It very well might be,” he agreed. “We’ll test it next time we go in, but prepare for the worst.”

  “If that happens, I’m sorry.”

  Kang waved the apology aside. “Provided we survive, how we do it doesn’t matter. To be honest, being knocked out ’wasn’t that bad. It was nearly pleasant if you exclude the disorientation when you woke up. Girls, how was it for you?”

  “It didn’t hurt,” Briana confirmed immediately.

  “It was almost fun,” Eloise confided at the same time, and then looked embarrassed. “I mean it was interesting… Um…”

  “No, I get what you mean.” Kang assured her. “If we were in a safe environment, yeah, I could see the feeling being addictive. But on the battlefield… No, that’s bad” He shuddered.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “It’s okay,” Kang continued. “I understand. It’s disturbing, but believe me, I know why you described it like that.”

  “So, if you spend the entire time unconscious, am I right in saying it’s not that big of a deal?” Tom asked with a smirk. “That you’re basically happy to sleep on the job?”

  “It wouldn’t be a no.” Kang answered flatly. “But we can’t change what we’re facing, and we all have to be there. So, if we’re being knocked out the whole time, then so be it. We can’t change that.”

  “True. My plan is to put all my fate generation into learning Remote Power Strike.” Tom told them.

  “That’s for the best. Give us the prayers you think will help the most.”

  Tom considered the offer for a moment. “Despite the cost of efficiency, I agree - you helping me gain my skill is probably the optimal choice.”

  “We’ll do it.” Kang promised instantly.

  With a decision made, Tom threw himself into what he had to do.

  It meant ten hours of exhaustive practise with a break every ten minutes to fix Briana during daylight hours before switching to the two-hour cycle at night. He used Fateful Repositioning whenever it came off cooldown, and the fate it generated was directed toward helping him with his aim. The effort and fate expenditure worked.

  He finally got the ding in the evening of the fourth day. They only had a little over a week before Briana was going to be so weakened that she would become an even bigger liability than she was already. At that point, winning with her would become hard. It was possible he would be able to get the other two to carry her, but their bodies were those of six-year-olds. Carrying someone who weighed the same as themselves for kilometres would be a severe strain, and greatly increase the risk of everyone else dying.

  He had been so convinced that with his abilities that he would be able to keep everyone alive, but he was beginning to have his doubts. The fact he had needed a tier-three weapon on the first solitary monsters told him how difficult this challenge was going to be. To do it with one of them unable to walk… It didn’t sound feasible. Tom needed to find a way to complete everything in the next week.

  “Adam, can you show me my new skill?” he called out. A page appeared, and when he read it, he frowned. It was boring.

  Skill: Intangible Power Strike – Tier 2

  Allows non-physical aspects of Power Strike to be conveyed on a spear controlled by the user or a neutral spear to a distance of twenty-four metres.

  But it was exactly what he needed for the next day.

  He ran to find the others. “I got it! Tomorrow, we start clearing the floor in earnest.”

  Prepared for the coming fight, they milled around the entrance once more. Kang, with Adam’s help, had adapted his and the girl’s armour. They looked ridiculous. It was as if they were wearing a helmet that basically acted as a pillow.

  “Stop cracking up whenever you look at us,” Kang growled. “This is necessary if we’re going to keep being knocked unconscious. If our head lands on a rock, it could kill us as quickly as a monster’s claws could.”

  “I know… but...” Tom couldn’t continue and bit back on his laughter.

  Eloise started to take the helmet off.

  “No, no, leave it.” he ordered. “Kang’s right, it’s very necessary.”

  “Apologise.” She demanded.

  “I’m sorry for teasing you about the pillow head.”

  Her eyes narrowed suspiciously at his choice of wording, but then she obviously decided it was close enough to being genuine. She stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry before pushing him toward the door to the lobby area.