Chapter 29

  Initially, upon arriving on the mountain with Wes and Dozel, Phony couldn’t help but dread the months, years, or possible decades to come. Stuck on a planet with two people she didn’t even know was bad enough. But doing so with someone you just met, and someone you were supposed to be engaged to, meant that she had little recourse but to hide her true nature.

  Phony had always been a daughter who shirked her duties. Opting to work on increasing her level to make her Trait work. Thanks to the best social etiquette tutors, she had retained the bare minimum of social awareness.

  Which was why she felt she came off a little stuffy upon first meeting Wes. She had been trying to remember all that she had been made to learn. Being born as the daughter of a Goddess came with plenty of benefits. She received endless resources, the best tutors, and, of course, what she cared for most, the best trainers. The benefits provided by being her mother's daughter were as wide as they were deep.

  Still, all those benefits came with the agreement that she was little more than a piece on her mother's board. To use at her mother’s leisure, she knew it, her siblings knew it. No, freedom was never meant for someone like her.

  With all being said, she was quite proud of her progress, even with her not-so-optimal trait. Racing Level 200 before age fifty was something to be praised in the wider universe. She had risen to level 250 before she hit twenty-five years of age. Even with her mother's backing, she would be considered somewhere between a genius and a savant. All her hard work, never taking a day off, had paid dividends and then some.

  However, even with all that being said, her trait would always hold her back at the higher level she rose to. Her trait was meant for nothing but pure combat. Phony even questioned if it would be useful after a certain point, thanks to its wording.

  She had made peace with never becoming a Goddess with a trait that was meant for pure combat, but it didn’t mean she wouldn’t resent whoever she had to tie herself to.

  Finding a decent husband would be quite difficult due to her cursed trait, but when her mother came to her with the offer of a proposal, she couldn’t help how worked up she became. The resentment Phony felt for always having to follow another on their Path went against everything she had been up to that point in time.

  Phony had resisted her mother’s words at first, but when her mother offered to give her a place on the training planets, she had to bite. She had pestered both her Mother and her Father every chance she got. Her mother had dangled what she always wanted so casually.

  When all her mother had asked for in return was only a meeting, she couldn’t help but wonder who this man was. Her mother only told her that, “She would regret this opportunity for the rest of her life.”

  And regret she would have, after they were placed on the planet, it had taken her a week to settle back into her usual brash self. The more time she spent with Wesley, the more she realized that he was an uncommon soul on the path. Even with his stupidity, in activating his Deviant ability on her and Dozel. She could forgive him because he did everything wholeheartedly. His willingness to admit to mistakes and his willingness to allow her to take the lead were not common. Most primaries in the relationship refused to give up the reins of power.

  Wesley, on the other hand, in her eyes, didn’t care for any of it. He didn’t care for power, much less the illusion of it. Even in the choices he had made up until that point, when it came to his cheat abilities. He made choices that improved all their situations instead of increasing his own personal power.

  Phony did not know if she would have done the same if she had been in his shoes. She would have probably tried to awaken an ability that would be most optimal to her on the path.

  After seeing him over the first three weeks on the planet, she had grown to appreciate her mother’s foresight. She allowed herself to get used to the idea of being tied to Wesley. But over the past week, her mother had no part in all the glances she had shot in his direction. She had to admit she had kissed him on a whim, part pettiness and part wanting to always say she was first. That, however, was not what she had been doing this past week while she worked. No, she had come to appreciate the man that Wes was, not the man he was destined to become.

  Realizing for the first time, she was excited to follow this man’s ascent on the Path.

  ***

  Wes’s latest level came with little fanfare. He followed the steps to activation just as he always had. Still not knowing if these steps influenced what he got.

  Ability Unlocked: Topographer

  “What the hell is a topographer?”

  “Aahh, why the hell do I always do that?”Wes cried out.

  Name: Wesley of 29744C

  Race: Human

  Age: 27

  Unique abilities: Imperial Over Metric, Back In My Day(Active)

  Abilities: Deposit, Eternal Spark, Cleanse, Stopwatch,

  Vigilant, Deviant, Symbiosis, H2O,

  Party Chat, Topographer

  Skills: N/A

  Achievement(s): Bloody Soul, Pragmatic Savant

  Trait(s): 3

  Current Status: Blessed

  Level 9

  Savings: 2,446,121

  Next Level: 16,796.16

  Level 9 Exp Per Sec: .0216

  Current Exp: .0864

  Wes scanned over his status, confirming his new experience gain. Wondering if he could use his Back In My Day unique ability a little more freely.

  After doing a bit of quick math, he filled the girls in. Explaining that he would now get just under 1.3 Experience every minute and about 78 experience every hour. He couldn’t really make out the girls' faces with it being so dark in their little hideout, so he pulled up his status for the girls to see for themselves.

  “No matter how many times I see your status, I can’t get used to it. I hate you.” Phony complained.

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  Dozel tried to comfort Phony, “This will be good for us in the long run, Phony, think about it. The faster he levels, the more he can use his Symbiosis ability for us. I would love to see how much experience I need again.”

  “Is that all I am worth to you two?” Wes groaned.

  Both girls said as one, “Of course.”

  Tisking, Wes stood up and asked, “Which one of you will be my pretty bodyguard while I go fill our pool?”

  Phony offered, “I’ll do it. Come, weakling.”

  Phony moved the lattice that helped to disguise the entrance to their hideout. Allowing a small amount of light reflected by one of the three moons. Soon to be two, with how fast the third was moving across the sky.

  Out in the open by the pool, where there was no overhead, Wes could see quite a bit. The largest of the moons reflected quite a bit of light. Not enough to pierce the canopy of the forest consistently, but enough to allow Wes to make out individual tree trunks.

  Telling Phony he was going to begin, he jumped down into the empty pool and walked over to the middle. The pool's depth became more apparent from his vantage point. Phony had dug deep enough that he wondered to himself if he could even get out himself.

  Phony threw one of the lone lines they had left from the packs that Orthol had given them. Wes tied it around his waist and said, “I’m going to begin now, you ready?”

  Phony shrugged, “Not really doing much, don’t drown yourself.”

  Wes nodded, taking a last look at his savings. He sighed, “Don’t use too much, please.”

  Closing his status, he activated Cleanse on himself first. He didn’t want to pollute his fresh water with any of his grime from his body. Checking his status one last time, he nodded in satisfaction at the reduced experience usage. “Only 600 this time.”

  Wes closed his status and activated H2O for the second time ever. The water came out as violently as last time. With perfectly square walls on each side, it slammed with a thundering boom. Wincing, Wes hoped that the clay would hold up. The water was at his chest a second later.

  Feeling the tug of the line at his waist, he allowed himself to be pulled to the edge. With him keeping the ability active, he couldn’t make out anything around him. The water rushing out in all directions distorted everything in the faint light. A double tug around his waist let him know the pool was halfway full. Thinking to himself, note to self, practice holding your breath.

  By the time Wes felt the three little tugs around his waist telling him the pool was mostly full, he had been on his last legs. He cut his ability and grabbed for the line leading back to Phony. Wes felt his body rocket forward. Every bone in his back bent as far away from his torso as his muscles allowed.

  Wes slammed into a worried-looking Phony, “What, you think, wanna teach me how to swim?”

  Phony dropped hold of Wes, his waterlogged body squished into the soil below. “I think that Dozel would be better for that,” Phony replied.

  “She told you she was a good swimmer, or what?” Wes said, looking out to the stars.

  “No, it's just I don’t know how to swim either.”

  “You mean I could have been struggling in the water and you couldn’t save me?” Wes asked.

  Phony yanked on the rope still in her hand, “I trusted your knot.”

  Wes grabbed at his left side. Digging the rope out of his hip. “You know that hurt?”

  “Don’t be a wise ass then. No lip, no pain.” Phony quipped.

  Wes stood up while trying to untie the rope. “Fair point. We should go to our little hut, though. That made a lot more noise than I thought it would.”

  They both went over to their new home. Wes removed his soaking wet shirt and rang it out before heading in. “This shirt will not last much longer.”

  Dozel asked Wes as he was putting the Lattice door back into place. “Why have you not switched to one of the spares in your pack already?

  “Old habits. Come from a poor world. We use something until we can’t even use it to wipe ourselves. Plus, my sister Marny would come back to haunt me if she knew I threw out a perfectly good shirt.” Wes held up the holey shirt in the Darkness, trying his best to lay it flat by the entryway.

  __________

  The next three days came and went in boredom. Aside from the occasional quiet conversation about the mundane, they chose to remain quiet. Their goal was food and Experience harvesting, and to have a chance at either, they needed to not scare it off either.

  On the girls' scouting trips, they had noticed signs of wildlife. They had even come across the occasional skeleton of some quadruped during their initial trek. Nothing that still drew breath, but that gave them hope that they could find something.

  Phony and Dozel theorized that the Clans probably hunted whatever it was for food as well. Wes mostly agreed with that reasoning, but he had to wonder about his time during the awakening.

  In all of his time here on this planet, he didn’t hear anything like those exploding Bombloids during his awakening. Whatever the main food source here was either they were quiet or hard to catch. But even that gave Wes pause; if something was so hard to catch for the Clans, then how did they achieve such great numbers that made Phony have a healthy respect for them?

  Wes hadn’t seen Either of the girls in true combat, really, but they dispatched every member of the Clan they came across in seconds.

  Which is why on that fourth day of darkness, when Wes felt a hand on his thigh, he knew it was time. It was the first time that either of the girls had initiated contact. Intuitively holding his breath, he crept to the small slits in the lattice. Going from the pitch black of their hideout to the moon's light made his eyes struggle to adjust. Wes had held himself back the previous two days from opening his status, mostly for his psyche but also so he could keep his night vision for a moment like this.

  After his eyes adjusted to what felt like blinding light, Wes wondered if the girls had been wrong at first when they warned that something had joined them.

  Scanning what he could see, he made out the small ramp leading down to the water's edge. Phony had been right to take the time to carve the slope away from them to increase their visibility. The moon's light appeared brighter than it had before, too. Not being able to make out the sky, Wes credited it to not taking in any light with his eyes for the last few days.

  Running his eyes over the pool forty feet away, he saw nothing at first. From their vantage, all that was visible was the clearing with the pool and the wall of trees on either side leading up to their hideout.

  It wasn’t until Wes caught slight movement in the tree's edge, on the side closest to them. A Large Clan member, like the ones they had come across to that point, crept from the tree line slowly. It seemed to need multiple attempts to build up its courage to head to the water.

  It crawled using all six of its appendages to keep it close to the ground. Looking over its shoulders and scanning the treeline furthest from it. When it reached the waters' edge, it filled its lungs with the damp air that surrounded the pool. Only after it was satisfied with the scent of the water did it use its massive hands as ladles. It greedily began scooping water into its mouth. Alternating between the two sets of arms it carried.

  Wes went to whisper to the girls; his lips parting made the smallest of sounds. The Clan member snapped its head in their direction. Catching his breath in amazement, Wes froze. The Clan member tilted its head as if to hear better.

  Not knowing what to do, Wes held his breath as long as he could. Afraid that even exhaling would give away their position. Catching movement behind the Clan member made Wes draw even more air into his lungs.

  Wes watched as a different Clan member, three-quarters the size of the original, was behind the first. The first Member still had his head tilted, trying to pick up any more faint sounds when the smaller jumped on its back and took a chunk of flesh out of its neck.

  The yell the wounded member gave out was deafening. Loud enough for Wes to feel his eardrums rattle.

  Now wounded, the larger one tried to reach behind and dislodge the smaller, who was adeptly riding his hips while holding one of its opposite hands on its neck.

  The large clan member made the fatal mistake of reaching behind to try and grab the smaller, but it swiftly defended with its remaining three arms. As soon as it did so, three of the smaller variety Clan members came shooting out of the treeline to his right. Two dedicated themselves to handling the remaining arms while the last shot forward and aimed directly for the throat of the larger.

  Landing home with its attacking fist made the Large member go still. Leaving nothing to chance, the member that had been riding the larger's back reached up and twisted its head until it was looking toward what used to be its backside, directly at the smaller member.

  Before the Large member began to fall, the smaller members began tearing flesh off their hard-fought meal.

  Realizing that he had still been holding his breath, Wes used the sounds of crunching to start to let his breath out of his aching lungs. Using those same eerie sounds to back away as quietly as he could, Wes sat down where he was before. And thought to himself. An army of those little fuckers would be a nightmare. Did we just trap ourselves in this little hole?