Chapter 30
Three figures sat in silence for way longer than was necessary. Wes did not know how much time had passed after the crunching stopped, but he guessed it must have been a little under a day.
He would have remained silent for a while longer if not for the call of nature currently happening down near his gut. First, creeping over to the slits in the lattice, he checked outside and found nothing. The water's reflection of the moon's light had grown a little, but everything else appeared to be the same. Using the predetermined signal of bringing up his status for the girls, he waited until he felt a hand on his leg.
Once Dozel felt him, he felt himself being pulled off the lattice’s supporting ledge. Deeper into their hideout, she pulled him along. Phony had dug out a chasm under all the crumpled trees above. The last thing she wanted was for them to be trapped, so she had dug several tunnels leading out. None ever broke the surface, but Phony had told both of them that they would reach the surface easily by digging upward.
In the center of the chasm, Phony had laid as many long branches over a trench she had dug that led into a wall. Everything was quite hard to trace in the dark, but Wes had made sense of the layout after a few hours of roaming. Wes had activated his new skill and found that it did not help him. The topographer had given him something for sure, but he couldn’t make out what. All he saw when he brought it up was a misshapen box that was nestled into the thin borders of his status. In the center of the box was a very small green dot with a blue trim to one side.
Wes had hoped that his new ability would help him map the inside of their chamber, but it didn’t seem to work that way. Making the new ability hard to justify was the fact that it consumed a thousand experience just to activate it once. It wasn’t a channeled ability like Party Chat that could be kept on either.
Phony had specifically dug this little trench leading into a small cave in the wall to avoid using party chat, saving his experience for his next level up. She had made a much smaller lattice from debris, like she had the first one, to cover the small opening leading into it. Only once they were inside, after she tapped him twice, was he allowed to talk.
Wes said in a low whisper, “I have to use the bathroom.”
“Already?” Phony asked.
“I have already been holding it for a full day. I will be coloring my pants if I wait any longer.”
“Sorry, it's just been a long time since I can remember having to go so consistently.”
“Well, sorry for not having the benefit of 200-plus levels, making my digestive system uber efficient.” Wes let his sarcasm play.
Phony called out a little louder than they had been whispering. “Dozel.”
The two waited for her to join them. Wes could hear the methodical movements of moving the lattice and replacing it where it had been. The little room had grown uncomfortably small with the three in such proximity. He could smell sweat from the girls, which made him think he must reek to them. Their heightened senses must have been screaming at them right now.
“You called?” Dozel said.
“Our lil boy’s tummy hurts. You mind running a quick scouting mission so I can dig up a poop chute?” Phony replied.
Dozel assessed, “I don’t think that is wise. I could still make out some movement fourteen hours ago. The last thing we need is to give away our position early.”
Clicking her tongue lightly, Phony asked, “Well, you think I can dig even without running reconnaissance?”
“I don’t think digging will be necessary.”
“Share,” Phony replied.
“I can’t hear anything from outside in the trench leading up. This room will work nicely.”
Wes jumped in this time. “I don’t think that would be wise for you both. The smell would be quite strong.”
“You have your Cleanse ability while doing your business, it would be negligible,” Dozel responded.
Wes looked at his status.
Name: Wesley of 29744C
Race: Human
Age: 27
Unique Abilities: Imperial Over Metric, Back In My Day
Abilities: Deposit, Eternal Spark, Cleanse, Stopwatch,
Vigilant, Deviant, Symbiosis, H20,
Party Chat, Topographer
Skills: N/A
Achievement(s): Bloody Soul, Pragmatic Savant
Trait(s): 3
Current Status: Blessed
Level 9
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Savings: 2,433,121
Next Level: 16,796.16
Level 9 Exp Per Sec: .0216
Current Exp: 6,531.84
Using even a little of his current experience didn’t sit well with him. The last time he activated Cleanse, he used only 600 experience. That was a little under eight hours of accrued growth. This time, however, he would have to keep active until he felt he was done with his business. It could wipe out all his progress toward his next level. Not able to justify it, he shared his reluctance with the girls.
Phony shot a question out first. “Why do you have to keep it channeled? Just activate it at the end.”
“Umm. You know why. It would not be so good for you girls to smell it. Bad enough I am even talking bout it. And that, assuming you girls will not be able to hear anything.” Wes was so thankful that he was in pitch black darkness as he responded.
“See, told you.” Phony called out.
It was silent for a few seconds, so Wes called out. “What?”
He heard one of the girls rustling the clothes of the other. Dozel’s voice came through the next second. “Well, you see, we have already seen, heard, and smelled far worse.”
Not getting what they were saying, Wes asked. “Did we run across anything that smelled that bad? Sure, the Clan members smell like shit, but this is different.”
Phony laughed out, “She means that we have already seen you shit, heard all your little farts you tried to hide, and smelled everything.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Wes asked.
Dozel jumped in, “I am sorry, Wesley, she is saying that our guard duty has made us be uncomfortably close at times.
Wes’s eyes flicked side to side in the darkness. The news that he had been spied on during his worst moments made Wes want to smack the girls left and right. He tried to remember all the times he had to pee or go number 2. He would walk off a ways for privacy. Only to come and find out he hadn’t been alone was torture.
What made Wes really uncomfortable was that he could have taken a crap in peace if he had known. Unable to contain his anger, he lashed out. “Do you both know you could have saved me a lot of trouble the last four weeks. I could have focused on relieving myself instead of always having my head on a swivel. Every time I went to the restroom, I thought I would die by leaving an easy target.”
Wes heard some suppressed laughter, “Shut it, Phony. All I am saying is you could have saved me a lot of trouble.”
A second laugh rang out softly. Phony’s not-so-soothing voice came through. “I didn’t laugh first this time. I tried my best to take this seriously after the hard time we gave you over your pervert ability.”
Dozel forced out, “Yes, I am sorry too, Master Wesley.”
“You have no right to keep up this Master Wesley Bullshit. I took it while I thought I hurt your feelings, only to come and find out you guys have been peepers since the beginning.” Wes chided.
Clearing her throat, Dozel said, “You are right, Wesley, sorry.”
Wes nonchalantly replied, “All good. No worries.”
“You aren’t mad?” Phony asked.
“Damage is done. I am a little mad that I could have just enjoyed relieving myself, but instead, I stupidly thought I had to keep vigilant. Other than that, it was in the past. Getting Dozel to stop with the stupid Master stuff is a fair trade.” Wes explained.
Phony responded, “You are a puzzle, Wesley. I thought you would be more upset.”
“Meh, I’ll take the get out of jail free card over being upset.”
***
Runar had taken his post over the kids a week back. His anger from being placed on what amounted to guard duty still ate at him. His great uncle Argyros took great pleasure in warning him not to break his pledge before he left.
During that time, the three had set about finishing their pool and hideout. Runar wondered what their end goal was. All life for a hundred miles was headed in this direction. He couldn’t help but wonder if they had bitten off more than they could chew. The Sun clans would be relatively easy for them to deal with. The Moon clans on the other hand, would be quite the challenge for the girls. Especially with the handicap of defending the girls. He could not see the end goal yet, and with him coming later in the plan, he missed most of the initial building phase.
Runars’ keen eyes allowed him to see inside their hideout, A large cavern forty feet across and twenty feet deep at the deepest section meant they were in a coffin. The dozen tunnels leading away interweave into each other in a nonsensical order.
He wrote off trying to trap them due to their not having another way out to the surface. Runar’s next best guess was that Phony had placed something in the area, and they were digging randomly to try and find whatever it was.
Runar had even gone closer to the ground to allow his vision to penetrate more of the soil, only to find nothing. Perplexed, he gave up trying to figure out their endgame, instead choosing to watch Wesley and figure out what had made the Matriarch so determined to tie herself to him. In Runar’s eyes, she always fought against giving one of her prized daughters away in a trade. When he heard she had offered Phoneuo to Wesley, he knew he had missed something. She had shown great perseverance in rising to her level. Sure, she wasn’t going to reach the top, but she would most certainly be a prized bargaining chip eventually.
Even stranger was the little blue beast that held sway over Wesley and his younger family member. Finding out that she was now his Mistress had unsettled Runar enough to send for their best seer on the other side of the Gap. It would take the seer time to get to him, but Runar could wait. He was, after all, on babysitting duty.
***
__________
Two more days had passed since Wes had found out he had never been alone. The girls took the opportunity to get another cleanse out of Wes, claiming that they could still smell his filth.
Wes had been intrigued with his growth, but he felt now was the time to reach for an attack power. Their future plans depended on what he could awaken, and he needed a way to defend himself. Not really knowing what he wanted to focus on, he decided to think of anything cool he had heard of during his early years. Flying, teleportation, and Shields made of solid Mana. The last of which he really wanted most, but he didn’t think it would work with him, considering he held no Mana at all. Wes wanted badly to test his last remaining unused ability, but that time had come and gone.
That was how, after wasting time on that first day after the level up, he found himself focusing on another ability. He didn’t know exactly what he wanted, so he let himself think more generally. The strongest feeling he got while awakening another ability was when he got Eternal Spark. The feeling that that one gave when he got was a hundred times stronger than any of the others he had felt.
That was what led to Wes chanting, Eternal Power. In his head, over and over again. With no real direction, he was curious where this line of thinking would take him.
Some would say it was stupid to waste his last ability choice before level 25 on something so vague, but Wes needed to sacrifice this level’s choice to figure out exactly how it was influenced for future ability selections. He planned to live a long time, and having this key bit of information would help him in his later levels. So, Wes sat near the lattice leading to the pool, watching, while thinking of what Eternal Power would look like.
