“Athra, come to the front!” Zedna said, quickly taking action. They couldn’t afford any delays, as if they faltered for even a moment the horde of goats behind them would catch up.

Athra sprinted past Tormacc, soon reaching the front of the group.

“Make a pathway across,” Zedna said. “It doesn’t need to be wide or strong. As long as we are walking on something the gravity will be reduced, so just make sure we can make it across.”

“Yes, I understand. Will make bridge,” Athra said.

“We need to delay the goats,” Zedna said, falling back a bit to run next to Tormacc. “Any ideas?”

“If they can destroy the pathway, we can too,” Tormacc said.

“Good idea. You start destroying the path and I’ll knock back the lead goats.”

Slowing down slightly, Tormacc whipped out his hammer from his Spatial Bracelet before slamming it down behind him, the blow sending showers of stone shards in an arc that barely missed Zedna as she flitted back to deal with some of their attackers. Unlike the goats, he was unable to completely destroy the path, but he was able to damage it, creating rocky terrain that would be difficult to cross. Normally the goats would be unbothered by his actions, able to skim over the top of the now craggy pathway, but because they were currently stampeding their mobility was severely hampered by their numbers, and while the rough terrain wouldn’t stop them, it would at least slow them down.

Zedna was attacking with the same goal, trying to use the bodies of the goats themselves to create a roadblock. It was effective up to a point, but once enough goats fell down the ones behind them merely jumped over their brethren, some of them even running up the side of the cliff to bypass the blockage.

Checking on Athra, Tormacc could see she just started to extend the stone pathway to connect to the other side. Despite Athra’s skill in Stonebending, she wasn’t able to freely form rock at will. Or at least, she was only able to for specific rock. As Tormacc understood it, she could inject her Essence into rock or stone, allowing her to freely control its shape. It was similar to what she had done when they were running through the valley; she had taken a section of rock and made it her own, allowing her to mold it instantly for either offense of defense.

So even though she was able to create a bridge across the chasm almost instantly once she had enough rock under her will it took him for her to inject Essence into that rock, something made even more difficult by the sheer density of the mountains. Heavier rock was harder to inject with Essence, and because of that by the time Tormacc reached her she was only two-thirds done with the bridge.

He didn’t care, and without stopping he ran onto the unfinished bridge. His and Zedna’s actions had bought a few extra seconds, but that was it. The stampede of goats was still coming strong, and he didn’t want to think about what the result would be if they caught him. Soon Tormacc reached the edge of the bridge, leaving him perched precariously on a thin spindle of rock above a drop to near-certain death. He could see Athra extending the bridge ahead of him but, shooting a look backwards, he was afraid it wouldn’t be fast enough.

Just as Tormacc was debating jumping Zedna and the goats reached Athra. Not stopping, Zedna grabbed Athra by her arm and pulled her onto the bridge. Tormacc stared at them, mouth agape and eyes widened in fear. He was currently trapped at the end of the bridge, the only way back through the two people currently charging at him.

“Catch!” Zedna yelled, hurling Athra around like a ragdoll and throwing her at Tormacc. He let out a high-pitched shriek as Athra flew into him, knocking them both off the bridge and over the remaining gap between the bridge and the pathway on the other side. For split second he thought Zedna was trying to kill them, but then his breath left him as the full weight of Athra crashed into his stomach and they flew the remaining distance from the end of the bridge to the pathway.

Soon Zedna joined them there, her superior physical ability enabling her to leap the distance Tormacc was unsure he could cross. Without pause she lifted the two of them out of the undignified clump they made when they fell to the ground before they set off running again, the goats hot on their heels.

It seemed most of the goats weren’t willing to sacrifice themselves to destroy the pathway, as that ended up being a one-time occurrence. There were a few close calls, with multiple goats falling at the same time, leaving little room to dodge on the narrow path they were running on. But they were able to make it through, and almost two hours later they finally left the goats’ territory. Once the cliff face they had been running next to opened up the goats soon fell back, leaving them to catch their breath from the harrowing flight.

“That went well,” Zedna said, seemingly unaffected by the hours of running, barely a hair out of place.

“We survived,” Tormacc said simply. He wasn’t expecting too much more at this point.

Zedna allowed them a five minute rest, and during that time Tormacc reflected on his previous outlook. There was still a part of him that yearned for glory and honor, but he was coming to realize that wasn’t the point of The Tower. The point was to survive. If he was in here to feed Essence back to his people then it didn’t matter how much Essence he had; it only mattered how long he was able to stay alive and pay the tax.

It made him glad he hadn’t gotten greedy when fighting the rats and knew when to call it quits, although realistically he should have smelled the stench of danger much sooner. Perhaps he could have stayed, skirting around the edges of the rat horde and knocking them down into the crevices below, but to what end? He didn’t have some mystical armor protecting him if things went south. Staring at Zedna’s missing arm really drove that home. If someone like her could lose an arm, then what about him?

There were always risks when it came to live battle, but you could only roll the dice so many time before they came up doom eyes. Fighting the rats was a high-risk high-reward move, but thinking about it further, he wasn’t actually sure how high the reward was. The only real pressure he was under was the Essence tax, and while he may have tried to go back and fight the rats had he been forced to fight the Stone Giants alone, he was lucky enough to find Athra and now Zedna. Getting off this blasted Shard seemed much better in the long run than staying to fight some dumb rats.

Thinking about his purpose in The Tower made him think about all the questions he wanted to ask Stella when he got back. Before, he hadn’t even known what questions he should be asking, but now that he had a better grip on how things worked in The Tower he had some questions he wanted answered. While he could have tried to ask his party members, he wasn’t sure if it was rude to pry, and getting his information from a trusted source was probably better anyway.

Soon the break was over and the three of them were off running again, although this time at a more reasonable pace. There was still the Greenstone Rager that was likely chasing after them so they couldn’t afford to stop for long. But now that they had some breathing room Tormacc decided to take a more comprehensive stock of his state, which included any Essence gains from the battles they had just fought.

Right now he only had a little more than 400 Essence left in his pool. There were some abilities he could potentially unlock, but nothing jumped out to him as urgent, so he left his Fate Wheel aside and moved on to see if his had gained any new loot. Normally when he gained a loot drop there was a small feeling in the back of his head that alerted him to it if he was paying attention, but in the midst of battle it was easily glossed over, which was a good thing as getting distracted mid-battle could cost him his life.

Using his virtual eye to peer into his Spatial Bracelet, Tormacc found out he had gained two loot drops from the flight through the valley and subsequent battles: a White Crystal and a White Sphere. Without hesitation he took the White Sphere out of his bracelet and absorbed it, gaining 2,500 Essence. As the Essence flowed into him he turned back to his Fate Wheel, his Essence pool now containing more than enough Essence to spend on unlocking abilities.

Going with his previous plan, he focused on the top part of the right side of his Fate Wheel. There were some abilities he wanted to unlock in other parts of his Fate Wheel, like the tier eight Air Walk, but considering the intense gravity he was currently subjected to, unlocking Air Walk could wait.

Tormacc started on tier five when searching for abilities to unlock, as none of the branches from the abilities he had unlocked before in this part of his Fate Wheel appealed to him. There were quite a few abilities that looked interesting, but out of the tier five abilities he had available the two revealed by Rapid Healing, Replenish Blood and Rejuvenation, seemed quite useful to him, so he went ahead and unlocked both of them for 400 Essence total. Glancing further ahead to the tier six abilities it became slightly harder to choose.

He had some new options revealed by the two abilities he had just unlocked, but truthfully he was looking more towards some options he had revealed before, which were the four abilities revealed by Muscle Enhancement and Bone Compression.

The two abilities revealed by Muscle Enhancement were Explosive Strength and Sustained Strength. One would help him for quick, explosive muscle movements, like swinging his hammer, and the other would help more for sustained exercise, like running away. Both abilities were useful, and he knew if he didn’t unlock them now he would eventually.

The two revealed by Bone Compression were Tensile Strength and Body Durability. Similar to the two revealed by Muscle Enhancement, they seemed to be opposites, with Tensile Strength giving him better ability to resist injuries such as stress tears and overall supporting him when he overworked his body while Body Durability seemed more focused on general defense and body toughness.

Out of the 2,500 Essence he gained from the sphere he only had 2,100 left, which meant if he wanted to he could unlock all four tier six abilities, as they each cost 500 Essence for a total of 2,000. Alternatively, he could focus on one branch of his Fate Wheel and unlock a tier seven ability along with two tier six ones. In the past, he had spent a fair amount of time carefully considering which abilities to unlock, and were he in a position to do so now that’s exactly what he would do her too. But when running for his life from a monsters that could take off Zedna’s arm he didn’t have time to dilly-dally.

The only consideration was the four new options he had revealed by unlocking Rapid Healing and Rejuvenation, but looking at them they mostly increased his ability to heal. He wanted to unlock them, but the other abilities would hopefully prevent him from being injured in the first place, which he still thought was better than marginally increasing his healing, especially in the short term.

It took a supreme effort of will, but Tormacc decided to stick to the tier six abilities revealed from Muscle Enhancement and Bone Compression, unlocking all of them for 2,000 Essence. That brought him down to a little over 500 Essence, which was enough to both pay the Essence tax as well as a bit extra to save in case of emergencies.

His party was still in a precarious position, but Tormacc felt a bit better with his new abilities unlocked. Perhaps they wouldn’t make much of a difference, but every little bit helped, and as they ran further into the mountains he had a feeling he could use every edge he could get.