Chapter 14

Adrian leant back in the chair and it creaked alarmingly. He sat up normally pretty quickly. It was easy to forget his strength. Thoughtfully, he observed the oracle. Yes, she was a human, but she was also a representative of a system that needed him. “If you restore Jaracol.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Then I can’t risk my life.”

“Counterpoint,” Kiyoko said carefully. “If this is something, the system is supposed to be interested in, then we need to find out straight away. Or else it won’t matter if you make it back to Emily.”

“Don’t bring her into this.”

“Sorry.” Kiyoko raised her hands defensively. “Sorry, that went too far. But the sort of things that the system gets interested in are continent ending type level.”

“Can’t or won’t restore Jaracol?”

“There are very few things that are ‘a can’t .’”

Adrian leant backwards but not far enough to break the chair. “Then no.”

“You have to.”

“I am not risking myself for nothing.”

“The system is not like that,” Kiyoko argued.

Adrian openly hesitated, not sure how aggressively to push this. Kiyoko pounced on the pause.

“It is not out to get you.”

“I…”

“I don’t think you understand the problem. If this is NOT something interesting, then you’re in no danger. If it is something, the system is interested in and you don’t go you will DIE . There is no logical reason not to go.”

“I gave you my price.”

“No. Listen to what I said. There’s no logical reason for you not to do this. If your life’s at risk, this is the only way to save it and if there’s no risk, then it is an evening of work.”

“Jaracol.”

“Broke the rules.” Kiyoko’s tone was suddenly dark. “And now it has only one chance of clemency and that is if the event is declared a cataclysm. That there,” she nodded towards where the fridge still stood, but he understood she meant the octopods beyond it, “may be a key piece of evidence to make that call. If you don’t do this, then the system will count it as a black mark against Jaracol.”

“That is blackmail.”

“Oracles don’t blackmail,” she said primely. “And nor do we lie. We can give a version of the truth to get our way.” She smiled smugly at that statement. “But just then, I quoted facts.”

“So if the system is interested in the octopods, then the event will be declared a cataclysm.”

“Not necessarily. There is a big difference between everyone knowing the type of event and it being declared.”

“What?”

“It is a call that is difficult to make.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t have any more details.” The oracle admitted with a shrug. “There are rules making it hard for cataclysm events to be called.” She took a sip of tea and winced. “Too hot.”

“Sorry.”

“We are wasting time. If you are not going to be a wimp.” Adrian rolled his eyes and the old lady ignored him. “Then I can help.” She held out her hands, and he just stared at them unwilling to take them without additional information.

“How?”

“A gift of vision.”

He rolled his eyes at that description.

“I can give you visions of the fights we have had over the last two months with the octopods and everything the system knows about octopods.”

“I doubt I have the learning capability.”

His interface flashed, but not with any of the emotions that usually accompanied it. He allowed the notification to load.

Intelligence --- now 3.14 --- Plus 0.15 from Touch of the Oracle --- Population 1.14 (+.01)

“You have capacity now.”

Her hands were still held out, waiting. Had she just gifted him one and a half standard points of intelligence? He didn’t know oracles had that power. He had always thought all they could do was predict the future.

“What were my chances of refusing?”

“When we sat down, maybe thirty percent. Now? I think you have a fifty percent chance of saying no.” She shrugged. “It is your choice. You will put your life on the line, not me.”

“What should I do?” Adrian could feel his mouth running away from him. He was procrastinating, but deep down he had already made the choice. He had decided before he negotiated to save Jaracol. There was no interface to prod him in a certain direction, but it was a straightforward pick. The system would only be interested if this was a humanity-ending threat. There was no point getting back to his family only to live with them for a few days before the earth ended.

“It’s your call.”

“What’s the system’s hypothesis?” For the life of him, he did not understand why he was delaying. Something about hating being forced to be a hero and another one dancing in delight at the thought.

“If I was going to speculate, I would guess it is probably protection of an egg or the young of a species or they are opening a portal, but that seems unlikely, given how recent the event is. Maybe there is an open portal, and they are bringing an army through slowly, but…”

“But?”

“I am not sure which of those outcomes would get the system’s interest.”

He grabbed her hands and felt a flush of memories hit him just like with the shintopur cores.

The first set was regional knowledge. Seeing an octopod made his skin crawl. The data flickered through the different varieties of the tentacle monsters. King, Emperor, Rainbow, Mana, Grey, Black, Aquatic Desert and numerous others. Each dump of knowledge gifted him with the high-level strengths and weaknesses of the creatures, but along with that, there was also detailed psychological analysis of the creatures. How they fought, what they reacted to. Kings were aggressive while the emperor versions were more considered and selective in their fights while the black was nigh on mad and would attack anything.

Then the focus switched on the mana octopod variety. Mentally, they were a mixture between wolves and cats, able and comfortable slipping into a pack hunting or an ambush role as required. Their mana infusion would make them dangerous for a brief period. It let them greatly increase strength, agility or both till the boost ran out. That ramp of power meant that their opening salvo delivered devastating damage. Just like all the ambush predators he had seen. Though the mana octopods bonuses were more flexible and helped them while pack hunting as well. They killed in two ways. The first was using their tentacles to suffocate the enemy, but they were equally comfortable using the sharp end of each tentacle to slash and cut their prey to bleed them to death.

Because of their communal nature, they were intelligent and could be trained almost as well as a dog to respond to spoken commands. But unlike a dog, they had a tendency to ‘go wild’ which was a state where they would strike out at their owner which made them terrible pets unless you were fortunate enough to be able to wave off an attack from a pack of the beasts because when one went mad they sucked all their fellows along for the journey.

Then, having given him a detailed overview of what they were, bits and pieces of actual engagements around Wangaratta were shared.

Instantly, he could see the patterns that Kiyoko had identified. The mana octopods were not acting like wild animals. When you would expect them to break in order to survive, they would instead sacrifice their lives to hold the position till reinforcements arrived. Over about thirty minutes sped up. Versions of all the different engagements were hammered into his skull. The oracle had been leading the investigation, and she had people probing from every direction, and it was the same result. No matter how many went, no matter how powerful or at what time, they never penetrated beyond the second ring.

For a moment Adrian suspended the memories and brought up a visual of his map. The positioning of the individual attacks appeared. Then a scattering of dots which represented the density of the octopods. It was immediately clear that there was a massive space cantered on a newly created mountain that was literally kilometres wide that no one had ever laid eyes on.

Adrian’s mind raced as the oracle’s gift continued and delivered the last week of memories. Nothing had changed in their behaviour. They still held the line. Perfectly.

“That does not look easy.”

Kiyoko shrugged in apology.

“Mana octopods have poor night vision.”

“Worse than yours, but I wouldn’t call it poor, especially with their Magic Focus skills.”

“I assume I can buy something to hide that.”

“Providing you don’t use magic.”

“What? Your plan is for me to wait for the night and then sneak in without using magic. Get to the centre, see what happens and then run to get word out?”

“Pretty much.” The old lady smiled, with all of her wrinkles joining in.

“I wish Jamal had survived Albury.”

Kiyoko’s eyes went unfocused for a moment. “Yes, he would have been useful, but you have a much higher chance of success.”

“Can I fly in?”

Her hand grabbed his and memories flooded in. These were from a variety of scouts and rangers. There were hundreds maybe thousands, of things moving in the air above the mountain.

Wind Snakes

Wind snakes are masters of the air and are supreme fighters that combine speed agility and deadly poison to prey on other flying creatures. They are extremely territorial but will not fight within three metres of the ground.

While they were called snakes, they could switch their bodies or part of their body between a typical cylinder snake anatomy to a flattened variety that increased their width by a factor of ten. That was what gave them such agility in the air. They could flatten a section and use air resistance to slow themselves or use an air current or flap their tail to propel themselves forward like a swimmer using flippers.

Extraordinarily agile with a nasty bite, a stinger on their tails and magic resistance, they were t oo powerful. One, two or maybe even ten he could fight, but beyond that he would be overwhelmed and as territorial as they were… They would swarm him. These things were on a whole different grading system to hoppers or even shintopurs.

“I guess I am not flying.”

Kiyoko shook her head. “I am sorry that I had to ask you to do this.”

“My choice,” Adrian said calmly. “I need to see a trader.”

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