Broken Lands

The third team that was joining them were a mix of battlefield control, stealth, and affliction specialists; normally, they were the team that weakened the big bosses for the missing strike team and corralled the little guys to make the goose’s team’s attacks more efficient. It was essentially the role that Ci’an usually filled on their team, while Xin’ri held down the spot that Tellix’s team filled. It was an interesting comparison but not one that Sophia could take too far; from what Sophia could tell, her team was simply more flexible than either of the others.

When the combined group headed to the closest Pillar and agreed that they were joining together as a full team for a shared Pillar, the Participant count was just over half of the required numbers. They took their time so that they could find all of the hidden hollows for the stealth specialists and Ci’an to hide in … and so that they’d know where sneaky monsters might try to hide as they went for the Pillar.

Sophia ignored the search and set up a minor warding circle around the Pillar. It wouldn’t stop anything big, that wasn’t something she could easily set up, but it would slow anything small down and warn the entire group if something tried to sneak past them. That was a real, if rare, threat and Sophia didn’t want their group to be one that fell to it.

The warding circle was basically the same as the one she’d set up around their campsite in the Maze when they stopped to camp for the night; it even used the same wardstones. The spell she used was a little different, because her camp ward didn’t have the capability of throwing its power into reinforcing the walls of a pillar, but that was a minor variation she pulled out of her old notes. It was pretty standard for warding a single structure, like a house; reinforcing the walls and windows, even temporarily, could make all the difference in the world when the first notice you had of something trying to get in was an attempt to break them. This was even easier because the circle was outside the structure being warded.

The wardstones weren’t the same ones she’d brought with her from Earth. Those were heavily damaged by repeated use; setting up and taking down wards was not kind to them, even when they didn’t catch anything. A detection ward was still possible with those wardstones, but an actual protection ward would burn out the instant it triggered. Fortunately, while Sophia’s stonecarving skills were poor, Xin’ri’s weren’t. Sophia not only had fresh wardstones, she had spares that were reinforced in several different patterns. Specialized wardstones helped protect a ward.

She wasn’t bothering with any of the protected wardstones for this. Monsters were highly unlikely to understand the ward well enough to try to break it in the middle of battle; trying to sneak through it was far more likely.

When the Participant number finally ticked over to 4096/4096, the 24-hour timer started, along with an indicator that showed both how many Pillars stood (out of 256) and how many Participants had joined teams at a Pillar. More than half of the Participants were already at a Pillar, which clearly showed that this was something people planned for, but oddly enough the denominator wasn’t 4096. It was 4093, then 4088. “Are people leaving the Event?”

“A few always do,” the winged badger, Notii, answered quietly. “There are people who don’t want to do the Event for one reason or another but do want to get into the World Tree. Sometimes it’s people who don’t hear about it in time, other times it’s people who think it’ll have closed already. A few more people will leave over the next hour or two, then a group after that when they figure out no one’s willing to take them on. Some of them will end up banding together; those Pillars are likely to fail, but they’re Pillars we wouldn’t have otherwise. I think anyone who can survive should try; it’s good learning and if they can make it to another Pillar instead of forfeiting, they can even get rewards.”

Sophia nodded. Avoiding a penalty that locked you out of Events for a third of a year sounded good, if Events were good. That was probably why people dropped out; if they thought they could complete Events on a lower part of the World Tree but not on the one where it was happening, it made sense to avoid the lockout.

Of course, that only mattered if there were Events to be locked out of. “How common are Events? We were told not to expect them but you’re making it sound like they’re pretty common?”

“They are, but only if you look for them.” Notii snorted, obviously amused. “You’re third upgrade, so you wouldn’t be eligible for an Event in the roots or on the second floor. Those have the most Events and the biggest ones, just because there are so many more people there. Third floor is possible; those Events are aimed at the second upgrade, but third can join sometimes. As for the fourth floor … there’s an Event here … oh, every five or ten days, probably. They can happen a few hours apart or be separated by a season, but five to ten days is the norm. I try to get into every Event I can, which means I probably make about two-thirds of the big ones I’m eligible for. The rest of the time, I’m either already in the World Tree or outside in the sky. Small Events are more common, but they usually grab only a handful of teams, so there’s no way to get into those except luck.”

“So, really anything can happen but big events like this are what you’re most likely to see?” Sophia shook her head and chuckled. “Figures. Not that I can complain; it sounds interesting and will hopefully be an easy way to the next level.”

“It can be, but be careful on the fourth branch,” Notii said with a serious tone. “I’ve seen too many people ride an easy Event to a place they don’t belong.”

Sophia paused at that. He had a point; they didn’t know how tricky stuff on the next floor was going to be. She didn’t think it would be a problem since they were fighting third upgrade stuff in the Maze when they were only second upgrade, but it was true that they didn’t go deep in the Maze until they were third upgrade. Some of that was the monster difficulty and some of it was the duration any trip would have to take. The second one wasn’t a problem with the key but the first might be.

“Should we wait to use the key we got on the second floor until we’re fourth upgrade?” She really didn’t want to wait that long. It would be years.

“Key?” Notii shook his head at Sophia. “What do you mean?”

“We did a Challenge chain on the second floor that ended at the entrance to a temple. We have a key that we think will get us into the temple if we use it when we start a floor, but we saved it for the fourth floor since it should mean a short time on the floor before we can reach the next level and we need to get to the sixth level of the Moonlit Branches so that we can talk to Archon of Stone Issvako. She won’t agree to talk to us unless we can get that high.” There. It really wasn’t that hard to explain. Sophia thought she’d come up with a pretty good summary.

“Oh.” Notii’s wings drooped. “You want to know if you can complete a Challenge chain early? I don’t know how well you fight. Or how well you do other things; all Challenge chains require fighting but some are mostly something else. Some teams complete a branch before they upgrade, others How well do you normally do against fourth upgrade monsters?”

“I’ve never fought one,” Sophia admitted. “The Maze only went up to third upgrade. They were not actually all that hard, but there were six of us, not four.” She paused, then decided not to mention the Broken Lord’s team. They were higher but they were also damaged, so they really weren’t a good example of their upgrade.

Surprise flashed across Notii’s face, then he shook his head. “You need to do that before you go to a Challenge chain. They are … well, they can vary a lot but you have to remember that a Challenge chain is always at least three zones, and sometimes you don’t have much of a chance to rest in between, especially a Challenge chain from a branch artifact. If you can manage only a zone or two before you retreat to rest, you should gather Thread and come back later. You should only take on a Challenge chain when you’re sure you can do it, or you won’t be able to progress on the next branch anyway. If you really need to get to the next part of the Moonlit Branches, wait until there’s an Event like this one. As long as you can contribute, you can join a team and probably get there without too much trouble. You can’t really float up more than one branch that way, but a lot of people do that before they retire so they can get as high in the Moonlit Branches as possible during their Professional lives afterwards.”

Sophia blinked at the suggestion. It countered every single objection she had without even trying. It felt like cheating, but the best sort of cheating: the sort that everyone knew about and no one cared about because it didn’t hurt anyone. By the rules the World Tree had, it wasn’t even really cheating; second upgrade Participants were allowed in the third upgrade Meteor Pillars event and that meant they’d be allowed to reach higher in the Moonlit Branches because an Event let you move forward.

Honestly, if anything was broken about the setup, it was that simple fact. Large group events meant you didn’t actually have to do a Challenge chain to move on; all you had to do was earn your upgrades and do Events. “Are Challenge chains just for people who don’t want to wait for an Event, then?”

Notii shook his head hard enough that his fur compressed from the movement. “Challenge chains at your upgrade or higher often hold special rewards. My Sphere’s based on a couple of Abilities I picked up when I was first upgrade from Challenge chains. The big ones, the ones that affect the entrance, also unlock things you won’t find otherwise. If you didn’t fight the Worm That Stole The Sky and win it back, you’ll never encounter the Winged Worms and have to choose if you teach them to fly or not.”

Sophia blinked at the description of a fable that had to be one Notii had seen. It was one she hadn’t heard of, but it definitely sounded like a fable. “How would a worm … never mind, not important. The same way a rabbit lights the moon I guess. We haven’t done one at our upgrade yet; if we had, we wouldn’t be here.”

“You should.” Notii grinned widely, showing his teeth in a way that wasn’t quite comfortable on a badger’s face. “I figured that was why you were here. A lot of people move from Tower to Tower to complete Challenges and Challenge chains once they’re done with what they can easily find in their home Tower. We’re talking about doing that soon; if we work together well in the Event, we can talk about heading out together. I don’t think Ingharad’s team is going to want to Tower-hop with us, at least not until they’re ready to take on fourth upgrade Challenges.”

Sophia shook her head. “Dav and I are planning to go home next. We haven’t been home in years.”

Notii shrugged with his hands out, clearly unbothered by the refusal.