Chapter 109: Cat and Mouse

“It’s the oddest thing.” The tracker said, sniffing the wind.

Caddock raised a brow and waited.

“Every once in a while I’ll get a whiff of a campfire, but it’s hard to nail down a direction. Like There’s no origin. It’s diluted, miles away, but there’s no directionality to it.”

After days of searching they hadn’t found the Deceiver’s landing point, nor had they caught sight of him. Like he disappeared off the face of the Earth. Most fliers couldn’t fly any longer than their Ability held, it was a rare Class that allowed long range aerial hauling of three people and their gear.

The prophet was recorded as stating that William Oh could fly, but there was no evidence it was anything more than short range bursts. And with two others in tow…

What about the kobold? Caddock found the church’s dossier on the kobold to be infuriatingly sparse, as though it were nothing more than a mascot for William Oh’s Party, and therefore unworthy of note.

The damned thing wouldn’t be in the Party anymore, let alone running it, let alone alive, were it not an aberration worthy of note. Perhaps it was providing the means of flight…somehow. Damn those monks.

Still. They must be stopping somewhere to camp…

The old paladin craned his neck and looked up, studying the stars above.

“Pull the fliers back in, I’ve got a new job for them.”

In a matter of hours, Caddock was standing atop one of the enormous mirrors the gods had placed at the beginning of the Coil to keep humans warm, nudging a little campfire with the toe of his boot.

“It seems as though they’re flying from star to star,” he mused to himself, before glancing up at Hiro, who was studying the stone ceiling with apprehension. “Have our fliers search the stars back towards the village. Have our logistics crew begin packing for a run.”

“Back towards the village?” Hiro asked, looking back down at him. “Can’t we just use the village as their origin?”

“Maybe. I’d like to discover their first two campsites, made while they still naively believe we will not find them. Those first two campsites are most likely to be the straightest line towards their final destination.”

In a matter of hours, Caddock was leaning over a map, frowning as he traced a faint line of charcoal across his expensive map, using the blade of his sword as a straightedge.

Is this Deceiver insane? Caddock mused as he traced their projected course through the shaded forest north of Bone mountain. Under their very noses.

Caddock was inclined to believe this was their true objective.

His quarry was inexperienced, had never been hunted before: They had no experience with this kind of tracking. The route northeast wasn’t an attractive distractor by any means. It was too dangerous to be fake.

They should’ve headed south.

Despite not knowing his end-goal, this route gave Caddock a bold, winner-take-all impression that screamed ‘teenage boy assured of his invincibility.’ Which fit what he knew about this particular Deceiver.

They’re travelling at night, sleeping during the day. I can take advantage of that. Sleep is overrated, anyway.

Now that Caddock knew which way they were going and roughly how fast, he could estimate their current location to a few square miles, even get ahead of them and stage an ambush.

The problem was, how to deal with this information? Caddock was only going to get one surprise attack on his quarry, – at best – and certain tactics that he might like to use, such as softening up the entire area with a Nuker from a safe distance, were unacceptable due to the Prophet hostage.

First, send messengers to the rest of the army to halt the spread and instead tighten the net, draw it inwards, so even if I miss, he’s still caught.

Next, I need a crew of fast movers who can also camouflage well enough to avoid being spotted by our opponent’s commanding visual field. Ranger Archetypes.

The Dossier on William Oh suggested that his Acuity was his strongest stat at over a hundred, base, not including his kit.

He was going to be difficult to sneak up on.

But that’s not saying it can’t be done.

***William Oh***

“We can’t stay here.” Loth said, peering through a spyglass above the crest of the hill.

“Why’s that?” Will asked.

“We made a mistake. The graneshian army is changing direction, heading straight towards us.”

Will frowned, thinking about it for a moment.

“The campfires?”

“Probably. I’m ashamed to admit I was complacent.” Loth said.

“How long do we have?” Will asked.

“Less than three days. We should leave as soon as we finish eating and aim for the northern tip of the circle. It likely hasn’t received word of us yet, and they wouldn’t send their best.”

“Oh no, we won’t get to continue to freeze in this damned forest.” Jason muttered, huddled up in his sheepskins. “What a tragedy.”

During the day, the forest north of Bone mountain was brisk, but at night, it plunged to below freezing temperatures, forcing them to hunker down and see to Jason’s survival.

Will was surprised to note that freezing temperatures felt nearly the same as a brisk day. He could logically tell there was a difference when he paid attention, but it was a vague thought in the back of his mind.

Even loth, who had been particularly weak to cold, was unaffected by these temperatures.

“North is even worse.” Will said.

“Oh. Shit.” Jason muttered before his expression changed. “Actually…One minute.” He raised a hand and began trundling towards the latrine.

Will glanced over as one of his ghost butlers arrived beside him.

“Let me se what you’ve got for me this time,” Will said.

“I stole this from a crafter who paid their life’s savings to acquire this for their son.” Noob said, offering him a package of waxed paper. “It is a Cursed Armor from the Fourteenth Floor.”

“You don’t need to tell me who you had to hurt to get these, just pay them back if I can afford it.” Will said, taking the package and opening up the Sourdough Entry.

Active: 1 Charge.

The user may gain the full effect of a Consumable Relic only using 80% of the relic. The remaining 20% may be reserved to ferment a new Consumable Relic if provided powdered Relic dust, time, and additional Charges. Scales with Focus.

Damaged (but not destroyed) permanent Relics can now be targeted with a charge of Sourdough, which will cause them to passively absorb Relic Dust to gradually repair themselves for one month. Speed scales with Focus

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

And what would Cursed Armor do to the Ability? Will thought, checking the changes the Sacrifice would make.

Gives items a mind of their own and limited mobility. May cause them to act in a manner that benefits the User, although consumables may be less eager to be consumed.

“Nope.” Will said, handing it back.

“A Corsoth, from the ninth Floor.” Noob said, offering him the next package.

Corsoths were notorious for yanking Climber’s souls out of their bodies and shoving them in little dolls, or whatever they had on hand. Definitely a strong interaction between miasma and the physical world.

Allows damaged Relics to absorb miasma from living enemies. In rare occurrences, the Relic may absorb new effects.

Oooh. That’s the closest we’ve gotten so far. Noob had been bringing him possible sacrifices for nearly a week now, and nothing had given him the ‘new effects’ so far. The relic still had to be damaged, but it was still progress.

“let’s hold onto that one, but I’m not a fan of ‘rare occurrences’,” Will said, handing it back.

“A Meldmonger, from the Fifteenth Floor.” Noob said, handing him a watertight tub filled with a wobbly jelly of some kind.

Let’s see…

For an additional 5 Charge, Relics absorb affixes from the Relic dust they are submerged in, with a tendency to average rather than add. Scales towards addition with Resistance. Can only be performed once per Relic.

Average rather than add? Will thought. In simplified terms, The way Will was reading it, if he had a relic with 8 Resistance and 0 acuity, and he bathed it in Relic dust from items that only gave 20 Acuity, the relic would become a 4 resistance, 10 Acuity item.

With high Resistance, the finished product might shift to 6 resistance, 15 Acuity, or more.

That’s why it can only be performed once. If I could get close to 100% addition rather than averaging, and do it multiple times, that would be…a little too much for The System to handle.

The System did not like infinite scaling. Even Frederick Wyrd’s infinite damage loop only worked because sooner or later one person exploded long before the power would tear a hole in reality.

Still, this gave him exactly what he’d envisioned, the ability to nudge the stat distribution and Abilities of an item the way that he wanted to.

“Holy…this is it.” Will mused, jiggling the container. “This is the one I want.”

“Excellent.” Noob said with a nod.

Will offered the Sacrifice up to The Tower.

Warning! This Sacrifice will complete this Secondary Ability. No further upgrades will be allowed. Do you wish to continue?

Will paused and gave it some thought.

The Corsoth Sacrifice didn’t mention a limit to the number of times it could trigger, although it was a ‘rare occurrence,’ whatever that meant.

It was theoretically possible that Will could design a perfect weapon by hunting a specific monster over and over again, stacking tiny chips of upgrades from random chance until he wound up with something amazing…