The number of zones dropped by three. Did that mean that some had been completely wiped out? Or were they doing so bad that they were deleted? I gulped. How many teams didn't even make it through the first day? I'd thought 58 was a weird number, but I supposed we would never know.
At least our zone had gone up a few ranks. But with Cyril's message, we would need to make reuniting with the rest of our team a priority. Today, we didn't get the message about anyone dying, so hopefully that meant that the rest of our team was still alive. Though... Yesterday there was still plenty of time between Torcán's death and the message, so maybe they were already dead.
I gave a silent prayer that Sé would still be alive. I missed him. While the memories felt veiled through a fog, I thought of the course of our friendship. Of him beating me up on the first day of middle school at the bus stop after I'd slung some stupid childish insult at him, to meeting him again in the math club after school. Of our slow awkward friendship that developed only after a shared trial by fire at math competitions. We'd had our butts handed to us, and the defeat stung both of us enough that we'd wanted to get better to win.
I almost missed those days, until I remembered the ubiquitous feelings of bittersweet jealousy that pervaded all of middle and high school. I was starting to realize maybe that was what the System was on about when it assigned me female at character creation.
I shook my head before I could fall back to patterns of despair and crying myself to sleep for what God had forced me to endure.
[ Superfluous Memory Detected. Purging. ]
I checked what I'd unlocked with my schools of magic hitting tier three.
[ Conjuration:
3: Conjure Elemental Familiar, Conjure Wall ]
[ Divination:
3: Locate, Map ]
[ Manipulation:
3: Shape Element, Telekinesis ]
Conjure Elemental Familiar did what it said on the tin. I could summon a tiny elemental that would act as my familiar. It couldn't really do much, as it stood just 10cm high. But I could send it out to scout, though it couldn't communicate much information. I could probably use a tiny fire elemental to start a forest fire, but I had no idea what actual use I could get out of it.
Conjure Wall on the other hand, I saw the use immediately. A wall of wood or earth would let me cut off entire parts of a battlefield.
Locate was like a more advanced version of Sense. I could now get an outline of my target, and more detailed information, plus I could cast other Divination spells through the Locate to learn more about the creature.
Map would let me create a mini-map. It was like a specific version of Repository, however, this one I could also use to summon a visual representation of the map that I could share with others.
Shape element would let me mold an object made of a basic element to any shape. At tier three it would cost more mana than either Extrude or Retract, plus it had a higher base tier when applying metamagic, so I wasn't sure I could universally drop the earlier spells.
Telekinesis would let me lift things with my mind. Though, I was limited to about five kilo's, and only precise enough for the most basic of crafting.
As I pondered what kind of layout I wanted to have for the next day, I started cooking. Once again, I used a conjured tool to cook dinner -- tonight we were having shovel steaks. I tried to conjure a frying pan, but for some reason the option was grayed out. Either the skill wasn't high enough, or I didn't meet some hidden condition.
"[Flame Orbs]. [Shielding Orbs]," Eimear said out of the blue.
My hackles rose and I jumped up, dropping the meat into the fire. "Are we under attack?"
"What? No?" she said, tensing in response to my panic. "I'm training."
I sighed and looked despondently at the ash covered meat in the fire. I hadn't traded out for telekinesis, but that just jumped to the top of my list. I didn't want to let the food go to waste though, so I tried to be quick and grab it back from the fire. I winced as the heat seared my flesh, but I saved the cut of meat. "[Clean]." I washed it off before putting it back on the axe head. "Does training do anything?"
"We level up our abilities through use, right? [Burning Blade]." The blue fox fire balls rotating around her vanished and her sword began to glow. "Well, the best way to survive is to have levels, so I'm going to keep training. If my mana or stamina is full that means I missed an opportunity to train."
"I suppose." That sounded exhausting. "But doesn't training mean more if you're actually doing something with it?"
"Maybe? But I'm going to take any chance I have to increase our chances of survival. You saw the messages. Our zone is inadequate. We aren't doing enough. We're going to be erased by these sick fucking gods calling themselves admins."
I pursed my lips at hearing the cursing and looked away.
"I refuse. I won't let that happen." Eimear clenched her fist. "We're going to survive, we're going to get strong enough. We're going to win!"
"Win what?" Gormán asked as he rolled over.
"Oh shit. Sorry," Eimear said. "This evaluation or whatever."
"Ow." Gormán grabbed his head, dealing with a delayed update of information. I guessed it didn't interrupt him while he was sleeping.
"Did you sleep well?" I asked once he seemed caught up.
"I suppose." He yawned. "Thanks for looking out for me."
"Of course," Eimear said, then cast another spell as she lunged at the air.
"We should make a plan," I said. "If we're going to try to win this, we're going to need to get our act together. Since we didn't get a warning tonight about losing members, I'm praying the rest of our expedition is still alive."
"What did you have in mind?" Gormán asked as he pushed himself up.
"Well, from what the message said, we need to get as thriving of a settlement as we can with the time we have left. That could mean any number of things, but it definitely means we need to regroup with the rest of our party. It probably also means constructing buildings and crafting tools. If their luck is half as bad as ours, their gear has got to be in tatters."
But I had a Repair spell.
"Oh (God). I'm an idiot." I set aside the axe head skillet, not wanting to drop the meal a second time, and cast Repair on my tunic. The holes and tears closed up, and I started cackling. "It... It worked."
Eimear's eyes went wide as she marched up to me and clasped my hand. "Me next."
I nodded and cast Repair on her gambeson.
"I guess I shouldn't have burned my shield."
"Don't you fret, lass. We'll make you a new one." Gormán stood up and stretched towards the ceiling. "But we'll need the tools for it."
After dinner, we got to work on our projects. With Shape Wood, it was trivial to create slots along the long beams for the ladder, and Eimear hammered the cross bars into place with a conjured hammer. Even though I used magic, I finally started to really dip into my Focus pool for crafting since I had actual knowledge in my NA to draw on.
We took occasional breaks to burn down the rest of our pools to make sure we were regularly getting some training in. After bouncing back and forth for an hour, we depleted our lumber supply and got two thirds of the ladder complete.
Meanwhile, Gormán used a conjured saw to create a simple wooden shield for Eimear, and a mold for a smelting forge. I made the pieces quicker with magic and Shape Wood, but I didn't have the NA knowledge for what they should look like. Plus, he seemed to have some skills that make the crafting process go quicker, and preserve pieces in a superhuman way to keep them for later parts of the mold. Nothing went to waste.
Once we used up the lumber, we shifted to getting ready for bed. I used Shape Earth to carve three separate sleeping spaces around the fire. As nice as it was to cuddle with Eimear last night, I wanted my own space to sleep. We had enough reeds that we each got a little padding, and even a pillow.
Between the fire and the door holding the wind at bay, it had gotten quite cozy in here. Gormán took the first watch since he'd had a nap, I got the dreaded middle watch, and Eimear took the morning watch to do the final preparations before searching for Sé and Blánaid.
I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the bundled reed pillow. Who would've thought a scratchy bed of reeds would feel like heaven? But after the past two days, the faintest sign of comfort was a luxury.
Gormán woke me up sometime in the night. I spent my watch sitting by the fire looking through the menu and practicing my magic. I knew I should do pushups, or burpees or something to drain my stamina, but regardless of my status telling me I had full stamina and energy, I still felt existentially exhausted. The magic was at least fun.
After what felt like an eternity, but I knew it had only been a few hours, I traded out with Eimear for the last watch.