The Insider System

Chapter 358: Skill Stacking Pt.2

Chapter 358: Skill Stacking Pt.2

Lake Tried to approach Hampton to activate ghost Touch on the man but was stopped by Hampton saying. "No, not on me. Let's try to use it on my eye summon." Remembering the eye thing he had been shown earlier Lake couldn't help but wonder if his skill would work on a magic body part.

The best thing he could compare it to would probably be the extra hands he could summon using his Summon Hands skill which seemed to be affected by everything his real hands were. If the eye Hampton was working on summoning now was anything like that he couldn't see why it wouldn't work.

After Hampton was done and the eye flew out of the formation he had just made, Lake got closer to it and reached out his hand while asking. "Which part should I touch?" He was sure the eye part was what he should turn ethereal but since the formation was still next to Hampton he was hoping he could turn the eye ethereal by keeping his hand on the formation.

"Just do both to see if it works." Lake nodded and after touching both things using his two hands he nodded at Hampton to say he could send the eye through. "Alright here we go." Watching the eye hover away from them and through the door, Lake got excited to hear what was on the other side but just like last time they sent something through, their hopes were quickly dashed.

"I've lost connection to the eye." Hearing Hamptons words, Lake instantly had a question. "Does it work without you and can it return with what it saw?" If either of these two functions were art of the eye this plan could still work but sadly Hampton shook his head no before saying. "No it's just a regular eye that can float and see through things slightly. I don't think I as a mortal could implement the two things you just asked me about."

Lake was a bit disappointed in this because it meant they were back to trying to send a person through. He had an idea while they had been standing here though so this hadn't been a complete waste of time. "Does anyone have a rope?" His skill said he could still interact with things affected by Ghost Touch so tying a rope around someone and then swinging them through the area behind the door would give them a way to get a person inside without them falling through the ground until the effect wore off. "I do."

"Alright I need it." Once he had the rope lake pointed at the adventure again and said. "Your turn again. Come here so I can tie this around you." The man didn't waste any time in doing what was asked of him and Lake tied the rope around his waist like he had said he would before saying. "I'm going to swing you into the room behind the door. Is that alright with you?"

"Yeah but don't leave me in there for long because the phantoms will probably swarm me." Lake nodded to this before starting to use Ghost Touch on the end of the rope. Like he expected this effect was able to move to the man once it ran out of rope and before long the man lost the ability to stand on the solid ground and started to dangle from the rope in the ground below. "Wahh."

Starting to swing, the man around Lake sent the guy forward through the door. "Ahhh." Lake started to laugh at the man's inability to keep himself from yelling during this process but it wasn't because he didn't think it was unnecessary. All that would have to happen for the man to go falling through the ground and eventually dying from this was for the rope to be damaged in some type of way.

With the fact the phantoms were immaterial as well this was a real possibility since he was sure they would be able to grab the rope if they wanted to. With the trip through the door over Lake pulled the man back out. Like Lake expected the man was in a struggle with one of the phantoms which was quickly dealt with like the last one.

Catching the man after this was done, Lake used Ghost Touch to get rid of its effects and set the man down on the ground. He didn't take the rope off though because he expected they would be doing this again after that had a short talk. "What did you see?" Lake could tell he wasn't the only person who had been about to ask this by how Hampton looked at the man since he had come back through.

"Well first there's hundreds of phantoms inside. I know this was expected but they made it kind of hard to see anything so I'll I got was there's a glowing brown formation close to the door and something that's giving off purplish light in the back of the room I was in." Lake actually felt this was a good result for the few seconds the man had been on the other side and turned to Hampton to see what the man's face looked like.

Hampton was clearly lost in thought so Lake didn't say anything right away because he was sure the older man would be having the same idea he was. Earlier when Lake used Ghost Touch on the formation that summoned the eye it had worked meaning they should be able to use it to send the formation that damaged the phantoms through to clear out the room. "Alright send me through next."

"What?" Lake couldn't believe what Hampton had just said because he really hadn't expected the old man to be ok with being swung around on a rope like how they had just done to the adventurer. "Give me the rope young man." After he was handed Hampton tied the rope around him like a belt and said. "Go ahead but don't try to swing me."

Lake quickly turned the older mage ethereal like he had been asked to do. It didn't go how he expected though because even after the older man's feet should have slipped through the ground he was still standing where he had been. "Good it works. Alright Deklein if I get trapped just call for the others and have this young man send one of the through to retrieve me."

Lake wasn't sure who Deklein was but after looking back he realized it was the mayor from the way the man was nodding to these instructions. After Hampton said this the man started moving forward without moving his feet which gave away how the man hadn't fallen through the ground, he was hovering.

After the older man passed through the door Lake briefly thought about using Ghost Touch through the rope to trap the man inside but decided it was a bad idea even if no one here would know he had done it with there being a real chance the old man was about to open the door using something on the other side.

...

Seeing the older man go into the phantom infested room on the other side of the door Donny felt like he should have taken at least one other person but since the older man hadn't it probably meant he had some confidence in whatever he planned to do on the other side.

It didn't seem their leader cared about anything that was happening here though because a few seconds after Hampton went through the Oracle guard walked up to the mayor and asked. "Can we go? This seems to be under control."

The mayor seemed to know there was nothing he could say to keep them here that kept to their original deal since there wasn't a fight or any real threat to the city. "Alright I'll go up and tell the..." The man's statement never ended because while he was saying what he was going to do the ground suddenly shook enough that everyone was knocked off of their feet.

Since he was on his back Donny was able to see the cracks that started to form above them and watched in horror as stones started to fall towards them. He was snapped out of this waiting to be squashed mindset when all of the stone around them paused where it was. Turning to look at the oracle guard Donny saw the man's hands up and knew it had been him who had just saved them.

"Everyone move! The phantoms are still around us inside the stone and I'm using Earth magic to do this." Scrambling to his feet Donny started working on the shield formation as he helped the others around him to their feet. He knew the man wanted them to start running towards the surface but they were going to need to move faster than their feet could go if they wanted to get out of a collapsing tunnel without using Earth magic.

"Fendis get working on the wind platform." After he said this he ran towards the guy near the door who was still holding onto the rope. Making sure this guy survived was more important than the others really since he was capable of getting them through solids with his ability so letting him die because he was too scared to run was a huge mistake.