Janik darted forward at great speed, Sam waited a few steps for him to get within his Area, he couldn’t do much outside of it, at least not with all his energy tied up in the Psyhands. As soon as the final step brought him in range, Sam attacked with all the daggers simultaneously, aiming for different angles.
Experience and stats mattered, Sam could see that as Janik effortlessly avoided all his daggers. He swatted two aside, one with each sword, and with a twist of his body and a light sidestep jump, all six daggers failed to meet their target. Trying to adapt, Sam turned and kept moving the daggers towards his opponent, going all at once, a few at the same time in a series of blows, one by one. He noticed that Janik had chosen not to step in closer; he could have done so at any time, but he was letting Sam attack him.
He was going to use that underestimating against him.
Launching a few daggers at him, Sam tried mixing it up. To launch them he first needed to drop one so he had the spare energy. Simply throwing one at his target was enough for him to despawn that hand and use the returned energy to launch another. As soon as the dagger was launched he used his last point to manifest a new hand to pick up the dagger as soon as it was parried or hit the floor, at the same time he despawned the launching hand to return that 1 point to the pool.
While doing all of this he started realising that the momentum he got from swinging a weapon, which allowed him to hit a little bit harder against the Goblins, worked against him in this case. When you miss an attack and need to redirect a weapon, that momentum wants to continue ‘that way’, you need to overcome that momentum with force, force his hands were lacking.
This process continued for a while, as long as he was allowed to stand still and do this, he didn’t tire, learning a vital thing about his Telekinetic stamina. Though that was a very good thing to learn about, it didn’t mean that he hit shit. The wooden daggers were sturdy, but even they had their limits. Failing to stop their forward momentum in time, or when launched, they often hit the concrete floor and walls over and over again. Being parried to the side and smacked back and forth, they were beginning to wear them out. But he still tried, he wanted to land one attack on him, just one.
He suddenly got an idea, and though he didn’t want to hurt him, Sam launched a dagger, but right after he spawned the last hand, picked up some wooden debris and tried using that at Janik’s throat. It felt safer than his face as he wanted to simulate a needle.
A wide smile grew on Sam’s face as the wooden debris landed on his neck, he held it there against him for a while as he stopped attacking with the daggers. “I did it! I chose to hit your throat so I didn’t accidentally shove wood into your eyes, but that’s a needle in your eye!”
Janik didn’t look tired, but he did look warmed up. Having broken a sweat and breathed heavier and faster. “Dagnabbit.” He was smiling and looked happy even though he ‘lost’.
Sam took the victory even though he knew that at any time during this, he could have just stepped in and finished the job. Given the speed he was using, Sam had no doubts that he could have avoided the shields without issue.
“I thought you’d have your hands full with the daggers for a while more, that’s a good idea using a ‘needle’ in the middle of the fight like that.” He used air quotes with his fingers while holding his swords as he mentioned the word needle. “I wanted to see how long you could go on before getting tired, so I let you have at it. But this one is yours.” He sounded supportive and didn’t mind at all that Sam won this one.
“Well... I’m not tired...” Sam commented, almost as if he had done something wrong. It felt a bit odd given that Janik looked like he had a workout.
Wiping his brow on the back of his hand, Janik looked back questioningly. “Not tired? Not at all?” He didn’t sound like he entirely believed it.
“No, not really. I didn’t move, and I don’t use mana, I use some Energy thing.” Sam used a moment to explain the Energy thing in more detail, as it was a bit weird how, more than a pool of mana or resource, it was more like slots, or charges that were allocated more than consumed for later recharge.
“Huh... that’s pretty incredible... So you can go on all day long, then?” There was a hint of envy in his voice.
“I suppose I can? I get tired if I run... as in my body gets tired if I do body things, but I don’t feel tired after using my Psyhands.” As he explained this, Sam was beginning to realize just how amazing that was. In a different way of viewing this, one could argue that though his energy pool is small it is also unlimited.
“That’s... fucked up-” Seeming to realise that it sounded like he was berating him, Janik instantly added more to his sentence, almost interrupting himself. “Oh, I mean. In a good way. It’s kind of fucked up but it’s amazing!” His tone changed back to being supportive, making Sam feel strangely amazing.
Feeling good about himself, not just for apparently having a good but weird bonus, the next thing was to find out how to abuse this somehow.
“But, though you can go all day, it doesn’t matter much if you can’t hit things...” Janik looked into nothing for a moment as he seemed to be thinking hard. “If I was fighting you and someone else, you keeping me busy like this would probably have your ally fuck me up, so it’s very good for that, but I think we should find a way that works for you if you’re alone as well.”
Janik stretched some of his muscles and did some light bounce jumps as he continued talking. “For now I’d like to see how you do with heavier weapons. Take the heaviest thing you can, one weapon is fine. I just want to feel it.”
Though it sounded a bit weird to Sam, he also kind of got it. Janik seemed like he wanted to help, but he needed to know things before he could properly figure out things. Telling someone the math behind how much you can lift is fine, but when swinging and when momentum got involved, it would feel different. Sam had already learned important things in this sparring session, so anything more is just a bonus!
The weapons rack was still within the range of his Area, he just floated the daggers over there, left them in a pile on the floor as most were damaged by now, and using all his six hands he weighed the heaviest thing he could. Finding that a wooden arming sword was the best fit. It wasn’t maxing out his weight limit, but everything else was too heavy anyway, this also gave him a tiny bit of leeway to fight the momentum.
Janik saw that the sword started floating and took a defensive stance, he wanted to be attacked and Sam intended to learn more today! Focusing all his might towards his target, Sam used all six hands to swing with all his might, there was no attempt to be fancy or work around his defences, just a straight up forward slash with all the momentum he could build.
Since the slice came from behind him towards the end of his Area, it gave him a lot of space to build up speed. As the intent was to let him block it, or do whatever with it, there was no plan to slow it down.
As planned, Janik had no problems parrying this attack. But Sam was surprised at the sound of it. The wood against wood didn’t sound as impressive as metal against metal, but it hit much harder than he expected. Janik didn’t seem too impressed but that didn’t matter at the moment. Sam was learning valuable lessons about momentum buildup, even with weak force behind it.
“Oh, that’s great! It hit much harder!” Janik explained, now that he had blocked it his game face faded and he looked like his more chill self. “Now, hit me again without all that speed, just from around here a few times.”
Sam did as told, using a more melee range rather than having a 20ft buildup made the sounds much less impressive, he also had to fight the weight of the blade more. This wasn’t something that felt weirdly heavy or something, it’s the same as if you swing a heavy pipe or 2x4. If you just swing it around and decide to stop the swing at its peak, it’ll still swing a bit as you slow it down to a halt, or want to redirect it. Normally a swordsman would train his muscles to allow for this handling or pick a lighter weapon. It was the same for Sam. Since his Psyhands felt like normal hands with an ungodly reach, it wasn’t that he couldn’t handle it, it was just more that, while his normal arms have their weight and momentum which is very easy to leverage into moving something else, the Psyhands weighed zero, so everything fell on their strength.
“Ok, that’s good.” Janik commented after a few strikes, making Sam stop flailing at him.
Using only a few seconds of processing, and collecting his thoughts, he continued. “I’m not a pro at this, training Players, just wanted to get that out there but... I think I’m understanding this a little more now.”
Walking closer to Sam, he took both swords in his left hand, freeing up his right hand for waiving and moving to aid explanations. “You have a great gift, I do not doubt that. But your problem, for now, is just lack of experience, not having a style-” he used his free hand to make air quotes when mentioning style. “-the sneaky stabby thing you did with the Goblins would work fine, but as you found out once they found you, it’s not smart to bank everything on that one thing. Like having one bucket of tools, it’s all fine and dandy until there’s a hole in it. You need more buckets!”
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The odd metaphor made sense, sounding like a variant of the all your eggs in one basket thing. And though Sam had backup, in a realistic solo scenario of the Goblin fight, it could have gone much worse. Though the sneaky ambush bit worked surprisingly well, as Janik explained it might be good to consider other options.
“You can always throw other shit, I know of some alchemists and crafters that make shit that’d put you on some watchlists here on Earth, but using bootleg napalm against Goblins? Nobody would care, as long as you don’t use them against other Players outside of self-defence.” Seeming completely honest about this somewhat had Sam react with a confused expression.
“Now, something I want to try.” Janik took one of the swords back in his right hand and simply held it pointing forward. “I will just swing the sword around, doing my best to keep it on-angle, I want you to grab onto it and do your best to fuck with me.”
Without waiting he just started swinging it around, having taken a stance he looked like he was doing precise training cuts. Sam did as told, using all hands he grabbed the sword and tried to wrestle it away from him. Naturally, his meagre strength didn’t have enough to take it away, nor did it do much. But when he grabbed the tip of the blade and started wiggling it back and forth erratically, the natural tendency for Janik’s body to correct the path could be leveraged. Like pulling someone’s fist away only to suddenly let go and have them punch themselves. This was a more controlled test of the spear deflection he tried against the Goblin Chieftain, and it felt surprisingly nice seeing it in action.
“Hmm..” Janik considered things as he stopped swinging the sword around. “It works a little, but when there’s muscle behind it, it won’t work too well.”
There was a lot of back and forth between them. Janik probed if he could do this and that, and tried to find the limits and new ways of doing things. Sam replied and tried finding out if the ideas or thoughts Janik suggested, worked or not. There was also the cooperative aspect of things, though Janik had the most focus on Sam being self-reliant when it came to that, they also needed to make sure that there wasn’t going to be friendly fire when they went in together. As Sam levelled up and got access to stronger Telekinetic abilities, it would make things easier, but that was true for everyone.
“I think that until you get some more experience, your strongest angle is... just that, angles. You can attack from different angles at the same time, or just weird angles. Who trains to defend themselves from a dagger coming from the ground and ceiling a the same time?” He smiled widely at his half-truth joke. “Had I not already expected it, your six-dagger attack could have surprised me enough to take me out. And even then, if you’re able to just continue forever you’d win the war of attrition unless I can get close to you.”
“Your idea of bringing the shields was good, a solid backup thought. But I think it’s smarter to find your style, your way of being, so to speak. It’ll make everything easier. But I think that can come later, the first dungeon is extremely easy... comparatively speaking. I’m higher level than you so I won’t get that much in the sense of rewards going in there, but we can use that to learn to work together, get you some experience... both metaphorically and for your levels.” He smiled widely, his expression hinted that he was very much looking forward to this, almost more than Sam.
Sam raised a questioning look at the end of his explanation. “What level are you?”
“Ah.” Janik smiled as he wagged a ringer. “I can’t say that. Though it doesn’t matter as much when you’re low level, it’s smarter to keep your level, stats and specifics of your skills to yourself. Sadly there are Players preying on other Players, and if they get hold of your info... well... it’s easier to fight something you know.” He sounded like he had personal experience with this, so Sam took it to heart.
“For now!” Forcefully changing the subject, Janik continued. “I think we’ll head for the first beginner dungeon, it won’t be a problem for the two of us. I have done it lots of times alone but this is for your sake more than anything. We can work on a style that works best for you. And it’ll let us work on our teamwork. Gear up and we’ll go right away!”
There wasn’t much more that needed to be said, Sam was excited, his whole body almost vibrating as he went over to the duffel bag with everything he owned in it. The TAC backpack was packed flat in it as the contents were packed as their own thing.
Using a moment he put on the new armour he got from the Random Box, it took some finessing but it it felt comfortable on him properly. He only had the three daggers, which he fastened around his hip, he used a fanny pack he had gotten earlier to house his random bits and bobs, like the potions, spikes and needles. Though it looked a bit out of place, given that he was wearing normal street clothing under his armour, it wasn’t the only thing that stood out.
“Ok, I’m ready.” Sam commented after he was done.
The time that Sam used to gear up, Janik had used to clean up their mess. The training weapons were back in their rack and he had used his foot to somewhat gather the splinters and broken wood along the wall. He pointed at the door and started moving, Sam picked up his bag and followed in suit.
“You can put your bag in one of the lockers, just pick it up when we get back.” Janik explained as they continued walking. “It’s also practical, the entry-level dungeon entrance is within TAC, though we need to walk to find the others.”
Following Janik, Sam was guided to the mentioned lockers, he found an unused one and scanned his TAC ID badge to lock it. Though this meant that he needed his badge with him at all times, at least he didn’t need to lug around his bag.
The next place he was led was through some hallways into a different part of the building, the signs pointed to ‘Dungeon Portal 1 - E’. Plenty of people were in the hallways, some were just as excited and heading the same way, whereas some seemed to be coming from it with tested armour, some wounds but mostly a positive attitude.
Entering into a large room, it was heavily guarded. People in TAC uniforms with a higher quality looking variant of the TAC armour the newbies were given, were standing and walking around. The markings on the floor and fences identified where the portal was, which in turn was surprisingly hard to see, the area within the portal markings and barriers looked just like a heat haze. There was no defined shape to it, but like looking at something above something warm, the wavy light-bending effect, was the only thing he could see of the portal. It would explain how one could stumble on them out in the wild.
A bunch of people were queued up to go in, forming a snaking line from a marked line. People were manifesting from nowhere in an area marked as ‘Arrival’, and once let in by a guard, individuals or groups went over to the portal and disappeared in a brief flash.
Having felt the flash twice before, Sam was stoked to get this tested, it was relatively safe, based on the other people coming and looking happy. They wore the free TAC armour and some very simple, almost mundane-looking weapons, hinting that they were just as new as Sam was.
Janik didn’t say or explain much as they were in line, Sam assumed he would explain everything when they were on the inside. Given that he recommended being secret about powers, statistics and that kind of thing, perhaps tactics were also a good idea to keep hidden. After all, you can’t discuss tactics without explaining what you can do.
It didn’t take long before it was their turn, an information plaque on the wall informed him that when you enter, you get an instance of the Dungeon, so you only meet the people you go in with. It had almost no restrictions so you can leave at any time, either through the system or just run to the portal you came in through.
“Next!” A woman in a TAC uniform called. Janik stepped in with Sam in tow.
“Us two.” He explained without being prompted. She nodded and Janik walked towards the portal, turning to Sam with a smile. “Just remember to accept joining as a group.”
Only seconds later, a window popped up.
[ Do you wish to enter the Dungeon - E? ]
Sam selected Yes, which was followed by a similar window as yesterday.
[ Do you wish to enter as a group or solo? ]
He chose Group, and the warm light enveloped him like before.