When you read stories, or watch T.V. that has fight scenes, something that you never see is how exhausting combat actually is. Adrenaline floods your blood, and in the middle of it, you can forget the pain of your muscles or the fatigue of walking for hours for a moment. But having to put every ounce of strength into every movement you make can only last so long before your body's reserves run out.
I was out of energy in the moments after the fight. My mouth tasted of bile, and my stomach rolled as I watched the gore in front of me. Before this moment, I had never killed anything bigger than an insect. I never hunted, and my fighting experience was limited to childhood karate lessons from a white guy named Master Kim. Before the goblins, I had been thinking of this all as a video game. Kill the goblins, loot them for some coins, get some EXP, and move on. But.... This was far more real.
Alex too, seemed to feel the same way. The poor kid was trembling, he looked like he was about to lose it. And yet, both he and I steeled ourselves. I put a hand on his shoulder and tried to smile. “Where I come from, we've got a saying. Sometimes the only way out of the fire is through it, yeah? Stay behind me, and I'll keep you safe.”
“Thanks Niles.” He said, swallowing hard as he looked up at me. We both turned to Ophelia, who seemed completely nonchalant about everything. I gave her a long look up and down. Right after the fight, I could have sworn I had seen her eyes glowing, and long fangs poking out from her jaw, but that was gone. Was I imagining things? Had the adrenaline gone to my head? It didn't matter, what was certain was that she was far stronger than either myself or Alex. We would need her to get through this.
“Say, Ophelia? Where did you learn to fight like that?” I asked, deciding to poke around a bit for some information. Maybe I could learn something, anything really.
“Every member of my family starts learning how to fight from a young age. I've been training for as long as I can remember, that's all.” She shrugged her shoulders, sending her hair cascading behind her shoulders. The tips of the red strands seemed wet, and I figured that by the end of this, we would all be coated in gore.
We took a moment to rest after the fight. Even though Ophelia seemed fine to go on, neither Alex or myself were in a good state anymore. We both needed a moment of rest. I took the opportunity to pull the PSD back out, checking over the screens and seeing if anything had changed.
> 42 hours and 47 minutes remaining. 9% Charge.
Well now, that was odd. I was sure we had been here for nearly an hour, yet the time remaining in the trial, the battery percent, and even the time itself hadn't changed. “Hey guys, dumb question but does time pass in the trial grounds, or is it one of those deals where when we walk back out only a few seconds will have passed?”
Alex looked over at me, curiousity on his face as he looked at the item in my hands. “My brother went to trial last year. According to him, he spent nearly a day inside, but only about a minute had passed when he came back out.”
Oh boy. Alex had a brother. The thought saddened me a bit, and I stared at him, deciding that I would do my best to make sure he made it out of here. It would be so shitty to die in a hole in the ground when you had family waiting for you. “Okay, thanks...” I finally responded, looking back at the device in my hands.
On the first screen, the body outline was finally turning green all over again. The head was still a yellowish color, but not nearly as bright as before. Below that, I could see that the once empty blue bar was now full, and the green bar below that was two thirds full. About half of the empty third was a grey color. Okay, if it was similar to video games then the blue bar had to be mana, and the green bar was probably stamina. The greyed out portion was likely to be a restriction on the maximum, caused by fatigue and too many hours awake. Even with good rests, you would end up slowly getting more exhausted as a day went on, so that made sense.
Everything else appeared to be the same though. We had managed to find some rations the goblins had, but none of us were willing to try them. Apparently, goblins would eat just about anything, and the jerkey in the pouches could have been from any kind of creature. The waterskins too, were suspect as we had no idea if the water was safe to drink. But maybe the scanner function could tell me something more? I opened up the application, and focused the camera on some rations on the floor first, then the water skin.
> [Cave Salamander Jerkey] - Food - Edible - The preserved meat of a cave salamander.
>
> [Waterskin; Full] - Drink - Potable - A waterskin containing spring water.
Just to make sure that the Edible and Potable tags were trustworthy, I scanned a dead goblin, and a small pool of its liquids that had formed in a natural divot in the floor.
> [Cave Goblin] - Goblinoid - Dead - A now dead goblin from a subspecies that lives in caves.
> -Abilities: [Darkvision] [Sharp Nose]
> -Known Weaknesses: None
>
>
> [Cave Goblin Blood] - Liquid - Toxic - The blood of a Cave Goblin. The blood is toxic to non-goblinoids.
Okay, so the scanner was able to determine if things were safe to eat and drink I suppose. Tentatively, I took a bite of the jerkey, worried it might be poisonous anyways. Or just plain rotten. However, once I started, I kept shoving bites into my mouth, eating more and more, then draining one of the waterskins entirely. The jerkey wasn't good exactly, but it was the first food I'd eaten since coming to this world, and I was starving. The water on the other hand, was delicious. Clean and clear and tasting faintly of minerals. Perfection to my thirsty ass.
Once I had finished, I noticed the other two looking at me. Ophelia rolled her eyes and looked away, staring back down the hallway, but Alex watched for just a moment before digging into his own looted rations. Once he had finished, he came to sit by me, poking at the device in my hands. “What IS that thing?”
I showed it to him for only a moment. “Its something I was given before coming here. It can identify items, see?” I showed him the entries saved in the encyclopedia on the jerkey and the water.
He grinned at me, nodding. “Thats really really good to have. Normally only merchants and adventurer focused people can identify items so easily!”
“Hey! Are you two ready to go yet?” Ophelia asked, her voice not loud, but somehow still causing us to flinch with its tone. It reminded me of a teacher wrangling curious students on a field trip, and I actually cracked a grin at the comparison.
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“Yeah, I'm getting up!” I said back, watching as Alex stood and started putting his equipment back on. I took a brief moment, scanning both of them as well.
> Name: Alex ???
> Race: Human
> Age: 14
> Focus Core: None
> Level: 0
Okay, thats pretty much what I expected. But why was the level still 0? Were levels actually a thing? What did it measure, did this world have experience points or something? I moved on though, capturing Ophelia in the camera next.
> Name: Ophelia ???
> Race: Elf (Demi-Vampire; Sanguinus)
> Age: ???
> Focus Core: None
> Level: 0
And now I was a bit worried. The focus core and level I expected by now. However, seeing the additional bits after her race, I started to get a bit worried. Vampires had been in pop culture media a LOT recently, and my understanding of them could be completley different from what this place actually had. It was a hint though, and meant what I had seen before in her eyes and teeth wasn't just a tired mind playing tricks on me. Also, why was her age a bunch of question marks? Was that common, was it part of her vampire race, or something else entirely? There was just way too much I didn't understand, about any of this.
I grumbled a bit and put the PSD away, feeling the band wrap back around my wrist almost comfortingly now. I double checked the charge though, suddenly worried I had used up far too much of it. 8% Okay... did scanning not use a lot of battery, or was something else at play here? Did the pause in time prevent the device from losing as much charge as well perhaps?
> Would you like to charge Paradigm Shift Device from your mana pool?
The words popped up suddenly on screen, and I squinted at them. The tiny text on my wrist giving me pause. I nodded my ascent, thinking I only wanted to use up about half my mana. I didn't know how much that was of course, but every story I remember, having 0 mana was bad. From just being powerless for a mage to causing things like crippling headaches and even passing out or dying, depending on the story and the world. No point risking that here.
> Using half of current mana pool to charge PSD...
> Charging...
> Charging complete. Currently Mana: 50% Current Charge: 12%
Okay, so that was woefully ineffecient. But at least I could charge it like that if I ever felt the need to do so. I willed my health screen to show up, and saw the blue bar was halfway full now. Definitley mana then. I waited a few seconds, watching it crawl up an almost imperceptible amount on the tiny screen. I wish I had at least a percentage near it.
Almost as soon as I thought of it, a small number appeared above the bar. 51% Okay, cool. The thing was actually pretty damn adaptable. I was pretty glad it responded to mental commands as well. Made things way less awkward than fooling around with it or speaking aloud. It was also nice that I didn't need to sleep to recharge my mana. Of course, I had no use for the mana, but maybe I would in the future. And if I did, then not having to take a rest like a dungeons and dragons character to get it back would be nice.
Done with my experimenting for the moment, I stood up and glanced at the other two. Everyone was ready to go, rested, and looked like they were waiting for me at this point. “Alright. Lets get the fuck out of here, yeah?” They both nodded. Alex seeming a little more cheerful, and Ophelia Just looking unconcerned. I took the lead once more, and we headed down the corridor into the unknown of the trial once more.
The next several hours were spent in much the same way. We would walk along the path, Ophelia and Alex behind my massive shield and in almost total silence. Occasionally, we would hear the sound of footsteps or chattering ahead of us, which gave us time to prepare. We never could get a preemptive attack off on the goblins, as none of us had picked up ranged weapons, and the goblins would see us before we got close enough to strike with our weapons of choice.
However, the goblins never came in groups greater than 6, and in the tight confines of the hallway, our strategy worked quite well. There was a sense of progress, even as the fatigue grew and we accrued a collection of minor injuries and shallow cuts. Alex and I especially were flagging, even as we took every ration and waterskin we could find on the goblins. None of us were used to this constant exertion, especially the fights. Ophelia handled it better than us though, and was the main reason we never received any major injuries.
“Hey, do you guys think this hallway will ever end? It's not exactly much of a trial if we just keep stabbing goblins in tight confines.” I said, and both Ophelia and Alex shot me furious looks.
“Are you stupid?” Ophelia asked. I swear, I tried to look confused, but I knew I had raised a flag. I might as well have said 'what could possibly go wrong' but... something needed to change. I was almost hoping the trial ground was sentient enough to make the change immediately.
“What?” i asked, still faining nonchalance. “Look, I'm glad we haven't gotten our teeth kicked in, sure. But I also don't want to die of exposure in a never-ending tunnel because we missed a hidden passage 3 hours ago or something.”
Alex nodded, his face grim as I posited the idea that we very well could have missed a different passage and would just wander around until we died. Ophelia though just rolled her eyes. “Whatever, just don't say anymore shit like that out loud. Its just asking for the goddess of fate to come fuck with you. She does that for shits and giggles you know.”
Goddess of fate? Was this world poly-theistic? or was it more serious than that, and the deities were the kind that actually manifested and did things on a day to day basis? I had to put those thoughts away though. It seemed raising the flag had worked. Or not, maybe the hallway had always been about to end. Who knew?
Up ahead, the hallway opened up. The dim lighting made it hard to see, but we approached the opening. I for one, was simply glad to see something, anything different. The other two seemed somewhat less enthused. I stopped just outside the opening, looking in at a circular chamber lit up with more torches, all equidistantly placed around a circular chamber. The floor of the chamber appeared to be sand covered stone, and rough hewn walls rose up in a dome shape, forming a ceiling with a hanging stone that glowed a bright yellow light.
“I wonder what the boss music is going to be....”
Both of my companions gave me odd looks. “What is boss music?” Alex asked, eyebrows knit together in confusion.
“Its music that plays when you... You know what, nevermind.” Alex shrugged, and I lifted up my shield. “There is absolutely going to be some kind of giant monster the moment we enter that room, isn't there? That or a swarm of goblins.”
They both looked at me again, confused. “Oh, come on guys. An endless hallway abruptly stops at a giant, circular, well lit room with no other apparent exits and nothing inside it? I bet this hallway closes up as soon as we pass through it as well. Lets take a few minutes, eat, get a drink, and rest up. Just.... trust me?”
Ophelia wanted to argue, but then her stomach growled. Her pale cheeks turned a slight shade of pink, and she nodded. “Fine, but then lets get out of here. I am sick of hallways.”