[Kahli is taking damage]
"Alright, I've officially opened up the pot, with the help of my good friend Omar here!" shouted Brahd to everyone in the restaurant as he rung a bell. "Take it away, Omar!"
"Yes, yes, thank you all for being here, thank you, thank you!" Omar waved his enflamed right arm around in joy and a few foul insects tumbled to the floor. He puffed his cigar. "So glad to have you all here, so egregiously pleased! And might I say that-"
"What Omar's trying to say is that we're now taking bets. How many for Kahli to win?" Brahdley raised any eyebrow over his living wood.
Nobody's hand shot up. Suddenly, Omar's flaming arm shot up.
"I like her, she's been a decent apprentice," he said. He put five large bills in the rusty stockpot. "Very good at delegation."
"Alright, that's one for Kahli to win. How many against?"
Everyone else's hands and claws and other strange, living wood-based appendages shot up.
"Okay, looks like I'm going to have to count... Er, one moment... Yes, let me just tally us all up real quick and-"
"You seriously can't tell how many of us are in here?" blurted the blank tauman wearing puffy, gray garb by the bar. "Why, that's just absurd. I can easily tell. How can you not? Do you have rocks for brains? Or is your psyche just far too melted by the thoughts of our imminent DOOOOOM!"
"Hey now, let's not be a bunch of wet blankets here, okay?" asked Omar with a wave of his flaming appendage. "I don't wanna have to singe off anybody's eyebrows!! I've done it before, motherfuckers! Don't tempt me!"
"Woah, Omar, really? Swearing? Totally uncalled for," said Brahd.
"What, Brahd? What?! Do you not want my fucking money or something?" Omar spat, waving his flaming arm around at his crustacean-esque friend and server. "Seriously, who do you think you are? What's the big fucking deal? I swear all the fucking time, okay? It's who I am!"
"I thought you were able to say a good bit without swearing at all just a few minutes ago?" said Sahdi quietly.
"Oh my gods, can you all just... Just fuck off?! By the pincers of Theseosus, yes that's fucking right, I'm swearing and I'm talking about Theseosus, and I'm mentioning other gods! Oooh! Spooky!"
"Oh, so he's bipistal, is he? That explains everything," said Philhip with a sigh.
"Hell yes I am, and proud of it!" Omar tapped his chest with his flaming arm. "Fuck! Ow! I've got to remember to keep this thing under control and turn it off when I'm not using it. Ugh. Damned [skill]..." Omar shook his right arm until the flame went out completely.
"Brahd, can you do something for me?" asked Philhip.
"What, bud?"
"Can you let me know how high Kahli and Lloyd's [HP] are right now?"
"Oh, absolutely. Let me just look out the window here, and... ah!" Omar smiled as he looked at Kahli and Lloyd charging attack at one another, seeing the attack ball up into a big swell of energy. He could see two big bars above their heads thanks to his system, each one a certain percentage of green and red. "Oh, oh wow."
"What is it?" Philhip was on the edge of his grimy seat.
----------------------------------------
[You're taking damage]
[You're taking damage]
Kahli watched as the repetitive notifications filled up the left side of her field of vision. How was she supposed to concentrate on the fight like this? And was just kicking her big rock towards Lloyd while his attack lurched and snaked forward towards her enough to send Kahli into a barrage of damage?
He wasn't even hitting her!
Well, unless of course what he was doing with his lightning was akin to someone spraying a hose with their thumb, living wood or otherwise, covering it, and some of the backspray was in effect still hitting her regardless of the fact that Kahli's big rock was hitting the brunt of it.
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In fact, the amazing thing was, it seemed that her rock just... kept hitting it.
That is to say, what was happening was, essentially, that Lloyd's superpowered lightning and her big rock were kind of stuck there in a tandem. Not necessarily moving in one direction or another since their initial collision, and instead they were continually building and rolling into one another in a bit of a positive feedback loop wherein the energy coiling around it was creating a mighty swell of current.
Kahli wondered for a moment if this strange semi-equilibrium could go on forever, her rock and Lloyd’s lightning spinning and whirring and not doing much anything else. Then again, that wasn't necessarily something that could easily be sustained forever, could it?
Kahli once again thought of the damage notices. No, it was not going to change anything. She was soon going to tumble to the ground and-
Wait a moment. She was soon going to tumble to the ground?
Kahli looked down and realized yet again that the rock she had been repeatedly kicking in order to stay in the air was coiling and spinning around in impact with Lloyd's lightning. And with that awareness, she noticed something terrible happening. She was in free fall.
Or, was this so bad? She still had Froufrou in her bag, so no problems there - and the strange little creature was squelching away, it seemed. , Couldn’t Kahli just use her [skill]? Sure, Lloyd had thrown his lightning at her, but if she just summoned up another big rock, wouldn't it solve the problem?
Kahli asked herself, would it?
Kahli had to figure out was whether she could save herself by summoning up another boulder. In order to do that, she'd have to of course start jumping up off the boulder - but how could she jump up when she was falling at an ever increasing pace? Wouldn't it be impossible, on summoning up her big rock, to find the energy to jump up? Would the entire force of her fall keep her from doing such a thing?
Kahli considered something. She only knew she was falling in a particular direction because she could see the ground getting closer and closer. Otherwise it instead just felt like the wind was rushing up around her like columns of snakes. What if, on summoning her rock, she just tried to jump up a little? And then she tried to do that over and over again?
It reminded her a little bit of Taubitha talking about punching a wall. If Taubitha could level up with repetition, could Kahli reverse the direction she was falling by gradually kicking off her boulder again and again? Or would it do what she feared - that is, would trying to kick against the unstoppable force of gravity immediately make her legs snap at the knees like a couple of cracked walnuts?
Kahli sure hoped not. She really didn't want that to happen. Then again, there really was no way of knowing what would happen until it did. And this was the only foreseeable chance Kahli could imagine that might prevent her from what would doubtlessly occur if she instead chose inaction - that is to say, splattering across the ground like a pancake.
Kahli saw two terrible possibilities, but only one possible solution. So she braced herself and she summoned a rock anew, knowing of course that this would dissolve her current rock's tandem with Lloyd's lightning.
Kahli watched the rock materialize under her big left foot. Then, ever so slightly, she tried to kick off it.
Kahli didn't notice much. So she tried again to kick, and then again.
Each time, it seemed like the rock would simply absorb the force of her foot. But as Kahli relented, she noticed instead that what was truly happening was that her descent's pace was slowly but surely decelerating. The more she kicked the rock and the harder she kicked it, the slower and slower she fell.
Kahli could hardly believe her eyes. It was working!
She kept kicking the rock harder and harder still. The speed of her descent slowed to a crawl, then, all of a sudden, it became an ascent.
Now Kahli knew she had won. Maybe not won the fight, of course, but she had surely stayed alive in a trying situation and kept herself from succumbing to an apparently deathly fall.
The next question, as she kicked herself upward, was whether Lloyd realized what had happened to her?
Lloyd didn't seem very intelligent. So that was a point against him. However, at the same time, he was probably pretty good at fighting and he clearly had a heightened awareness due to his powerful system, so even though he was completely unbearable and interacting with his personality felt like being boiled alive, Kahli couldn't immediately equate that with buffoonery.
Still, if Lloyd was distracted somehow, maybe he wouldn't notice her.
But what could distract him?
There was no way to know until Kahli approached her foe. With that in mind, on she kicked, until-
Wait.
Was there another way?
She thought of her old, deactivated [skill] [Seismic Sense]. Kahli couldn't help but think that the [skill], as a concept, had a questionable name. It was almost as if her system had been lying to her about the nature of the [skill]. Was that possible? Did systems lie?
Regardless, Kahli had to give this ample consideration. Could she use this admittedly obnoxious [skill] to know what would happen if she kicked up to Lloyd?
Kahli felt tingles at her spine as she realized the power of this [skill] in this particular pivotal moment. It would, if its past patterns were any indication, show her the ideal way forward as her third timeline choice.
So, essentially, if Kahli just suffered through the [skill] and talked to the big jellyfish and hated every second of it, then she watched all the [scenarios] and picked the third, whatever happened would be in many ways ideal for her.
It was hard for Kahli to consider any other option than using this [skill]. She concentrated her energy and activated it.
Of course, nothing happened. Kahli knew this would be the case, as the [skill] activated on its own at [checkpoints] based on key decisions. But what would be a key enough decision?
Kahli could think of one. She allowed her big rock to dissolve into dust, and watched as she started to once again tumble through the air.