Joe:

After breakfast, we headed over to Ludus Treekiller for the training we needed before delving into the dungeons again.

It turns out Heroic Regen also cures Heroic Hangovers, so we had that going for us. Lizard guy, not so much. “Sorry man, I can’t quite remember your name, do you mind?”

Slouched onto the table still half asleep, he said “Aleksander. Tat’s me.”

“We are here for training.”

Alexander waives one hand slowly, slurring he says “Asshesment first, Do the Training Coursh” here he waves his hand at the complex construction in the front of Ludus Treekiller.

From here I can see it is in fact and elaborate and complex obstacle course. It’s just like something out of a video game. Swinging clubs, sawblades and everything…Looking at the sharpness of the equipment. I decide, I will in fact keep my armor on and go over to the section next to the small sign “Start here, Go that way” with an arrow pointing up.

I take a run and head up the 4x4 ramp, up onto the course proper. I time the gauntlet of rotating Kung fu dummies dodging rods high and low, and take a leap across the gap landing on another 4x4 bridge. When I land the new bridge wobbled beneath my feet as if it was hung from ropes, when it’s clearly built solidly into the ground. Nature takes over, and I spit mud out of my mouth and look up at it, Right magic. Fool me once. Jimmy makes the jump I failed, just barely, then gets hit by the swinging clubs which come next. Clearly, he hasn’t seen that particular puzzle often enough to learn to time it. Dirty and bruised we both head back to Alexander to report our lack of progress. When we walkup, Alexander doesn’t even lift his head he says “Keep doing it ill you can ring the 1st bell, drop your weapons and shield, but keep the armor.” He barely raises a hand off the table, and points a finger and me saying “Don’t be so trusting. Keep your balance centered at all times.” His finger shifts to Jimmy and he says “Learn to watch for patterns and time them. Comeback if you get stuck.” At this he snuggled down into his arms going back to sleep. Snoring softly.

With a deep sigh we do as he says, by lunchtime, we’re battered bruised and covered head to toe in mud. I’m stuck at an obstacle that looks simple 12 feet of slack rope hung between two posts, I just can’t keep my balance on it. To my frustration Jimmy sems to have no trouble with it at all sailing across gracefully. He is stuck at a basic climbing wall, he can get up the hand & foot hold section and figured out to shove his hands into the crack and wedge them in as a fist and foot, but the gradually widening chimney climb has him utterly baffled. He keeps trying to brute force his way up using the techniques he’s used before. For once years of watching Reality TV is actually working for me, as I’ve seen several techniques to manage a chimney climb. I’ve vowed not to tell them to Jimmy until I can catch back up to him. Apparently, I have a bit of contrarywise cussedness deep in my soul. I needed to do this for my sister. She was counting on me.

We break for lunch, grabbing water and kebabs from our inventory. Mmmmm still hot and fresh. We need to stock up on these. Afterwards we go check in with Alexander. He’s up and doing paperwork. He hands each of us a potion, saying “Drink right before you go try again. His whole arm swings to point at us this time, the other one still scribbling away as if nothing happened. “Don’t look at the rope, look above where the rope is tied on the far side, or better yet, straight ahead into the distance.” then his finger shifts to Jimmy “When the chimney gets wide enough, wedge your whole body into it. Feet on one side, ass and hands on the other.”

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In an exhausted voice I ask, “Could we take a break and do the archery for a while?”.

Alex responds with a complete lack of compassion not even looking at us, “It’s your funeral, don’t go past the 6th level, or you’ll regret it if you can’t even finish the basic course. 1 hour max then back to the basic course. Save the potion for when you go back.”

We head over to the archery section on the right side of the shack where Alexander is working. It looks like a large range with just one target. Next to the line there is a sign “Only bullseyes count”. I let Jimmy go first and check my messages.

Deep in the falling damage and sarcasm is one that surprises me

[You have raised Body +1 Body 11 (Average)]

[You have raised Agility +1 Agility 11 (Average)]

Agility? I though the stats were Mind, Body Spirit.

I look up and Jimmy is on level 2, now the target is moving slowly left to right as if hanging from a rope Every time Jimmy misses the bulls eye the arrow appears back in his hand without any apparent effort on his part. I notice that the bull’s eye is now blue instead of red. Apparently it changes each level.

“Jimmy I got some stat increases from all this, we should check your logs when you get a break”

Jimmy nods, and says, “if you step up to the line a new target appears, more than one of us can shoot at once as long as we are not on the same level. You may have to skip ahead and then back.

I pull my crossbow, and as advertised a static target shows in front of me. After each shot the bolt appears back in my hand as soon as the bow is lowered. After about 5 attempts, I hit the bullseye. A window pops up on my gui and says

[Level 1 cleared, level 2 busy, skip to level 3? Y/n]

I hit yes and now, Jimmy disappears and it’s as if I’m on the line alone. I take a step back and Jimmy reappears. I step back up to the line and this time the target is moving slowly up and down. I have just a tiny bit of practice hitting a moving target, so I manage to hit the target first try, but missing the bullseye again and again.

Eventually after dozens of tries, I hit it. it takes me back to level 2, and I’m doing the left to right moving target. Having done the vertical target this one is not any harder, so it get the bull in 5 or 6 shots.

I advance to level 4, Jimmy having clearly gone on to 5 or 6. At level 4 the target didn’t move, but as soon as I raised my bow, I heard a beep and the color of the bull’s eye faded, a horn blew and it disappeared. In 5 seconds the bullseye went back to full color. After I hit the bullseye in 5 seconds, instead of moving to the next level, I now had 4 seconds to hit it, 3, then 2 and finally 1. After one the beep came faster, I had exactly a half second from when I raised the bow to hit the target, before the bullseye faded away. Finally, I hit it in under a half second, and I moved to level 5. Level 5 was the exact same thing, except the target was moving in a slow circle. Unlike the Obstacle course, this challenge was actually kind of fun. After more shots than I’d like to admit, I was finally able to hit target 5. Instead of going to target 6 I hit no, and I took a break to watch jimmy.

On level 6 the target was moving randomly and the Bulls eye was fading. Not too much harder right? Wrong! After I watch a couple near misses, with a muttered sound track full of imprecations, Jimmy hits it and moves to level 7. I start shooting, pitifully at level 6, when suddenly I hear a THUD. Jimmy comes flying off the line backwards, smashing into the fence behind us. I go check on him, he’s shaking his head, his eyes bleary and swimming about. In seconds It’s clear that he’s rapidly recovering, thanks to Regeneration.

After a few more seconds he says “Alexander was right, on level 7 the target charges you at full speed and you have to dodge it. If you do, it moves to a random spot on one of the 3 walls and charges you again. I wasn’t even trying to shoot, just dodging it and it got me on the 3rd charge. I’m going to rest here, then when you finish 6, we’ll go back to the obstacle course.

Soon it was back to the obstacle course for us…”Jimmy, I say we ring that first bell before we try the dungeon again, what do you think?”

“It’s going to be a hard couple days, but I’m in. I’ve gained stats from training as well.