Chapter 22:
I aimed for one of the Wood 4 skeletons with a mace, even as the champion and the rest of the gladiators charged, but to my surprise, one of the two skeletons with a shield stepped in from of my projectile, and the explosion of blue fire washed over the metal banded wood, knocking it off balance, but not doing any real damage. To take the initiative and intercept the attack meant these skeletons were likely a little smarter than the last few weeks had faced, and I called out to my team for these fights: “they're smarter! They’ll try to fight like we do. Don't let them surround us!”
I knew I wouldn't have time to fire off another shot, but I still stuck my hand - paw? - into the satchel again and pulled out a large handful of stones - as I had seen that one of my teammates was at a horrible disadvantage in this fight right now. The arena was just sand, and though Boone could manipulate sand to block vision or create irritating clouds, at the moment he had nothing to use for attacks. I pulsed a need for him to look at me down our link and yelled “Catch!” To him, hurling the stones at the same time. I hoped his powers would let him catch them and use them, but I had run out of time to do anything but focus on the skeletons that had caught up to me.
One lunged, with a horizontal sweep of its sword, and I leaned away from it, using the new instincts from my tail to catch my weight on the wide length of it, using it to prop me up at an impossible angle, while I unsheathed my claws at the same time.
Two more skeletons were finishing their initial rush, one with a mace and one wielding twin daggers. They came at me all together, and I was barely able to deflect the blows from dagger and sword with the magically enchanted tigers hide, the blades landing painfully against my arms but not penetrating - I imagine they would leave a hell of a bruise though.
The feathers on my tail flared as I swept the scaled limb around in an arc at ankle height, just as the mace welder tried to smash my skull with the heavy lump of wood and metal he held in his hands. My tail crashed into its ankle while it had most of its weight on the joint, and with my Body, plus my Mind attribute and the level of the Ability itself, I hit the creature with a combined four levels of strength. While the Mace wielder was a Wood 5 creature, with his weight all on one precarious joint, it was just enough to trip the skeleton and send it freewheeling toward me.
The claws in my fingers slid forth as I swung back around, and I brought the wickedly sharp blades down on its wrists. The stronger skill, reinforced with a quick infusion of Foxfire, was enough to slice through magically reinforced bone, and the heavy iron mace fell to the floor with the muted clatter of severed digits.
We needed to find the golden Core. Ten enemies that practically out levelled us in every respect was a bad match-up for us. Unfortunately, I had a strong suspicion where the crystal would be - in the rib-cage of the champion, hidden behind the boiled leather breastplate.
I leapt backward as the sword skeleton tried to ram me with its shield, charging forward with that uncanny speed they often seemed to display in the first seconds of a fight. As my tail acted as a counterweight and threw me around, I managed to catch the rim of the shield with my claws and they sank into the wood. I used our opposite momentum to twist and wrench the shield, and was rewarded with the crack as its arm, shield included, disconnected from its shoulder. I brought the metal rim down on the skull of the hand-less skeleton as it was struggling to get to its feet, and felt the satisfying crunch of it falling apart. Arcadia, behind you! I had lost sight of the dagger skeleton in the melee, and that proved a mistake. I felt a blade enter my side just above my hip like a sewing needle - in and out again before I could blink. Blood began to flow and I clamped a paw over the wound, the adrenaline keeping me from feeling the pain of it for the brief seconds it took me to slap at the skeleton with my tail and drive it back just far enough to give me enough space to escape.
I circled away from the main fight between the other seven and my friends, and used my Travellers’ bag to retrieve the healing bottle. A quick look at my hp as I took a swing showed my health at 150/200 and the bottle would only restore 30hp, and I'd have to wait an hour or risk Essence poisoning from the inexpertly made bottle.
What that meant was this was either going to be an almost impossible endurance battle, or they were going to have to find ways to cheat. First things first, though, I'd need to deal with the skeleton that was even now moving to attack again.
Hopping backwards, I fingered another stone out of my pouch, charged it, loaded and fired it all in one motion, but not at the skeleton. I fired it at the sand between us. When the stone cracked with its explosion of unstable energies, it kicked up a cloud of concealing sand that blocked me from the view of the attacking skeleton.
I leapt to the side and kept low, just as the dagger wielder came through the blinding cloud. It missed me, as I was not where it expected, and I was able to get behind it and wrap claws around the creatures neck bones and tear through them, not all the way, but far enough that a quick wrench backwards with my free hand on its skull detached the offending article, and the creature fell into a pile of bones.
The one armed skeleton managed to reenter the fight then, but with his sword unable to penetrate the armor I was wearing, I was able to block a single blow on my arm, and with a couple of blows to its unprotected throat, repeat the maneuver with one claw and my tail, slapping the now freed skull away, where it flew a good distance and rolled to a stop against the alabaster walls. I had a momentary disconnect when I thought about how I'd just fought three larger, superior opponents with unfamiliar weapons that I'd only had for a couple of days and won. The instinctual downloads on how to move and use the Abilities we were given by the system were seamlessly integrated with my own thoughts, memories, and instincts. If I had more time to consider it, I would probably be utterly terrified by the implications, once again reminded that I had very distinct memories of being effectively downloaded into the empty shell of this body the moment I had appeared on Axis. But now was not the time for philosophy - that would come later, in the quiet, dark times when I was likely to have a small breakdown about it.
For the first time, I was able to view the rest of the battlefield. Boone had managed to take care of two of his opponents, using the stones I threw, but he was using them in a way I hadn't considered. The stones were orbiting him like moons around a planet, and formed a defensive ring. When a skeleton got too close, its bones were smashed by multiple stones at the same time, and always came off worse. The only opponent Boone had now was the other skeleton with a shield, and even that was quickly being turned into splinters by the repeated heavy impacts. I raced by and slapped at the skeletons’ rear ankle with my tail, sending it off balance and opening its defence enough for Boone to ram a telekinetic bullet right through its skull, shattering it on impact and freeing the fox of his opponents. He had managed to avoid injury as any of the skeletons - even the spear-men - hadn't managed to pierce his defences in a meaningful enough way before they were torn to shreds.
Catching our breaths, we both turned to see Mia, who had caught four opponents on the charge, including the champion.
Three skeletons lay scattered in pieces, and she was currently fighting the Champion to a standstill. Her shadow knives were a blur of black afterimages that raised sparks from the twin sabres of the champion, and her four wings deserted and danced around her, blocking and deflecting strikes from an enemy several levels above her with the delicate looking filigree. Her speed and balance had both Boone and I stunned. Mia had always been a good fighter - my father had often said she was one of the most talented students he had ever had, and that wasn't empty praise from the grizzled adventurer.
But now…I think she would even give my father a run for his money in melee combat. Granted, my father was more focused on the bow and ranged combat, but he had a Body attribute of twelve and was no slouch with a sword. She practically danced around the champion, unable to make much progress, but her flashing knives and glimmering wings, along with acrobatic flips and turns made it extremely difficult to predict where her attacks were coming from. I did notice, however, that Mia had no shadow currently - she must have taken her own shadow to make her first pair of knives, and it had washed out her appearance even more than her usually pale looks. It looked like doing so might not be the best idea.
“She’s…extremely impressive. I am very glad she is on our side.” Boone said, gulping audibly. I felt the same. Mia was…a force of nature. The fact that her first Trial had hit her so hard and knocked her confidence as much as it had was practically a crime.
“We should help, though - she is not making much progress right now. See if you can aim for the champions' knees. I'll see if I can knock it off balance.
We both took aim with charged stones - his wrapped in telekinetic force, mine in Foxfire, and loosed when we saw the briefest openings. Boones’ rapid fire projectiles more often missed than not, given the Champions’ fast movements, but as we slowly drew closer, he was able to grab the missed stones and bring them back to himself, attacking from two directions at once. My own stones were slower, and hit with concussive blasts of flame, but the hit most often against armoured portions of the Champions’ body, and did little more than knock it off balance for Mia to land an acrobatic strike.
I fired five projectiles, nearly emptying my Foxfire Receptacle, before Mia managed to get an opening and make it stick. My strike managed to hit the Champion right on its leading sword hand, and hit with enough force that the already weakened bone of its fingers shattered and it dropped its sword mid swing. Mia was extremely quick to capitalise on the opening, disappearing in a flash of speed too quick for me to follow, and appearing again with a dagger jammed in each eye hole. She wrecked one one way, and one the other, and the skull came apart in pieces of neatly packed bone. A golden stone fell out of the severed skull, which my sister quickly grabbed and shoved into a pouch. The arena quickly fell silent.
“Congratulations!” The Minotaur Boomed from his box. “Rest, recover. Your next bout will be soon. In the meantime - entertainment for the masses!” As he spoke, three entrances to the arena opened. From one, skeletons dressed like servants and carrying trays of food and drink appeared, and seemed to usher us towards them, revealing through the gate a room with benches and small showers, and a table at which we could sit and eat. We headed for the rest area, but not before I saw Mia grab the armour from the Champion and shake it free of bones, revealing for a second intricate patterns of Runes and linkages carved into the inside.
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From the other two gates, skeletons dressed as entertainers emerged and began to, of all things, begin to dance and juggle and play instruments - like an actual halftime show between matches.
I didn't know how long we’d be given to recover, so the three of us, all apparently having the same idea, practically ignored the skeleton, and descended on the food and water.
For me, I could sit and meditate while eating slowly - it would help speed up my essence recovery with the Meditate Ability from my Mind Attribute, while my Repletion Talent would turn the food into healing, recovering some of the rest of my health.
“Can I have the Healing Bottle, ‘Cadia? This really hurts.” Mia gasped as she sat down, and revealed a long, jagged gash in her shoulder that I hadn't been able to see while she moved. I practically leapt to my feet to examine it, retrieving the Healing Bottle from my pocket dimension while I did so.
“You should have said something right away, Mimi! You can't heal on your own like I can!” The cut was long, but thankfully shallow, and looked like it had been almost entirely avoided by the young girl, or deflected by her wire-frame and stained glass wings. Those - thankfully - did their best to stay out of my way as I poked and prodded the cut. Mia drank a pull from the bottle, and I kicked myself for not making a second one while we had the chance in the recovery room. Still, the cut healed almost completely as she drank the infused liquid within.
Hopefully, if we could avoid being too badly hurt, and the breaks between bouts were long enough, we could all three use the bottle and one of us could refill it each time it emptied. The Essence drain was substantial at our level, but split between three with some time to rest, we should be able to keep up. Assuming, of course, we could recover our essence. It would become a race of attrition to get all ten stones…I sat back and went back to meditating, trying to speed my recovery. “Your Talents are really weird, Arcadia. But I wish I had something similar. Mine just make me better at what I can already do - and one doesn't even do anything yet!” Mia complained. Unlike me, she also didn't have her Mind Attribute Unlocked, and so didn't have the Meditate Ability yet. Her Essence use was going to be the hardest to keep up. Luckily, she didn't have a lot of large investment abilities like mine or Boones’, with her daggers, wings, and even her aura power, which didn't have much of a use in this dungeon, being upkeep powers that used a trickle of constant essence, rather than large constant chunks like my Foxfire Imbuement or Boones’ Telekinesis.
Speaking of the Fox, he was curled on a mat with his tail over his nose. I didn't know if he was meditating or sleeping, but either way he was doing his best to recover his strength now he had eaten.
He really was bigger now. I doubted he'd even fit on the sleeping pallet with us when we eventually got out of here. He was closer to the size of a medium sized dog already, and I wondered how big he would eventually get. If he got too big, how would we even keep him with us, or avoid the notice of people who took him for a monster? I’d need to talk with my parents on how best to solve it, now that we had decided to tell them our secrets. Not that that wasn't a dread of its own…
I tried to put out of my mind the uncomfortable idea of my parents rejecting me once they found out I was different. Though I couldn't remember the family itself, I knew my parents in my last life had cut all contact with me for the simple act of existing how I felt most comfortable.
While I was meditating and desperately wishing I had a higher Mind Attribute to increase my Essence reserves, Mia showed me the armour she had claimed that she had identified with her new Perception Ability.
Armour of the Favoured Warrior: [Wood 7]
This enchanted suit of leather armour shows the favour of the Master of the Coliseum. It will protect from blows as though the leather were hardened steel, but will adhere to and remain as flexible as the torso beneath it, acting like a second layer of skin. The Armour will automatically adjust to fit its wearer. Additionally, this Armour increases the Body Attribute by 1 level, as an inherent bonus, while the Armour is worn.
The Armour was frankly amazing for Mia, and just as with the Hide of the Hunter, I wondered if it was an intentionally placed item for us to take, or if it was incidental and not something we were meant to steal at all. I could only assume the former, as we hadn't heard a complaint from the Siblings Spirits that ran this place for Kintsuji yet. Enchanted artefacts and items were the most common rewards from dungeons besides Constellation stones and Ability crystals after all. Still, I was pleased to see Mia un-summon her wings and don the armour, before making the metal and glass wings appear again. I watched in appreciation as the armour adjusted to the new additions to Mias’ body, opening armoured slots in the back to allow the wings through without compromising the protection it offered in the slightest. When I had gotten my tail and claws, I had noticed that my bones and muscles changed shape to accommodate the additions, and it appeared that the wings were no different, having got a glance at Mias' back a couple of times since she came back from the Trial of Intellect with them. She had new muscle groups, and her rib-cage was added to, creating mounting points in her shoulders and lower back for the wings to emerge, and I wondered if they were organic or mechanical, beneath the skin, to match the wings.
By the time we next heard the Minotaurs’ booming voice, I had managed to squeeze out about two of the spent charges from my Foxfire Receptacle, giving me five imbued shots total, and my reserves were still full. I took a deep breath and decided whether I was ready or not, it was time to face the second challenge regardless.
Gathering up Boone and Mia, we headed to the ramp up, and back into the Arena. The skeletons had been cleared along with the entertainers, but the gate directly opposite us was open beneath the royal box.
“Our gladiator's fell in honourable combat, but it was the first of many battles for these brave Aspirants. Let us cheer for their second opponents - a more hideous set of creatures by far.” The Minotaur boomed as though playing for a crowd, and the skeleton audience made an appropriate amount of noise, but it seemed so...fake to me. Like a child playing pretend.
However, I was given very little time to consider this last, very odd, trial, as the fetid stench of rotting flesh hit me like a slap in the face. Two massive, eight foot tall lumbering hulks lumbered up the ramp from below. They looked humanoid, but even alive their features would have been lumpy and odd, their guts distended and their muscles massive and knotty beneath grey hide and ugly faces. Dead and rotting, though, with putrid flesh and open wounds that leaked this ichor and showed the muscle and bone beneath, the two monsters were a horror. Each had a shining golden stone set deep into the rotten flesh of their eye sockets, one taking up the left eye of one creature, the other taking up the right. I threw an identify at them to see what we were dealing with:
Zombified Ogre: [Wood 8]
Zombified Ogre: [Wood 7]
High level, and built of massive layers of fat and flesh, none of us were geared towards taking down monsters like these. But I had one weapon that might help:
Shining Spear: [Wood 5]
This enchanted spear is always sharp, is flexible despite its apparent metal construction, and is lighter than it should be considering it's materials. The spear will adjust itself to be the optimal size for the wielder.
I removed the spear from my travellers’ bag as the zombies began to lumber towards us, and I imbued it with Foxfire before handing it to Mia, who let her daggers dissipate before she grabbed hold of it with a questioning look. “These things have massive reach and are probably very strong. I don't want them being able to grab either of us. I can use my catapult, but you don't have much of a ranged option other than throwing your knives - and they have a lot of mass to them, I don't know if your blades will penetrate far.”
“What about me?” Boone asked, a handful of round stones already orbiting his body. “I was going to try and snipe them from range, but it sounds like you have a plan.” I grinned at the fox, and he gave me a vulpine smile in return. He was absolutely correct - and my plan relies mainly on him.
“Minos said we had to get the stones. That the opponents would stop fighting if we managed to get them before we killed them. Those stones are very visible, and that flesh looks very flimsy. While Mia and I hold back one Ogre, I want you to try and rip the stone out of the skull of the other. Don't use too much essence though. If you can't pull one out with the first good try, let us know and we’ll try something else.”
Both my allies agreed to the plan, and Boone separated himself to one side while Mia and I charged one of the Ogres. I began by charging a stone both with Foxfire and the propulsion charm on the catapult itself, causing the stone to flash between yellow and blue and start vibrating from the barely contained energy, and fired it at the creatures’ head.
The creatures were surprisingly swift, when they wanted to be, however, and the zombie raised a hand to protect the gem from being struck. The stone did at least explode on its palm and took a large chunk of rotting flesh with it, along with a thumb and forefinger. It bellowed a long, mournful wail, rocking back on one foot, while Mia closed in with the spear and began to cut and prod wherever she could reach that looked vital or easy to damage - mostly it's knees and ankles, probably trying to sever a tendon and cut off its ability to move easily. I fired a second stone, leaving me with only three till I would need to dip into my reserves. This one hit it in the collarbone and blew a crater into its flesh there. Muscle and bone parted and it yelled in rage, trying to barrel past Mia and get to me. Mia made it pay for ignoring her, and managed to sweep the razor sharp spear blade through the back of the Ogres’ right knee, severing the tendons there and causing the creature to lose control of its leg. It began to tetre and crashed to the ground with a horrid sound of wet meat hitting pavement.
The falling Ogre gave me a moment to glance at Boone, who was glowing bright with blue fire as his opponent screamed a bellow of anger and pain as they clutched both hands over their eye socket. Boone himself yelled and reared back out his hind legs as the fingers of the Ogre bent backwards, inch by inch, before they snapped, sending a golden stone flying through the air. Boone caught it in his orbit just as his Ogre gave up fighting and just stood there, like a puppet with its strings cut. The fox then concentrated on our opponent while it tried to climb to its feet. The fallen Ogre clutched at its face with a yellow as the stone began to push its way through the rotting bone and wet flesh, even as it managed to get to a kneeling position and began to swing its free arm at my sister.
Mia dodged away from its sweeping and Grasping fingers, cutting out with the spear occasionally, but trying to use a minimal amount of essence, knowing it was only a matter of a few seconds till the fight would be over. The gem popped free with a wet squelch, and both of us expected it to be over with that - Mia even lowered her guard fractionally. That was, right up until the zombie Ogre caught the stone with a savage grin, and continued through the motion to plough a rotted fist straight towards my sister. She shrieked and leapt backwards, and I saw her wings valiantly try to shield her, all four folding in a cross over her chest as the fist connected. Even as it happened, Boone and I were both yelling and firing stones towards the creature, trying to hold back the inevitable.
The wings seemed to hold off most of the blow, but even so they were pressed into her and Mia shot backwards, bouncing and tumbling across the ground until she laid still.
We had been a second too late in our responses. Boones’ and my stones blew apart the clenched fist and caused it to drop the stone, but it was still too late.
Even as the Ogre went still and Minos called an end to the round, I was racing across the sands to my sister to see if she was even still alive.