Since [Mimicry Armour] acted like a second layer of skin, he could feel the chopsticks. They were twice the length of normal chopsticks, and cold against the pads of his fingers. It was the same material as the chains, with an aura to match.
That more than anything gave him pause. Why would chopsticks have an aura, a menacing, hairs on the back of your neck aura?
Logan took a deep breath, his senses acute, each minor sound and shuffle of his feet making everything amplified, the fact that he couldn’t move making him even more uncertain. At least in the other trials he’d known what to expect. The chains growing heavier in the strength trial, the cannon balls in the agility trial, and the tigers in the endurance trial. Logan was envisioning all kinds of things… the milk was full of acid; the spotlights would release a deluge of blood and make his grip on the chopsticks impossible. And yet, those possibilities didn’t explain why the System wanted them stuck to these chairs.
There was something else at work.
Well, there was nothing for it but forward. Whenever his ex-girlfriend had dragged him to the latest sushi restaurant, he’d ordered the teriyaki, anything to avoid raw seafood. She’d always laughed when he’d asked for a fork, but it wasn’t because he was incapable. Although Logan had never been a fan of sushi, picking up kernels of cereal couldn’t be too difficult. With one last glance at Arsen and Asthea, he carefully positioned his fingers around the sticks, his exoskeleton gloves giving him an added…
Wait a minute.
With a moue of concentration, Logan willed out a small pile of sand, a thimble only, and then molded an extra layer of sandstone over his fingertips, creating a rough, flexible grip—rubber grips. That way, even if his fingers grew tired, the grip would help him continue.
Arsen and Asthea were still wearing their white fingerless gloves, which wouldn’t help if their fingers grew sweaty or if the milk splashed.
Carefully positioning the sticks like grabbing a piece of dynamite, he picked up a cereal kernel and raised it above the bowl.
Logan squinted.
Huh.
Definitely not Cocoa Puffs. It was the size of a marble, with odd, green specks amongst the black. Unlike a marble, it wasn’t smooth, rather, the surface was rough like chitin.
As soon as Logan latched onto it, a slot in the table slammed open, like a secret puzzle compartment. The slot had holes and tunnels in the stone twice the size of the marble.
Ooookay.
The System obviously wanted him to insert the cereal into the tunnels.
Logan lifted the bulb with careful movements, raising it above the bowl and over to the slot in the table which looked like an old-fashioned tabletop or arcade game. He had to insert the bulb into the round hole and then drag it down the etched line, turn it at a ninety-degree angle, and then push it through a hole in the table. The bulb fell from the table to the floor, nothing stopping it, and then it made a hollow, pebble skipping sound as it landed in front of his feet.
“This is balls-up whacked to hell,” he said underneath his breath. He already had a crick in his wrist, so if nothing else, he could see how this could become painful as he progressed.
Arsen curled his lip and leaned forward as he dropped his own bulb into the slot, Asthea doing the same.
Logan repeated the process and then furrowed his brow. There were only five bulbs in total, so what happened when he removed them all?
Logan soon had an answer.
As he picked up the last bulb, five more floated to the top of the milky liquid, bobbing like inflatable tubes.
Ding!
[You have earned one dexterity point!]
[Trial Update:
Arsen: 1 Dexterity
Asthea: 1 Dexterity
Logan: 1 Dexterity
Errol: Disqualified
Thorin: Disqualified]
Huh. Okay. So far, not too bad.
This time, the bulbs looked slightly larger by at least a quarter inch, and they had other colors intermixed in the black base—narrow, tiny green lines.
This was freaky cereal. All he needed was a pile of fresh cut strawberries to complete the picture!
Wait.
Even though the bulbs had gotten larger, the slots on the table were the same size. That meant it wouldn’t be as easy to drag them through the slot, through the tunnel, and around the ninety-degree angle. Still, it was hardly the worst challenge he’d experienced in this trial. For the first time, he felt a surge of optimism that he might get out of this—
The bulb had moved!
Startled, Logan lost his grip on the chopsticks and the bulb dropped into the bowl with a plop and a splash of milk. Blinking warily, he examined the floating puffs. They looked like regular bulbs again, no signs of movement, but he could have sworn….
He looked at Asthea and Arsen. “Did yours just…?”
They were both focused on their task. Arsen looked like a giant with two needles in his hand and Asthea had a set jaw, her lips pressed together in concentration. A strand of white hair had fallen out of her ponytail and into her eyes, but she didn’t pay it any attention, her focus on lifting the bulbs with manic-like speed. A bead of sweat trailed down her nose, the skin behind the tiny white hairs on her face flushed red. They might be taking this seriously after all.
Or they knew something he didn’t.
They were frenzied as they sped through lifting and moving the bulbs. If they planned to drop out when it got too difficult, there must be a time limit until something happened.
His heart in his throat with nerves, Logan got back to chopstick-ing the hell out of the bowl with renewed focus, lifting bulbs like blueberries and slotting them into the holes, one after the other. They rained down to the floor with that same echoing pebble skipping sound, piling at his feet.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Ding!
[You have earned one dexterity point!]
[Trial Update:
Arsen: 3 Dexterity
Asthea: 3 Dexterity
Logan: 2 Dexterity
Errol: Disqualified
Thorin: Disqualified]
As he picked up the last bulb, five more floated to the top of the milky surface, these ones slightly larger than the others. Logan used the sticks to pick up… pick up….
What the hell?!
The tiny green lines around the bulb weren’t just lines. With a creaking noise and a bounce, one of the lines separated from the bulb and it… turned into a limb. It was an inch in length and looked like an insect leg! It reminded him of a Praying Mantis or a Daddy Long Legs. Logan almost dropped the bulb back into the bowl in disgust, but the same thing was happening to Arsen and Asthea. Disregarding the extending leg, they continued moving each bulb into the slots as if nothing out of the norm had happened.
They knew about this.
He had to move insects from a bowl of milk and drop them to his feet and let them do who knew what.
Oh hell no.
Forcing a bucket-full of sand and depositing it underneath the table, Logan reached and latched onto it before it fell to the floor. Quickly reforming his armour around his legs and over top of his swim trunks, he smoothed it, molding it to his boots and creating a seamless exoskeleton suit over everything waist level and below.
It was a matter of tactics. If this turned into something brutal, he needed protection for more than minutes which meant that he couldn’t form the whole suit. His Karma would drain too quickly. He still had [Liche Siphon] as a last resort, but Logan was hesitant to deploy it. Although his relationship with Arsen and Asthea had worsened as the trial progressed, if he deployed it, that might make that knife in the back scenario a reality.
Logan knew he was grinning manically as he inserted the insect into the slot. This time, it wasn’t seamless. The leg dangled outside of the slot, so he had to brute force it through. The leg snapped like a broken spider’s leg as he dragged it through the tunnel and over to the drop. Unlike last time, it didn’t make that pebble-skipping sound, rather, it made a soft thud.
More than anything, he wished that he weren’t stuck to the chair so that he could look underneath the table. The chair was too close to the table’s edge and there was no way to maneuver his body enough to see.
Ding!
[You have earned one dexterity point!]
[Trial Update:
Arsen: 4 Dexterity
Asthea: 4 Dexterity
Logan: 3 Dexterity
Errol: Disqualified
Thorin: Disqualified]
Logan dropped the last insect bulb into the table hole and then leaned back in his chair as more bulbs floated to the surface of the bowl. Once again, they had grown, and this time, there were more green legs ready to launch just as soon as he latched onto them with his chopsticks. Grimacing and feeling sick to his stomach, Logan grabbed the first one and then hissed as two legs sprung from the body, these ones looking thicker and longer.
Fun.
He had a sense of what he was in for now. Each time he emptied the bowl, the insects grew progressively worse. The System wanted them stuck to their chairs so that as the insects accumulated underneath the table, they’d crawl and do things.
It would be nothing good.
Arsen and Asthea had it right. Speed would be the way to win.
Ding!
[You have earned one dexterity point!]
[You have earned one dexterity point!]
[Trial Update:
Arsen: 5 Dexterity
Asthea: 5 Dexterity
Logan: 5 Dexterity
Errol: Disqualified
Thorin: Disqualified]
Logan stuffed the latest insect into the slot in the table, forcing the legs to bend so they’d fit through the hole. The problem with that tactic was that as he increased his speed, more of the insects accumulated at his feet. With one or two legs, it wasn’t a problem since they could hardly move let alone crawl, but each time he cleared the bowl the insects became larger and sophisticated.
“Ugh,” Logan said as five more insects floated to the surface of his bowl. These ones were twice the size of the original ones and had four solid legs stuck to the bulb as well as a green rounded pinpoint end.
He didn’t like the look of this.
He was right. As soon as he picked up the bulb, four legs sprung from its body, and each one had a razor-sharp narrow claw. At the top, a round head popped out, attached to a narrow, chitin covered neck. What had to be dozens of tiny red eyes glinted and stared at Logan. It made a clicking, buzzing sound, like the riot of a cicadas’ song.
Aww man.
Logan grimaced as he stuffed this one into the slot. Now, the chopsticks weren’t just for picking them up, but for making sure they didn’t scurry away onto the table. These insects didn’t make any sounds as they dropped to the floor. Instead, they landed on their feet and scurried away.
Ding!
[You have earned one dexterity point!]
[Trial Update:
Arsen: 6 Dexterity
Asthea: 6 Dexterity
Logan: 6 Dexterity
Errol: Disqualified
Thorin: Disqualified]
“I’m about ready to pack it in,” grunted Arsen. “Don’t fancy getting eaten.”
Asthea bit her lip and studied the scrambling insect held between her chopsticks. “I’ll stick it out a little longer. If I can’t win, at least I can obtain a few more attribute points.”
Arsen clicked his tongue in approval. “That a girl. This old man is done with torture, though.” He let his latest insect drop back into the bowl and then set down his chopsticks. “I concede.”
[…]
[..]
[Request denied! The user hasn’t committed sufficient effort to qualify to opt out.]
[Put your back into it, weakling.]
Logan jerked back, shocked. Since when could he see someone else’s System messages?
Arsen’s eyes bulged. “What in the clan?” Then cutting a glance at Logan, he glowered. “You! You did this! What kind of message is that?! What did you do?”
Logan ground his teeth. If Arsen spent less time expressing his grievances and more time working on winning these trials, the System might have left him alone.
“A malfunctioning AI minion,” Asthea murmured. Then, louder, “It must have followed him from his world and taken over our System!”
Arsen groaned. “It’s never-ending with this one. Why didn’t we kill him when he entered the trial to save ourselves the bother?”
“Because we aren’t that kind of clan.”
Arsen groaned again. “I know, I know. But just how injured must we be before it lets us out of this?”
Did he think Logan was deaf? The fucker deserved a smack-down. If his glitchy, sadistic System had spread to the others, in a way, Logan was glad. For once, maybe they’d see how it was like to have a constant backseat driver who gave sarcastic commentary at every opportunity.
And worse yet, the man hadn’t taken the hint. Instead of resuming his chopstick movements to expend enough effort for the System to let him escape, he continued grumbling and complaining. Logan let it go in one ear and out the other. He needed to be speedy; he needed to rush. He suspected that soon, he’d be in an uncomfortable situation. The insects would eventually become a pile, scrambling around, spreading to everything. There was no way to stop….
Hold on.
If he could commune with mold and get the spores to multiply, why couldn’t he do the same with the insects?
Feeling like his insides were vibrating in excitement, Logan opened his senses and tried to latch onto the beings around him. Being in such a cavernous room gave him an advantage. All the dead space around the room pinged as a void—lifeless. There wasn’t even a spot of mold or bacteria. Next to him, Arsen and Asthea shone with an overwhelming presence, so bright that it was difficult to see anything beyond them. A sharp pain radiated behind his nose as he brute-forced his way past them, narrowing in on the space underneath the table. It was like forcing your way through dense fog to see something on the other side.
As blood drizzled out of his nose and over his lip, one after another, the insects pinged on his radar, tiny pinpricks of life.
Logan went deeper.
Not just the surface—inside.
Inside their brains.